Chapter L: M. Wainwright, president of the Diamond Chain Company, of (6)

On their arrival in New York the Wrights attended a luncheon in their honor given by the Aero Club of America. The Aero Club had awarded medals to the Wrights and these were formally presented a month later by President Taft at the White House.

After an absence of many months, the Wrights arrived in Dayton early in May. Five weeks later the city had a great celebration in their honor. The home town had now recognized the Wrights’ importance. This “home coming” for the Wrights lasted two days, June 17 and 18.

At 9 o’clock on that morning of June 17, they heard a deafening sound. It did not at once occur to them what it was. Every factory whistle in Dayton was blowing and every bell ringing--all in their honor. This continued for ten minutes. Bands were playing and cannons booming. At 10 o’clock the brothers rode in a carriage, escorted by bands, to the opening events. Ed Sines, boyhood chum of Orville, and Ed Ellis, long a friend of Wilbur, were in the carriage with them. Sines and Ellis, as a practical joke, gleefully shook hands, as if _they_ were the heroes, with all who tried to greet the Wrights along the route, and few knew the difference.

After reviewing a parade in their honor that afternoon, the Wrights returned to their shop. That night they had opportunity to see a display of fireworks that included their own profiles, eight feet high, entwined with an American flag.

During these two days, practically all business in Dayton was suspended--except the sale of souvenir postal cards showing the Huffman pasture, the Hawthorne Street home, the flying field at Le Mans, France, and the parade ground at Fort Myer.

On the second day, the inventors’ father, Bishop Wright, gave the invocation preceding the presentation of medals to his sons. One medal that had been ordered by act of Congress was presented by General James Allen, chief signal officer of the Army; another, by the Ohio legislature, was presented by Governor Harmon; and a third from the city of Dayton was presented by the Mayor. The Wrights were alongside of 2,500 school children, dressed in red, white and blue, to represent an immense American flag. Patriotic fervor ran high.

The home folk knew now that the Wrights could fly; they knew, too, that international fame had not changed them. They were the same unassuming pair they had always been.

Before the celebration was quite over, Wilbur and Orville took a train to Washington. The time for completing those Government trials at Fort Myer was approaching and there was much to be done.

Orville made his first flight on June 28, and finished on July 30. One of the most memorable of the flights in this series was on that final day when Orville, with an Army officer, Lieutenant Benjamin D. Foulois, for passenger, made the first cross-country trip yet made in an airplane, a total distance of about ten miles to Alexandria and return--without any suitable landing spots if trouble had occurred. This was the speed test. The machine now used was capable of about four miles an hour greater speed than the one in the tests the previous year. The turning point in Alexandria was at Shuter’s Hill, where a Masonic temple now stands. A captive balloon floated above the hill, and a telegraph line had been run to the top of the hill where an operator was stationed to give a signal when Orville had passed that point. But a strong wind that day blew down the telegraph line and also kept the balloon so close to the ground that Orville could not see the turning point in advance and covered more than the required distance. As the plane passed out of sight for a time on the return trip, the crowd feared the worst; but when it reappeared, headed back toward the parade ground, the honking of automobile horns and excited cheering indicated that everyone knew they had all seen an extraordinary event. The time for the ten miles was fourteen minutes, or just under forty-three miles an hour. Thus the Wrights got a bonus of $5,000 more than the basic price agreed upon--ten per cent for each complete mile per hour more than forty--and they received $30,000 for the machine.

Almost immediately after the Fort Myer trials and formal acceptance of the machine, on August 2, by the United States Government, Orville Wright, accompanied by his sister Katharine, set out for Berlin. Orville would start training a flyer for the German Wright company immediately after giving the exhibition arranged for by Captain Hildebrandt on behalf of the _Lokal Anzeiger_.

These first flights in Germany were to be made at Tempelhof field, then a military parade ground, at the outskirts of Berlin. On the day set for the initial flight, there was a terrible wind and Captain Hildebrandt, who accompanied Orville to the field, was torn between his desire not to disappoint the crowd and his fear of seeing Orville take too great a risk. Orville said he would follow Hildebrandt’s wishes.

“No,” said Hildebrandt, “don’t go up.”

The next day even more people were present. Orville made a flight of fifteen minutes. When he landed it was difficult to keep the crowd from almost smothering him with adulation. People clamored for a chance not only to look at him up close, but to _touch_ him. Men, women, and children struggled to lay gentle hands on him, even to touch his sleeve or the hem of his coat. Evidently it was some kind of belief in the desirability of physical contact with a miracle man.

After a later flight, when Orville stayed in the air fifty-five minutes, the crowd about him and Katharine, who were accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Charles R. Flint, was so dense that Orville felt duty bound to move as fast as he could away from his party, to relieve the pressure on them. Thereafter a hollow square of German soldiers kept the crowd at a safe distance.

The German Crown Prince, Frederick Wilhelm, sought to get in touch with Orville to ask the privilege of seeing a flight. He telephoned to the Wrights’ suite at the Hotel Esplanade, and the call was answered by a young German woman whom Katharine Wright had employed as interpreter when shopping.

When the girl discovered that the voice over the phone was that of a member of the royal family, she dropped the telephone receiver and almost fainted. Members of the hotel staff were not much less agitated when they learned that royalty might be calling on two of their guests.

