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27 At times like this, the rumor mills addded to the fires of our worries. Jack Anderson proved to be an active purveyor of rumors and early in January, he advised that the following Monday we would start working from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with pay accordingly, or a 12 1/2% cut. I hadn't heard anything about it but it sounded ominous and once more I began to wonder just how we were going to make ends meet under such circumstances and particularly with Little Brother coming and the note to be paid off. About all I could do was to congratulate myself that something worse wasn't in the offing. Jack also informed us that he was going into the factory organization the following week, with hours of 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. This was a shock becuase I'd assumed Jack rated pretty well. Things were indeed popping thick and fast. There was a rumor that Electric Bond & Share was going broke, this being the holding company I'd put an incredible $1,830 into in the fall of 1929 so we'd have a "good stake" in the electric utility business, and we secured ten shares for this money. In April 1932 these same ten shares were worth $50 on the New York Stock Exchange. As for Jack's rumor of a 12 1/2% cut, that failed to come to pass as he'd predicted but something similar had to be just around the corner unless there was a drastic change in business conditions very promptly. As the matter stood, unless some orders developed very soon, our locomotive business would be absolutely flat in the fall. Along in late February and early March we had so little to do at the office that one day in desperation Perk and I took a 1 1/2 hour ride in the country to overcome our boredom--and that was a bad condition. Part of our problem was the awfully hot, dry atmosphere at the office in the winter, making it difficult to stay awake there in the afternoon, particularly with little to do. There were rumors that F.E. Case and J.B. Cox would soon be retired--that it was either they or some of us youngsters and they were ready to go anyhow. Business appeared to be getting steadily worse and everyone was conjecturing what would happen eventually--in fact, "eventually" was getting pretty near term. I was able to take a remarkably carefree attitude toward it on March 1st at least, when I put in my diary: "But when I think of having Bab and Willie and Mother and health, I have the greatest things of all--why worry?" To my amazement, I sound here something like Nero fiddling while Rome burned. On April 5th, the stock market crashed into new low ground. My diary says, "It's hard to smile and yet after all, we have a lot to smile and be happy about." On the 7th, the market took another dizzy plunge and there were rumors of a four-day week, which would be a 20% cut. There also were rumors of Mr. Swope's resignation, etc., etc. There was no end in sight. I tried to hang on by assuring myself that the rule of playing a good game to achieve happiness, still applied and always would.
