White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1928-06-22
BYRD BEslEGED WITH
PLEAS FOR POLE TRIP
$1,000 Thrill Hunters Want
to Go With Him.

Boston. - Ii Commander Richard
Evelyn Byrd accepted all the offers to
accompany him to the South pole
made since he returned from his flight
to France, city of some $4,000 per-
sons would spring up in the Antarctic
this fall; as motley and futile COM
munity of thrill hunters as ever was
assembled in one place.
There would be men of all ages,
from old ones, to whom the years
have brought realization that they
have never accomplished anything very
brilliant and who wish to top their
drab careers with one glorious gesture
to boys fresh on the threshold of life
who see all before them only in terms
of dashing adventure.
And there would be women, too !;
bored rich ones, with fond visions OF
heated fgloos stated by a retinue OF
servants, and hero worshiping young
ones with romantic notions of impos-
sible dramas in which they would in
evitably be cast as the dashing he.
rOines.
Forty Applications a Day.
Commander Byrd receives an aver,
age of 40 such applications day,
largely from people whose only com
mon bond is their monetary desire and
their almost universal unfitness for
any expedition In which hardship, la
Dor, technical training and persever-
ance under trying conditions are the
component parts.
Not all the women who write to the
air conqueror of the North pole, how
ever, want to accompany him to the
frozen wastes. About four day write
him soft letters that matinee idol
might preen himself over, but which
Byrd merely losses aside with smile.
The rest of the flyers daily mail, to
which he and a secretary have to de-
vote most of their mornings, and
which runs from so to 200 letters, is
divided between pleas for financial as
sistance, letters of advice from people
who don't think much of aviation and
hate to see nice man wasting his
time at it, invitations to speak at
meetings or dinners and rambling let
tiers of no special import.
A less efficient man might find such
a daily load of mail an almost un-
bearable burden in the busy season of
preparation for such an adventure as
Byrd is now planning, the South pole
flight, but he takes it all in his stride
and shows no trace of annoyance, go.
ing calmly on to the other duties of
the day. >4.
No matter how great is the pres
sure of his affairs Byrd always fiilan
ages to set aside time for exercise.
He knows that there are strenuous
days ahead Of him, days in which his
endurance will be taxed to the utmost,
and he is constantly building himself
up against that time.
Although he has the co-ordinated
body of an athlete Byrd is by no
means large man. He weighs close
to 100 pounds and is we'll under six
feet tall. With his wavy hair, classic
features and the soft Southern drawl
of his courteous voice 1t is sometimes
difficult for persons meeting him for
the first time to visualize him in the
role he has played time after time of
conqueror against seemingly insuper.
able odds.
Some of his friends have a whimsi-
cal theory by which they explain his
indomitable nature. When Byrd was
at Annapolis he broke the bones in
one foot twice in sports, and one of
the bones failed to knit. Because of
his injury he was somewhat later re.
tired from the navy, his career appar-
emily ended, leaving him, in his own
words. "fizzle" at life. The broken
ends of the unlimited bone in his foot
were nailed together by surgeons, and
friends say with a laugh that iron
from that nail must have permeated
Byrd's system and made him strong
beyond all possibility of defeat.
AS matter of fact, of course, Byrds
determination to follow his urge for
adventure dates back much farther
than that nailed-up foot, back, at any
rate, to the time when he was twelve
years old that, unaccompanied he cir
cled the world, whose hidden places
he was later to seek out from the
clouds.