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I said, “They expect to be paid for them.”

“Well, that's the hitch,” he said.

“No, it isn't,” I said. “They say that they anticipate that the government will pay them what the government regards as a fair and proper price and that the price will be fixed by some competent board appointed by the President.”

He said, “Well, do with it the best you can.”

I said, “My line is to try to persuade them that they want to run them themselves.”

“I guess that's the best thing.” Roosevelt was paying no attention to it.

Well, these people went to luncheon. Ickes had to go back to his office. We had very little time to talk to each other, except that I said, “We've just got to persuade them out of this, haven't we?”

Ickes said, “How in the world could the government run these mines? What would we do?”

I remember laughing and saying, “Well, it would be up to you more than it would be up to me because you're the Secretary of the Interior.”

“But how could we do it? What would the government do? We don't have a law on it. How could we operate these mines now if we had to?”

I know that that started him thinking about operating