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Erie, Pa., 
Wednesday, Oct. 2, 1940.

The family met me - Willie and Mother - and took me to the office. I found we got 31 more 75mm howitzers yesterday - $90,000 more - and St.L. said I was in a good business where orders like that fell in like that even while you were out of town - I think the old boy likes to pull my leg occasionally; likes to make me feel good about my defense job. St.L. is a good egg.

"Cash" Davis told me he had had a talk with Shapter and after Shap had blown off steam about the situation he cooled off and talked very sensibly about himself - said he knew his shortcomings but that was the way he worked and the way he intended to continue working. Cash said he thought Whitey was going thru with the program all right and he felt that if I would stick to it with Shap and control myself for the first week or two, he believed the thing might work - was not at all hopeless. I thought it was mighty nice of Cash to tell me about it - he did it in a particularly nice way too.

We had a long session on the tank with the Motor Boys and Cash remarked afterward that he got the impression that the boys felt as long as we had "not taken the tank decision on hydromatic all the way up to President Roosevelt, we had been remiss in our duty." There was a little of that but I think the Motor Boys are improving somewhat in that respect. They got into quite an argument among themselves on the merits of Pritch's scheme to substitute twin motors for the single - so Cash and I left them to argue it out.

St.L. had a fantastic tale about a man named Holley of Northern Pump Co., a $50,000 a year boy, who went to Washington for a week or ten days and went home

Transcription Notes:
Reviewed. Removed unnecessary "[[new paragraph]]" - nwmath