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40 New York, N.Y., November 23, 1930. Bob and I went out to Jimmie Purcell's for the day and a very interesting day it was. Jimmie, the 220 pound electrical inspection foreman, and his Swedish wife and two husky daughters, aged 4 and 15 months, are a family. And to them must be added little Jim who died a year or two ago, a beautiful little boy crippled since babyhood by infantile paralysis. They spent nearly all they had on him--had Lorenz operate, everything, and finally lost him when he was eight years old. Jim said to me, "When folks have something like that happen to them, it makes them over completely--makes them want to help other people." Jim took us up to his father's place--the Passaic Penthouse, which his father, an old Scotchman, runs. There we looked at the wreckage of humanity, everyone, they say, brought there directly or indirectly by drink. Jim told us of cases of once wealthy, cultured men finally ending there, failures and worse, to live the rest of their days there and then die forgotten. As Bob says, "One half the wold doesn't know what the other half is doing." Then old Mr. Purcell took us down into Passaic and showed us the places [[underlined]] he [[/underlined]] had access to--the police station and fire department, where we saw and heard various characters hold forth. In the evening, Jim built a wood fire in the fireplace and we talked, Jim telling us many stories of his 22 months in France with the AEF, and others about railroad days--engines walking away, wrecks of trains and men. He told me how Chris Vitengruber had never made good as a boss although the best machinist and all around man they had, simply because of tactlessness and bullheadedness--about trouble with his wife--no children--his accident. All of them have lives that read like books. It is interesting to know what the other half of the world is doing. New York, N.Y., November 24, 1930. Eric and I held down the job again today and tonight, discussing parenthood, children, the opera, etc. I get a great kick out of Eric. He is 100%. New York, N.Y., November 25, 1930. Slept till 12:30 p.m., getting to bed at 2 a.m. Eric and I held down 3502 on the break-up job again but slipped over to talk to Bill Tutlow for awhile. Bill is a scream, the greatest swearer I've ever heard, a typical, oldtime railroad boomer. But when I showed him Babbie's picture, he softened right up, said she was "beautiful" and told me how he lost
