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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Francis Biddle, of course, is a lawyer and a good lawyer. Under Francis Biddle's leadership the board was quite systematic. As a lawyer he tended to regard precedents as important. What had been done in Case ‘A’ became in his mind, and in the minds of those who associated with him, a precedent for handling Case ‘D’ and ‘E’, if they presented the same set of facts, or a similar set of facts. So it was much more systematic than the mediations which the Senator, Swope, Teagle and some of the others who were acting as mediators had undertaken earlier in the game.

I must have been consulted about the makeup of this board when it was transferred from being a Senatorially headed board to something else, because I recall telephoning some people to ask if they would serve on it.

By this time, of course, I was very occupied with other projects that were my first duty and I could only keep a cooperative eye on what was happening in NRA and in this labor relations field.

I think I ought to reiterate here that General Johnson had from the beginning of NRA indicated that his view that during the period when NRA was attempting





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