Orville Wright and his sister were invited by Kaiser Wilhelm himself to be present--the only civilian guests--on August 29, when Count von Zeppelin would make the first trip in his latest model airship from Friedrichshafen, and land at Tegel field, Berlin.

When he met Count von Zeppelin, Orville offered to take him for an airplane ride the next day. The Count, after expressing his appreciation, pleaded lack of time. But he invited Orville to accompany him in the airship on a trip, September 5, from Frankfort to Mannheim, and Orville accepted. In the course of that trip, Orville, by using a stop-watch in his pocket and counting telephone poles, was able to tell if the reported speed of the ship was correct. (When the Wrights were in Europe in 1907, they had seen flights by government-owned dirigibles in more than one country, and had noted that the German ship, _Der Gross_, was the only one that made the speed claimed for it. All they needed to learn was the length of the airship. Then by sighting on the corner of a building, while using a stop-watch, they could tell to the fraction of a second how long it took for the ship to travel its own length.)

On the airship’s arrival at Mannheim, the crowd was so great that Orville soon became separated from Captain Hildebrandt, who had come along as his interpreter. Here he was, not knowing much German, supposed to be guest of honor at a luncheon, and he didn’t even recall the name of the hotel where the affair was to be held. A member of the committee in charge of the luncheon decided that Orville would doubtless make his way to the center of the city, in search of the right hotel, and that there was just one way to locate him--to drive about the principal streets until he caught sight of him. This man had never met Orville but he felt sure he would recognize him from pictures he had seen. The plan, to Orville’s immense relief, succeeded.

On September 16, Orville raised the world’s altitude record from 100 to 172 meters. Two days later, he made a new world’s record for a flight with a passenger. Accompanied by Captain Paul Englehardt, he flew for one hour, thirty-five minutes, forty-seven seconds.

Toward the end of his stay in Germany, Orville’s flights were at Bornstedt field, near Potsdam. It was there that he trained two pilots for the German Wright company--Captain Englehardt and Herr Keidel.

Since his first meeting with Orville, the German Crown Prince had made no secret of his eager desire to fly as a passenger. As early as September 9, Orville had made a special flight of fifteen minutes for the Crown Prince to witness. Though he was willing enough to oblige the Crown Prince by taking him for a passenger flight, he hesitated to do so, lest it might be disapproved by the Kaiser, and he made one excuse after another for delay. He had been warned that if he took the Crown Prince as passenger against the Kaiser’s wishes, then he might immediately become _persona non grata_. The prudent thing to do, it seemed to Orville, was to give members of the royal family plenty of notification. Different members of the family came to Bornstedt field from time to time, and when he met any of them Orville was sure to remark that he and the Crown Prince were going to have a flight together before long. As no one made any objection, the German Crown Prince finally became, on October 2, the first member of a royal family ever to ride in an airplane. On landing, the Crown Prince handed to Orville, as a token of appreciation, a jeweled stick-pin--a crown set in rubies, with a “W” in diamonds. (The “W” was not for Wright, but for Wilhelm, the Crown Prince’s name.)

On that same day, Orville ascended 1,600 feet for a new--though unofficial--world’s altitude record.

Orville’s farewell ascent in Germany was a twenty-five-minute flight, October 15, for Kaiser Wilhelm to see. The Kaiser was enthusiastic and frankly so. He was outspoken in expressing his belief that the airplane might revolutionize warfare, and talked about the different military uses to which the machine could be put. One thing that impressed him was the maneuverability of the plane. Orville had made complete turns within a space not much more than 100 feet wide.

Now, during the time that Orville was making these sensational demonstrations in Germany, Wilbur Wright, in America, had been doing his share to glorify the brotherly partnership. On September 29, in connection with the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, Wilbur made spectacular flights witnessed by millions of people. Two of these were over Governors Island; and another was from Governors Island around the Statue of Liberty and back again. On October 4, Wilbur flew twenty-one miles from Governors Island up the Hudson River beyond Grant’s Tomb and back to the starting point. It was one of the most daring flights yet made in an airplane, and Wilbur had taken the precaution to buy a red canoe which he roped to the lower part of the plane. The part of the canoe ordinarily open was covered with canvas to make it water-tight. Wilbur’s idea was that if anything went wrong the canoe might possibly serve as a buoy, or pontoon, to keep the machine afloat. In going up the river he flew over ferryboats, and hot gases from the smokestacks did cause the plane to make what looked like dangerous plunges.

A second flight was planned for that afternoon, and everyone who could exert influence had applied for a pass to the military reservation on Governors Island. But they were disappointed, for the engine blew a cylinder and that brought the series of flights to a close.

Almost immediately after his flights for the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, Wilbur began preparations to train two Army Signal Corps officers, as provided for in the contract for the sale of a plane to the United States Government. This was done at College Park, Maryland, near Washington. The men trained were Lieutenants Frank P. Lahm and Frederic E. Humphreys. Their instruction began on October 8 and was completed October 26. Lieutenant Lahm, who had been the first army officer ever to fly as a passenger in a plane, received the first lesson in pilotage. But Humphreys made the first solo flight, a few minutes before Lahm’s.

