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probably before the NRA was actually a law, that Johnson gave me Mussolini's book about the corporate state. He said, “You know this idea of code committees is good. Read this book and you'll see they've got the idea of the committees here.” In a way he was innocent about the implications of that. He had no deep plot to overthrow our form of government. I know he hadn't. I only glanced at the book. I read it with some astonishment. I'd never understood Mussolini's program very well. It was a foreign country and I didn't have to understand it. I knew its total effect. I knew the blustering of the fascists, the march on Rome, and all that, more than I knew the method by which they did the job. It had never been my duty to find out just how it was, so I hadn't. I didn't read the book with great care until later, as a matter of fact. I just glanced at it and thought it was odd that they had the same sort of set-up.

Johnson was really innocent, although he was greatly affected by the essential authority of the state, in which the state had these committees, but the state decided. He had no intention of doing anything with this piece of machinery. It was just a piece of machinery. As a military man authority used to strike him as right. He used to say, “This is just like a war. We're in a war. We're in a war against depression and poverty and we've got to fight this war.