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He'd been Governor of the State of Washington.
So I began to see that this was not going on, but all I wanted was to be told in advance, or to get a nod on it. I can't remember whether I had ever resigned in writing to Truman or not, that fazes me or. Whether an old resignation presented to Roosevelt and still in his desk would be enough.
I do remember this. Now I remember, but I can't tell what day it was. I had a private conversation with Mr. Truman, and I made some notes for it, very carefully worked out notes. I had more than one subject to deal with, but certainly one of the primary subjects I had to deal with was, “Do you want me to continue as Secretary of Labor?--and there are plenty of reasons that I see against it, among them, X, Y and Z.”
I can't remember the reasons. One of them was that I had tried to resign to Roosevelt, and had fully expected to be out of office at this time, but that he had declined. A second one was that I had managed to accumulate a certain amount of ill-will in the country for various things which I had conceived it my duty to do. The others were that he himself would naturally think in his own terms in this field, and that I didn't say “a man” because I wouldn't demean myself by saying that he had that in mind, but I really meant that-- that someone who had shared his own experience would
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