Evening star., 1925-11-24
AIR PROBE REPORT
]. DUE WITHIN WEEK
Morrow Committee Expected
to Oppose Unified Serv-
ice Program.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.


President Coolidges special board of
inquiry on the Air Service is expected
TO submit it's report before or i'm
mediately after Thanksgiving day.
Whether the White House will forth
with make the report public or wheth-
er 1t will later become the subject of
special message to Congress is yet to
be determined When the board was
appointed mid-September, the Pres
ident reQU red that its recommenda-
tious sh uld be in his hands in time
for suhm. .ssion to Congress when 1t
conl encl
Since The board, of which Mr.. Cool
idge ) bosom friend, Dwight w. Nor
row. IS cha rman, finished its public
hearings in c,cber, its members have
been 20 ne over individually in private
the / coo 00O words of testimony sup
Piled them. Then they foreSathered
for he formulation Of a report. 1t is
poss. BILE there may be both a majority
and q IN unrity report. or at least GER
tain recommendation by some mem
oers upon VIII Cn there - not general
agreement The beSt-int0rmed opinion
IN Wash ngton IS that there Will be an
overwhelmingly strong recommends
lion If not un nimitY, against the idea
of A separate air force. To that eX-
tent the Morrow boards report would
dllll-AlILCHSll,
nel's more than so, 900 words Of evil
dence before the board had as their
basic purpose the advocacy Of So
called unified" air organization, en-
bracing military, naval and civilian
aviation.
L. S. Stresses Research.
Mr. Morrow and his fellow inquirers
will not fail to stress one important
point in their report to the President.
1t was made plain to them that the
United States has achieved more real
progress than any other country in
the Development of the best airplanes,
the best accessories and the soundest
aeronau,ical theory. The country may
expect 10 he tod by the Morrow board
that while other nations, owing to
geoCrIDhiCa' conditions or political
necessities, keep bigger fleets of air
planes in actu,I commission than we
do, the American peoples money is
spent in another form Of aviation eff
f1ciency-that is to say, not spent
upon machines which in year or two
become obSo-Cte, due to the rapid de-
ve'o' m mt of aviation, but in a truly
remarkable and wise program Of re-
search and experimentation.
In language recently used in a pub
lie address in New England by Sen
ator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut,
this program places us easily first in
knowledge and in design The point
is that, in case of sudden emergency,
while we mightn't be able to put in
the sky on the outbreak of war as
many planes as the enemy, we have
the equipment, the skill and the facil-
tiles to outplane the enemy in marvel
ously short order. America has gone
in for that kind Of aviation prepared
ness, rather than for air fleets sin
being"
The public will be reminded by the
Morrow board that its investigation
was merely intended to supplement
the aircraft studies already made by
the War and Navy departments, also
that its inquiry is only the latest of
many Of the same kind since we
entered the World War. At present
there are at least f1ve committees
boards or courts investigating the Air
Service and which have not made their
final official reports. The Lampert
special committee Of the House of
Representatives conducted prolonged
hearings which fill six volumes total
Ing 4,200 pages. Col. Mitchell's testi-
mony before the Lampert committee
was SO voluminous that the mere in
dex to it occupies Is pages.
Other aircraft findings still to be
submitted are those of the naval court
Of inquiry on the loss of the Shenan-
doth, the committee appointed by the
Department of Commerce, in con-
junction with the American Engineer
ing Council, to examine commercial
aeronautics, and the Army court-mar-
tial Of Col Mitchell
Duplication Avoided.
The Morrow board deliberately
avoided any duplication of the thor
ough work done by the Lampert COM
mittee and the scientific investiga-
tions OF the committee on civil avia-
ton. The Presidents investigators
attempted "a clear and complete cross
section of all governmental activities
relating to aviation" as Senator Bing-
ham summarizes it's objectives. Four
cabinet officers and their assistants
gave testimony on plans and policies.
Every Federal department that has
air activities had a chance to present
such facts and figures as 1t desired.
A united Air Service was advocated
oy majority of the Army pilots who
testlhed. But naval pilot witnesses
emphatically opposed the separate air
Iorce. idea Testimony also estab-
Hshed clearly that the main troubles
or the Air Service are not SO much in
connection with material as with per-
sonnet matters. The Morrow board
is likely TO recommend important per-
sonnel reforms. From no quarter did
the board hear that any country had
developed a better type of fighting
or pursuit plane than America has.
On the contrary, 1t was shown that
the great majority of our types are su-
perlor. that other countries mostly
possess obsolete types, and that prac-
tlcally all world airplane records are
in American keeping.
Copyright 1925)