AIR HEADS Part Two

 

 I believe Bob Fowler (above, center) was confident on Saturday, 23 September, 1911,  when the repairs to his "Cole Flyer" were finally completed, and he finally took off from Colfax, California - altitude  3,306 feet - in the Sierra foothills.  He certainly looks confident in this photo. 

His confidence was, however, seriously misplaced.  When the bundled up Fowler reached six thousand feet up the Sierra Nevada mountains, he  hit headwinds that his 40 horsepower Cole motor just could not overcome. He was forced to return to Colfax.

That same Saturday - 23 September - back east, the little jockey Jimmy Ward was following the “iron compass”, as pilots referred to following railroad lines.  In this case he was tracking the Erie Railroad westward out of Middletown, N.Y.   Jimmy landed safely at Callicoon, New York (above) and refueled,at 10:05 a.m., as planned.  He refueled again at Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, and took off again at 2:15 P.M.

Two hours later, after avoiding crowds waiting for him at other landing fields, the shy Jimmy touched down on a farm outside of Owego, N.Y.  Here the jockey hitched a ride into town, where he ate a quick dinner with Maude while a local mechanic refueled his plane.

He wanted to make it to Corning, New.York. before dark, so he hurried his take off.   But as the jockey lifted into the air his engine coughed, his wheels snagged a fence and he was yanked to an abrupt halt.  His lower left wing was bent, his wheels destroyed.  Jimmy Ward (above) was unhurt, physically, but it would take almost two days before a crew on loan from Curtis Aircraft could repair the damage.

 Back out in California, bright and early on Sunday, 24 September, Bob Fowler tried again to get over the Sierra Nevada mountains. This time he got as high as as Emigrant Gap, just below the Donner Pass, at 7,500 feet above sea level.  But headwinds again forced him to again retreat to Colfax.

On the Monday, 25 September,  Bob reached 8,000 feet before running into headwinds again.  This time Bob decided to land at Emigrant Gap,  to get a head start start the next day.  But flying in the thin air at high altitude was a skill not yet mastered by anyone,  including Bob,  and while turning around his wings lost lift and he plowed into the trees.  They had to send out a search party to locate him, and when they did he had two broken wings and and two broken propellers - I mean  his "Cole Flyer" did.   Bob himself was somehow largely uninjured. But for the time being his continental flight was… waiting for repairs, again.

Back in Owego, New York, the repaired Jimmy Ward’s Curitss airplane managed to limp into Corning and then on to the village of Addison, N.Y. (above) late on Monday,  25 September, 1911.  Jimmy was now 300 miles and 10 long days out of New York City.  But at this rate it could take him the better part of a year to reach California. 

 Anxious to make up for lost time, at 7:18 A.M. on Tuesday, 26 September, James took off from Addison.  And about five miles west of town he crashed again. He had to walk almost the whole way back to Addison, just to tell people he had crashed. This was getting really hard.

Back at the hotel, waiting for her husband,  Jimmy‘s wife, Maude Mae, overheard some gamblers taking five-to-one odds that her husband would be dead before he reached Buffalo, New York.  Now, Maude May knew that Jimmy was not actually planning on heading to Buffalo, but she also knew that town was still 60 miles further to the west. And at the rate Jimmy's flight was progressing, he could have been beaten by a Conestoga wagon, 

In fact, the way Maude Mae figured things, at the rate Jimmy was crashing, the gamblers were being a bit optimistic at about her husband's lifespan.  So Maude Mae decided to be practical - leave it to a wife to destroy a daredevil sporting event with practical thinking.  Maude Mae spoke to the shaken Jimmy that night. And after his long walk and his two crashes over the previous four days, Jimmy was inclined to listen.

Jimmy's manager announced his decision to the press the next morning, Wednesday, 27 September. He was dropping out of the race. Later, Jimmy Ward would explain his decision in less than pragmatic terms. “It was a plain case of a jinx”, he said.  And then he went on to prognosticate. “Rodgers is a mighty fine fellow, " said Jimmy, "and I wish him all kinds of luck, but...To win that $50,000 he's got to complete his journey by October 10th.  He can't do it."  

Given his skill at fortune telling,  I am surprised that Jimmy Ward (above) had no inkling that just seven months later Maude Mae would have him arrested in Chattanooga and charged with bigamy. She had discovered that Jimmy was never legally divorced from his first wife.  Poor Maude Mae.  Poor, Jimmy Ward. And without him, the race went on. 

- 30 -

AIR HEADS Part One

 

I suppose it seemed like a good idea in the beginning. There were three serious contestants, and a $50,000 first place prize.  But in retrospect, it should have been obvious that nobody was going to collect a dime of that money.  It was 1911; flying was still brand new and the world’s first two pilots - Wilbur and Orville Wright - were still learning how to fly.

