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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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of the words assigned to his title is his duty and his function. It if means reorganizing and revamping completely an operating agency of the government such as the Mississippi River Steamboat Company, which is among government odds and ends, it doesn't occur to him that he shouldn't do it, that it wouldn't be a wise, practical and inexpensive thing to do.

Those projects run into a dreadful lot of money just getting things coordinated, until from among the older heads of government comes this refrain, “For heaven's sake, don't tell me we're going to be coordinated. I can't stand being coordinated again!” It gets so exhausting and so tiresome and nothing ever happens out of it. People grit their teeth and go on doing their duty. You have to issue real orders to make them stop doing what you know are their sworn duties and what they were hired to do.

No matter what the crisis is, the government goes on, because the people who have been hired to do a certain thing under a certain title, and have sworn to do it, will keep right on doing it, until they are officially stopped. So no matter what the debates in Congress say, no matter what mud slinging there is between officials, as reflected in the press, you can be sure the government will operate, because these people, mostly civil servants, will continue to do what they were hired to do. That's how the mails get delivered. That's how the taxes get collected and accounted





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