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247

Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1942.

Had time for about one third of my dictation this morning before [[underline]] Major McLeod and Tom MacLachlan [[/underline]] arrived and I spent practically all the rest of the day with them together and separately. McLeod was trying to get his "order board" up to date from our devious records and by 3:15 PM, we had only about half the job done - so we must finish tomorrow, which probably will wreck that too. The army's records are so poor, he doesn't know which of his requirements are on order and which are not, and he is trying to find out so he can arrange to place the rest of the business.

[[underline]] Tom MacLachlan [[/underline]] came down to offer a bunch of his [[underline]] miscellaneous orders [[/underline]] for transfer to other builders so he can devote his full energies to the Army 0-6-0 program in 1943. But the threatened cut in production prompted us to recommend that he [[underline]] retain these orders for a while [[/underline]] until we can find out what the new program really is. We want to give Vulcan 26 and Davenport 36 0-6-0s for the second quarter (McLeod says 62 is all they can place now) and Porter none because they already have enough to go to July. [[underline]] Mac [[/underline]] went over to see [[underline]] Major Marsh [[/underline]] today and Marsh crawled all over him for subcontracting too much work "which complicates the inspection problem" - also the inspectors claim the work of the subcontractor is inferior. The principal inspector at Vulcan is a former Vulcan man who quit them when he saw he was about to be fired for poor work, and has boasted publicly he now has a chance to even the score - and Marsh sends such a man to Vulcan! Marsh also told Tom he didn't 

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