MASTERS OF THE AIR

I

N American aeronautical circles the year 1922 will always be known as the renascent year of aviation. For, with the winning of the world's speed records at Detroit, Saturday, October 14, America's leadership in the science of aeronautics and the art of flying is unquestioned. We now hold the endurance, altitude, and speed records for heavier-than-air machines, and these records were made by American pilots in American-built machines designed throughout by Americans.

It had been expected in Army and Navy aviation circles that the Pulitzer speed race at the National airplane meet at Detroit would bring home to the United States the international speed bacon. Lieutenant R. L. Maughan, of the Army Air Service, in his Curtiss army racer lived up to those expectations when he flew over a closed course of 155.34 miles at the rate of nearly three and one-half miles a minute! Maughan's average speed for the entire distance was 206 miles an hour. As a close second to this performance came Lieutenant L. J. Maitland, also of the Army, who drove his Curtiss racer over the same course at an average speed of 203 miles an hour. During some of the laps of his flight Maitland made better time than Maughan; for 50 kilometers he flew at a rate of 216.1 miles an hour and for 100 kilometers at 207.3 miles an hour.

Both of these fliers beat the 100kilometer record of Le Cointe, famous French pilot, whose average speed last September was 202 miles an hour. They also beat the record of Kirsch, another Frenchman, who flew 200 kilometers in October, 1921, at an average speed of 174.8 miles an hour. Five other contestants at Detroit also beat this last record. Thus three world's records fell before American brains, skill, and endurance. And of the eleven pilots who finished in this race, none made less than 149.3 miles an hour average speed. Watching this race were two middleaged men: one, Orville Wright, the father of heavier-than-air flight, who on December 17, 1903, with his brother Wilbur gave aviation to the world; the other, Glenn H. Curtiss, foremost aeronautical engineer in the world to-day, who designed and built the successful

event took place which is of tremendous import to the growth of commercial aviation in this country. An American Aeronautical Association was formed, which is Nation-wide in its scope, and which begins its life of usefulness with a tremendous membership. Men and women from all walks of life are enrolled in this great movement for the establishment of commercial aviation on a grand scale in America. For, after all, the real mission of aviation in this world is commercial. Were it for military and naval purposes only, it would have been ten thousand times ten thousand times

better for the world had flying remained an unknown art.

This year's results in aeronautical effort, then, reaching a climax at Detroit, may be said to be the dawn of a new era in American aviation. We have reached the highest development in planes, engines, and equipment; we have produced the world's most skillful pilots; we have laid the foundation for public support of commercial aviation through the medium of a Nation-wide union of enthusiasts and practical, experienced airmen.

One thing remains to be done to place commercial aviation before the Nation as a useful adjunct to present methods of transportation; we must have Congressional laws for regulating and fostering its establishment-laws which will safeguard the public, which will do away with recklessness, which will prohibit dangerous equipment, which will provide air navigational facilities similar to shipping facilities, and which will permit the most complete co-operation between private and public aeronautical enterprises. The enactment of the Wadsworth-Hicks Bill for a Bureau of Aeronautics in the Department of Commerce, a bill now before Congress, will bring about this desirable condition of affairs in American commercial aviation.

SECRETARY HOOVER'S OPPOSITION TO THE CANCELLATION OF DEBTS

BA

ANKERS, who are supposed to know a great deal about finance and ought to know a good deal about economics, have been represented lately as being disposed toward canceling all, or at least a large part, of the debts which European countries owe us. So we may judge from their chief spokesmen. The impression, for example, given by the recent Convention of the American Bankers' Association as reported by Stephen Bell in last week's Outlook is that the most influential bankers regard the payment of these debts as practically impossible.

Flatly opposed to any such conclusion is, however, the American who has earned the reputation of knowing more about international economic relations than any other American and a much as any other man in t1 Herbert Hoover, Secretary of C

has explicitly stated that those debts (except for a negligible five per cent) can and should be paid.

As may well be imagined, Mr. Hoover rests the duty of payment, not upon a merely selfish consideration of American interests, but on a consideration of world stability and confidence. He points out that the economic problems of the world should "not be obscured by fluctuation in exchange or by calculation of trade balances in terms of war and depression." Many commentators these economic conditions cannot see the woods for the trees; Mr. Hoover certainly has better vision than they have.

on

He points out, too, that these debts are not so much debts to our Government as debts to our taxpayers, and that the repudiation of them "would undermine the whole fabric of international good faith." He declares that the annual payments would vary in their burden upon the various debtor countries "from. two to twelve per cent of their governmental incomes." Naturally, the American taxpayer regards other things as of more importance for stability than the repudiation of that amount of debt— and among them the reduction of armaments, the balancing of budgets, and the cessation of inflation. In comparison with the waste and destruction of armaments, extravagance, and inflation, the burden of the loans due to us is, says Mr. Hoover, trivial.

