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Really got in a little reading today, starting Nora Waln's "Reaching for the Stars" about her residence in Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1938 and said to be a remarkable picture of current German life. We are now entering another tense period caused by the Danzig situation and God knows if we'll be plunged into war any day - I say "we" because the consensus of opinion seems to be we'll be in it one way or another before its over. I can't conceive of Hitler doing it but who really knows?

Erie, Pa.
Monday, Aug.21,1939,
Got an air mail letter from Herrington in Los Angeles this morning saying the American Crystal Sugar job for one 50 ton 300 HP unit is about to close today or tomorrow in Denver, their home office and Atlas had come in and cut under us by 10% and promised 10 weeks shipment against our 18! Would I wire Kester in Denver all we could do? I burned up the wires to Sch'dy to get Henry Guy to agree to cut our price $2000 and got Spike and Disco to agree to divert one of the stock 43 ton jobs to this with suitable changes and promise 10 weeks all of which I wired Kester. At 4:30 PM Kester wired back they wouldn't settle job until the end of the week and hadn't even decided yet to buy any locomotive! Ah! and a restrained sigh!

Had lunch with Perk and we discussed the pros and cons of the rumored forthcoming Alco offer to me for a job (no sign of the letter yet) and we agreed $6000 would be a minimum figure for consideration of it.

The world was startled tonight by news that Hitler had concluded a non-aggression pact with Russia! Thursday he is to make his demands on Poland! England & France are caught again with their pants down! By weekend, there