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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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high officers came without their number two and number three men who were there to tell them everything. But Nelson always seemed to know in his own head what the major lines were. He knew the details too. He kept that in his head. He was reasonably correct. When he wasn't exact, he knew that he wasn't exact and would say, “This is about the number.” He was always very calm. I thought he was a very good administrator, so far as I could see, and so far as I had information brought to me, both by those who were working inside the War Production Board, and those of our own department who were working in cooperation with the War Production Board.

Of course, a large part of the Department of Labor work was being done for the War Production Board, or for the Army, or for the Selective Service, or for the Navy and Air Force. It was being done directly for them. The work of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the work of the Bureau of Labor Standards, the Women's Bureau work, the Children's Bureau work, or a great deal of it, was just completely geared to provide these temporary agencies with what they needed. Nelson was very quick to catch on to the wisdom of that. I remember seeing him when he first came into office, showing him what our pattern was, what we were doing, what we had been able to do, what more we could do. He said, “I see no reason for building up any activites in the War Production Board. If you haven't money enough to do these things, we will assign money out of





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