The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1943-05-21
AIR MAIL SILVER JUBILEE


a group of people, including Presi-
dent Woodrow Wilson, Assistant
Secretary of the Navy Franklin D.
Roosevelt and other Government OIL
Gals, solemnly watched plane take
off from Washington with U. S. mail
destined for New York. The plane
lost it's way and came down in South
ern Maryland But another plane TAX
ing off from New York for Washing
ton at the same time actually reach
ed the Capitol, flying 226 miles in
threee hours and twenty minutes.
The pilots were Lieuts. T. H. Webb
and James Edgarton; they delivered
the first official air-borne mail, the
covers of which are now practic-
ally priceless in the eyes OF stamp
fanciers. In a fortnight regular
schedule was established.
In 1941, last normal year of oper-
alton, American airlines carried
4,38O,OO0 passengers, 44,000,O0O
pounds of mail and 23,315,000 lbs.
of express and freight. In the war
year of 1912, with half the CONNER
cial planes taken over by the mill
tary, the number of passengers car
ried was almost as great, while the
quantity of mail was nearly doubled.
In addition, the greatly expanded
Army Transport Command CORNER
ly the Ferrying Command) handled
3O,OOO,OOO pieces of mail for the sol
diers overseas, by the microfilm pro-
cess. The mail-carrying planes now
span all of the worlds oceans in
their daily flights.
So that the fight of mail between
New York and Washington rs years
ago was not important or spectacu-
lar in itself but in what it has be-
come in the short space of a quarter
of century Before it's Importance
was recognized the date was almost
forgotten, but it was made official by
being carved ON the Post Office Build
ing in Washington.
As the egg is laid before it is hat
ched so the real beginning of that
momentous first flight took place in
the u. S. Senate where fight occur
red over an item of 100000 in the
Post Office appropriation bill to be
used by the Postmaster General for
an experimental airplane mail SER
vice." The expenditure was especially
defended in the Committee and on
the floor by Senator Kenneth Nickel
lar of Tennessee, who cited the tele-
graph, the electric light, the auto
mobile and then prophesied II have
no doubt that the time will come
when we. will use them ii. e. air.
planes) for hundred different pur-
poses and that the world will feel
that it could hardly get by without
them He added that, 'the time will
come when we will use airplanes
just as frequently as we now use
automobiles"
Senator King of Utah at that time
constituted himself the watchdog OF
the Treasury. He praised the proph-
cts, quoted Tennyson's vision OF the
heavens filled with commerce" and
remarked that prophecies did not
cease with Malachi. But, he declared:
1--WE need prophets here to challenge
attention to the staggering expendi-
lures which are being made and the
inevitable consequences that will
flow there from. We need voices to
cry out against unwarrantedl appro-
priations that are often made. The
appropriation won by 80 to "a, and
the U. S. Air Mail was born.
To clear the tracks for the expect
ed great expansion ito come after the
war the Lea-Bailey bill in Congress
proposed study by the Post Office
and the Civil Aeronautics Admins
tration to assure the speediest mail
delivery possible by using air mail
where feasible. 1t would also keep
the road unobstructed by entrust-
ing complete regulation to the Fed
eral Government, on the ground that
even intrastate mail is related to the
interstate service.