The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1909-06-30
NUMEROUS FLYING
MACHINES SOON
In Ten Years From Now These Ma
chimes to be as Thick as Auto
mobiles.

In Ten Years From Now These Ma
chimes to be as Thick as Auto
mobiles.
AS a matter of horse sense and
hard facts it is a great deal easier at
the present moment to believe that
motor driven airships and flying ma
chimes will be fitting about over New
York City ten years from today than
it was to believe ten years ago that
horseless vehicles would clutter the
streets in the summer of 1903.
1t is just a question of looking the
situation boldly and honestly in the
face, asking ones self what has been
accomplished to date, then making
reasonable allowance for what human
ingenuity and enterprise will have
accomplished by the summer of 1919.
That is the only rational way of get
ting a correct focus on the future of
this business of human flight.
The period of wild speculation and
lurid dreaming has passed We are
dealing with flying as fact now,
not as fancy, and the only question
is:-Who shall fly, where shall we
1lN ana WndL VIII IL COSI!
Probably for the next ten years
there will also be the question of
when shall we fly, but those persons
who have been fortunate enough to
see the Wright brothers and Count
Zeppelin in full mastery of their
aerial craft have little doubt that the
air vehicle of the future will just as
n,l oI no1
winds and storms as the ships now
defy the gales of the sea. We may
safely leave that part of the problem
to human desire and necessity, helped
out by human invention.
1t is not quite ten years ago-No-
vember, 1899, to be exact-that the
Automobile Club of America gave its
first public parade. The club had
just been organized at the time and
had just settled the question of what
name should be given to the ridicul
Gus contrivances that wabbled
through the streets and frightened
self-respecting horses. Even at that
time the common rabble had not
learned to pronounce the word auto
mobile and still said "horseless car
riage" or devil wagon" But the
automobile club had to do something
to check rampant ridicule, so it
organized the big parade. 1t was to
start from the Waldorf-Astoria and
go to the Claremont, at 125th street.
There were to be luncheon and
speeches and big crowd and all
those things that usually go with a
great innovation which a few enthu-
siasts regard as big thing and every
body else measures as big joke.
There were seventy-siX vehicles en-
tered for the parade, about fifty
started, thirty odd reached 125th
street and scant dozen got back to
the Waldorf-Astoria in time for din
ncr.
And what a parade it Was Such
puliings and whee2ings ana splutter-
nigs and zig2ags. Engines broke
down, wheels buckled, steering gears
failed to steer. Somebody ran into
somebody and then somebody else
ran into somebody else, and so it went
all the way up Fifth avenue, while
the crowd along the curb and in the
windows whOOped and gutfawed and
said meaner things about automobiles
than they are saying now.
Then they were sarcastic because
the buzz wagons were so stupidity
slow. 1t was perfectly funny Now
they are sarcastic because they are
so fiendishly fast. It's perfectly
outrageous.
And that wasn't ten years ago.
Nine men out of ten that day were
saying oh yes, these fool things
are all right for rich folks to fuss
with, but they'll never be OF any
practical use-never in the world. |
They're too expensive, too unre-
liable, and more than all that, the
whole thing is absurd. Horses were
made to haul men just as much |
as men were made to harness
horses, so what's the use?'
But there was use. Man had |
managed to get along with the
horse for some thirty or forty CEN
turtles because he had to, not because
he wanted to. Every blessed min
ute of that time ambitious man
wanted the automobile, but he |
hadn't learned how to build it. He
wanted to go plunging through the |
city streets, killing people and pay
ing fines; he always felt that keen |
yearning to go kicking up the dust |
and soaring hens and horses on
country roads, and the only reason |
he didn't do it was because no !
dreaming crank had come along to !
build a buzz wagon.
Mans ambition to fly is tenfold |
stronger than mans ambition to
motor 1t always has been. You
can't find boy who hasn't tapped |
his arms and tried it, and you
can't find a man or woman who |
hasn't wished for it and dreamed |
OF 1t, and they had been that way |
always.
But until recently flying was re-
III