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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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was announced. Maybe it was 4: April 20, May 4, May 18--three.

Perkins:

And that would be the next Monday, that he announced it.

Well, it was the day of a Cabinet meeting. We had had a very good Cabinet meeting, with a lot of free discussion about various problems that were coming up, and satisfaction that VE Day had come so soon. That makes it the 18th-- it was after VE Day. There was a great deal of gratification that VE Day had come so soon after his inauguration, and a generally very amiable and very forward looking thing.

But I had read in the paper, that morning or the morning before, this little squib from somebody guessing that Tom Clark was going to replace Francis Biddle. I walked out of the Cabinet meeting beside Francis Biddle, and I said, “Francis, is there anything in this rumor that you're retiring from the Cabinet? I read in somebody's column that Tom Clark is being appointed. Isn't that pretty terrible?”

And he said, “It's absolutely scandalous. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it's absolutely scandalous to pick Tom Clark. He is the most represensible fellow I've ever had work for me. I took him under protest, and he's never done anything of any consequence in the Department, and I think he's been mixed up in some very unfortunate and





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