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Cornelia Pinchot, the wife of Pennsylvania's progressive Republican governor, Gifford Pinchot, delivered the most profound criticism. She related how local officeholders attached to steel and coal companies in her state had physically removed her from public venues when she attempted to educate workers about their rights under Section 7(a). (Hiltzik 261).
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Mrs. Pinchot criticized Johnson for failing to punish two industrialists, Ernest T. Weir, who allowed elections on his plants only for company unions, and Edward G. Budd, who disregarded an NRA order to settle a strike by allowing a union election. Neither of them lost their Blue Eagle, which meant the NRA's support, which was usually the punishment for smaller manufacturers who did also not keep the codes. Because these confrontations and Johnson's conflicts with Robert Wagner, Roosevelt tried to save the NRA's reputation by influencing Johnson to resign. From then on, the NRA was to be placed in the hands of Richberg and his deputies. In A Fireside Chat a few days after Johnson's resignation Roosevelt made it clear that he intended to continue the NRA programs in a new form, on the base of the past fifteen months' experience. Hugh Johnson's program would remain long after his resignation, leaving a negative influence on the New Deal industrial policy.
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At a meeting in January, 1935 the country's leading industrialists and economists gathered together to discuss the current economical situation. Among others there was Wendell L. Willkie of Commonwealth, Bruce Barton, and Colby Chester: all of them main figures of the politics in the 1930's. Raymond Moley and Rexford Tugwell, who was Roosevelt's right hand, noticed during the meeting that the businessmen's reactions were not constructive; furthermore, they accused the administration of leading the country into fascism. They believed that with the NRA, the government, especially General Johnson, received the broad executive power that Roosevelt was asking for in his inaugural speech, which endangered the free American economy and democracy.
