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very wise and sensible not to spread it on the table if the plan that he had was the one which he later announced. Roosevelt didn't act like a man who was keeping a secret with Cummings, because he asked Homer about it innumerable times. So I have always thought that Roosevelt didn't fully understand it, that he only knew a little about it. Roosevelt loved a little mystery story. He wasn't above thinking that it was all right to let Homer be doing something that people didn't know about, even if he didn't understand it.

However, I am almost certain, and Harold Stephens is too, that Roosevelt didn't understand this, didn't really know what it was that Cummings was doing, didn't actually ever have the total before him in a way that he comprehended. It seems impossible for this sort of thing to have been done.

Finally one Cabinet meeting came along when he said, “Next week I'm going to ask Homer to describe a plan that he has.” I didn't even know then that it was about the Supreme Court. He didn't mention the Supreme Court. He just said, “We'll give over most of the meeting to this plan of Homer's.” That was in late January '37.

Anyhow, when we came to the Cabinet meeting on February 5, 1937 there were several members of Congress