The world's third pilot was U.S. Army Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. He died (above) on 17 September, 1908. 

In that same crash Orville Wright was also badly injured. He would never fly again.

The second famous pilot to die in that first generation of pilots, in 1910, was Charles Stewart Rolls (of Rolls-Royce fame) (above).  Considering there were only about 100 men (and one woman) with flying licenses in America in 1911, two percent was an appalling death rate, bad enough to make you wonder why anybody would have wanted to even try flying -  let alone try flying from coast to coast across the United States.

The world’s 49th licensed pilot was a shy, cocky, 6’4” thirty-something, cigar smoking, playboy and adrenaline junkie with a hearing loss and a speech impediment named Calbraith Perry Rogers (above -right). He was a romantic who favored action over words, as proven by the way he met his wife, 20 something Mabel Groves (above, left).  He saw her slip off a dock and fall into the water.  So assuming she was drowning,  he jumped in and pulled her to safety. Within a few months he married her, despite the hat.   Cal approached flying with the same spontaneity as his love life,  but it was a passion which quickly developed into a mission..

Having seen his first airplane on a visit to Dayton, Ohio, in June of 1911,  Cal took the full Wright Brother’s flight course (above),  all 90 minutes of it.  Mabel explained that flying filled the hole in his life left by his deafness which had excluded a military career.  It was, she said "the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle". 

Then Cal talked his mother, Maria, into loaning him $5,000 so he could buy a Wright Model B Flyer “E-X”. The "X" was for experimental – which was a joke because in 1911 every “airplane” was experimental.  But Cal may also have been the origin of the phrase to “take a flyer”,  because just two months later, in August, he entered his new Wright Flyer in an air show in Chicago and took home third prize, worth $11, 285.   Not bad: Cal had been a pilot for 60 days and already he had made six grand profit.  He suspected there might be money in this flying thing.

And this was confirmed in October of 1910 when the Hearst newspaper chain had offered $50,000 to the first pilot to make it across the continent in 30 days or less.  The offer was set to expire on 10 October, 1911.  Orville Wright tried to warn Cal. "There isn't a machine in existence that can be relied upon for 1,000 miles,  and here you want to go over 4,000.  It will vibrate itself to death before you get to Chicago."   But Cal refused to give up the idea.  He explained, "It's important because everything else I've done was unimportant."  Faced with that level of stubbornness,  Orville tried to look at the bright side. At least the Wright B Flyer was so light, said Orville "six good men could carry it across the country."

 What Cal needed, as any NASCAR driver can tell you, was a sponsor.  He found his ‘sticker sucker’ in  Mr. J. Odgen Armour, owner of Armour Meat Packing Company, and his new soft drink called “VIN FIZ”.   Allegedly it was grape favored soda water, but one critic thought it tasted more like  “a fine blend of river sludge and horse slop”   With a product like that Mr. Amour was going to need a heck of an advertising campaign. Enter Cal and his flying bill board.

With a guarantee of $23,000 from Amour, and a bonus of $5 per mile east of the Mississippi River, and $4 per mile to the west of the "big muddy",  and a corporate three rail car support train complete with a reservoir of spare parts, fuel and mechanics, and sleeping car accommodations for Mable, Cal’s mother Maria,  his cousin, his head mechanic Charlie Taylor, two other mechanics, two general assistants and assorted reporters from the Hearst news service, the flight was starting to look possible.

Armour even threw in an automobile (above) to track down Cal whenever he crash landed . With that much corporate funding behind him, Cal figured he had it all figured out. The first problem was that, before Cal even got airborne, his "Vin Fiz" was already in third place.

First off, from Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, was motorcycle racer Bob Fowler (above). 

There were 10,000 cheering people there at 1:35 P.M., on Monday, 11 September,  1911 to see Bob takeoff (above).  

Like Cal, Bob was piloting a Wright “B” Flyer, except his sponsor was Joseph J. Cole (above, middle, with mustache) , founder and owner of the Cole Motor Company, of Indianapolis, Indiana.  Cole supplied Bob with his automobile engines and $7,500 in financial support.  

The Cole engine was more powerful than the Wright engine, but it was also 200 lbs heavier. J.J. also gave Bob a support train, with spare parts. His mother, Ethel Fowler (above), went along and repaired the fabric of his plane during the flight.  But "The Cole Flyer" lacked the publicity Hearst supplied to support the "Vin Fizz  Flyer".

