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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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And Lew Douglas had only the vaguest idea of what's going on. You've heard practically everything he's told me. He's referred to it two or three times in private conversation. Lew doesn't think we ought to go into a public works program. He's referred to this business several times when we were talking about the public works program. I know what he said the other day is honest. He thinks this plan would be more reviving and more stimulating than a public works plan would.”

I don't think the President had any idea that in any of these quarters they were basing their planning upon a setting aside of the anti-trust laws. I don't think that had crossed his mind. They hadn't put it to him in just that way. I certainly didn't even gather that from any preliminary inquires, because I imagined that it was following the general outlines of the Horace Plan, this man from New Hampshire's plan, which was the stimulating of the industry by deliberate government purchases of their goods and materials, even though those purchases were later put upon the market by the government, even though the government didn't need any more sheets for its army and hospitals. They would nevertheless buy excess sheets, excess shoes, and excess furniture, for future use, or to sell to the public at upset prices sometime when the market was more normal, as they did in some of the commodities.





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