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of the President, in his own way. I mean, he wasn't all het up about the New Deal. He accepted it. It was a modern pattern, and he was anxious to overcome unemployment. He had very realistic views about the “poor white crackers” and the “darkies” that Harry Hopkins was taking care of.
You're happy in your own mind that Wallace chose Commerce because Commerce was what he wanted?
Yes, and Commerce was something where he had no experience. He said, “I have no experience.” This is what Wallace said to me. I asked him why he wanted Commerce. He said, “I have never had any opportunity to know the businessmen of this country well. If I know them well--and I will get to know them well as Secretary of Commerce, because I shall make an effort to bring them in and treat them right and set their minds and their feet on a constructive path.”
Is that what he said to you? Well, that is what he said to me. “This is why I want that Department of Commerce. I can make myself known, and my purposes known, to the businessmen who have been against me without knowing why.”
What purposes?
Well, the purposes of building up an economy in which the personal incomes would add up to a large interior purchasing market. That was, you know, what Henry Wallace
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