Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1908-09-17
WASHINGTON LETTER.
From our Regular Correspondent
Washington, Sept. II, 1908.

From our Regular Correspondent.
Washington, Sept. II, 1908.
The season is near when the Presi-
ent will return to the White House, the
Diplomatic Corps in their residences
in the West End and when the Cabinet
officers will once more occupy their
accustomed places in the Departments
and at Cabinet meetings. President
Roosevelt is expected here next week
and Notwithstanding the fact that there
are two very prominent men trying to
succeed him in the Presidential chair,
he is easily the most thought of and
talked of man in the country, it not in
the world. The past summer has been
the severest in the way of heat in the
memory of man and those cool Septem-
ber days and nights are most grateful
to residents and to the returning off,
cials.
The tuberculosis Congress will meet
here in few days and distinguished
specialists from all parts of the world
will assemble, read papers and ex-
chance views looking to the possible
eradication of the great white plague.
The sessions will be open to the public
and will no doubt be of interest to
many people other than the medical
profession.
During the last week, the eyes of
Washington and the rest of the world
to no little extent have been directed
to the remarkable flights of Orville
Wright at Fort Myer, near Washing.
ton. For Myer, by the way, is no fort
at all, but simply collection of resi-
dences for United States Army Officers
and of barracks and stables for cavalry
men and their horses. There are
usually about two or three hundred
men quartered at the place, which is
in Virginia, just across the Potomac
River from Washington and just back
of Arlington and the residence of the
late General Robert E. Lee. For the
past two or three weeks, Fort Myer
has been the center of the balloon and
aeroplane experiments of which all the
newspapers in the world are telling in
flaming headlines and with more or
less accurate description. The accom-
plishment of the Wright Brothers is no
doubt very remarkable, and quite un-
expectedly Orville Wright, the brother
at Fort Myer, has succeeded better
than his brother Wilbur in France.
Your correspondent spent three or four
hours last week waiting to see the
flight of the ship, which did not take
place until the following day, when I
was not there. Since then, three or
four fights have been made and the
aeroplane, with Wright who from all
appearances does not weigh more than
hundred pounds and an army lieu
tenant, went number of times around
half mile acre at an everage height
of probably fifty feet Under good
weather conditions there is apparent
ly no scientific or mechanical reason
why his machine could not fly for a
day without ceasing. The only limit
ations, it appears, would be the endur-
ance of the operator and the quantity
of fuel it could carry. OF course the
machine is not perfect, nor was the
locomotive perfect in year or two
after the first experiments with it.
The aeroplane has not yet been tested
for rough winds and rain. 1t cannot
be started without being launched
from kind of taboggan inclined plane
to give to its first momentum. 1t can
peither be started nor stopped with
the nice precision that has been OBJ
tanned with the automobile or the loco
motive. Its commercial value will of
course depend largely on improve
ments yet to be made, but it is a long
way past the experimental stage and
it is not improbable that in five or ten
years men will be able to travel in the
air with speed and concors and no
companies will be formed to insure
their lives.