Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-03-08

cessve failures resulting in utter ruin; in
deed, dependence upon the charity of others.
| That feat has been accomplished by Ferdl-
nand Won Zeppelin. The Fatherand loves
him for 1t. And now, in his nth year, the
! aged count proposes to leap across the deep,
in one Of his mammoth shuttles and pay us
a visit (Which he assures us, will be bomb
ess).
Indeed zeppelin's affection for America is
sincere. There is a lot of sentiment behind
his proposal to come flying hither over the
defiant Atlantic
In Our Civil War
He first served his apprenticeship In mill
tary ballooninR in--or, rather, above-this
| land Of ours While our Civil War was rag
! ing he-then a dashing cavalry officer of 20
was detailed by his army as a war observer
| to travel with the Union troops During this
! service he narrowly escaped capture at Fred
| ericksburg. While attached to the Army of
| the Potomac he ascended in one of the Union
| war balloons and observed the enemy's move
ments, thereby receiving an inspiration by
| which his present Kaiser's army is now
prohting. And here we have another MADE
in-America' idea being put to by our
warlike cousins
A paunchy Teuton above medium stature,
ness of mustache, yet merrily quizzical Of
eye, is Zeppelin today. He gets his noble title
from among the first of the land barons of
Germany and one of his ancestors was min
lister to Frederick the Great, who, in his hon
or erected a monument at Ludwigsburg
(where the present count attended military
school before going up to Tuebingen Univer-
sity). Lake Constance upon whose shore the
present Count Zeppelin was born, has mir
rored the long series of pathetic failures that
but recently eliminated in the triumphs
which have made his name famous the world
over. When but IS he began these expert
ments which early convinced friends and
neighbors that he a madman He de-
voted himself first to the heavier than air
principle of flight that which was to break
so many hearts and heads. Model after
model fashioned by his dextrous hands was
sent futtering into the waveets of Lake
Constance. To watch contemporary inven-
tors he made expensive trips about Europe.
The Siege of Paris.
This period of futile experimentation was
interrupted by his military mission to Amer
lea, and 1t might here be added (as side
light upon his character) that after Lees
surrender he returned into our northern
wilderness to discover the sources Of the
than to his goal. Returning home, he took
up arms against his country's present ally,
Austria and soon after against it's present
foe, France Across the French frontier he
and 10 comrades made heroic dash on the
very day war was declared. None of the
others in the intrepid little band escaped.
But what most thrilled the plucty young
count during the Franco Prussian War was
the sight Of refugees escaping from besieged
Paris in balloons. This spectacle rewhetted
that interest in the war balloon which zeppe-
lin had first gained in America. The ultimate
result was abandonment of the heavier-than-
air for the balloon principle flight. But be-
fore these later experiments could attain the
stage of public demonstration the count
reached his Sad birthday. He now began to
demonstrate how vigorously the human mind
can create after middle life. When these eX-
periments began he possessed a magnificent
landed estate at Gyslar, Wurttemberg and a
handsome mansion in Stuttgart He was
very rich. He faced no prospect of crum-
bling fortunes.
In France he saw the noted aeronaut,
Renaud fly a cigar-shaped balloon, whose
fiabby body remained the playthng of the
wind despite the desperate efforts of its
clumsy electric motor About that time our
papers filled with glowing accounts of
aluminium Zeppelin, returning to France,
was quick to take advantage of the
metal, of which he now had wrought a light
shuttle shaped framework Of cantileVer con-
struction. Inside this he placed a water
proof envelope concealing l6 separate bal
looms. At the same time he turned to his
advantage the light engine perfected by pio-
neers then experimenting with the automo-
bile. AS a result he perfected dirigible bal
to shame, Germany appeared to have won
another victory over France
Yet scorn and opposition were still being
directed at the count by a large faction OF
his own countrymen. He was branded a
visionary, a crank. Men of influence were
warned to take no stock in him and, as these
pessimists predicted, his first dirigible was a
failure. Part Of his estate had been sold to
pay for it, Discouragement smote him, but
he was quick to recover. He saw the de-
fects that had caused the failure and de-
termined to remedy them in another model.
Faced by Ruin.
More land was sold and soon Zeppelin's
second dirigible mounted the air 1t made
record flight OF 800 miles, passing safely
through clou bursts, thunderstorms and hur-
ricanes. T. ,umph seemed within the in
yentor's grasp but while the rejoicing null
titudes were throwing up their caps il drifted
away from its moorings, unnamed, and
proved a sad failure. That was in January
1906. The Count. although now IS and gam
bling against poverty and ruin, staked his
reputation on a third monster. which after
showing great promise. fell pitiable wreck
upon the Swiss shore Of Lake Constance. The
aged inventor was now in the very depths OF
dependency. Every house and every acre