THE PRESIDENT-ELECT'S SISTER, MISS ABIGAIL HARDING, WHO TEACHES SCHOOL IN MARION

"but I got 'em, I reckon, more than thirty times. Once he said to me, 'Don't you work too hard, Martin; save up your money like a good and wise man, but never have a worry. Neither you nor your good wife shall ever come to want.' Another time," continued Miller, who was never a rugged man, "I was hoisting a heavy load on a hand-rope elevator when Editor Harding happened to see it. He turned to the manager and said, 'Let some big man pull that elevator up. He was always thoughtful of the welfare of his employees.

Upon every side it was impressed upon me that Warren G. Harding was a man who would scorn to reap politi

cal or other advantage by misrepresentation or by the advocacy of an idea or issue in which he did not thoroughly believe. Equally general is the belief in Marion that he is a man who can be fair to his worst and most unfair foe.

The best-known bankers, lawyers, and professional and business men gencrally in Marion needed no suggestion to say that he has been pre-eminent in his success in bringing men's minds to meet. "Yes," I said to one of my informants, "he is a harmonizer, a conciliator." "No," was the answer, "neither of those words seems to express what I mean. He doesn't merely bring men to agree. He listens patiently to both sides, and with great

66

deliberation makes up his mind as to what is right and best, and then he brings both sides to his own way of thinking. Neither side surrenders. Neither side gains its point. But they both unite to work for something better. Sometimes each man thinks he has had his own way, but it is not his way, but Harding's." That faculty, if his friends are correct in their estimate, is to be one of Warren G. Harding's great assets in the difficult years before him as President.

If anything was needed to convince me of the correctness of this estimate, I got it yesterday in my one intimate interview with the President-elect, closeted with him in his office in the Marion "Administration House," when he said: "Few have realized the great importance and the difficulties of the task that confronted me in the campaign. I found two great opposing elements in the party, and it was my supreme task to bring them together. It was vitally necessary to do that if as President I am to render any great service to the cause of peace, to which I am deeply devoted." And then he said it all in one great and confirming gesture, when, with strong and ample arms extended to right and left, and then their open palms brought near but not quite together in one forceful sweep in which I seemed to see the Republican irreconcilable and the Republican friends of the League of Nations lifted and put down together in a common group for a great united effort behind the incoming Administration, he added: "That was my task. I had to reach out to both of those groups and unite them in a common purpose-and I have done it."

Intercourse with Marion's leading citizens, and particularly the men in Marion and elsewhere in Ohio who are known as Harding's intimate friends, brought a unanimity of expression that he is above all else a man of serious and high-minded purpose, unyielding devotion to any great cause which he may espouse, unusual patience, deliber

ation to the point of appearing to be slow; but one who by that very deliberation sees unerringly and far ahead. "He's sure-footed," they said.

Withal he is said to be possessed of a saving sense of humor. In St. Louis he answered heckling questions until they became irrelevant, whereupon he said, "As a boy I liked to listen to the wisdom of the town blacksmith and often brushed the flies from the horses he was shoeing as I asked him many questions, until one day he said to me, Warren, I would like to answer your questions if you didn't ask so many that have no sense in them." "

In my native village in Illinois I heard Lincoln in one of his great replies to Douglas in 1858. Since then I have been a student of Abraham Lincoln. Against all preconception I am compelled to say that the qualities of Warren G. Harding upon which his neighbors lay the most stress are the same as the human qualities which the world ascribes to the kindly, honest, fair-minded, peace-making, patient, farseeing, often humorous Abraham Lincoln.

Harding is deeply religious. So was Lincoln, though he belonged to no church. "I feel more given to prayerfulness that I may have strength to meet the heavy responsibilities that will be laid upon me," was Harding's response to the question if he was not jubilant over the completeness of his triumph. Like Lincoln, he is a good mixer with men. "He is the most uncommon common man I ever knew," was one of the descriptions of him I heard. He will play golf with a visiting Senator or prince of finance or industry in an afternoon, and, like as not, in the evening will say to some carpenter or typesetter, "Jim, what do you say to a game of pool?" "He is an uncommon good listener," said his pastor, Dr. McAfee. That again is Lincoln.

At the age of eleven he was a prodig ious worker when he had a chance to

MRS. WARREN G. HARDING, THE NEXT MISTRESS OF THE WHITE HOUSE

make a wage. In that year in the corncutting season the man he worked for told me that he did more than the average man's work and was paid a man's wage.

