The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1910-09-23

tina that half hal dsatens " sA=!e
you. The wind of
the open spaces sings in your ears
The wide wings are lifting you stead
lily higher and higher in great. sweep
Ing circles as you climb the air lad
Ter toward the zenith. The world lies
spread out beneath you like colored
nap. You feel as free as the birds
II the air; you long to measure your
speed with the eagles.
Suddenly there is crashing explo-
sion behind and beneath you, and the
wide and steady planes seem to
crumple up like a sick crows wings,
The earth seems to leap up to meet
you, and the rushing gale of air seems
to tear the breath from your lungs.
Your senses reel as the tremendous
pull of gravity hurls you and your bro
ken machine and coughing engine to
the earth Earth and sky seem to run
together in an awful burst of flame,
and blackness and blessed oblivion
blot out the clouds and the good green
earth for you forever.
1t must be in some such manner
that the aviator dies. There Is put
little evidence of the feelings that riot
through the human brain When
dropped from the clouds to the earth
beneath. Few men survive fall Oh
any height, in spite of the NUMBER
who are meeting with accidents In
their efforts to master the air. In
spite of the danger, which is admit
tedly great, the craze for the aero
plane and the sport of aviation IS
steadily growing. Yet ten years ago
the heavier-than- flyers were mere
chimeras of scientific brain.
On the seventeenth day of Decem-
Der, 1908, thin-faced man hurled him
self out into the air from sandy hill
side down in North Carolina. Inc
first of the wind riders in the worlds
history made a long, gliding flight IN
q biplane on the hill slope near kltty
Hawk. Wilbur Wright was the hrst
of the bird men to rise superior to the
air. Five years later the brother OF
the first man to fly was trying out
new and powerful aeroplane under the
direction of the officers of the United
States army. On a September after
noon the strange new machine rose IN
full flight, carrying Lieutenant Self
ridge as a passenger. Orville Wright
was at the steering wheel. A guy
wire was snapped by whirling pro-
peller. the great wings crumpled up,
the mass of debris shot to the earth,
and Selfridge, the first of long line
of martyrs to aviation. was dead at
Fort Meyer.
Since that September afternoon. less
than two years ago. % men have CIV
en- I'D their lives to conquer the elas-
tic and yet stable element--the air.
Within one week this summer eight
ayiators and dirigible balloonists have
been killed. Some notable things have
been accomplished by the earnest stu
dents and the more foolhardy or the
new school Of exhibition flyers, but the
price of success and mastery has been
over a score of lives. Some or the
men still in the game of flight have
been dangerously luJulOo eiuo "As~N
time. Several of the nations OF the
world are beginning to wake up to the
danger of inexperienced and irrespon-
sible persons making flights. Austria
has passed laws regulating attempts
If her citizens to conquer the air.
Russia has put the ban on the owning
Of machines by irresponsible persons,
hut it is generally understood that
this is because of her fear of the new
distance annihilators In the hands OF
n,hilists and the radical reds.
In the United States few folk are
beginning to wonder how long 1t will
he until something has to be done to
stop the growing death roll among
nioneers of the air. Aviators and avi-
alton were openly condemned a few
DAYS ago by an influential journal OF
Cleveland, Ohio.
"ro Those Who Exalt Themselves"
tho article was headed, and the fol-
lowing reactionary ideas were ex-
dressed: 1.-THE craze for dirigible bal.
looms and airships should be legally