The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-05-12

ne WIl6nJ-MdFLlu case was OF Ilo
same sort. Neither Wright nor eileen
Martin was in it all all. The over
payments made to these mushroom
companies without responsible tech
nical men ran into many millions.
There was the Lincoln Motors Corpo-
ration, the airplane division of the
Fisher Body Co., and the airplane
division of the Packard Motor Co. Vim
cent, Waldron, Deeds, and their
friends held stock. The Guaranty
Trust Co. extended aid to them in
launching their plans. The game was
so good that they soon came back
to Congress and reported that their
first $640,O00,O0O was not enough.
They finally absorbed $1,000, 900 900.
when the pioneers saw Deeds,
Coffin and Waldron in control, they
got together financial backing, on the
basis of their years of scientific
achievement, and went to the Board,
saying, I'VE will build you thousands
of planes on our own responsibility,
on our own money. We guaranty per-
Torrance of our planes. We ask only
contracts on that basis, and we will
put up bond"
1.-THE scoundrels who refused these
offers turned around and gave the mil
lions to their own confederates who
never delivered a plane in all that
Is months Of war.
Benedict Crowell, assistant secre-
tary of war, side-tracked two separate
Investigations which President Will
son ordered made after l had talked
with him. Deeds, instead of being
courtmartialed, was given a banquet
here in Washington by his crowd, and
then they pinned gold medal on
him"
Martins inventions chiefly valuable
Turing the war period were form
# lateral control and an aerodynamic
'ontrol-devices which removed much
# the danger of accidents and gave
he flier more freedom of action in
battle. His patents stood in the way
of the Deeds-Coffin crowd When they
took power as the Aircraft Board they
stopped all tests Of his devices, which
had been placed on army planes in
1916. Records in the war department
relating to these devices disappeared.
The inventor was then advised that
he had better stop experimenting
along those lines.
Martin protested, but to no effect.
He asked for credentials for flying,
hv,f xxyo g rofuood aItbo n ,,,oxtt, oo~fsa,.
he had been refused on the ground
that his services in scientific capa-
city were indispensable to the govern
ment. Discouraged, he went to Eng
land, where years earlier he had
taught the first British army men to
fly. He was welcomed, and the
French government also sought his
help His aerodynamic control was
at once adopted by the British war
planes.
But the Aircraft Board profteers
followed him. An order was sent to
London, to an American agent, who
notified the British government that
Martin was discredited at home and
mo good" He was told by the Bril-
fish that they had faith in him.. and
needed only permission of the Wash
ington government to continue him as
their adviser. He went to Chipps
Drexel, one Of the Philadelphia Drex-
els, who had been his pupil and who
now represented the Aircraft Board
in London. Drexel begged him not to
ask questions; he could not give the
inventor the credentials or character
that would allow the British to keep
him in their service. Seven of his
inventions, then under trial by the
British, were dropped.
Details of the persecution Of his fell
low pioneers he does not claim to
know. The Deeds-Cofin group, with
Morgan & Co. and the Guaranty
Trust Co. as their allies and many
of the ruling clique in the war depart.
ment organization as their friends,
went boldly on with the looting of the
aircraft funds and the piling up of
excuses for non-delivery of airplanes.
How many hundreds Of thousands of
men on both sides died, because the
war was thereby prolonged to the de-
gree it was, nobody will ever know.
The airplane companies were slowing
away their billion dollars in profits.
Martin finally came home and got
command Of ship, and in 1919 made
voyage to Reval with supplies sent
by Hoover to Yudenitch-but that is
story familiar to readers Of the
DAILY WORKER. He is now trying
to break thru the barricade OF indif-
ference and of organized loot in Wash
ington, to get the aircraft scandal so
aired that the crowd which has chung
to control in the army and navy air
services on the one hand, and in the
manufacturing plants on the other,
will be forced to give away to men
who seek development Of the science
of flying.
Bandits Rob Baker
NEW YORK, May 11.--Four band