Making an average speed of about 55 miles an hour, Bob reached Sacramento in just under 2 hours, and after schmoozing with California Governor Hiram Johnson, Bob flew on to the foothill town of Auburn, for a total distance on the first day of 126 miles. Impressive. And on a Monday.

On Tuesday, 12 September,  Bob had reached Alta, California, where he crashed into some trees.  Bob was now out of the race until repairs could be made.

Second to start was James J. (Jimmy) Ward (above),  pilot's license #52, and previously a jockey, and another motorcycle racer.

Jimmy was flying a Curtis Model D. and he had the full support of designer Glenn Curtiss, including the de rigueur train with a hanger car filled with spare parts, 

Traveling with Jimmy was his second wife, Maude May Mauger - seen here strapped in for her first (and only) flight, with her husband at the controls. 

 Jimmy took off from Governor’s Island in New York harbor on Wednesday, 13 September, 1911. He preformed a loop around the Statue of Liberty (above left, BG) and then immediately got lost over New Jersey.  

He made only twenty miles before crash landing (above). Then he too had to wait for repairs. The basic tempo of the race had thus been set right from the start; take off, crash, wait for repairs, take off, crash, wait for repairs, and repeat as necessary for 4,000 miles. It was going to be very hard to finish this race, let alone win it.

Before starting himself, Cal Rogers tied a bottle Vin Fiz to one of his wing struts (white circle on the left), “for luck”.  For reality, he tied a pair of crutches to another strut, in case he needed them later. He would.

Before a paying crowd of 2,000, a chorus girl poured a bottle of grape soda over the landing skids and proclaimed, “I dub thee “Vin Fiz Flyer””. Cal actually called his plane “Betsy” but he recognized the value of naming fees even back then.

Cal took off from the race course at Sheepshead Bay, Long Island at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, 17 September. And if anybody noticed that it was the third anniversary of the crash that had killed Lieutenant Selfridge, they were polite enough to keep it to themselves.

After take off, Cal buzzed Coney Island and dropped coupons for free Vin Fiz soda (above). Then as the breathless reporters breathlessly reported, he flew over Manhattan “…with its death-trap of tall buildings, ragged roofs and narrow streets”.  Cal landed safely in Middleton, New York that night to a cheering crowd reported as 10,000 – not to be bettered by San Francisco. He had made all of 84 miles that first day. His plan was to average 250 miles a day.

That night the reporters wrote that Cal claimed he would be in Chicago in four days. But Cal  rarely talked to reporters because he barely heard their questions, the byproduct of a scarlet fever attack in his childhood.  And he spoke in the clumsy monotone of someone who never clearly heard a human voice.   So it was easier if the the reporters just made up heroic quotes for Cal. And they did.

They invented more heroic quotes for him the next morning when, on take off,  the "Vin Fiz" hit a tree and ended up in a chicken coop (above).  The bottle of Vin Fiz was "miraculously" undamaged, as proved because it would have been impossible to find another bottle of Vin Fizz aboard a train car named "The Vin Fiz Special".   But now it was Cal’s turn to wait for repairs.  The race was on!  It just wasn't going anywhere very quickly.

- 30 -

LETTER FROM THE BIRMINGHAM JAIL

 

In January of 1963 white supremacist George Wallace took the oath as governor of Alabama. He concluded his inaugural address by pledging, “....I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.”  It was a call for a nation of inequality. It was a call for hatred and moral bankruptcy for all future generations. It was a forceful denial of any hope for a better world. And in 1963 that was all American white supremacists had to offer America,

...I actually begin this story on Monday, 2 April, 1963, when the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. (above)  from Atlanta, Georgia, arrived in Birmingham, Alabama - “...the most segregated city in America...” - at the invitation of Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. Over the previous 80 years there had been 30 documented Lynchings of black men and boys in the surrounding county.  None of these murders was ever solved. There is no indication that anybody ever tried to solve any of them. The city had no black police officers, the county had no black sheriff's deputies, and it had suffered 21 dynamitings of black homes and business over the previous decade - none of them solved - that it had earned the nickname of “Bombingham, Alabama”.

On Tuesday, 3 April, Rev. Shuttlesworth's Bethal Baptist Church filed a request for a parade permit to protest segregation of public services. The self avowed white supremacists City Commissioner Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor (above), immediately denied the permit. On Wednesday, 10 April a state court issued a preliminary injunction against 139 named individuals, including King and Shuttlesworth, baring them from “...participating in or encouraging....boycotting, trespassing, parading, picketing, sit-ins, kneel-ins, wade-ins, and inciting or encouraging such acts." All were peaceful protests. The next day Dr. King announced,, “We cannot in all good conscience obey such an injunction which is... (a) misuse of the legal process”

Then on 12 April, 1963, Dr. King was arrested while attempting to lead a march on city hall. On that same Good Friday both Birmingham papers, the Morning Post Herald and the Evening News, published an open letter signed by 12 white clergymen, repeatedly urging “local” negro leadership to reject “outsiders” Although they never mentioned Dr. King by name, they strongly urged “...our own Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrations.”

