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Hoover period, I think. We had all read that column before we came into office. That phrase had stuck.
So McReynolds, when he brought all this up at dinner, was not moving into ground that hadn't been at least scratched. There was some notion that there was dissatisfaction in some quarters with the Court.
However, I'm pretty sure that Roosevelt was innocent of any plan, except that he wished that somebody would resign. As I said, Cummings took a lugubrious front. I have never been able to account for it, because in private life Homer Cummings is certainly not what I would call a worrier. He's a complacent personality, always making the best of what he can get his hands on. He took as a deep grievance, and was always very lugubrious about, anything that had to do with the questions of how the United States government should proceed with regard to its legislative pattern in view of the fact that there was the Court. He would look almost as though he were about to burst into tears when he would say, “Of course, the Court is our problem. It's one of the difficulties that we have to face. We never can be sure what will come through.”
The rest of us were very optimistic, even about the Court. The Cabinet was an optimistic collection
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