Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-08
BINGHAM STRESSES
NEED FOR AIRPORT
Senator, in Radio Address,
Discusses Future of Air
Mail in Washington.

For the benefit of visitors to Wash
ington, for the sake of the city's COM
merce and for the improvement of its
mail service, Washington should have
adequate airport facilities Immediately,
Senator Bingham of Connecticut de-
clared in radio address last night on
The Future of the Air Mail in Wash
ington" from station WMAL, under
auspices of the Washington Chamber
of Commerce.
Senator Bingham said efficient planes
and courageous pilots are ready and
the Post Office Department is willing
to cooperate.
The main thing needed at present
in Washington" he continued, lis an
adequate airport which will, in the first
place, be near enough to the Post
Office so as not to lose some of that
precious time which the pilot has
helped to save and will, in the second
place, be so located that 1t can be
used in any hour of the day or night
without endangering the pilot or his
precious cargo; and will, in the third
place, be completely equipped to give
adequate service to those in the business
of handling the air mail.
THE joint congressional committee
on airportS is at present considering this
problem and endeavoring to persuade
the Congress to make an immediate ap-
preparation of half million dollars for
the purchase of land and options which
will enable us to go ahead as fast as
possible in the development of an air
port, of which not only the citizens of
Washington but the people of the whole
United States may be proud.
The future of aviation depends par
ticularly on having more and better air.
ports, designed by skilled civil engineers,
trained architects and competent direc-
tors of air transport. 1t is pleasing to
note that these problems are being given
earnest consideration by large number
of engineers all over the country. Their
projects, however, cannot be carried out
unless we have faith in aviation, Suffi-
cient faith to make us willing to see
our taxes spent in the development of
the necessary facilities for air naviga-
ton, which each city must provide for
itself if it would take its place on the
air map of the United States and of the
world
For the sake of commerce, for the
sake of our thousands of visitors, for the
sake OF improving our mail service,
Washington must have adequate airport
facilities and should have them right
away"
Harold F. Pitcairn, president of
FlCCdlru AVldtlOIl, 1nc., operators OF Cne
New York-Atlanta air mail route, also
spoke. He said, in part:
Air mail seems still to be regarded
by many as an intriguing sort of ad-
venture, but hardly dependable enough
for ordinary routine use. In spite of
my recurrent surprise at this attitude,
it really is natural enough, for the de-
velopment of air mail operations has
been so rapid that it would be unrea-
sonable to expect the general public to
have kept fully informed about it.
Il shall not bother you with volumin-
Gus statistics. 1t is enough to say that
today, only three years after the in
auguration of the first air mail route to
be operated under a Government con-
tract, air mail letters are being sent
from almost every post Office in the
United States to almost every other
and from the United States to Is
countries in the Western Hemisphere
with a dependability rivaling that of
ordinary first-class mail, and, of course,
with a great saving of time.
IAN indication of the extensive use
of air mail and it's steady growth Is the
fact that 140,00o,000 air mail letters
were flown in the year of 1928, and
approximately 100,000,000 letters were
flown during the first five months of
1929"