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Rather Be Right" with Geo. M. Cohan, but I have no ticket as I expected to be in Pittsburgh. I am going to the buffet supper at the Reeds first however. Walt Scarborough's "brother John" is here and Maybelle wants me to spend the evening with John. As John has already a very lurid reputation here, I am in a quandry as to what to do about it. I don't want to go out and drink all evening and neither do I want to offend the Scarboroughs. Oh boy!

Erie, Pa.,
Wednesday, Feb. 8, 1939.
Dictated a 1 1/2 page letter over the phone this morning to Blaiklock's girl in Schnectady - our offering on the Gov't. Invitation for bids on a 35 ton gas-mechanical locomotive for Raritan Arsenal. The cost of the transmission alone was $22,000 from the one manufacturer who would bid on it. It seems, Marsh, in the War Dept., has patents on the drive, which explains things. The total bid would be over $60,000, and we offered a 35 ton diesel-electric as an alternative at about $21,865, or less than the transmission cost alone. Transmission alone weighs 10 tons. But everybody is trying to cater to Marsh because it might be handy sometime. They claim they are going to buy eventually, [[underlined]] 2000 [[/underlined]] of these units. God knows where they would use them.

Understand that Ruth Walker is still desparately ill and the doctors are very pessimistic.