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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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you put him to it?”

He said, “It was easier for the President to do it right now than to try to do it tomorrow or the next day.”

After all, he couldn't let Pa go to his grave without him, you know.

Q:

What was the relationship, Miss Perkins, between the two men?

Perkins:

Oh well, Pa was his appointment secretary, that was all. He was a nicefellow, and gay and jolly and amiable. He could make the customer who wanted to see the President feel very happy, without letting him see Roosevelt, which was a great talent. And he was awfully good natured and awfully happy with the staff, and he ironed out small fights--you know, the sort of tensions and fights that grow up in any staff. Pa took care of all those, and he kept them all smiling and he kept them all laughing, so that the President never saw any of that. The President didn't want to see any of that --he didn't want to see that. If they were jealous of each other, he didn't want to know about it, and Pa kept all that off him, and didn't care much about it himself. I mean, he settled those things as all part of the day's work.

There was no intellectual relationship between them whatsoever. I don't think he relied on Pa at all for advice, except about, you know, who to see and who not to see. Pa would say, “Well, I don't advise your seeing him, Mr. President,





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