The airman as hero versus the unseen machinery of science

“ Society cannot profit directly or indirectly from Miss Earhart’s journey. She is an international heroine simply and solely because, owing to good luck and an airman’s [295] efficiency, she is the first woman to travel from America to Europe by air. A scientist has died after many years of agony because of his devotion to the work of healing, and for him there are only brief paragraphs in the newspapers, while Miss Earhart has columns. ”

“ The small air-cooled motor I speak of was the first in this country. The man who had built it was not well known then. He was one of a number of able experimenters who were working out their own private ideas, often in the face of all sorts of sacrifices. The name of the builder of this original air-cooled engine is Charles L. Lawrence, famous today as the creator of the Wright Whirlwind which carried Lindbergh, Byrd, Chamberlin, Maitland and others on their famous flights, and with which our own Friendship was equipped. ”

“ We have to desire a grand air in our heroes; and such a knowledge of the human stage as shall make them put the dots on their own i’s, and leave us in no suspense as to when they mean to be heroic. And hence, we should congratulate ourselves upon the fact that our Admirals were not only great-hearted but big-spoken.
The heroes themselves say, as often as not, that fame is their object ”

“ That false prudence which dotes on health and wealth is the butt and merriment of heroism. Heroism, like Plotinus, is almost ashamed of its body. What shall it say, then, to the sugar-plums and cats'-cradles, to the toilet, compliments, quarrels, cards, and custard, which rack the wit of all society. What joys has kind nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no interval between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe. ”

“ She has even his modest nature, and the ability to win the hearts of everybody with whom she comes in contact.
“The solo flight wasn’t Amelia Earhart’s first trip across the ocean by plane. You remember her first flight, when she went as a passenger on the Stultz-Gordon flight in 1928. She’s the first person now who has ever crossed the ocean twice through the air. Amelia is a real pioneer—she must have adventure and excitement in life—that’s why she gave up social service work, and made flying her profession. ”

“ Ice formed on the wings of her plane, and threatened to break them off. Gradually the temperature rose, and the ice melted. But new dangers threatened. A weld in the exhaust manifold broke, and the manifold vibrated badly; leaks sprang in the reserve gas tanks in the cockpit, and then—the altimeter broke.
“Now the altimeter, as I suppose you all know, records the altitude at which the plane is flying. Amelia Earhart had never flown without one, and now she realized the hazards of not knowing how high she was flying through the fog. ”

“ The preparation of a large plane for a long flight is a complex task. It is one that cannot—or at least should not—be rushed. Especially is that fact true where, as in the case of the Friendship, the equipment was of a somewhat experimental nature.
Throughout the operations Commander Byrd kept in close touch with what was being done, with Stultz and Gordon, and with Commander [106] Elmer, who was overseeing the technical detail. Necessary instruments were installed and gradually tried out; while varying load tests, countless take-offs from the bay, and brief flights around Boston were made. ”

“ When I am asked what individuals can do to aid aviation my reply is, to those who haven’t flown: “Fly.” For, whether or not aviation will be found useful in their lives, or whether they [216] find flying pleasant, at least they will have some understanding of what it is, if they go up. Every day all of us have opportunity to do our bit—and to get our bit—by using the air for our long-distance mail, and at least some of our express and freight. And perhaps some who come to touch aviation in these ways, will find an interest which will carry them into the ranks of plane owners. ”

“ When we arrived at the station we met more camera men and reporters.
We went over to the plane in the tug which carried the gas. I chatted with the men who handled it and was assured that rubbing gas and oil on one’s hair made it grow and was good for it every day. We spilled some fuel on the water and I thought of the accident to De Pinedo’s ship caused by throwing a cigarette on the water afterward.
The air is exceedingly rough today. We are flying at 2000. The land which was covered with fog yesterday is sparklingly clear today. The sea is beautifully blue and there are a few light clouds. ”

“ Disraeli as a cool looker-on foresaw how it would be, but it was his fate to steer the vessel in the stream when it was running with the impetuosity of self-confidence. He could not stem a torrent, and all that he could do was to moderate the extent of its action. Only he refused to call the tendency of things Progress. ‘Progress whence and progress whither?’ he would ask. The only human progress worth calling by the name is progress in virtue, justice, courage, uprightness, love of country beyond love of ourselves. ”

