offered the extremely low bid to Brown in order to demonstrate Ludington's commitment to the route extension plan "at or below cost." Lewis did not think much about the conversation until he later read the Post Office Department's announcement that had awarded Ludington's arch-rival the CAM 25 air mail route contract at 89 cents a mile as measured against Ludington's extremely low bid. By February 1933 Ludington was virtually bankrupt and sold out to EAT for a "bottom basement price of $260,000." Lewis sensed there was a story to be written. He brought the story to the attention of William Randolph Hearst and, although Hearst would not print it, was given approval to investigate the story full-time. Lewis' investigation began to develop into an air mail contract scandal. Lewis was having difficulty impressing his findings on government officials until he approached Alabama Senator Hugo Black. Black was the chairman of a special committee established to investigate ocean mail contracts awarded by the federal government to the merchant marine. Interstate Commerce Commission investigators seized records from all the mail carriers on September 28, 1933, and brought about public awareness of what became known as "the Black Committee". The special Senate committee investigated alleged improprieties and gaming of the rate structure, such as carriers padlocking individual pieces of mail to increase weight. Despite showing that Brown's administration of the air mail had increased the efficiency of the service and lowered its costs from $1.10 to $0.54 per mile, and the obvious partisan politics involved in investigating what appeared to be a Republican scandal involving Herbert Hoover by a Democratic-controlled committee, the hearings raised serious questions regarding its legality and ethics. Black announced that he had found evidence of "fraud and collusion" between the Hoover Administration and the airlines and held public hearings in January 1934, although these allegations were later found to be without basis. Near the end of the hearings on the last day of January, MacCracken was subpoenaed to testify duces tecum "instanter" and appeared, but refused to produce files, citing attorney-client privilege unless the clients waived the privilege (which all did within a week of his appearance). However, the next day MacCracken's law partner gave Northwest Airways vice president Lewis H. Brittin permission to go into MacCracken's files to remove a memo that Brittin claimed was personal and unrelated to the investigation. Brittin later tore up the memo and