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newspapers. The newspaper writer starts from the idea that all anybody wants is prestige and that the government is engaged in a battle between individuals to secure a little more, or a little less of that commodity than somebody else has. There were people in my Department who certainly thought that their prestige was being greatly damaged, and their authority was being cut under. To a certain extent this was true. It was extremely difficult to accept.

For instance, it was difficult for people like Metcalfe Walling, who was the head of the Public Contracts Division. He was supposed to be enforcing the Walsh-Healey Act. He made the interpretations. He made the rulings as to what it applied to, how it applied, what the exemptions were. That was all as it should be. In the Fair Labor Standards Act there had been certain court decisions on one or two very difficult aspects of the law, such as what was the area of production, where there was a different set of rules to be applied according to the law. Well, without saying “by your leave,” we would find that Hillman and Knudsen had made another ruling on how particular aspects of the Wage-Hour or Public Contracts acts were to be enforced.

We could usually catch that kind of thing. I would usually hear about it before it had become a nation-wide