New-York tribune., 1918-05-16

! half turn and half bow to the right
and summarily kissed a girl in rcd
toquo.
That was ALL
The three hundred or so privileged d
men and women who had travelled to
the track in special train and private
cars were considerable way off in dis
tance; much further off in thought.
The man who held their eyes and ears
He had begun by recalling to them that
Byron r. Newton, the present day Col
! lector of the Port--which was himself
had one day been reporter.
! Assigned to Show Up "Humbug"
After that. naturally enough. he had
drifted into reporter story, with the
late James Gordon Bennett figuring in it
at the other end of his fayorite cable
Bennett had sent Newton into the
marshes of North Carolina. The re-
porter's mission, in the words in which
his assignment came to him, was "to
show up the humbug those Wright
brothers are putting over"
ut was just ten years ago to-day,
almost to the very hour" said the
story, teller. "The other reporters and
myself had slept in trees the night
before. We heard a racket
From off stage ensued a hubbub as
timely as if Newton, raconteur, had a
trap-drummed on his staff. The noise,
a sputter and roar and another sput-
ter, subsidized. No one bothered about
1T. The speaker went on:
1--WE were all trained newspaper men
and we all had cameras, but not soul
had the presence of mind to click n
shutter on the sight that crashed upon
US. 1T was heavier than air machine.
IL was OFT the ground, over the trees.
Jimmy Hare, Golfers photographer.
Let let shout out of him: BY God!
men!'"
=, The off-stage disturbance resumed
Newton went right ahead. His listen
ers crowded closer. Even at that thew
missed few sentences, but the noise
grew fainter before the thread of mar
rative had snapped.
Suspended for "Faking"
Newton, it seemed, had wired his
story to New York and followed it by
boat. "The Herald" had printed it
and Herald" messenger was on hand
to receive the writer. The letter he
delivered announced Newton's suspen-
sion from the staff for six weeks for
taking" The trusted reporter had
nett said "The Herald" had been made
RIDICULOUS; men couldn't fly.
Men couldn't fy"-and just at that
moment somebody with a loud voice
made and announced discovery.
Overhead, circling and climbing at
the rate of thousand feet minute,
was an alrplane; an airplane which the
crowd had come far to see on it's wav
;nd which yet, as it left the ground,
nad been observed by only white
laced girl in red toque and a string
of brown and black and yellow stable-
boys perching on rail.
Herodotuss, who wrote a good many
hundreds of years before James Cor
don Bennett had picked up his pen to
establish it that "Men couldn't fy,"
had said:
Neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom
OF night stays these couriers from the
swift completion of their appointed
task"
The words of Herodotus have become
the first article of faith of the United
States Postofice-and to them might
be added: "Nor absent gallery, either"
OFF With Mail Bags
In the unnoticed flivver had been
q train that had cannon-balled out from
the Pennsylvania Terminal in shade
under twenty minutes. They were all
that Lieutenant Torrey Webb had been
waiting for. When they had been put
aboard his biplane he was up and off.
For him it wasn't a ceremony, but the
beginning of a new job as the worlds
pioneer practical and strictly CONNER
cial letter carrier of the skies.
Late, but not lacking, the celebration
Of the ground-crawlers. From the
clouds he might have heard the mighty
shout that went up to him, might have
NOTICED countless tiny specks separat-
ing from specks scarcely less tiny
their hats in the air to him.
1t was to be expected that the first
mail to travel by air-and that it was
postal route in operation between Rome
and Turin--would be patronized chiefly
by seekers after souvenirs. In souve-
nir-making, which is just another way
OF saying "history-recording," after all,
private citizens and public officials were
alike eager. Even President Wilson
himself contributed to the trophy lust,
personally cancelling the first stamp
sold. The letter to which it was affixed
Wall Street, who will auction it for
the benefit of the Red Cross, and who
himself will start the bidding with an
offer of $1,000.
There were "official" letters by the
score-letters from Governor Whitman
to the Presidents; letters from Post
master Patten to the President, to the
Postmaster General apd to the Assist
ant Postmaster Generals; letters from
mayors to mayors.
And beyond them all, thanks to the
foresight of Secretary Bakers pub
fishers, copies of Mr.. Bakers new book
for one Woodrow Wilson.
Copeland Pledges