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then, they put off explaining the plan until Monday. It will be interesting to see what action the Committee takes. I wouldn't be surprised at anything from a pigeonhole to full acquiescense and a recommendation to proceed.

^[[red checkmark and dot]] Had lunch today with Earl Bill, Allen White and Lt. Comdr. Grace and settled once and for all the story that the Commander is a teetotaler - he is not - we had a Manhattan together. I still say the Commander's pleasant slightly florid face belies any contention he doesn't drink. His father was a promotor for the Gt. Northern Railway pushing the settlement of land in the northwest. Evidently the Commander has money - owns two houses and acres in Oregon, has a daughter in Vassar, knows Jim Knudson and is a neighbor of his in Chicago, etc. I like Grace and always have - a very pleasant, rather shy, and nervous gentleman.

^[[red checkmark and dot]] Finally released the 60 Russian 10 ton locomotives today, sent my release wires and mapped up generally including getting [[underline]] Ralph Barton [[/underline]] started on the second hand problem which came out of the meeting yesterday. Ralph is a former railroad machinist who got his education the hard way in night school and now has a law degree - a man around 50 and for a long time in the Navy. A limitation order on second hand locomotives is in the making and Ralph would dearly love to get the job of administering it. - and I'm inclined to think he should - but Stevenson doesn't think he's heavy enough for the job. So Ralph, a hard, shrewd, worker, is at sixes and sevens over that right now. But his pet peeve is the claims of the army and navy and ODT about the lush crop of good second hand locomotives available - he says there just aren't any appreciable number suitable for switching work.