Evening star., 1928-12-18
The Wright Ceremonies.

Air-minded America yesterday doubt
less went through a complexity OF
emotion when the entire world, figura-
lively, gathered on a bleak, wind-swept
waste at Kitty Hawk, N. c., to do
honor to the Wright brothers, Wilbur
and Orville, who twenty-five years ago
made mans first fight into the sky.
Ever since that historic day when a
hatless Coast Guardsman burst into a
rural tavern near Kitty Hawk with the
enthusiastic declaration, They've did
it, they've did it! DANCED If they amt
been and few" Wilbur and Orville
Wright. the former now dead, but the
latter modestly the recipient of inter-
national honors, have been acclaimed
as the first humans to go aloft in
heavier -than-air fight. The mixture
of emotions, however. with which
America viewed yesterdays impressive
ceremonies at Kitty Hawk is due to the
fact that while uneQuivocally the
Wright brothers were the first to go
aloft, their machine, the pride of this
country today as it was twenty-five
years ago and the symbol of Americas
parenthood and sponsorship of aviation
rests in British museum instead of
on the soil of the United States, where
it was conceived and where it began
to function to create new era in the
present-day civilization.
There is no one in this or any other
country who will deny that the proper
place for the first machine to fly sue
cessfully is in the United States. The
controversy which has ragged for years
between Orville Wright, to whom the
world gave fluctuations yesterday, and
the Smithsonian Institution, and which
finally sent the first plane to England,
should never have been begun. With
the Institution insisting that label
should be affixed to the Langley plane,
which slightly antedated the Wright
machine, that it was believed capable"
Of flight, and Orville Wright contend
ing that the inscription was unfair to
him and his brother, who actually
made the first fight, the unhappy con-
dition reached its crisis when the Wright
airplane was sent across the water.
Unquestionably each side of the con-
troversy has its supporters, but in view
of the momentous event which was
celebrated yesterday at Kitty Hawk the
time would seem propitious to begin a
movement to bring back the plane to
this country. The first step in this
direction should be taken by the Smith
sonian, which, regardless of the strength
of its feeling that the Langley plane
could fly, should make its peace with
the inventor of the plane that die fly.
It is simply case of fact and theory
1t is theory that If properly launched
the Langley machine was capable of
flight. It is fact that the Wright
machine, which was properly launched
made the first ascent into the air car
rying a passenger. Mr.. Wright un-
doubtedly takes the position that it de-
tracts from the prestige of his and his
brothers accomplishment to place their
plane beside a ship which dropped into
the Potomac River on its attempt to get
into the air, and which did not actually
fly until 1914, eleven years later,
after it had been thoroughly re-
conditioned through the advanced
knowledge of aeronautics that had
been acquired by that time. 1t
would indeed be a graceful move on
the part of the Smithsonian and one
that would be gratifying to millions of
Americans If it would end once and
for all the unfortunate pickering that
has robbed this country of one of its
choicest treasures.