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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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knox were Republicans. That's understandable.

Perkins:

Jones was an old-fashioned Democrat. I mean, he'd been in the Democrats since when.

Interviewer:

But he sure sounded and talked like a Republican.

Perkins:

Well, that's because he was a financial man and a businessman, and he was called in to do a business job. He was a perfectly appropriate appointee for the Secretary of Commerce, and he ran the Reconstruction Finance thing beautifully, and did a very fine job.

Interviewer:

Except he ran it so beautifully that he made money, which was always the thing that bothered me.

Perkins:

Oh, no. He was pleased as punch about that. He used to report on it every few weeks. But that, of course, was one of the great assets of that scheme of doing things. He took great risks in lending money. He was the one who laid down the rule: “I'll tell you what, the only money I'm going to lend is where they can assure me and can show me where they're going to put more people to work.”

Interviewer:

He‘d borrow cheap money on the open market and loan it to Government agencies at 3 1/2%

Perkins:

He loaned it to private enterprises, too.





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