The San Francisco call., 1896-11-24

benw ever since what became of It,
IRVING vi. SCOTT

not a word to take back of all that has
been reported. 1t was truthful, reliable
interview and THE CALL is the only paper
that has reported me correctly. The
stories in the evening papers that had
denied the interview were false and the
writers actually told me that they were
going to write such stuff before they left
my Office.
''Since the fact was published that am
the attorney for the inventor I have not
seen my client. We mailed the papers re-
garding the patent TO Washington last
week and expect to hear soon of their ar
rival. do not know when 1 shall see my
client again, but / expect him any day.
He is a man that impressed me with the
idea of being perfectly able to ma mage his
own affairs, and have no doubt he knows
what he is doing.
81 wish to correct one idea that seems
to be prevalent. Some papers have pub.
lished the fact that the inventor is an
Oroville man. ! have not said So He is
San Francisco man, but he has con-
structed his machine near Oroville. did
say this afternoon to the reporters of the
San Francisco evening papers that the
story as published in the Chronicle was a
fake. Not only that 1 told the young
fellow from the Chronicle that he had
grossly misrepresented me in his inter-
view where he quoted me as having said
l saw the airship work, the inventor hav-
ing come here, and, after talking to me
while, getting into it and moving away
The statement that had seen it working
at all is false.
"As told you before, as told him, and
as l now repeat it. all l know is that l
have been appealed to by man who ap-
pears perfectly sound to act as his attorney
in securing for him a patent on his inveu-
ton. 1t would be presumptious for me to
say the story that an airship was being
worked about the bay was fake, when it
is taken into consideration the mum Der of
people who stake their reputation on
having seen one. Even if it was not the
ship of the man who came to see me, it is
not for me to say that these people have
not seen an airship. There is more than
one man st work on the question of aerial
navigation, and some one is bound to
solve it as they did the steam-engine and
the electrician. 1 am as skeptical regard
ing the actual working of the craft as any
it is an impossibility.
II was told in this city to-day that the
Chronicle had secured a man-one DR..
Ben niamin, 1 believe to maintain
throughout that the invention is his and
that he is the one who has been going
about the heavens at night. He is to saw
that he has paid me $500 as retainer and
that am to have $500 when the patents
are issued. This is along the line of their
story as first told, and it must be kept up
at any cost. desire to denounce the
whole story in advance as a pure fake to
support the wild Imagination of one of
their reporters. 1t places me in an unfair
light before the public and Injuries nv
business to have such stories set afoat
when there is not the least foundation for
them.
when the Examiner man came to me
Sunday afternoon he told me that his
paper had the whole story and knew the
inventor and would publish it this morn
ing. They did not particularly care, he
said, for my version, but would like to
have it just to verify what they knew.
The bold bluff did not work and the story
in to-day's Examiner trying 10 ridicule
the affair, but at the same time leaving
loopholes to escape, was the result
There is no denying the fact that the
public has been aroused to a high pitch of
expectation by the reports published. The
Examiner sent a man TO me to-day who
said they had treated the whole affair as
huge joke, but found that the people were
looking at it in serious manner and they
were ready to give the news as received,
regardless of how improbable it might
look He asked me to give a true account
of the matter as far as 1 knew anything,
but when 1 denied having seen the ma
chine work or having ridden in 1t he
laughed and said was hedging"