In detail he meets the argument that the payment of these balances means shipments of either goods or gold, that these shipments would have to be direct to us, that they would embarrass our industries, that they would depend upon the ability of a country to produce a surplus for export, and that present trade balances are an indication of future paying power. All these assumptions he examines and finds faulty. For instance, sources of money supply from which European countries can draw for paying their debts are to be found in the amounts spent by American tourists abroad, the remittances of emigrants, the investments abroad, etc., amounting in all to three times the interest on the debts. Moreover, even in payment of goods, shipments need not be direct: they may consist in shipments of manufactured goods to tropical countries and then shipments to us of tropical products which we need. Before the war the rest of the world owed Europe over thirty billion dollars, and that debt was borne without a ripple. The creditor situation has been shifted, but only partly.

Mr. Hoover rightly concludes that we should have more experience with economic forces before we jump to the idea

that there is any necessity for putting irretrievable burdens upon the American taxpayer by canceling the debts.

THE PRESIDENT'S COMMENDATION OF CONGRESS

the more credit because it is in part the result of a budget system created by Congressional enactment.

The feature of the tariff which the President selects for special praise is its provision for administrative adjustment

that reference to the ap

Wproaching election, and without

even a hint of partisan appeal, but evidently in recognition of the fact that as the election approaches the people of the country have a right to expect an account of stewardship from the party in power, the President has reviewed the work of Congress for the past two years and has called it good. Though he has addressed himself to the majority leader in the House of Representatives, he obviously intends his informal report for the whole people.

No one can expect, much less require, the President to emphasize the faults and shortcomings of a Congress in which his party has control. There is no reference, for example, in the President's letter to the passage of the Bonus Bill, which the President vetoed. Nor is there any suggestion of the tendency, discernible even in his own party, to the formation of such a group as the farm bloc, which the President has openly deplored. Naturally, too, the schedules of the Tariff Act which have been under attack are not mentioned even for the purpose of defense, as it is too soon to forget the effect of President Taft's approval of Schedule K.

On the other hand, President Harding's commendation is not emotional or excessive. The contrast which he draws between the record of reconstruction after the Civil War and that after the World War is striking and true. Certainly the convulsions of the early period of which President Harding reminds his readers-"the impeachment of one President, an embittered National election contest, and a prevalent conflict between legislative and executive branches"-have been conspicuously absent during these recent months. Similarly, his comparison of our own experience with other nations after the World War is fair and reasonable, and should lead to confidence in our own Government apart from party considerations.

Though it may be said that the reductions which we made in our expenditures, particularly for military purposes, which the President cites were made much more safely than they could have been if we had such close neighbors as France or Britain has, nevertheless the record is commendable. A reduction of annual public expenditures of over three billions in two years is one for which Congress should have credit-and all

makes the tariff flexible and adapted to changing conditions.

Many people who arc concerned with our apparent isolation from our former Allies will welcome the President's statement that

The last thing in our thoughts is aloofness from the rest of the world. We wish to be helpful, neighborly, useful. To protect ourselves first and then to use the strength accruing through that policy for the general welfare of mankind is our sincere purpose.

There will be by no means unanimous assent to the approval which the President gives for the extent of the provision which has been made for disabled veterans; and there are signs that people in certain regions of our country are by no means satisfied with the agricul tural advancement which the President cites; but on the whole the President is not without justification in expressing gratification at the progress made toward normal conditions. Certainly as a measure of economic health it would be hard to find anything better than the advancing value of Liberty Bonds. After all, that tells pretty well of the confidence which the people of the country have in the soundness of their Government.

T Harding's

THE FEDERAL COAL COMMISSION HE country will welcome President appointment of the United States Coal Commission. The Commission proposed has been pretty generally called a Fact-Finding Commission; it will be also, we hope, a factselecting commission. There has been a vast amount of statistics, averages, and the like put forth by the leaders of both sides of the recent coal war. What most of us would like to see would be an intelligent and wise selection and presentation of those things that are of vital importance-the things that will aid the consumer to get fair treatment from the industry, the operator to carry on his business with some security, and the working miner to have steady employment for reasonable hours at a fair wage.

There has been nothing but approval, so far as we have observed, at the list of seven names in the President's Commission. Its chairman is John Hays Hammond, who has no superior as a mining engineer and is thoroughly ac quainted with the practical as well as the financial aspects of mining; the

others are, Thomas Marshall, VicePresident during the Wilson Administration; Judge Samuel Anschuler, who arbitrated the labor dispute in the packing industry; Clark Howell, editor of the Atlanta "Constitution;" George Otis Smith, head of the Geological Survey; Dr. Edward T. Devine, economist and

be made to secure indorsement from the voters at the coming election. We strongly urge any voters before whom the question may come to refuse to indorse the measure. Certainly they should not do so unless they know just what it means.