Wilbur also gave some lessons to Lieutenant Benjamin D. Foulois between October 23 and 27.

Orville and Katharine Wright sailed from Europe on the _Adriatic_, due in New York November 4. After leaving Germany, Orville had investigated the outlook of the recently formed French company. Already it appeared that this company would be a disappointment. Count de Lambert had given the company the best kind of advertising by flying a Wright plane over Paris, around and above the Eiffel Tower. But the French Wright company evidently was depending more on political influence and on entertaining important people than on sound salesmanship. The War Ministry hesitated to buy planes for fear of public criticism. General Picquart, the Army officer who had stood for justice in the Dreyfus case, had become Minister of War. He once inquired of the Wrights if it would be possible to buy their planes directly from them in the United States.

That would have been against provisions of the contract with the company in France, but there was another reason why it could not be done. The Wrights were not yet organized to produce planes in great numbers. Though there were now two commercial companies for the manufacture of Wright planes in Europe, no such company yet existed in America.

XVII

IN AVIATION BUSINESS

After companies to manufacture the Wright brothers’ invention had been organized in France and Germany, and a plane had been sold in Italy, it might have been expected that important business people in the United States would see commercial possibilities in the Wright patents. The inventors had, indeed, received offers. One proposal had come from two brothers, in Detroit, influential stockholders in the Packard Automobile Company, Russell A. and Frederick M. Alger--who some time before had been the first in the United States to order a Wright machine for private use. But the first American company to manufacture the plane was promoted by a mere youngster.

That was Clinton R. Peterkin. He was barely twenty-four and looked even younger. Only a year or two previously he had been with J. P. Morgan & Company as “office boy”--a job he had taken at the age of fifteen. But he had intelligently made the most of his opportunities by spending all the time he could in the firm’s inner rooms, and had learned something of how new business enterprises were started.

Now, recently returned from a stay in the West because of ill health, Peterkin wished to be a promoter, and he wondered if the Wright brothers would agree to the formation of a flying-machine company. By chance he learned that Wilbur Wright was spending a few days at the Park Avenue Hotel in New York, and in October, 1909, he went to see him.

Wilbur was approachable enough and received Peterkin in a friendly way, though he didn’t seem to set too much store by the young man’s proposals. In reply to questions, Wilbur said that he and his brother would not care to have a company formed unless those in it were men of consequence. They would want names that carried weight. Then Peterkin spoke of knowing J. P. Morgan, whom he might be able to interest.

Without making any kind of agreement or promise, Wilbur told him he could go ahead and see what he could do--doubtless assuming that he would soon become discouraged. But Peterkin saw J. P. Morgan who told him he would take stock and that he would subscribe also for his friend Judge Elbert H. Gary, head of the United States Steel Corporation.

After seeing Morgan, Peterkin was enthusiastically telling of his project to a distant relative of his, a member of a law firm with offices in the financial district. The senior partner in that law firm, DeLancey Nicoll, chanced to overhear what Peterkin was saying and grew interested. He suggested that perhaps he might be of help. That was a good piece of luck for Peterkin. He could hardly have found a better ally, for DeLancey Nicoll had an exceptionally wide and intimate acquaintance among men in the world of finance. All he needed to do to interest some of his friends was to call them on the telephone.

In a surprisingly short time, an impressive list of moneyed men were enrolled as subscribers in the proposed flying-machine company. A number of them were prominent in the field of transportation. The list included Cornelius Vanderbilt, August Belmont, Howard Gould, Theodore P. Shonts, Allan A. Ryan, Mortimer F. Plant, Andrew Freedman, and E. J. Berwind. Shonts was president of the New York Interborough subway. Ryan, a son of Thomas F. Ryan, was a director of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Plant was chairman of the Board of Directors of the Southern Express Company, and Vice President of the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railroad. Berwind, as President of the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company, had accumulated a great fortune from coal contracts with big steamship lines. Freedman had made his money originally as a sports promoter and then in various financial operations. (He later provided funds for founding the Andrew Freedman Home in New York.)

The Wrights wanted to have in the company their friends Robert J. Collier, publisher of _Collier’s Weekly_, and the two Alger brothers of Detroit. Those names were promptly added.

But the names of J. P. Morgan and E. H. Gary were not in the final list of stockholders. The truth was that some of the others in the proposed company did not want Morgan with them because they believed--probably correctly--that he would dominate the company; that where he sat would be the head of the table. One of them phoned to Morgan that the stock was oversubscribed. When he thus got strong hints that his participation was not too eagerly desired, Morgan promptly withdrew his offer to take stock for himself and Gary.

On November 22, 1909, only about a month after Peterkin’s first talk with Wilbur, The Wright Co. was incorporated. The capital stock represented a paid-in value of $200,000. In payment for all rights to their patents in the United States, the Wright brothers received stock and cash, besides a provision for ten per cent royalty on all planes sold; and The Wright Co. would thenceforth bear the expense of prosecuting all suits against patent infringers.

From the Wright brothers’ point of view, the one fly in the ointment was that they now found themselves more involved than ever before in business affairs. It had been their dream to be entirely out of business and able to give their whole time to scientific research.