Dr. King was being held in solitary confinement. It would be three days before he read the so-called “Call for Unity”. But when he did his anger and frustration boiled over. He began to immediately scribble a response on the margins of the newspaper. When finally given pens and paper, his counterargument, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, would be one of the most impassioned and yet pragmatic defenses of freedom in 20^th century America. Something 21st America should remind it's self of.

“WHILE confined here in the Birmingham city jail,” he began, “I came across your recent statement calling our present activities "unwise and untimely." Then he added, “...since I feel that you are men of genuine good will...I would like to answer your statement...” He went on to justify his presence by reminding his white colleges he was the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, with 85 affiliates across the south, including one in Birmingham which had invited him to come. 

“Beyond this”, he continued, “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.” As a Christian, he said, he could not “...sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Then he added, unknowingly speaking to future generations, “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.”

King noted the disapproving clergy called the protests unfortunate. “I would say...it is even more unfortunate that the white power structure of this city left the Negro community with no other alternative.” He pointed out Birmingham's “...ugly record of police brutality...” 

He reminded the white clergymen, “There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham”, (population of 340,000) “than in any other city in this nation.”

King also reminded the clergymen that promises had been made the previous September by local business to remove “humiliating racial signs from the stores.” But, “As the weeks and months unfolded, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained.... So we had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.” 

He assured the doubtful clergymen the black community of Birmingham had asked themselves “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" Only when they could affirm that position of non-violent confrontation, did the Birmingham campaign begin.

Even then, they postponed their non-violent protests to avoid municipal elections. “This reveals,” wrote Dr. King, “we did not move irresponsibly...”.  However, “After this we felt that direct action could be delayed no longer.” 

He then explained to his critics, “You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action...(to) dramatize the issue (so) that it can no longer be ignored.” He then added, “Too long has our beloved South land been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue.” And he pointed out that “...privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light...but...groups are more immoral than individuals.”

King then made it personal. “For years now I have heard the word "wait." It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "wait" has almost always meant "never." Blacks had 350 years of waiting to be treated as equals, he wrote,  “But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will...

...when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity...when...you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park...

...when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger" and your middle name becomes "boy"...then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait”.

He reminded the clergymen that St. Augustine had written, “An unjust law is no law at all”. And he defined an unjust law as one which, “....a majority compels a minority to follow”. Thus, “ All segregation statutes are unjust because...(they give) the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.” Segregation always, wrote King, "...ends up relegating some persons to the status of things.”

He reminded the sneering clergy of what they themselves had admitted in their “Call for Unity.” “Throughout the state of Alabama,” wrote Dr. King, “all types of conniving methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties without a single Negro registered to vote, despite the fact that the Negroes constitute a majority of the population.” 

To drive the point home, he added, “An unjust law is...inflicted upon a minority which...had no part in enacting or creating because it did not have the unhampered right to vote.”  In defending his methods, King reminded the clergymen civil disobedience was “...practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions...before submitting to certain unjust laws....” Using more recent history, he reminded his fellow Americans, '... everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal...".

Then he added, “ I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is...the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice... who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek...”, but who constantly advises blacks to “...wait until a more convenient season.”

And he questioned the white clergymen's logic in admitting civil disobedience was peaceful but,

“...must be condemned because they precipitate violence.” King asked, “...can this assertion be logically made?” In answering that question he stated the obvious. “Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.” 

He then chastised the clergy, saying, “We will have to repent...not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” And he reminded the whites citizens of Birmingham of an historical fact. “The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations...If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of violence.”

King admitted because  civil disobedience  invited confrontation, it might be considered an extreme position. But he asked, “Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? -- "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist? -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." So the question is not whether we will be extremist, but...Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?”

And finally he felt compelled to call out the hypocrisy of the clergies' support for the racist Birmingham police, saying, “... if you would watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls...

...if you would see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys, if you would observe them, as they did on two occasions, refusing to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together...(then)... I'm sorry that I can't join you in your praise for the police department.”.  He told these leaders of the white churches of Birmingham, that he had always preached that the greater sin was “....to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”

And he closed by commending the demonstrators for “...their willingness to suffer, and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation.” And he predicted, “ One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage.”

And he signed the letter, as he signed all his letters, “Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.”

                                      - 30 -