Evening star., 1938-10-30
velopment Of a public airport on the
site or the two fields.

velopment Of public airport on the
site or the two fields.
The customary annual hearings
were held, to no avail, both on the
McSwain bill and on the perennial
Stalker bill. introduced annually since
1927 by former Representative Stalker
| OF New York, authorizing the Gravelly
Point development Mr. Stalker by
this time had reinforcements, and
there were at both ends Of the Capitol
sumcient members who had sponsored
Gravelly Point bills to start healthy
Gravelly Point Thursday Evening So
cial Club chief among them Senator
Gibson of Vermont and Representative
Smith of Virginia, both of whom have
observed the annual rite of introducing
Gravelly Point bills to this day.
In the meantime Samuel j. Solomon.
Washingtonian and graduate of Gen.
trail High School here. had taken over
the post of Washington Airport man
ager for National Aviation Corp. Un-
der his skillful management it soon be-
came one Of the few commercial air
terminals in the world to pay its own
way.
| As matter Of necessity airliners
began taking off across Military road
For the protection of both airline and
automobile passengers at the unique
highway-runway crossing, Mr.. Solomon
erected traffic lights. His action was
challenged promptly by Col. Kenyon
Joyce, commanding at Fort Myer, Va.
Solomon defended his action on the
ground of public necessity and said
that if the lights were removed they
would have to be torn down by the
Army. They remained.
Washington Airport continued to
grow. The Goodyear airship dock was
completed in December. 1884.
The House District Committee was
the scene of long and bitter hear
ing of the airport problem in the spring
Of 1885. After more than a month of
hearings members of the House group
were joined by members of the Sem
ate District Committee in an inspec-
ton of sites. Their efforts, as usual,
were fruitless.
In the meantime the Military road
danger had become acute. Representa-
tive McSwain reintroduced his bill to
close the road. After long struggle,
however, this measure, too, failed of
passage. Noted flyers Joined with air
line pilots and Federal officials in de-
nouncing the dangers of the situation.
Washington's reputation in aviation
circles throughout the Nation-even
abroad-became more unsavory.
BY February, 1886, the Military
road fight had reached crisis. Unable
to gain any legal support for his efforts
to control automobile traffic, Mr.. Solo,
mon announced that. as matter of
public safety, he would be compelled
to remove the trafflc lights, which were
being wilfully disregarded by motorists.
and that this probably would necessi-
tate abandonment of air transport
operations here.
The Post ONCE Department., alarm
ed, made arrangements to transfer all
airmail operations to Baltimore. The
threat of losing airmail service stirred
Congress. Within two days the Senate
and House Military Affairs Committees,
in Joint session, agreed upon plan
for temporary closing of Military road
pending determination by Congress
upon a permanent airport plan. Their
plan called for payment by National
Aviation Corp. of $4,000 to pay for
construction of q substitute for Mill
tary road. The corporation baked,
holding the amount was too high.
The air transport lines. as well as
the Post once Department, COM
pleted their arrangements to shift
operations to Baltimore, taking op-
tions on necessary facilities at Logan
Field.
With the controversy ut its height,
on February l3, 1885, loaded airliner,