The California bill bears the mislead

SIMS, THE UNMUZZLED

HERE are times when retirement laws

Dr. Charles P. Neill, formerly Commissioner of Labor.

The duties intrusted to this Commission are numerous, but we see no mention of a report on the desirability of establishing a permanent National Coa! Commission. That is a step which most impartial students of the question believe should be taken, so that the coal industry, like the railway industry, should have a permanent body prepared to consider and act within reasonable limits in the case of disputes within the industry.

Among the subjects to be reported by the Commission are all facts which should make it possible to stabilize the industry, to insure a steady supply of coal to consumers, and to indicate remedies for possible future strikes. This would of course include all facts of large importance regarding ownership, wages, production, labor cost, distribution cost, and the profits of owners, transporting railways, controlling coal companies or wholesalers, and retailers.

Since the miners in both branches of the coal industry have been back at work the opinion has been frequently expressed that the settlement is merely a truce and that there is great danger that the war may begin anew in April, 1923, when the entire wage question must be taken up again. One example of this opinion is found in an address by Mr. C. E. Maurer, Vice-President of the American Mining Congress. He is quoted as saying that the whole industry should "organize its household for self-examination, self-expression, and self-government," that the mine workers have got the upper hand, and that the operators have managed their own business so badly that Federal control is imminent.

If this condition of things exists, there is certainly great need for intelligent and thorough investigation by the new Coal Commission. The time between now and April 1 is short for such an investigation and for legislative action by Congress. All the more reason that the work should be pressed with vigor and sound judgment.

AGAINST LIFE-SAVING

OPIES have been sent us of so-called

Jorado and California; we are told

in the latter State an attempt is to

section or torture of human beings or animals." But in the text we find that "the causing of any deformity, sickness, or disease in or to any living creature for experimental purpose" is punishable. Now, it may be wrong to give a mouse a new drug or inject in him a new serum, but it certainly is not "vivisection or torture" unless it is "vivisection" to inject the new diabetes serum in a human patient or "torture" to give him a dose of calomel. The major part of the antivivisection argument is based on the horror caused by the sound of the word vivisection, although the thing sought to be restrained is not torture but mild experimentation from which (as has been demonstrated beyond question) both the human and the animal world have benefited enormously.

The present California law allows "properly conducted scientific experiments or investigations performed under the authority of the faculty of a regularly incorporated medical college or university of this State." The new bill repeals this provision, and thereby brands all the State's colleges and medical schools as cruel. Could fanaticism further go! An attempt is made to get the trapper and farmer vote by allowing amateur barnyard operations and ignoring the suffering or starving of tortured trapped animals.

The Colorado bill has a mild title referring to "experimental operations or administrations;" but the text defines among the things included anything which may "cause pain or suffering in any part or any organ"-a wide-open definition.

A refreshing contrast to these bills comes to us simultaneously. It is a resolution passed by a vote of about 600 to 20 by the Pennsylvania State Federation of Women putting on record "their gratitude to medical science for past discoveries SO profoundly beneficial to human beings and to animals, and we believe that such beneficent researches should be continued and encouraged."

A valued correspondent calls attention to the benefit of animal experimentation in saving animals from death and suffering and in food values. Thus in six years through the use of a serum discovered by animal experimentation the loss from hog cholera was cut down by

terest. The thought is brought about by the news that Rear-Admiral William Snowden Sims has been placed upon the retired list of the Navy merely because he is sixty-two years old. Age may be a matter of record, but the record does not always correspond with the spirit.

Rear-Admiral Sims has always been a center of discussion and controversy. His enthusiasm, his drive, and his eagerness for results have not always been recognized for their true worth by more placid souls in the Government.

He upset tradition by appealing directly to President Roosevelt for reforms in American gunnery. If tradition was broken in this instance, so also were American gunnery records.

Later he caused another storm and received a Presidential reprimand for a speech on Anglo-American friendship made in England long before the World War. According to naval tradition, the rebuke was deserved, but his prophecy was nevertheless to be fulfilled.

The New York "Times" in its editorial on Rear-Admiral Sims's retirement says that for the "commander of the Navy in European waters and liaison officer between the United States and British Governments . . . a better choice could not have been made by President Wilson." The "Times" is manifestly right in this statement, but it fails to record the fact, so amply shown in Ambassador Page's biography and in Admiral Sims's own story of the American Navy in the war, that the Navy Department failed lamentably in the early days of the war to give to Sims the support and co-operation which was his right.

