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Erie, Pa.,
Thursday, Dec. 7, 1939.

Up at 5:15 AM and off to Cleveland on the 6:28 which was right on the ticker. By the time I had finished breakfast, it was beginning to get light, a reddish sunrise that preceded a lovely bright day. Bill Leggett wasn't in yet when I arrived but I was greeted most cordially by Miss Gender, the pretty, blond girl who seems to do a very efficient job of running the office. Bill wasn't long in arriving however and we had an interrupted chat that lasted nearly two hours between and among a rain of phone calls until we finally departed to see Col. Blackmore who has an office over in the Kieth Bldg where E-M used to hang out in the old, simple days before C.M.  Bill is still promulgating Church and had Church's assistant in Erie recently when, to my surprise, Bill says Whitey seemed very favorable to cooperating whole heartedly with Church on a big road job if Bush would also do their part. Personally, the Church engine looks a bit "on the hare brained side" to me and also, with our Alco relations to guard, I am surprised Whitey was as receptive as Bill led me to believe. However, Bill led me to understand about the same thing about HLA and when I talked to HLA I got a decidedly different impression. 

We had a good visit with Blackmore, a slender, tall, pleasant, refined chap, V.M.I. grad, erstwhile West Point instructor, Yale R.O.T.C. director, etc. Can't say I learned a whole lot but enough to justify trip if only to meet the Colonel. We had lunch at the Statler very pleasantly. Blackmore is easy to talk to and as Bill says, "you can let your hair down with