Not a Sunday passed in the last fifteen years of his mother's exemplary Christian life when he did not visit her, and always with a bunch of her favorite flowers. Of her he said," The best proof I know of the truth of the Christian religion is found in my mother's life." The pastor of the church of which he is a faithful member and trustee, who was stricken early in the summer and has been confined to a sickroom ever since, told me with much

feeling that the Senator had not allowed a week to pass, even in the stress of the active campaign, without paying him a cheering call, sometimes leaving a visiting Senator or campaign manager waiting at the gate while he made it.

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As an illustration of his grip on the affections of the common people " who thoroughly know him, it is related that when Scott B. Hayes, son of former President Hayes, came to Marion with some New York friends and learned that Senator Harding, whom they came to see, was not in the town, as he was to speak that afternoon in Columbus, the party engaged a man with a dilapidated

Ford to take them the distance of fifty miles, a job worth twenty dollars. When they tried to pay the bill, the grizzled

come

chauffeur said: "Did you men all the way out from New York to hear Warren Harding talk? Well, any men

who come all the way from New York to hear Warren Harding speak can't pay me any money."

CLIPPED WINGS

A

BY

LAURENCE

LA TOURETTE

DRIGGS

N American aviator abroad finds international courtesy somewhat strained when flying in the United States is discussed. The love of the air binds together its devotees, no matter what dialect is spoken, and the airmen's fraternity is stronger, as was evidenced in repeated acts of friendship between enemy fliers during the war, than that formed by the general run of casual alliances.

Yet in England and in France the American aviator discovers lurking behind the fraternal greetings that welcome him a sinister skepticism-an amused incredulousness of his ability and his knowledge concerning the art of flying. If a demonstration of his flying knowledge happily removes this prejudice, he is reluctantly classed as an extraordinary American, or one who has had the good fortune to reach Europe just in time to be saved.

The recent American fiasco, or debacle, attending the competition for the Gordon Bennett Cup at Etampes is precisely a case in point. Our four entries, after attracting the attention of the world to their boastful claims to speed of two hundred miles an hour and over, arrive on the field in splendor. The race is held and won by French airplanes at a speed of less than one hundred and eighty miles per hour, the American machines not even finishing.

In the European aviation journals the American finds that allusions to flying in his own country are accompanied by an editorial sneer, and that even noteworthy performances are mentioned with the silent protest of quotation marks or a question mark. He wonders that this unconcealed scorn vents itself against a nation celebrated

for its manufacturing industry, for its inventiveness and ingenuity, for its acknowledged prowess in fighting ability and athletics. Can it be true that American aviation is absolutely discredited abroad? He is willing to admit an American reputation for boastfulness which has so far overshot itself that American claims must henceforth be demonstrated before they are accepted as true. But why should flying in America, where flying was born, be ridiculed not only by the flying men, but by the public of Europe? What but by the public of Europe? What evil propaganda is responsible for this error?

IS FEAR THE ONLY INCENTIVE?

Good, better, and best, after all, are but adjectives of comparison. If there were no aviation in Europe, the present status of flying in the United States would receive world-wide wonder and renown. The fact that Europe does disdain recognition of American airplanes simply implies that greater progress has been made there in the design and manufacture of airplanes as a result of the mighty impetus given their production by a united public opinion demanding protection in war.

GREEN RIVER SALDURO SALT LAKE CITY

BRYAN

MINEOLA NEW YORK HAZELHURST DAYTON BOLLING FIELD LANGLEY FIELD

SCOTT FIELD

American communities have never experienced the horrors of bombing raids by the swift and silent airplanes. They are indifferent to the fact that the sole means of beating back these destructive fleets lies in swifter and stronger airplanes. stronger airplanes. But in London, in Paris, in Brussels, and in Cologne the public needs no enlightenment as to the aircraft's necessity or value. Europe has felt the power of aircraft. America has not.

It is frequently asserted that the war advanced the science of aviation in the world by many years. This is doubtless true so far as the nations which were in peril are concerned. Their progress has been phenomenal. But in China and Japan no helpful improvements have originated. Outside the war area no conspicuous growth in aviation has occurred. America has absorbed some few germs of fruitfulness, but lacks the impetus to progress exacted by vehement demand of the public for self-protection.

