Viewing page 35 of 99

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

26

In covering the 1932 story so far, I've alluded a few times to economic conditions and the response of the stock market to them as well as resulting GE salary movements. Before going into my own specific GE experiences for the year, I want to add a few items to illustrate still further what we were going through as a result of the depression, which rather than bottoming out in 1932, was getting worse.

Here is an example of the sort of thing that occurred. On January 5th, Bird Hawk had a serious hernia attack requiring extensive and expensive surgery as well as hospitalization. The thing that made this particularly tough on Bird was that it happened very shortly after the Company had reduced sickness leave to one week with pay. At the same time stocks were crashing to new lows. It was very hard for me to be philosophical about the whole situation when I'd been responsible for wrecking the beautiful little nest egg the Colonel and Mother had started us off with in 1927. I'd been one of the wise guys who knew all about making money. About all I could do to solace myself at all was to swear that I'd make up for the fiasco if it took me the rest of my life. I was thoroughly ashamed of my performance. Also I suffered from a helpless, baffled, desperate feeling whenever I thought about what I'd done compared to what I should have done. And the turn was not in sight. No one knew how long the thing would continue nor what measures would have to be faced before it was over. I could just thank my lucky stars that I still had my job and do all I could to perform so well I could hang onto it. There would be a technical rally in the market occasionally which would shake up the bears momentarily but they'd be back swinging harder than ever in a few days and things would cascade once more to new lows.

As the pinch on us got tighter early in the year, we contemplated moving into cheaper quarters unless George Baldwin would lower our rent materially. A developing problem for us was the fact we still owed the bank $1,000 I'd borrowed to put into the market and the bank was beginning to press for at least a gradual reduction in the loan. And when you're making $40 a week as I was, reducing this was very difficult. Of course, the bank was holding our stock as collateral but with the market continuing to plunge, the soundness of the laon[sic] was rapidly deteriorating. In early January I was planning to make a $100 reduction soon. However, I've noted that in December 1932, we were "out of debt," so apparently the loan had been paid off and the only way I can imagine our doing it was to have sold some of the collateral. My records provide no clue. Maybe I robbed the bank to do it. Also, as I think I've noted, Mr. Baldwin came through with a 10% rent reduction so we decided to remain at 710 Delaware--however, this amounting to a mere five or six dollars a month, it obviously wasn't the answer to how we paid off the note.