The company opened impressive offices in the Night and Day Bank Building, 527 Fifth Avenue, New York, but the factory would be in Dayton. In January, 1910, Frank Russell, a cousin of the Algers, who had been appointed factory manager, arrived in Dayton and went to see the Wrights at their office over the old bicycle shop. As the brothers had no desk space to offer him, they suggested a room at the rear of a plumbing shop down the street where he might make temporary headquarters. According to Russell, Wilbur Wright came there a day or two later carrying a basket filled with letters, directed to The Wright Co., that had been accumulating.

“I don’t know what you’ll want to do about these,” Russell has reported Wilbur as jokingly saying; “maybe they should be opened. But of course if you open a letter, there’s always the danger that you may decide to answer it, and then you’re apt to find yourself involved in a long correspondence.”

At first The Wright Co. rented floor space in a factory building, but almost immediately the company started to build a modern factory of its own, and it was ready for use by November, 1910. Within a short time after the company started operations in its rented space it had a force of employees at mechanical work and was able to produce about two airplanes a month.

The Wrights well knew that the time was not yet for the company to operate profitably by selling planes for private use. Their main opportunity to show a good return on the capital invested would be from public exhibitions. Relatively few people in the United States had yet seen an airplane in flight and crowds would flock to behold this new miracle--still, in 1910, almost incredible.

As soon as they decided to give public exhibitions, the Wrights got in touch with another pioneer of the air, Roy Knabenshue, a young man from Toledo, who had been making balloon flights since his early teens, and was the first in the United States to have piloted a steerable balloon. They had previously become acquainted with Knabenshue. Because of his curiosity over anything pertaining to aerial navigation, he had once subscribed to a press-clipping bureau which sent him anything found in the papers about aeronautics; and in this way he had been able to read an occasional news item about the two Dayton men said to have flown. With a fairly irresistible impish grin, Knabenshue never had much trouble making new acquaintances, and he decided to call upon the Wrights.

That was before the Wright flights at Fort Myer and in France, and the brothers were not then interested when Knabenshue suggested that they sell him planes for exhibitions.

“Well,” he said, “I have been making airship flights at the big state fairs, besides promoting public exhibitions, and I know how to make the proper contacts. You may have heard about my flights in a small dirigible at the St. Louis World’s Fair. If you ever decide to give exhibitions, just let me know.”

Though exhibitions had been farthest from the Wrights’ thoughts at the time of that first meeting with Knabenshue, now the situation was different. Roy Knabenshue would probably be the very man they needed. They sent a telegram to him and he received it at Los Angeles. He wired back that he would see them as soon as he returned to Ohio. This he did soon afterward. The result of their conversation was that Roy took charge of the work of arranging for public flights. He had need of a competent secretary and an intelligent young woman, Miss Mabel Beck, came to take the job. This was her first employment and she seemed a bit ill at ease, lest her work might not be satisfactory; but almost immediately she became an extraordinarily good assistant--so good, in fact, that Wilbur Wright afterward selected her to work with him in connection with suits against patent infringers, and after his death she became secretary to Orville Wright, in which position, at this writing, she still is.

By the time Knabenshue had started planning for public exhibitions, Orville Wright had begun the training of pilots to handle the exhibition planes being built. The weather was still too wintry for flying at Huffman field, now leased by The Wright Co., and it was necessary to find a suitable place in a warmer climate. The field selected was at Montgomery, Alabama. (Today known as Maxwell Field, it is used by the United States Government.)

Shortly after his arrival at Montgomery, early in 1910, Orville Wright had a new experience in the air. While at an altitude of about 1,500 feet he found himself unable to descend, even though the machine was pointed downward as much as seemed safe. Brought up to have faith in the force of gravity, he didn’t know at first what to make of this. For nearly five minutes he stayed there, in a puzzled state of mind bordering on alarm. Later it occurred to him that the machine must have been in a whirlwind of rising air current of unusual diameter, and that doubtless he could have returned quickly to earth if he had first steered horizontally to get away from the rising current.

The first pilot Orville trained was Walter Brookins of Dayton. “Brookie” was a logical candidate for that distinction, for since the age of four he had been a kind of “pet” of Orville’s. After Orville had left Montgomery and returned to Dayton on May 8, Brookins himself became an instructor. He began, at Montgomery, the training of Arch Hoxsey, noted for his personal charm and his gay, immaculate clothes; and also that of Spencer C. Crane.

On his return to Dayton, Orville opened a flying school at the same Huffman field[14] the Wright brothers had used for their experiments in 1904–5. Here he trained A. L. Welsh and Duval LaChapelle. When Brookins arrived there from Montgomery, near the end of May, he took on the training of Ralph Johnstone and Frank T. Coffyn, besides completing the training of Hoxsey. Two others trained at the same field later in the year were Phil O. Parmalee and C. O. Turpin.

Orville Wright continued to make frequent flights until 1915, personally testing every new device used on a Wright plane. (He did not make his final flight as a pilot until 1918.) More than one person who witnessed flights at the Huffman field (or at Simms station, as the place was better known) has made comment that it was never difficult to pick Orville Wright from the other flyers, whether he was on the ground or in a plane. Students, and instructors too, would be dressed to the teeth for flying, with special suits, goggles, helmets, gauntlets, and so on; but Orville always wore an ordinary business suit. He might put on a pair of automobile goggles and shift his cap backward, and on cold days he would turn up his coat collar; but otherwise he was dressed as for the street. When he was in the air anyone could recognize who it was--from the smoothness of his flying. And when he wished to test the control and stability of a plane, he would sometimes come down and make figure eights at steep angles with the wing tip maybe not more than a few feet from the grass.

