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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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I said, “I think so.”

He said, “There's going to be a vacancy”--very delicately-- “there's going to be a vacancy, before very long, on a particular situation, and that would be the good place to be because, you know, there'll be no rumpus about it.”

I said, “Well, what do you mean, Mr. Fitzpatrick? I talked to the President and he asked me what I wanted, and I said I would like to be associated with the Social Security Board.”

“Well, I don't think that's going to be possible. I'll tell you why. There's another fellow wants it.” This was Oscar Ewing. He didn't tell me who it was. “There's another fellow wants it, and he's been a very large contributor, and it seems politically-- He's got a terrific ambition to be head of the Social Security Board. That's the one thing he wants, and he's all eaten up with it.”

I didn't know who he was. I was very much astonished when I learned that it was Ewing. He told me later on, the next day, when we conversed again.

He said, “Now, how would you like to be appointed Civil Service Commission?”

I said, “Why, there's no vacancy there.”

“Well,” he said, “Mrs. Lucile MacMillan--I don't know whether you know it--she had a stroke a year and a half age, and she hasn't been able to be at the office at all, and she's





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