October 15, 1911 – Tsukamoto (Japan) to JSA
Dear Appie:
Nearly a year has passed like a dream and I am still here in the far eastern land. You must have been thinking I was dead, since I have been remiss in writing to you but, good or bad for the humanity at large, I am still breathing the air of this world and, furthermore, I am still toiling under the standard of G.E. as ever. I have had a mixture of human experience both happy and unhappy but its all the same. For the last ten months I have been kept moving on one job after another and altho I had taken my own house in a suburb of Yokohama I have been living most anywhere in this country. A few big jobs came into our hand, but each and every one of them has been so durn tedious and irksome. Commercial competition in this country among different machine builders are strange and fierce.
Those Germans are terrible. Besides their cheapness of production, they seem to do most anything to gain foothold in industrial world of this country. You know my working capacity is as engineer of G.E. Co. , but that means anything from trouble fixer, estimator, station designer down to mind reader and fortune teller, when it comes to final settling of proposition and price dickering at the customers; present. Engineer, salesman assistant with agent, and still have very often the necessity of discussing the deciding a high class engineering question – in a bum way of course. Thanks to somewhat various experiences in the P & M under your section. I am not afraid since there is nothing to be afraid. Even now I remember what you said in the midst of a swamp in the Adirondacks – i.e. – if you are not sure where the nearest trail is, fix your mind best you can and go straight ahead. Old chap, you said many quaint things but I admit some of them were good ones. (ha! ha! ha!) Now how are you in P & M [Power and Mining] Do let me know about what you are doing both in business and private. I suppose you are camping somewhere by the time this letter reaches you, and that pen is not something care to handle often but then you can “spit out” few lines at the office intervals.
Be sure that there is one far away who thinks of you frequently. I have been in the vicinity of my home city for the last couple of weeks and this Sunday is being spent at home. Fall season one of the prettiest in this neighborhood, Hunting season in this country has also been opened up this 13th. I am not a good hunter, nor even a bad one because I am not one a’tall, but then like to roam around the hills. Today I took a long walk to a suburb and it was really exhilarating to wander in the invigorating atmosphere of autumn. I am constantly dreaming of the fall scene of the northern New York state. Kindly send my best regards to Mark, Summeristic[?], William and others in Power and Mining. I wrote to Mark about a month ago but haven’t heard from him yet. Do let me hear from you some time. I don’t know how soon I shall be able to be among you again and in the meanwhile I am anxious to hear anything American.
Very truly yours,
Tsukamoto
32 Kiyamachi Sanjo, Kioto