Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-03-09

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R-axx/~ and what it meant to them
4 EmpL@T-sxI in dollars and cents And not
-Nf2kyEwN the least of these is Lincoln
"a 49, Beachey.
Seven years ago nineteen
year-old boy came to the bal
loon shed of Captain Baldwin and begged to be hired
as helper in the veterans corps. The boy said he
had been interested in balloons since the be-
FORE when he had dirgble rise into the air at
country fair. Baldwin, being short of me chancs and
liking the boys appearance, hired him at small salary
So did Lincoln Beachey begin to morey from the
air He went to work in the Captains she'd and it was
not long before the other began to comment his
persistent inqustiveness Always he asking ques-
TONS questions about the smallest details And always
the answers given willingly; for the other
liked Beachey, liked his hands, def and quick moving,
the kind of hands mechanics admire.
A year passed, and Beachey having learned every
thing there to be learned in the mechanics shed,
appeared the operator of drgble Also his salary
had multiplied five times; for he receiving five
thousand dollars year. So he played the county fair
circuits until the demand for balooning exhibitions fell
before the rush of the aeropane The step into aviation
short and by the spring of 1911 Beachey with his
utter recklessness had become the most sought flyer
in America Apparently Indifferent to death, he thrilled
huge crowds, poured money into the boxoces and in
year-so say his employers, the Curtss Company
Beacheys individual earnings sixty thousand dol
lars
Beachey is the most businesslike of the flyers. He
always appears schedule, and never dsappoints
crowd. Last year he flew two hundred and fifty
days, averaging fifty miles day. totalng twelve thou
sand five hundred mles,-a weird journey of perilous
spraling and swoopng, with Death riding beside him.
Never baking at wind ra1n absolutely fearless with
the face of boy and the heart of lion Beachey has
scared into the air and drawn down the gold it holds.
Also this twenty yeaT-old man who made his sixty
thousand dollars year is said to have saved most of it.
Like VedrneS, he ought to be very rich.
put Beachey flew for Glenn H. Curtiss and to do
= that to fly for big money. Before he killed
Eugene Ely made thirty thousand dollars year, ]. A.
d. McCurdy ten thousand less Also the Curtiss Com
pany said to have made half million by sending its
exhibition team round the country They worked the
small towns and county fairs two and three days at
time In 1911 nearly three hundred towns visited
by the Curss corps Their method was to approach real
estate boomers boards of trade in fact every type Of
booster, and to watch "The Clipper and Billboard
for "Aviators Wanted" advertisements
Curtiss made the exhibition game pay we'll AS you
may know he hand to-mouth motor cycle
racer glad to pick up what he could by driving his
chine at whatever track it could be booked. Today,
supposed to be worth close to million dollars, Curss
has company bearing his name and exhibiting and
manufacturing the bipanes OF his design With his three
hundred thousand dollars it is not difficult to how
he became rich.
All the Curtiss aviators work percentage basis.
The better known men like Beachey receive fifty per
cent of the company fifty per cent share of the gate
receipts. Other aviators not well known receive
only thirty five per cent Still for most of his men
Curtiss has made the exhibition game profitable. I'm
like Vedrnes, he is sitting back and letting others
bring down to him the wealth of the skies.
INDEED to start from mechanic bench would seem
to be to start for riches for did Louis Pauhan begn
throw aside the unronantc tools of an engine
attach himself to the romantic forces of Henri
Farman few years ago the penniless hangeron of
inventors camp, Paulhan is today the controlling part
ner OF the prosperous firm of Paulhan Tatin, manu-
facturers of aeropanes The government of France is
buying his products fast they be turned out
Being in Farman's camp it was not long before the
keen Paulhan made himself aviator. His first big
step to success with the race the English
don to Manchester
Entering comparative Mo