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Wagner introduced his first bill sometime during the last part of 1934. I don't think that Congress adjourned in 1934, but just took a brief Christmas holiday. There was no particular excitement about it, no hearings about it and not much activity until the early part of 1935.

This act, as I think I've said before, was almost entirely the brainchild of Senator Wagner and of Simon Rifkind, his assistant, who was helping him. The idea was certainly Wagner's idea. It was not the President's idea. It was not Harry Hopkins' idea. It was not the idea of any of the people who have ordinarily been called the “How Deal”. It is entirely correct to give Senator Wagner the full credit for the conception of the act, for the drafting of the bill and for the pushing of the bill through the Congress.

I don't think it was done with the idea that this would carry on if NRA ended. I don't think Wagner thought of the question of NRA ending, although we all realized that it was an emergency agency. However, he had conceived of the fact that this one section of the NRA - 7(a), which gave the workers the right to organize - was very important and that it ought to be made permanent, that that ought to be part of permanent legislation.