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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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someone who undertook to control economic life, just as the kind and the political royalists undertook to control political life. As he said it, and I think it was nearly the last sentence of his speech, a great burst of applause broke out. As the applause was going on, I turned to Mary Dewson and said, “Oh dear, that was terrible. It was fine until that last moment, but that is going to haunt us.”

“Oh no, Frances, that's wonderful.”

I said, “That phrase ‘economic royalists’ has never been heard before. Nobody knows what it means. Everybody's going to think that it's a dirty name. It's going to haunt us.”

She said, “Oh no, that's just fine. That was very dramatic, a good contrast. It will be very popular.”

Well, of course, the truth was that it was the only unpopular thing about Roosevelt and about the campaign. I had women, who were merely rich, inherited some money from their fathers and their husbands, never lifted a finger about any industry, banking or investment, just having the trust company pay them their income, say to me. “He called me a dirty name.” Florence Lamont said that to me, an intelligent woman like that. She said, “I can't be for Roosevelt any more. He called me a dirty name.”





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