When the war was over, Rear-Admiral Sims again was a storm center in the controversy over the question of the award of naval honors. His recommendations to Washington were largely ignored and a policy of distribution of honors was adopted by Secretary Daniels which seemed so unfair to Admiral Sims that he declined to receive the honors which the Navy Department was ready to accord him. Both informed and popular opinion sided with Admiral Sims in this controversy.

When Admiral Sims retired, he was President of the Naval War College at Annapolis. Our Navy is a better Navy because it has enjoyed the lifelong de

votion and service of Rear-Admiral Sims.

THE NATIONAL NAVY CLUB

L

AST week The Outlook devoted a large amount of space to the constructive work of the United States Navy in times of peace. The courage and self-sacrifice of American naval officers and bluejackets in times of war is spread upon the records of the great European Continent, notably in Admiral Sims's remarkable book. During their term of service the home of our bluejackets is on the sea, and when they touch at American ports they are to a certain extent strangers in a strange land. Everything possible should therefore be done by their grateful countrymen to minister to their comfort and welfare while in port. New York City is the port most frequented by ships of the Atlantic Squadron, and the Nationa' Navy Club of New York is performing a service which ought to enlist the interest, not only of New Yorkers, but of people all over the country, for our bluejackets come from all over the country. We know from personal inspection what this Club is doing, but in order that our commendation may not be tossed aside as the opinion of mere landlubbers, we quote from a letter which we have recently received from a lieutenant commander of the Navy:

It is not generally realized how important to the enlisted men of the Navy and Marine Corps is the work undertaken by the Navy Club. There is no other club of this kind to compete in this special field of activity, and, consequently, there is no duplication of effort. The Naval Y. M. C. A. in Brooklyn (so generously sponsored by Mrs. Finley J. Shepard) does a very fine work, but it is not located in the heart of New York City. I know from my observations and talks with men under my command that fully ninety per cent of them instinctively would choose association on shore with the same kind of girls and women as they left in their own home, but, unfortunately, it is very difficult for a bluejacket to make the

proper kind of friendships in New York or other large cities. This need is met at the Navy Club, where ladies of the highest standing in New York volunteer their services to help make the club a home for the men.

There is a reading-room, library, writing-room, pool-room, and a small café where simple meals are served at cost; there is also a limited dormitory space. The principal handicap that now confronts the club is the lack of dormitory equipment, where men on liberty or furlough can find a clean, pleasant place to spend the night at a minimum charge.

The drive which is to be inaugurated by Mrs. William H. Hamilton and others interested in the Navy Club deserves the support of friends of the Navy throughout the United States, for its benefits are given as freely to the boy from Kansas as to the one from New York-in fact, the Kansas boy, being further from home, really benefits more than his shipmate whose home may be near New York.

The American public may have an honest difference of opinion as to the size of the Navy, but there should be no difference as to the wish for having a Navy of the highest quality as regards officers and men. To attract and hold the clean-cut, manly high school boy and the ambitious young man who enlists to learn a trade it is necessary to have contentment in the service. The Navy of to-day is making a sincere and effective attempt to build up and insure contentment on board ship; but on account of the restrictions imposed by law, the Navy Department can do very little to insure its men against homesickness and discontent while ashore on furlough or on liberty ashore.

We urge those who are interested in the efficiency and welfare of the American Navy to write to the Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the National Navy Club of New York, 15 East 41st Street, New York City, for full information about the activities and work of the Club. Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the European War under the Administration of President Wilson, as his cousin, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, is now Assistant Secretary of the Navy under the Admin

istration of President Harding. In this very striking fashion the Roosevelt name is still intimately associated with American naval progress, and our readers may be assured that any welfare enterprise with which Franklin Roosevelt associates himself is worthy of the fullest confidence.

GREAT BRITAIN AND
THE NEAR EAST

HE political crisis in England largely,

Tbut not entirely, grows out of the

recent

situation in the Near East Lloyd George's address at Manchester before the Reform Club was both a call to his supporters to enter the political battle and a defense of his administration's conduct of affairs in the Near East.

A general election is, as we write, considered imminent; if it is averted, it will be because the meeting of Unionist leaders planned for October 19 will have indicated such a large support for the continuance of the coalition under Lloyd George's leadership that his resignation and appeal to the country will not be needed. He summed up his defense in two sentences: "I cast myself upon the people; the people will see fair play," and "We have not been war-mongers, but peacemakers."

Americans who do not follow English politics closely have often expressed surprise that the coalition of parties formed when the war broke out should continue four years after the end of the war. The chief reason is the potential power of the Labor Party. Austen Chamberlain laid great stress in his recent speech, which was only less important than that of Lloyd George, on the danger that an increase of strength in the Labor Party would mean its domination of the Coalition through its power to throw its solid vote one way or the other. It is a mistake to suppose that the Conservatives, or Unionists, are united against Lloyd George. He is supported whole-heartedly and aggressively in the present situation