The public was no longer unaware of the significance of the flights at Huffman field. Sightseers began to use every possible pretext to come as close to the planes as possible. One evening as Orville Wright was standing near the hangar, a bystander edged up to him.

“I flew with Orville Wright down at Montgomery,” he declared, “and he told me to make myself at home here.”

Never before having seen Orville, he had mistaken him for an employee.

Three flights at Huffman field in May, 1910, were especially noteworthy. A short one by Wilbur--one minute twenty-nine seconds--on May 21, was the first he had made alone since his sensational feats starting from Governors Island. And it was the last flight as a pilot Wilbur ever made. But on May 25 he and Orville flew for a short time together--with Orville piloting--the only occasion when the Wright brothers were both in the air at the same time. Later that same day, Orville took his father, Bishop Milton Wright, then eighty-two years old,[15] for his first trip in a flying-machine. They flew for six minutes fifty-five seconds, most of the time at about 350 feet. The only thing that Bishop Wright said while in the air was a request to go “higher, higher.”

The average charge by The Wright Co. for a series of exhibition flights at a county fair or elsewhere was about $5,000 for each plane used. At Indianapolis, the scene of the first exhibition, five planes were used. The weather was not ideal for the Indianapolis event, but the crowd was much impressed. Another early exhibition was at Atlantic City, where, for the first time, wheels were publicly used on a Wright machine for starting and landing.

Roy Knabenshue knew from his experience in making public airship exhibitions, that it was not enough to go where a fair or carnival was to be held and suggest airplane flights as a feature. To get all the business possible for his company he must promote exhibition flights in places where no such big outdoor events were yet contemplated. He particularly desired to have flights made in large cities where newspaper reports of the event would attract attention over a large area and aid him in making further bookings. With this in mind he went to Chicago and started inquiries to learn whether public-spirited citizens there would be willing to underwrite a big public demonstration of aviation along the lake front. Several people told him the man he should see was Harold McCormick, one of the controlling stockholders in the wealthy International Harvester Company. He went at once to McCormick’s offices in the Harvester Building. But when he reached the outer office, he discovered that it was not easy to get any farther.

“What was it you wished to see Mr. McCormick about?” asked a secretary.

“I don’t wish to sell him anything,” Roy explained, smiling in a manner that should have won confidence, but didn’t. “Please just say to him that there’s a man here who has an important suggestion for him.”

“But if you’ll tell me what the suggestion is,” the secretary proposed, “then he can let you know if he is interested.”

“No, I’ll tell you what you do,” countered Roy. “Please hand my card to him and let him decide if he wishes to see me.”

The secretary reluctantly took Roy’s card which indicated that he represented The Wright Co. of Dayton, Ohio. A moment later the secretary returned to say that Mr. McCormick was too busy to see anyone.

Roy walked out of the building into Michigan Avenue, discouraged.

“No matter how good an idea you’ve got,” he reflected, “and no matter how much some of these big executives might be interested, you don’t get a chance to tell them about it.”

As he strolled along, his eye chanced to fall on a big sign that read: “Think Of It. The _Record-Herald_ Now One Cent.” Then he remembered that the Chicago _Record-Herald_, rival of the _Tribune_ in the morning field, had recently reduced its price and was making a big bid for increased circulation. He also recalled that H. H. Kohlsaat, owner of the _Record-Herald_, had known his father. Using his father’s name for an introduction, he had little difficulty, a half hour later, in gaining access to Kohlsaat’s private office to tell him what was on his mind. The publisher grew interested. Yes, it might be a good idea to have some airplane flights along the lake front and invite the public to see them as guests of the _Record-Herald_. Before he left the office, Roy had the preliminary arrangements all made.

On the opening day of the big event, when Walter Brookins, as pilot, was about to take off on the first flight, Knabenshue remarked to him: “That corner window on the fourth floor of the Harvester Building is in the office of a man I hope will see what’s going on.”

The next day Knabenshue appeared once again at Harold McCormick’s office in the Harvester Building and presented his business card to the same secretary he had met on his previous visit.

After looking at the card, the secretary, without waiting to consult anyone, said: “Oh, yes, you’re with The Wright Company. I’m sure Mr. McCormick will wish to see you. Just step this way.”

Roy had made this call partly as a kind of practical joke--for the satisfaction of entering an office where he had once been denied. But as a result of the talk he then had with McCormick, it was arranged that a committee of Chicago citizens should sponsor, the next year, another aviation meeting there, to be the biggest thing of the kind ever held.

Meanwhile, on the final day of the 1910 exhibitions at Chicago, Brookins made the first long cross-country flight, 185 miles, to Springfield, Illinois. It was not, however, a non-stop flight. He made one landing in a cornfield, and it was necessary to obtain permission from the farm owner to cut a wide strip across the field to provide space for the plane to take off.

