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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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laid out which would use steel to make a measured demand upon the steel industry, and a distribution of that demand among the various steel companies who had agreed in this agreement to this project.

He did say that the director would dictate the agreements, and as a matter of fact, he did, except that he said that he would consult with the industry. I got the impression that he was quite definitely thinking about being the director, although when I asked him once he said, “No, no, I'm just planning this.” In other words, he hadn't been approached by anyone about it. He was egotistical and when he started to think, he thought of himself as the central factor - either himself or Baruch. Whenever you asked him who he thought it ought to be, he'd say, “Well, I think Baruch's the only man. Baruch has these ideas.” To a certain extent I expect that the ideas were Baruch's and John Hancook's ideas. I don't think that Hugh Johnson was an original thinker in this field, although he had a great imagination. I think his imagination clothed the idea into a pattern.

There wasn't any such word as NRA. It was all very vague when Johnson was talking to us in Georgetown. I got this clear impression that he anticipated that whoever was the director of it made all the decisions and dictated the code. I'm calling the “code,” although we were then calling it





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