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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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to conceive this personal admiration for him and personal affection for him. Louis really fell in love with him because he was so beautiful. His first view of Franklin Roosevelt was of a beautiful, strong, vigorous, Greek god king of an athlete, so gay, so everything that Louis never had been. He seemed to be the kind of a person that Louis had always been looking for, kind of from another world.

I think that the key to Louis' nature was that he wanted to be loved. A part of his struggle with Roosevelt was that Roosevelt didn't love him. Roosevelt did not give him an exclusive friendship and exclusive affection, that kind of all-satisfying love and friendship that I'm sure is what Louis wanted in his life and longed for. Nevertheless, so far as Louis was concerned it was sufficient to attach him to Roosevelt with an undying affection that had hope in it. Franklin Roosevelt represented hope to him. Louis was fulfilled through Franklin Roosevelt in the way that some people are fulfilled through their children who turn out to be great and shining and beautiful creatures up from the muck and mud of their mother's life, or their father's life which has been lowly, scrabbly and hardworking.

I'm sure that was the case with Louis. He wanted to be loved. The least bit of real kindness and affection would break Louis down.





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