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I had learned of that, when I had heard about it, seemed to be perfectly crazy, because it was a concentration and centralization of authority in a newly created industry that was staffed with amateurs in government, though men of ability andoubtedly in their own fields. I think there were two or three other people that had that feeling.

As soon as the Germans made their assault on Poland, the was started and the British were in, I know that we were going to go to war. I never had any doubt from that day on. I remember sitting down on the doorstep in Maine, listening to the radio which was in the car, in which I was about to depart for Boston to get a train for Washington, saying to my family, “We'll be in this war. The world war has begun and we will be in it. It's inevitable. It's just bound to be. I don't know when or how, but it's certain to be.” So beginning as early as '39 and '40 everybody who was in a responsible government position was thinking, “What will I do if we're in war? What will I do if...?”

Certainly by late '40 or '41 I personally had called a staff meeting of the most trusted people in the Department of Labor and told them to think out what the Department of labor ought to do in case of war. We canvassed some of those things. That followed, I know, a discussion