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would be a good idea. Anyhow, things didn't move too rapidly for Truman.

So I went right back to my office and wrote my resignation out, and sent it right over by a messenger, so that it would be delivered to him that night. Then, as you say, it was announced two or three days later, on the 23rd.

But I remember that I told Miss Jay that night. She took the dictation and wrote the letter and I said, “Don't tell this around the Department, because, you know, they'll read it in the paper when the time comes, and that's enough. And I shall undertake to see Mr. Truman in the meantime.”

And I did. I saw him and had a long talk with him, a very good talk with him. I think I've got a memorandum on it all typed out, about what the accomplishments had been in the Department and what we had done, and the ways we had pointed, and what directions we'd started things in, and where the next Secretary would have to go.

He congratulated me on it and was very friendly and very pleasant about it, and then he said that he wanted very much to keep me in his Administration, although he did think it was better that he should have someone else in the Department of Labor. I said that that was what I thought it would come to. He indicated “a great strong man” who would give the people comfort. It was out of that phrase