The war having ended, commerce now picks up its head and considers the airplane as a possible vehicle for intercommunication. America may not be interested in wars, but she is interested, intensely so, in com

merce.

In Europe a score and more of commercial air lines are operating on schedules, establishing hitherto undreamed of quickness of intercommunication between London, Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Berlin, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Lyons, the Riviera, Rome, Athens, and Constantinople. This means less delay between orders and deliveries, saving of interest on bills of exchange, saving of time in business abroad. Swift transportation by airplane brings the

great cities of the world close together.

AN INFANT PRODIGY

The great bugaboo of danger, which has attended the usefulness of flying since its birth, has received a shock in England since the report for twelve months' operations disclosed the fact that an average of two hundred thousand miles' flying with freight and passengers involved but one fatal accident. Railways of to-day, after decades of experiments and improvements, show scarcely a better average. And aerial transportation is yet in its infancy.

It is necessary to consider commercial aviation and war aviation as one unit if we are to progress here in the United States in the building up of our air industry. For, in short, the trouble with American aviation is that there is no aviation to speak of in America. This fact is so evident to Europeans, in contrast with their own activities, that the American aviator abroad soon discovers for himself the justice of Europe's skepticism when American performances are described.

THE VICIOUS CIRCLE

Few landing-fields exist in the United States, few airplanes are flown, few new types are produced, few pilots fly. Airplanes are not manufactured, because there are no orders for them. There are no orders because there are no landingfields and airplanes are too expensive to be risked on forced landings. The vicious circle is complete. Each factor points to the omission of the next necessary factor. And the result is that American flying is practically dead.

There are probably very few actual enemies of aviation in the United States. The public at large enjoys the spectacle of flying. The public feels annoyed that we do not get on faster in this business of aviation, and it wants to know why American pilots and manufacturers do not wake up. The pilots and the aeronautical industry say America lags behind Europe because of the lack of public support for aviation. And thus another vicious circle is found incidental to our stagnation.

Rather than risk individual capital in such hazardous business, the manufacturers of this country have turned their factories into other lines, filling only such airplane deliveries as are called for by the Army and the Navy and the air mail contracts. If a pilot wishes to pay two or three times as much as an airplane is worth, the manufacturers will gladly produce the machine for him. No other airplanes are available, except from the surplus war stock that is now several years old and is unsuitable for his wants at best.

European nations have decided that the logical way to encourage aviation is to have their governments pay for landing-fields and pay for airplanes

A BOMBARDMENT OF RHEIMS (THE CATHEDRAL CAN BE SEEN NEAR UPPER RIGHT-HAND CORNER). "EUROPE HAS FELT THE POWER OF AIRCRAFT"

used in carrying mails, used in training reserve pilots, and used for other government purposes. Landing-fields for airplanes are as necessary as are harbors for ships of the sea. And if airplanes must be provided in readiness for the defense of a nation, then the manufacturers must keep their factories in commission. Their designs must be improved to keep abreast with those of rival nations. And their output is such that a mail-carrying machine can be instantly transformed into a bombing or observation machine if the necessity arises.

UP TO THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PUBLIC

Aviation should be subsidized to at least the same extent as the merchant marine and in early days the railway mails were subsidized by the Government if the present vicious circles above mentioned are to be cut. No business corporation will undertake the opera

tion of an air line from New York to

Chicago unless the project receives the support of the National Government. This support should be forthcoming,

for the line thus established would be useful not only to the public in times of peace, but would be of great value to the Nation in war time.

Something has been the matter with our aviation from the very beginning. And that "matter," in the last analysis, is the public. Congress awaits only the public demand to help American aviation to its feet.

We made a bad mess of it in the war, and since the war we have made no improvement. Money was voted, and wasted, because the requirements for immediate results were impossible of fulfillment. What is needed now is steady competition among American producers for ever-increasing improvements in airplane performances. And for this output the manufacturers will find a ready market once the necessary landing facilities are established throughout the length and breadth of our country. For the present, both of these problems are distinctly up to the Government for solution. If they are longer neglected, even the poor remnant of the industry still surviving the war will be lost.

"LANDING FIELDS FOR AIRPLANES ARE AS NECESSARY AS ARE HARBORS FOR SHIPS OF THE SEA "