“ Whether it be in the development of the earth, in the development of life upon its surface, in the development of society, of government, of manufactures, of commerce, of language, literature, science, art—this same evolution of the simple into the complex, through successive differentiations, holds throughout. From the earliest traceable cosmic changes down to the latest results of civilization, we shall find that the transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous is that in which progress essentially consists. ”

“ The real source of all that is good in new scientific knowledge arises from its verified and verifiable character, its high degree of certainty, and its capacity of withstanding all the tests which can be applied to it. By the term "scientific knowledge" in this case I mean that only that which has been verified, and I purposely exclude all matters of hypothesis, mere opinion or belief. Scientific research is the chief basis of national progress, not only because it is continually disclosing new truths to us, but also because the truths it reveals are frequently of the most definite kind. ”

“ Discoveries are also generally much more valuable than inventions, because a single discovery (that of gutta percha for example) not unfrequently forms the basis of many inventions. Discoverers not unfrequently meet with new facts which they perceive might be applied to valuable technical uses, but they hesitate to patent them because the process of invention, taking out a patent, seeking a manufacturer to work it, and protecting their patent from piracy, would occupy a large portion of their time, and take them away from research. ”

“ New scientific knowledge is like a powerful light, it cannot be hidden. Discoveries are eminently national knowledge, and research should therefore be national employment.
Other persons suppose that investigators should be satisfied with the fame of their discoveries, and not require any payment; but this is a most unfair supposition, because no man can live without means, and every useful person deserves to be paid for his labour. ”

“ Putnam has made all mankind her debtor by her demonstration of new possibilities of the human spirit and the human will in overcoming barriers of space and the restrictions of Nature upon the radius of human activity.
[The President turned to Amelia] The nation is proud that an American woman should be the first woman in history to fly an airplane alone across the Atlantic Ocean. As their104 spokesman [he moved to Amelia now standing beside him] I take pride and pleasure in conferring this rarely bestowed medal of the National Geographic Society upon Mrs. Amelia Earhart Putnam. ”

“ Just when we women are working so hard to establish our place in aviation by honest methods. Look at Ruth Nichols, breaking Lindbergh's coast-to-coast record, and Mrs. Keith Miller with her valiant solo flights, and Amelia Earhart and Myrtle Brown holding those responsible positions in big airplane companies—and dozens of us working day after day for commercial and transport licenses! Then for a girl like this Mabel Lightcap, who can scarcely pilot a plane, to try to grab the biggest honors of all! Oh, I tell you, Mr. Eckers, a thing like that hurts! ”

“ The power of one motor would have made possible a flatter, and thus more extensive, glide. That long glide might enable one to reach a ship lane, or specifically, come down in the vicinity of some particular [249] vessel that had been located by radio in the meantime.
The plane and the engine, of course, are no better than their pilot. His reliability and skill are essential. There are fine men in the game today and on their capable shoulders the success of flying leans heavily. ”

“ Inventors are usually poor, and but little able to pay taxes on patents at all; their pecuniary position in this country is not greatly better than that of discoverers; they are largely at the mercy of manufacturers and capitalists; and the injustice to which they are sometimes subjected is notorious and disgraceful. On the other hand, the fund already exists; inventors also receive an equivalent from investigators, discovery is the indispensable basis of nearly all invention; patented inventions are formed by means of the knowledge obtained by pure scientific research. ”

“ The big fellows can be much more serious. Once into them, and one has the sensation of being surrounded by an everlasting mass of grey, comparable, so far as visibility goes, with a heavy fog. In such clouds one can find all varieties of weather—rain, snow, or sleet.
In the trans-Atlantic flight, we encountered both rain and snow. There lies one of the greatest risks of long distance flying—I mean moisture freezing upon the wings of the plane. The danger zone of temperature is said to lie chiefly between twenty-four and thirty-eight degrees, when slush begins to form. ”

“ Straight flying is, of course, the necessary basis; but it is the ability to meet crises, large and small, which counts. And the only way to train for that is, as I have said, to have actual instruction in stunting and in meeting emergencies. To gain experience after the beginner has soloed, and while he is at home in a plane he knows intimately and upon a field familiar to him, he should play around in the air for four or five hours alone, practising landings, take-offs, turns and all the rest of it where he is perfectly safe and can come down easily any time. ”

