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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Health Service out of the Treasury where it had been born and brought up. It had been born there in the days when the Treasury also had Customs. Treasury was a small, but old, established organization. The Treasury had to prevent smuggling, and the Public Health Service was supposed originally to prevent the entrance of epidemics into the United States from ship personnel or passengers. It was natural that they should be together.

Brownlow had a Department of Public Welfare in mind. I said to him, “That's logical, but why do it now. Public Health is one agency in this government that's quite efficient and very well organized.”

“But the Treasury pays no attention to it.”

I said, “So much the better. You have to have a competent head of the Public Health Service. They have themselves all fixed up on a military-naval system of officers and commissions. It's all right. It works well. What's the harm in it?”

Then he said, “I think it ought to be moved around just for the sake of moving them. I think practically every division in the government ought to be moved every few years. Wake them up.”

At that moment I remember thinking to myself, “I'm not even going to talk to this man any more. This is just flippant.”





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