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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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excuse me. I've come to the wrong door, I can see that. I'm looking for my wife.”

He excused himself and went out, and then picked up his wife. But he came to me the next morning and said, “What in the world was John L. Lewis doing out at Pat Hurley's? Now, what were they doing? Will you tell me what they could possibly have been talking about? And in a very private and very secluded huddle--there was no question about it. They were talking about something very important.”

Well, I don't know to this day what it was, and neither does Larry Houghteling. I said to him, “Why don't you ask Pat Hurley sometime what they were talking about? Perhaps he would remember.”

Oh no, he didn't want to get mixed up in it. But you see, he's puzzled over to it this day as to what that could have been and what it could have meant. Of course, it meant partly Republican politics, probably, you know. Lewis was then on the outs with Roosevelt. That's probably what it was.

Anyhow, when it was decided to send Hurley to China, I never could make out from the conversations at the Cabinet table whether the President had picked Hurley, or whether somebody else had picked Hurley and sold him to the President. At any rate, it was a fait accompli before I heard about it at the Cabinet that Hurley was going to see what he could make out of the Chinese situation.





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