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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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dishonest originally, will do a little favor for somebody this way, another little favor for somebody else, and before you know it something is likely to happen that is next door to a scandal, if not a real scandal. So that anybody who is engaged in any kind of enforcement of law has got to stick to a very rigid interpretation, a very rigid rule, and be certain that that rule applies to everybody. There must be no dispensing authority, except way up at the very top. I always hold that to make any law work you've got to have some dispensations in it somewhere. There will be cases that don't fit the rule and that no common sense interpretation will say ought to be covered by the rule. But that dispensing authority must be very high, and it must be approached by a series of steps which are outlined in the rules and which every inspector and every supervisor knows about. So that when anybody goes up for dispensation, he goes through a process which is known and open to everybody. And then when the dispensation comes, everybody has a right to be heard on it. The ruling is made in terms that can be applied to any other case that is like it, not just to this one firm. That puts a great preventive device in at the top, too, guarding the head man or the board that he sets up being too easy or too irregular in doing favors.





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