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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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want to make some appointments of his own. And of course the Press gave you some clue to possible changes that you didn't know anything about, because the Press began printing speculations, you see, about who was going to succeed Perkins as Secretary of Labor? One of the things they printed was that John R. Steelman was going to succeed Perkins as Secretary of Labor. I remember that made Miss Jay very mad.

I don't know what happened to John Steelman, but he had resigned from the Department of Labor at least a year before, and had gone out to practice industrial relations, and I never made out how well he was doing or who his clients were or what. But I mean, he began to appear sort of mixed up in politics, and I paid no attention to him, but others in the Department did, you know--kind of nosed around to see how he was getting on.

Then the Press also printed that Schwellenbach was being considered, and that Val Peterson was being considered. Val Peterson is the man who is now head of the Civil Defense outfit. He was an old Senatorial buddy of the President's. Remember there were the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse who came in there all together, and they were all great friends and great liberals and so forth. They were all freshmen Senators at the same time. Schwellenbach was one of them-- Truman, Peterson--I forget who the other one was.





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