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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Department of the Interior in the middle of the day. Ickes called him and invited him, but did not discuss the matter over the ‘phone. He just fixed the hour and invited him. It was along about noon, or one o'clock. It was totally unobserved. It shows what, if you don't stick out your nose, you can do in this town without being followed around by a bevy of newspaper reporters. It was unobserved and unnoticed and unknown. They agreed and I talked with Mr. Lewis afterwards.

Lewis was, of course, pleased as punch. You know why he was pleased? He had beaten the War Labor Board. The War Labor Board was dying to see the soldiers in there, or at least so Lewis thought. His chief afflatus came from the fact that the War Labor Board wasn't going to have its way with him. It is true that the War Labor Board was awfully anxious to cut Lewis down to size. I don't think they cared whether the soldiers took over the mines, or something else. They had thought of the army. That was what everybody had thought was the only instrumentality that could be used.

Then the order was issued. The government took over and ran up the American flag. Ickes was in charge of the coal production. That was fine. It worked all right. Everything was going the way it should go, except that Ickes was saying what modifications there should be in the agreement between the employers and the United Mine Workers, and whatever the United Mine Workers had been demanding, Ickes was making





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