Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-16
The Majestic Science Of Aeronautics
"FulI Many Gem OF Purest Ray"
A PLEA FOR RECOGNITION
BY EDGAR LUCIEN LARkIN

TIME future writer of a history of
aeronautics in looking up data
"A must inevitably find the true
facts regarding the present aviation
display at Dominguez. Strange things
viii be surely discovered by him. Then
he will begin to really investigate; he
will hunt up every detail, every event.
Files of all the newspapers now being
turned out by hundreds of thousands
will be read with feverish interest.
Descendants of the oldest inhabitant
of Southern California will be searched
out and questioned for "reminiscences
of the Los Angeles-D -Dominguez aVia-
tion times. And the historian VIII
make a discovery of an utterly mex
plicable fact. He will be filled with
amazement and write entire chapters
not contemplated when he began writ
ing his book.
This history will record one of the
most remarkable cases of neglect in
the career of man. This is the total
want of recognition of the chief living
aeronaut-Thaddeus S. c. Lowe, whose
home is here. Great men are here
from Europe and from distant states
Of our own country. They have
worked wonders-carried the science
to O high estate-risked their lives that
we all might see the height of human
skill in air navigation and the splen-
doris of sailing in the aerial envelope
of the earth.
I have watched mono, bi and tri-
planes in their flights day after day,
hour by hour. Every form of praise
and honor should be awarded our dis
tinguished guests from abroad-espe-
cially he who ascended to such great
attitudes and remained there so long,
and to San Pedro. A few sticks,
wires, bolts and pieces of cloth were
in between the aviators and death,
which had it come would have indeed
been honorable.
But a Greater Lives Among Us
A great and good man, a profound,
strictly scientific thinker; the dean of
all aeronauts, ancient or modern, sits
in his office here in Los Angeles, reads
the papers containing hundreds of COL
umns of aerial news and looks at the
pictures of the modern machines. l
wonder what the genial and affable
professor whom all who know him
love, thinks? And what does he do?
1t may be that he opens his now his
toric box and looks over and over
again his plans and specifications of
mono and bi planes made in his early
youth-machines which contain every
scientific principle whatever involved
in any late aerial machine.
Every rigidly scientific law ruling
aeroplanes of every kind, plan or type
in use today was known to Professor
Lowe full fifty years ago. See his price
less drawings. These will be put into
vault some day-maybe in the Smith
sonian institution in Washington-for
keeping until the elements corrode
them away.
Two Possible Unhappy Nations
Professor Lowe in early youth served
the precious Union of the states. He
often ascended above the contending
armies in Virginia, at imminent danger
to life, watched movements and flashed
signals to the Federal commanders
These signals saved Washington from
capture-saved the United States from
division into two unhappy nations. On
file up here in the Lowe observatory,
founded and builded by Professor
Lowe, are most fascinating accounts
now valuable history-of his numer-
Gus ascensions, dangers encountered
and thrilling escapes from death. The
letter of Abraham Lincoln to the dar-
ing aeronaut is now beyond any ordi-
nary value. T. S. C. Lowe saved this
nation from disruption. Congress
ought. this very session, grant him
$1,000,000 1t would be much more
nearly true If the legislatures of each
and every state should appropriate to
make up this one million, or, better,
two. This mighty nation actually owes
this to the professor.
I once heard Richard T. Oglesby,
governor of illinois, say that the ma
tion owed General Grant one hundred
millions. But T. S. c. Lowe risked his
life as we'll, and perhaps as often. 1
have watched every flyer at Domin-
guez. Can one of them be made OF
great commercial use? Will any mono,
bi, tri, or multi plano ever be able to
descend to the mouth of a mine low
within a canyon, lift twenty tons of ore
out of the deeps and transport it to a
smelter. Go TO the professors office,
see sutudy and think of the admirable
plans on display.
How could a plane machine build
up speed sufficient to rise out of old
Rubio canyon beneath this obserVa-
tory? See the professors great ship,
with it's heliCopter on an arm, a radius
of an arc of circle, which is able to
at once cause the gas chamber to rise
or descend above adverse currents.
There is not one problem in aeronautics
which has not been studied and mas
tered by r. S. c.. Lowe. Air currents,
eddies, whirls, cyclones, clouds, thun
derstorms and lightnings, snoW hail,