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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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and providing, under proper safeguards, administrative law to proceed, pointing out the complications of modern industrial life, that certainly federal legislation was not an interference with commerce between the states. There was a good deal of excitement and a good deal of denunciation, which the President joined in with. The President said that this showed us the court was composed of old fuddy-duds, and so forth. That became the fashion and much was said on the subject around Washington. The court bill went to Congress on February 5, 1937. My suspicions rested on the total unexpectedness with which the court packing bill hit.

In that summer of '35 a historic event took place. With the rejection of the NRA it became more important to me, from my point of view, to find some way of introducing, or devising, legislation which would pass the test of the courts, and which would have at least a minimum effect with regard to wages and hours in the United States. Whether we had to go back to the compact between the states, or whether there was another way, we hadn't decided, but I began all over studying how to do it.

In the summer of '35, following a good deal of denunciation of the Supreme Court by newspapers, periodicals, members of Congress, odds and ends of people, the President





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