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I had been reconciled to the idea that the President was to speak at this rally, but he was to speak, as I saw it and as I thought we had agreed, words of praise at their cooperation, words of complimentary comment on what they had done, words of satisfaction at the great advances that had been made over a year ago when everybody was downhearted, while now everybody was hopeful, with industry moving - words of that sort. Then he was to appeal to them to go on in the same way, indicating that the money spent on wages had been found to be stimulating to the economy because the more money spent the better it was. More money put into the wage envelope would have a similar effect, he hoped. He also hoped that each of them would consider seriously the question of lifting this purchasing power of the people by lifting the wage levels that were in the codes. I thought that was what he was going to say. I thought it was going to be a very short speech of about fifteen minutes and then he was to go out on a roar of applause. We would adjourn for lunch and that was that.

Up until the night before, when I saw the last draft of the speech and it was being prepared for mimeographing to be sent out, that was the way it was. I had been over to the White House and had seen that it was like that.