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PERSONAL AND
CONFIDENTIAL

December 17,

Dear Allan:
Just for your information, I thought you might be interested
to see the enclosed copy of correspondence with Bandy Burgess; that is,
the telegram he sent me afterrayfirst appearance before the Taft Committee, his subsequent letter, and my reply. In case any matter should
ever come up in which you and I failed to see eye to eye, I am sure our
debate would be on the merits, not on the motives, and with all the
cards face up on the table and no backstairs methods.
For a good many years, I regret to say, I have doubted Bandy's
straightforwardness and I felt, as did some of the other Board members,
that it was about time I let him know bluntly how I felt. I do not, of
course, want to do him any injustice and perhaps his manners cannot be
Bended* now* They are, however, extremely irritating. Whatever our
faults — your stubborn resistance to my convincing arguments, for example — we were not brought up in the West to have that lofty air of
condescension that used to make the Britishers so unpopular in America.
Anyway, I had to get this off my mind to Bandy. I think I have been
pretty patient and long-suffering so far as Bandy is concerned for a
long, long time.
Incidentally, let me record in this connection what you already know, namely, that I thought your presentation oould only have
been improved had you come out at the same point as I do in all this
debate. Making some allowance for this slight flaw in your otherwise
sound reasoning, I think you did a first-rate job that reflects credit
on the System.
Sincerely yours,

Mr* Allan Sproul, President,
Federal Reserve Bank of Hew York,
Hew York k5, Hew York.