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Somehow or other Harry Hopkins had gotten into this picture by this time and Johnson had appealed to Harry Hopkins. I recommended absolutely against that, saying, “You mustn't do such a thing. That's no way to do it. In the first place, why would anybody raise wages because you said so?”

“Well,” he said, “you know the President has great prestige.”

I said, “There's no evidence to base it on.”

“Well, you can get some evidence. We could put on an economic witness to the effect that this minimum wage was too low to be a living wage for man, wife and three children and that it ought to be raised.” Also, a great economic document was prepared to indicate that that much more money being poured into the economy would be that much more to spend, that much more demand upon the manufacturing and merchandising industries, and therefore would greatly enrich the country. I've forgotten who prepared that document. It may have been Keezer for all I know, or Henderson.

I thought it was politically most unwise, irregular and not the way things were done. I remember appealing to Harold Stephens on that and he agreed with me that things ought not to be done that way. We had provided that wages would be raised industry by industry through the code