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Maybe he thought we would feel freer and better if we weren't dictated to by the Chairman, but--this was a specific job to do, and if it was to be done, the Chairman should have grabbed it and controlled the meetings, and let us sputter if we didn't like it, but have controlled the situation so that we finally agreed on something. Instead of this, if a program of some sort was suggested, he would appoint a subcommittee on that to report on a later day, and the later day usually turned out to be six months hence.
They got this strange theory going, you see, which was in a way popular. Arthur Flemming came over from the Civil Service Commission, That, you see, was supposed to be the competition of the Government with private industry for personnel. Ah, that must be controlled, so that the Government wouldn't get the best people and remain a resting place for those who didn't want to go to War--you know, all that sort of thing.
So Flemming was there for that. Flemming is a very imaginative and very active fellow, terrifically active. He grabbed the situation of trying to cope. That came much later, when labor unions began to be troublesome. At first they were no trouble. That was all right. They wanted to do their duty, and wherever anybody told them to work, that would be all right. They'd get the men to go there. George
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