In that same year, 1910, Dayton people saw the first flight over the city itself. Thousands had now seen flights at the Huffman field, Simms station, but no flight had ever been made nearer than eight miles to the home town where successful flying was conceived. The Greater Dayton Association was holding, in September, an industrial exhibit, but it was operating at a loss. Those in charge of the exhibit saw that something would have to be done to arouse interest. Orville Wright was asked if he would start at Simms station, fly to Dayton and circle over the city. He agreed and the newspapers announced the flight for the next day. It was stirring news--even to Katharine Wright. She had started to Oberlin to attend a college meeting, but, when on her arrival there she happened to see a newspaper item about Orville’s flight scheduled for the next day, she hastened home at once.

Another premier event in 1910 was when an airplane for the first time in the world was used for commercial express service. The Morehouse-Martin Co., a department store in Columbus, Ohio, arranged to have a bolt of silk brought from Huffman field to a driving park beyond Columbus. The distance of more than sixty miles was covered at better than a mile a minute, then considered fast airplane speed; and the “express fee” was $5,000, or about $71.42 a pound. But within a day or two the store had a good profit on the transaction, for it sold small pieces of the silk for souvenirs, and the gross returns were more than $6,000.

Then, at Belmont Park, New York, in late October, 1910, Wright planes participated in a great International Aviation Tournament. All other planes taking part were licensed by The Wright Co.

Orville Wright now devoted his time mainly to supervision of engineering at the factory of The Wright Co. Wilbur was kept busy looking after the prosecution of suits against patent infringers and in March, 1911, he went to Europe in connection with suits brought by the Wright company of France. From France he went to Germany and while there called at the home of the widow of Otto Lilienthal to offer his homage to the memory of that pioneer in aviation whose work had been an inspiration to the Wrights.

After Wilbur’s return to America, Orville spent several weeks in October, 1911, at Kitty Hawk, where he went to do some experimenting with an automatic control device and to make soaring flights with a glider. In camp with him were Alec Ogilvie of England, who flew a Wright plane, Orville’s brother Lorin, and Lorin’s ten-year-old boy, “Buster.” On account of the presence of a group of newspapermen who appeared and were at the camp each day during his entire stay at Kitty Hawk, Orville never tested the new automatic device; but before his soaring experiments were over he had made, on October 24, a new record, soaring for nine minutes forty-five seconds. (This was to remain the world’s record until ten years later when it was exceeded in Germany.)

That same year, 1911, The Wright Co. benefited from another aviation record. Cal P. Rodgers, who had received some of his flying training at the Wright School, made--between September 11 and November 5--the first transcontinental airplane trip, from New York to California.

New as their line of business was, The Wright Co. was profitable from the start--especially so during the first year or two when the sight of a flying-machine was still a novelty and contracts for exhibition flights were numerous. (It might have been more profitable if the Wrights had not insisted that no contracts be made to include flights on Sunday.) But inevitably the exhibition part of the business began to taper off--and such profits as might still have come from it were reduced by the persistent illegal competition of patent infringers. More and more, the company’s dealings were with the United States Army and Navy and with private buyers of planes. The first private plane sold had gone to Robert J. Collier, and others seeking the excitement or prestige of owning a plane had been making inquiries. The retail price of a plane was $5,000.

With aviation thus becoming more practical, the Wrights were receiving from their invention a form of reward they had never expected. They would now have wealth, not vast, but enough to enable them to look forward to the time when they might retire and work happily together on scientific research. They were making plans, too, for their new home on a seventeen-acre wooded tract they had named Hawthorn Hill, in the Dayton suburb of Oakwood. But tragic days were ahead. Early in May, shortly after visiting the new home site with other members of the family, Wilbur was taken ill. What at first was assumed to be a minor indisposition proved to be typhoid fever. Worn out from worries over protecting in patent litigation the rights he knew were his and his brother’s, he was not in condition to combat the disease. After an illness of three weeks, despite the best efforts of eminent specialists, early in the morning of Thursday, May 30, 1912, Wilbur Wright died. He was aged only forty-five years and forty-four days.

Messages of condolence and expressions of the world’s loss poured in from two hemispheres, among them those from heads of governments.

Orville Wright succeeded his brother as president of The Wright Co.

In June, 1913, Grover Loening, a young man who had become acquainted with Wilbur at the time of the Hudson-Fulton exhibition flights, came to The Wright Co. as engineer, and then became factory manager. Loening had the distinction of being the first person in the United States to study aeronautical science in a university.

Business affairs had been complicated earlier that year by the fact that Dayton had the worst flood in its history. The Wright factory was not under water but not many of the employees could reach the building. Among the hundreds of houses under water was the Wright home on Hawthorne Street. To Orville a serious part of the loss there was the damage to photographic negatives showing his and Wilbur’s progress toward flight. But the negative of the famous picture of the first power flight was not much harmed.

Accompanied by his sister, Orville made his last trip to Europe in 1913, on business relating to a patent suit in Germany. At about the same time he sanctioned the forming of a Wright company in England. Before Wilbur’s death, there had been opportunities for a company in England, but the brothers had held back because all the offers appeared to be purely stock promotions in which the names of members of the English nobility would appear as sponsors. The British company as finally organized did not make planes itself, but issued licenses for use of the patents. Within a year after it was formed the English company accepted from the British Government a flat payment for all claims against the government, for use of the Wright patents up to that time and during the remainder of the life of the basic patents. Though the amount paid was no trifling sum, the settlement was widely applauded by prominent Englishmen, among them Lord Northcliffe, as showing a generous attitude on the part of the patent owner--about as little as could have been compatible with full recognition of the priority of the Wrights’ invention.

