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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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At any rate, that was the only thing that gave us any trouble. A very few weeks after the convention broke up the Democratic National Committee began to get to work on the campaign plans. The first thing you do in any campaign is to get up what they call a campaign book, which is a pamphlet that can be given to all speakers, all district leaders, all state chairman, all local chairmen, all subcommittees. Everything is in that book, including the life of the candidates, all the historical data about them, to be used for reference. Then, of course, the platform printed in full is always in there. Then there is a record of what your party has done for its country, and then a general outline of what we are claiming are the particular reasons why the Democratic party should be returned to power at this time.

I was called in to help draft that. I can't remember who called me up and asked me to help. It wasn't Farley, that I know. Someone on the National Committee said, “We're stuck on this business of getting up this campaign book. What are we going to say? The depression isn't over. We don't dare say we've healed the depression. All the economists and all these figures say that it's not over. It's better, but it isn't over.” We already had the reciprocal trade treaties, but we hadn't removed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, although we had





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