As a matter of fact, I explained, we would not undertake to even negotiate another contract for plant expansion until we saw our way out of our present difficulties. We suffered from chronic indigestion and had no intention of making it acute. And even if the time came when we believed our already overloaded organization might take on greater responsibilities, there was one serious road block that must be resolved. We had accepted the French order without resolving this difficulty because we had been in a serious predicament for business; today we could not accept that handicap. I referred to the matter of plant depreciation and the rules and regulations of the Treasury Department. Unless these were changed, a sudden cessation of hostilities might leave us with an enormous excess of plant on our hands. The burden of depreciation, however light under maximum output, would prove overwhelming after shutdown. The day-to-day burden of writeoff would force on us serious losses that would, in time, bankrupt the company. I pointed out, of course, that this was a matter for the United States Treasury rather than the British Purchasing Commission, but that we could not undertake to construct new facilities even under terms similar to those in the French contract, until after our Treasury Department had resolved this problem of plant amortization and depreciation. Now, as I sped down Albany Avenue to North Main Street and turned left there down the Morgan Street hill to the Bulkely Memorial Bridge, I reviewed the atmosphere of that meeting and began to rehearse what I would say to Secretary Morgenthau, should he bring the matter up. I recalled that Sir Henry Self had listened to my statement with an expression of amused tolerance. No doubt he had in mind the power of the Treasury and the influence of the banking fraternity as means of bringing us upstarts into line. But we were under no great obligations to others; we were free—free to do what in our own judgment was in the long-term interest of getting on with our job. And as I turned into the main gate of the aircraft factory at East Hartford, the lights were ablaze all over the place. I parked my car in the garage under the office building and ran upstairs to my office where the Secretary of the Treasury awaited me. After a greeting, Mr. Morgenthau expressed a wish to see the new French addition, and we walked together down through the main shop and across to the new one. We had scheduled the new building for completion in three months, and three months had seen it finished. The new machinery, earmarked long in advance by War Plans and ordered even before the final contract had been signed, was already coming in. Bare spots revealed the wood-block floor of the vast girdered structure, but millwrights were busy sliding machinery onto prearranged spots and uncrating late arrivals. One complete production line was already set up and working to relieve a bottleneck in the main shop.