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he said further that there was no reason why Federal & Marine shouldn't deal direct with the Erie Factory, and as everything must be done with Washington thru F.& M., we were superfluous. In the light of all these comments, I said I felt I couldn't add anything at Washington tomorrow and in fact, said I felt we were somewhat superfluous in the picture - all of this being based on our taking the part in the picture as Winne described it. Later on, I was distinctly sorry I said so much - it seemed like I was simply trying to justify our accepting a kick in the ass and I realize it was very shortsighted of me to do it. I should have put up a picture of what we might add if Winne's ideas were upset. I think I really learned a lesson from the experience but I worried plenty about it afterward. I told the DCC I was going to N.Y. this afternoon with Clark & St.L. and was going to tell Whitey the story this evening before I returned to Erie - Winne admitted the thing put me on the spot but they had orders from three VP's to cut down on the number of people chasing to Washington.

So St.L. Cliff Clark and I went to N.Y. together and I felt rather low - because I saw myself fading out of a fascinating assignment and because I felt I certainly had not done justice to myself or the Transportation Dept. this morning in not putting up more of a battle before the DCC. Whitey hadn't got back to the Commodore when we got in around 8 PM so we whiled away the time until he showed up around 10 PM and we had a meeting in the bar. I told Whitey what