“ The greatest obstacle to the discovery of new knowledge in this country, lies in a wide spread ignorance of the dependence of human welfare upon scientific research. I propose therefore to show in a brief manner, that the essential starting-point of human progress, lies in scientific discovery ”

“ Great causes are frequently distant and wide-spread in their effects. Persons in general can easily understand that an acorn planted in the ground will in the course of time become an oak, because it is a palpable and visible effect; but they cannot so readily perceive that the benefits resulting from a knowledge of science ramify through all our manufacturing, artistic, and commercial occupations, our social and moral relations, and our every-day life, not because the dependence of our welfare upon science is less real, but partly because the connection between the two is less understood. ”

“ It is clear from the enormous advantages which this nation has already derived from scientific discovery in physics and chemistry, pursued with only the aid of the very limited means of private persons, that had research in those subjects been sufficiently supported, the manufactures, arts, commerce, wealth, and civilization of this country would have been much greater than they are; emigration also of the industrious classes, disease, pauperism, crime, the evil effects of famine, etc., would have been much less. ”

“ Experience in science has already shown that it is by means of invention based upon new discoveries that the greatest utilities are obtained, rather than by the exercise of invention upon knowledge acquired long ago. The information obtained by research in former times has been largely exhausted for the purposes of invention by modern inventors, and what we very greatly require now is new knowledge. Experience in science also leads us to believe that the extent of possible discovery is as boundless as Nature, and that an immense amount of new knowledge may yet be discovered. ”

“ Scientific research also, by disclosing to man his true position in nature, enables him to act in harmony therewith, and thus increase his morality and general happiness.
Knowledge is as free as the air, once diffused it becomes impressed upon the brains of men and cannot be easily destroyed or restrained; and the greatest moral effects of science are cosmopolitan ones. Inventions based upon new scientific truths are gradually {122}breaking down the barriers between the various nations of the Earth, and infusing common interests amongst all mankind. ”

“ In research, as in many other human enterprises, a man who will not move until he is absolutely certain that what he intends to do will at at once succeed, must sit still and perish.
Suggestions have also been made to appoint a Government Committee, or Council, whose function should be to value scientific discoveries, and make corresponding amounts of reward to the discoverers. But this appears to be a less feasible plan, because no man can, at the period of discovery, determine what amount of practical result a discovery will ultimately produce. ”

“ The big ship has come to stay.” Well, let her stay on, then, in God’s name! But she isn’t a servant of progress in any sense. She is the servant of commercialism. For progress, if dealing with the problems of a material world, has some sort of moral aspect—if only, say, that of conquest, which has its distinct value since man is a conquering animal. But bigness is mere exaggeration. The men responsible for these big ships have been moved by considerations of profit to be made by the questionable means of pandering to an absurd and vulgar demand for banal luxury—the seaside hotel luxury. ”

“ Everyone wants to see better, safer and cheaper aeroplanes. If the Air League can offer us a service which will take us to Paris in half-an-hour for half-a-crown, I would even guarantee that Neon would be the first season-ticket holder. But all this has nothing to do with the essential fact that not a single aeroplane would be flying commercially today without the Government subsidy, for the simple reason that by comparison with other forms of transport air transport is uneconomic. ”

“ In our commercial and industrial life the somewhat feverish progress has generated a habit, a whole system of habits, based on the expectation of change. Enterprise and adaptability are cultivated at the expense of whatever conflicts with them; each one, feeling that the procession is moving on and that he must keep up with it, hurries along at the expense, perhaps, of health, culture and sanity.
This unrest is due rather to transition than to democracy ”

“ Where all the gracious arts, all the generous rivalries of mind, that deck and animate the bright calm of peace? Where all the devotion, heroism, self-sacrifice in a common cause, that exalt humanity even amidst the rage and deformities of war, if, throughout well-ordered, close-welded states, there ran not electrically, from breast to breast, that love of honour which is a part of man’s sense of beauty, or that instinct towards utility which, even more than the genius too exceptional to be classed amongst the normal regulations of social law, creates the marvels of mortal progress? ”