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I'll briefly complete the production and cost picture in 1932. Doc Huggins, who was later fired for being an abortionist, was the top motor cost man and a good one. It was he who ran the famed cost picnics also--a valuable man but [[underline]] too [[/underline]] versatile. Large locomotive production was headed by Walter B. Nickles, Jack Hause's future father-in-law, and not too impressive an operator. The small locomotives were handled by J. Constantine, a tall, slim, smooth, moustached man who was called "Count" and he looked and acted like one--he was so suave that he could give you a bum promise and make you feel he was doing you a favor. His right-hand man was Lee Clarke who did most of the work and I suppose I've seen "J. Constantine (Clarke)" at the bottom of a hundred promise sheets. They were a good pair. I can't remember who the locomotive cost man was. A guy named Erwin was control production supervisor but I didn't know him well. The control cost man was "Red" Kissell who somehow, miraculously, after the Direct Current Motor & Generator Department under Oscar Dunn was set up in Erie, got into their sales and wound up a sales manager.

I think it was in 1932 that a petition was circulated in TED which, in somewhat disguised language, was feeling out sentiment for the formation of an "engineers union." I signed the thing along with a lot of others without realizing the significance of it--and as a result I was closely examined by Cash Davis on my attitude toward top management, strikes, and such matters. I was merely enormously embarrassed by the incident. Nothing ever came of it but all who'd signed it were under suspicion for awhile. As far as the Company was concerned, an engineers' bargaining organization was an unthinkable thing--in fact, I'm not sure that in 1932 even the shop was organized. I think that Gordon McDonald was one of the guiding lights in this affair.

   I shall end this 1932 account with two items that concern H.L.Andrews and me, both pleasant things that perhaps might be said to augur well for my future. I'd continued to follow the thyratron potential as regarded locomotives and things had progressed to the point where consideration was being given to converting a New Haven MG-set locomotive to thyratrons, which would replace the motor-generator set. This would have been, I'm sure, a trial installation on a strictly test-setup basis and we'd bear the expense because I can't imagine the New Haven buying such an untried thing. At any rate, it never came off but we did do some fooling with the idea. And the thyratron work was not only different and interesting but also a real challenge to one's intelligence, and I enjoyed the assignment although I had my doubts that it would ever create a revolution in alternating-current locomotive design. And so, one evening in early December, I took the train for Schenectady to review thyratron developments with Dr. Hull and Dr. Alexander-