By this time, The Wright Co. had more applications to train student pilots than they could handle. Even a few young women wished to become pilots.

Two capable students, of a somewhat earlier period, destined to go far in aviation, were Thomas D. Milling, later General Milling, of the United States Army Air Corps; and Henry H. Arnold, who during the Second World War was Lieutenant General Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Forces and Deputy Chief of Staff for Air.

One unfortunate student pilot, who had begun his training at the Wright School in 1912, later got himself into much trouble. This man became one of the best flyers in the United States. As he had plenty of money he bought a plane of his own, and he used to give free exhibitions at his estate near Philadelphia. In one way or another he did much for aviation. But in 1917, when the United States entered the First World War, that young pilot refused to register in the draft and became notorious as a draft evader. His name? Grover Cleveland Bergdoll. The early Wright plane he had bought is today on exhibition at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. It is believed to be the only authentic Model B--the first model built by The Wright Co.--in existence.

In 1914, Orville Wright had bought the stock of all other shareholders in The Wright Co., except that of his friend, Robert J. Collier, who, for sentimental reason, wished to retain his interest. Orville’s motive in acquiring almost complete ownership of the company had been as a step toward getting entirely out of business. Both he and Wilbur Wright had agreed to stay with the company for a period of years, not yet expired, and he could not honorably dispose of his own holdings so long as those with whom he had made the agreement were still in the company. But almost immediately after buying the shares of the others, he let it be known that he might be willing to sell his entire interest. To this, Collier, the only other shareholder, agreed. In 1915, Orville received an offer and gave an option to a small group of eastern capitalists that included William Boyce Thompson and Frank Manville, the latter president of the Johns-Manville Co. The deal was closed in October, 1915.

Just after Orville had given his option to the eastern syndicate, Robert J. Collier came to tell him an important piece of news, and to urge him not to sell just yet.

Collier had been having some talks with his friend, the wealthy Harry Payne Whitney, and had urged upon him the idea of doing what Collier thought would be a wonderful piece of philanthropy that would mean much for the future of aviation in the United States. What Collier wanted him to do was to buy the stock of The Wright Co., thus gaining ownership of the Wright patents, and then immediately make the patents free to anyone in the United States who wished to manufacture airplanes.

Whitney was willing to carry out the Collier suggestion. To do so he was also ready to pay more for the stock of The Wright Co. than the syndicate had offered.

But Orville explained to Collier that the option already given was legally drawn and the holders presumably wished to exercise it.

Collier’s daring idea and Whitney’s generous acceptance of it had come just a little too late.

XVIII

PATENT SUITS

The Wrights had found that patents covering the basic features of their invention were not enough protection against infringers. Indeed, having the technical details on file in the Patent Office, where anyone who desired might see them, was, in a way, to the advantage of those who would help themselves to an inventor’s work and ideas. Only a decision in the courts could determine the justice of an inventor’s claims. But the courts work slowly and legal procedure is expensive. Except for their good fortune--never contemplated when they started--in realizing substantial sums from their invention, the brothers might not have been financially able to carry on the fight that finally gave them world-wide recognition as the first to contrive a successful flying-machine.

Altogether the brothers had active part in a dozen different suits in the United States against infringers--and there were suits in France and Germany in each of which about a dozen infringers were involved. Most of the suits in the United States did not go beyond the early stages, as the infringers were not disposed to continue after a preliminary injunction had been issued. But three suits were of special importance. One of these was against Louis Paulhan, French aviator, who was about to give exhibitions in the United States, using planes made in France. Another was against Claude Grahame-White, English aviator, also about to give exhibitions in the United States with planes that infringed the Wright patents. The most important suit of all was against the Herring-Curtiss Co. and Glenn H. Curtiss. This case was bitterly contested and was carried up to the U. S. Court of Appeals. It was brought by the Wright brothers, late in 1909, but The Wright Co., formed shortly afterward, succeeded the brothers as complainants.

Because of the importance of this suit in aviation history, it is worth while to examine the background of the relations between the Wrights and Glenn Curtiss. The Wrights’ personal acquaintance with Curtiss began in May, 1906, when he wrote to them in regard to the light motors of which he was a manufacturer. Then in early September, 1906, Curtiss visited the Wright office and workshop. He was brought there by his friend, Captain Thomas S. Baldwin, a well-known aeronaut, who was giving exhibition flights in Dayton with his dirigible balloon on which he used a motor he had persuaded Curtiss to build for him. It was to make repairs on that motor that Curtiss had come to Dayton.

After that meeting, the four men, Curtiss, Baldwin, and the Wrights, were together much of the time for several days. When in response to questions about their work, the Wrights showed a number of photographs of their flights made at the Huffman pasture during the two previous years, Curtiss seemed much astonished. He remarked that it was the first time he had been able to believe anyone had actually been in the air with a flying-machine.

