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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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else get confused by the advice that emanates from advisory committees and representatives of various groups of society that operate on committees. I'm sure I'm right about that as an operating principle, but I don't think it's made any impression on other people.

I'm sure that the Manpower Commission got into the agricultural people's hair in the same way, attempting to put people on committees, and so on. Also you can't just draft farmers for work indiscriminately. Some men are good corn-hog men, some are good wheat men, some are good dairy men. I'm not too sure Roosevelt saw that point clearly. He did get the idea of the dairy man. He saw that you couldn't take a man who operated a thresher or a combine operator and make him a dairy man.

So the great trouble was with the War Manpower Commission. Some people like Claude Wickard had a head on collision with the commission and went to Roosevelt. That was his undoing. All he should have done was to cheat the commission. Others did. They should have done what they darned pleased and paid no attention to the commission. I didn't pay any attention to the commission.

The War Manpower Commission was a dreadful mess. It's a wonder that we lived through the war at all on account of it. It's amazing to me that the people of the United States did as well as they did. Somebody ought to speak to general





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