San Antonio, Texas, April 10th, 1933
Mr. H. B, Ayres,
Battle House,
Mobile, Alabama
Dear Harrals-
I am in receipt of a short note in which you stated that you had just mailed me a letter and forgot to mention the engineering arrangements for the bridge. Also have men ready to follow up all tha,t work with a general membership campaign east and west* but had to stop it until status over hers is settledo I am afraid you made a serious mistake in stopping you campaign because you know it is always three times as hard to start a proposition after it is stopped as it is to keep going when it is first lined up. You can take it from ms that nobody will collect memberships for the Old Spanish Trail if you alloy/ that business to go dead. Besides that, it will work against your interest very materially with the Board of Directors of the OST as practically all of them are business men and they would not for one minute tolerate any little petty squabbles that would interfere with business, and I feel like that under these conditions I had just as well go ahead and accept another proposition that I have waiting because the Old Spanish Trail is absolutely blown up as I see it. The creditors here want their money and they are justly entitled to it.
I understand all of these printing companies got together a few days ago aM compared notes on the Old Spanish Trail and agreed that they v/ould give us one more chance, and unless they got some money or some definite assurance that the bills would, be taken care of that they would take some definite action to see that no other printers belonging to the printers association along the entire route of the OST from Florida to California would be stung by this organization. This will causs our best friends along the OST to pass us up. if a report of this kind goes out and I think that something ought to be done to beat them to it.
If the Association can°t pay the bills and put the organization on its feet then I think they should disband and give somebody else a cftance. I would suggest calling an annual meeting and elect new officers and pass the buck to themo
Very truly /ours.
DEC:AH