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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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His only reason for not being accomodating was when he thought it was definitely wrong, or definitely would be a hazard to a program. I don't know whether he stuck to his principles on matters. You never could tell that in Cabinet meeting. Nobody ever came to grips with anything in Cabinet meeting. The Cabinet meeting is a semi-public assembly where you certainly don't expose your whole hand or show your program or pattern, laying out all that hope you to do, all your reasons and all the personalities involved, because there are other members of the Cabinet who have entirely different views about the personalities you think are most despicable. So you don't do that and you don't come to grips with anything. If you've got to come to grips with a problem, you see the President alone. So you never could tell whether he would abandon a rock-bottom principle under sufficient pressure or not.

I noted that he desired to be accomodating and not to be an obstructionist, and that he would give way on a matter of personal prestige rather than offend anyone or bog down a program. To give way on personal prestige is not necessarily dangerous, if you don't give way on the proper operation of a project. Proper operation, it is true, may depend on your own power or prestige.





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