Dec 7 '08
Dear Father
I am in receipt of yours of the 4th and am much indebted for such a detailed account of the reasons for your withdrawal from the Senatorship race. It was exactly as I had expecteed except that I had supposed you had good reason to believe you could get the election if you fought to the end for it. Still, as I reason it all out, it does not seem as if it were a possibility for you to contend successfully against the powers that would have been brought to bear to bring about Root's election. As it is you are certainly in fine shape with the incoming administration and I must say I have been surprised at the almost absolute lack of sarcasm thrown in your direction by the press in general. I only hope that the next time you have your heart set on something of this kind no one else will bob up with a seemingly better claim. I am sending back Taft's letter.
Concerning Frank Hiscock's letter to you, which I am also enclosing, beg to say I have seen Wal Hiscock (Bert's Brother and the executor of the estate) and have fixed it up with him that they are not to worry about paying the call due now on the stock and that they will wait till at least Jan 1st before endeavoring in any way to dispose of it. The understanding is that they will sell the stock for just what Bert paid in and will, therefore, forfeit the interest which has accumulated.
I note by your letter that you are in Kamp but will be in New York again on Wednesday morning. I am afraid the Co. will have to have some more money on your call, as much as you can spare we have a pay roll on Friday which our present balance does not cover. I think 500. will see us well towards the end of the month as we are expecting to get, before the end of the month, remittances amounting to at least $1500.00 These are slow in coming in and I cant count on them although we are doing everything possible to get them. The only trouble is we should be paying some invoices that fell due Nov 1st and which we are holding up as they do not seem to be in any great hurry for the money. All this reminds me forcibly of the fact that we are nearing the end of our financial rope and that unless business takes an upward turn pretty soon, we will be in a bad hole. John left Wednesday night and returns tomorrow morning. I am expecting at that time to learn more definately just how matters stand and what we can reasonably expect in the way of orders in the next 60 days. When you realize that our entire accounts receivable only amount to about $7000.00 and that our expenses are that every month, it shows that we are running pretty close. You know John as well as I do and you know that the hates to pull in any if he thinks it looks as if there was business for us in the near future. The trouble is John's jusgement on this is, in nearly every instance, wrong. In John's mind every cloud has a silver lining and he gives along in a happy-go-lucky way on this basis. As far as our business gives you would think the panic was now at it's height. We have been going along on the basis that the tide was turning but, unless the tide does turn, we can't go along this way much longer. Instead of holding in any we are continually branching out. We are doing a considerable amount of expensive work on the drill, the 500 volt mch, the A.C. mch and have now more demonstrators than we have ever had before at any one time. Besides our shop is working on full time instead of partial time as has been the case for the past ten months. We don't seem to have any trouble securing trial propositions but there is no direct return from these as the profit from the sale of a single machine under these conditions is entirely list in the expense we are under in making the installation. Of course we charge the Coal Co with the services of the demonstrator but this does not nearly let us out whole on the matter. As you know we can't expect to make any money until we receive additional orders at the conclusion of a succe