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this hullaballoo of these codes, which he was primarily interested in, and with his conception that although the public works end, as it was written in the law, was a straight public works project and didn't have anything to do with the revival of industry in the NRA sense of it, the public works should only be used as a kind of a reward or a stimulus to a particular industry that wasn't cooperating or that didn't see how it could cooperate in the code. I began to think, “I don't see how we can trust Johnson to do that, because this requires too careful administrative skill and attention to detail, with follow through. That's not for his temperament, because his genius lies not in that attention to detail, but in his kind of splurging enthusiasm and leadership.”

I began to be very nervous about it. I talked to a number of people. I finally went to talk to the President about it, when the bill was nearly through. I said, “You've practically decided that you're going to appoint Johnson as head of NRA.”

He said, “Well, I haven't quite decided. I'm sure he thinks so, and many other people do, but it isn't settled. If you think it's wrong, I'll consider something else.”

I said, “Well, no, I don't think that is wrong, but I don't think you ought to put him in charge of Title II, which is the public works section.”