Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1919-07-23
sTRANGLING THE AIR SERVICE
-. ID Eer--. 60

The people OF the United States, thanks to the
gress they send to Washington to look out for their
interests, are about to see enacted spectacle which,
when its significance is fully realized by the public win
CONSERVATION, to say the least This spectacle
will be the strangulaon of the air service, that allim
portant department of the army which has merted
much and received SO little-upon which so much de-
ponds for future greatness nation and to which
little thought is being given by those who hold the
power for its good ill.,
The present army appropriation act carries only
$25O0o,0OO for army aviation. 1t is said that,
suit of this small appropriation all temporary officers
will have to be discharged by Sept. 30 and that it will
be necessary abandon the army air stations Hawaii
and Panama well the proposal for station in the
Philippines 1t said that under the present APP
preparation it will not be possible for the government
to take proper of millions of dollars worth of av-
alton property at present in it's aviation fields; that it
will be impossible for the government maintain ade-
quaely proper system of aviation defense that
there will not be enough experienced flyers to train
personnel properly; that there will not be proper adj
minstrative executive force
Right at this time when we see England and France
appropriatng and spending hundreds of millions the
development Of their air departments shall see this
perilousy dangerous policy of economy" put into eff
feet in relation to our own air service We shall see
every flying field in the United States Frustrated
there will not be enough money available to keep
them in operation We shall probably every
military aviator in the United States in which class
all the officers at Souther Field except Colonel RAIDER
discharged-fred bodily out of the army-because there
will be funds with which to pay them We shall see
these men, who have elected at the governments nvi-
tation, to make army flying their life work, turned
back to civil life, their time and experience spent in
the army absolutely worthless in most cases in civilian
pursuits And shall see them leaving the service
with bitterness toward ungrateful government that
will make it impossible to get them to return to the
service in time of need except in the gest emergen
cy peril to their country
We shall the military defenses of this country
put back a scale relatively below that of the time
when Pershng went into Mexico and the army had five
airplanes and couple of flyers whose equipment and
experience precluded their being of than the slight
est service to the expedition and caused them 20 take
their lives in their hands every time they started
trip
We shall see the United States government abso-
utey throwing away millions of dollars spent in train
ing the picked manhood of this country in the air
vice turning them of the service a time when
chief competing nations are dreaming great dreams of
aerial conquest and aerial commercial supremacyand
putting these dreams into execution.
Congress has long been less of joke,
largely by its making As has been said before this
nations legislative halls are blessed with too few states
men and cursed with too many politicians And
the defeat of the program for adequate
appropriation for the air service can be laid
directly at the door of the politicians--the horde
of the party which happens to be incoming de-
string to make record of Economy for it's effect ca
the folks back home.
But it will not take many years for the people to
discern what kind of economy" has actually been prac-
ticed them it will take great while for the
velous things competing nations doing in the air
and going to do to make themselves felt around
the world Then will find ourselves not trailing the
ether great nations but absolutely left at the post Civ
en- so tremendous handicap and left so far behind
that will take generation to catch up, with the
final expenditures of necessary vast sums,
The subject is serious one, not because it con-
Germs Souther Field and interests locally but
it concerns nation. Congress-the house, because