Long afterward, in an interview in the New York _Times_ (February 28, 1914), Baldwin recalled the many talks he and Glenn Curtiss had with the Wrights in that fall of 1906. “I sometimes suggested to Curtiss,” Baldwin told the interviewer, “that he was asking too many questions, but he kept right on. The Wrights had the frankness of schoolboys in it all and had a rare confidence in us. I am sure Curtiss at that time never thought of taking up flying.”

A year after the Wrights’ first meetings with Curtiss, in October, 1907, the Aerial Experiment Association was formed by Alexander Graham Bell and others, with headquarters first in Nova Scotia and later at Hammondsport, N. Y., where Curtiss lived. He became “Director of Experiments.” This was the first time Curtiss had been directly connected with aviation except as a manufacturer of motors, and three months later, a letter he wrote to the Wrights indicated that motors rather than aviation were still his chief interest. “I just wish to keep in touch with you,” he wrote, “and let you know that we have been making considerable progress in engine construction.” After listing and describing the various engines he was building, he proposed to furnish to the Wrights “gratis” one of his fifty-horsepower engines. But the offer was not accepted. The letter mentioned that Captain Baldwin was a “permanent fixture in this establishment”--a fact not without importance, considering information that Baldwin was later to reveal. Further on in the letter, Curtiss told of Dr. Bell’s reading to the members of the Aerial Experiment Association the United States Government’s specifications for the purchase of a flying-machine, and added: “You, of course, are the only persons who could come anywhere near doing what is required.”

About a fortnight after receipt of that letter from Curtiss, the Wrights got another letter dated January 15, 1908, written on Aerial Experiment Association stationery, and signed by Lieutenant T. Selfridge, whose name appeared on the letterhead as secretary of the association. (This was the same Selfridge who was killed a few months later in the tragic airplane accident at Fort Myer.) In that letter, Selfridge, on behalf of the Experiment Association, said:

I am taking the liberty of writing you and asking your advice
on certain points connected with gliding experiments, or rather
glider construction, which we started here last Monday.

Will you kindly tell me what results you obtained on the travel
of the center of pressure both on aerocurves and aeroplanes?

Also, what is a good, efficient method of constructing the
ribs of the surfaces so that they will be light and yet strong
enough to maintain their curvature under ordinary conditions,
and a good means of fastening them to the cloth and upper
lateral cords of the frame?

I hope I am not imposing too much by asking you these questions.

Supposing the information would be used only for scientific purposes, the Wrights obligingly replied at once as follows:

You will find much of the information you desire in the
addresses of our Mr. Wilbur Wright before the Western Society
of Engineers, published in the Journals of the Society of
December, 1901, and August, 1903.

The travel of the center of pressure on aeroplanes is from
the center at 90 degrees, toward the front edge as the angle
becomes smaller. The center of pressure on a curved surface is
approximately at its center at 90 degrees, moves forward as the
angle is decreased until a critical angle is reached, after
which it reverses, and moves toward the rear edge. The critical
angle varies for different shaped curves, but is generally
reached at some angle between 12 and 18 degrees. With the
angles used in gliding flight the travel will be between the
center of the surface and a point one-third back from the front
edge.

The methods of construction used in our gliders are fully
described in an article by Mr. Chanute in the _Revue des
Sciences_ in 1903 (we do not remember the month) and in the
specifications of our United States patent, No. 821,393.

The ribs of our gliders were made of second growth ash, steamed
and bent to shape.

Selfridge replied in a few days saying he had been able to obtain a copy of the patent and would endeavor to get the other references the Wrights had supplied.

The data must have been useful to the Aerial Experiment Association for early the following summer, Glenn Curtiss, “Director of Experiments” had a power-driven airplane, called the “June Bug,” in which he made a flight on July 4, 1908, at Hammondsport. That flight created the belief in the minds of many who were not fully informed that the Aerial Experiment Association must have done an amazing job of original research. This belief was encouraged by the fact that after the Aerial Experiment Association began building and experimenting with flying-machines, using much information they had obtained from the Wrights, they neglected, in public statements about their work, to so much as mention the Wright brothers.

Soon after the report of the flight of the “June Bug,” there appeared in the press a statement that the Aerial Experiment Association was disbanding, and that Glenn H. Curtiss was going to engage in exhibition flying. That news led Orville Wright to send to Curtiss the following letter:

I learn from the _Scientific American_ that your “June Bug”
has movable surfaces at the tips of the wings, adjustable to
different angles on the right and left sides for maintaining
the lateral balance. In our letter to Lieutenant Selfridge of
January 18th, replying to his of the 15th, in which he asked
for information on the construction of flyers, we referred
him to several publications containing descriptions of the
structural features of our machines, and to our U. S. patent
No. 821,393. We did not intend, of course, to give permission
to use the patented features of our machine for exhibitions or
in a commercial way.

This patent broadly covers the combination of sustaining
surfaces to the right and left of the center of a
flying-machine adjustable to different angles, with vertical
surfaces adjustable to correct inequalities in the horizontal
resistances of the differently adjusted wings. Claim 14 of our
patent No. 821,393 specifically covers the combination which
we are informed you are using. We believe it will be very
difficult to develop a successful machine without the use of
some of the features covered in this patent.