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Albany. N.Y.
Wednesday, Jan. 4, 1939.

When I got to Mechanicville via bus, Mr. Van Ness was not there, being out on the "Dartmouth Special". but Miss Page and Mr. Vanderbilt took me in hand, the release was ready to sign, and in short order I was out riding a hump engine.  The principal reason I came to Mechanicville again was that Murphy claimed the tender brakes were only on the automatic and he thought if we found them using independent only, we had something on the braking bugaboo. I had never checked the tender brakes because it never occurred to me they weren't on the independent. So, when I asked Mr. Hagerman the engineer about the tender brakes and was informed they were on the independent system "like all our modern power", I thought Murphy had ultimately missed the boat when he brought that up. When I got on to that however I didn't run into a braking study. I ran into a forum on politics, economics and particularly the Townsend Plan, of which Mr. Hagerman was a devout exponent. A big, burly fellow of 50 with the face of a Salvation Army man or a Baptist preacher he orated for a half hour on how the Townsend plan would work and would bring about a new era--this after I dropped the remark it was a good idea if it would work. Did I stick my neckk out! [[underlined]] Mr. [[/underlined]] Cole, the head man, a wizened up, toothless, weather beaten old fellow of about 65 listened with an amused expression. His plan was to shoot all men over 50. The fireman, who was running the engine while Mr. Hagerman orated
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