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Nobody would ever abandon the regulation of hours and wages, the prohibition of child labor, and all that kind of thing. That was done. I had finished what I had come to do.
This whole episode of the defense effort and the confusions that were bound to come up in it seemed to me less and less attractive as a job for me. My evaluation of myself then and now is that I do not have, and never did have, a lust for power. I'm bored to death by power. I think it's terrible to have it. The more authority you have the more impossible situations you're going to be up against, and the more your conscience is going to be boiling all the time and keeping you awake nights. I certainly didn't see my role as being a superior labor “gauleiter” at this time.
I don't think this was merely because Hillman was in the picture. I certainly would have been horrified if the President had proposed to put Hillman in my post. I had it all scheduled that he should put Dan Tracy in my post. I had a very long drawn out conversation with the President on this. He wouldn't say yes or no. I brought this up to him. I told him why I thought I must resign, that I thought it would be better for him, better for everybody, certainly better for me. He would sort of dally with it and say, “Well, yes, perhaps. I'll think about it. No hurry about it, is there?”
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