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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 3 NORTH FORSYTH ST. \
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Mill WEEKLY JOURNAL. AUaut*. Ga.
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The Journal’s Service Flag
In honor of the sixty-nine Atlanta Journal men
who have entered the service of their country. The
two white stars are in memory of Captain Meredith
Gray and Captain James S. Moore, Jr.. Journal men.
who gave their lives for our country in France.
Georgia’s Bumper Harvest
As round and golden as the full moon in the
stretches Georgia’s horn of plenty as the days
draw on toward autumn. Soon we will be in the
thick of harvest time, with its fairs, sales and
busy workers in the fields. And long before the
frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder’s in the
shock" the state will have reaped one of the most
bountiful yields in its history.
Reports from the state department of agricul
ture. newspapers in half a hundred counties and
from the United States government itself, all indi
cate that Georgia has more than done its share
in the production of foods and staples of all kinds,
and that the state and the people of the state will
prosper accordingly.
Cotton rules as king as never before. With the
world demand for the fleecy staple never greater,
Georgia will furnish a crop estimated conserva
tively at 2,250,000 bales. The prolonged drouth
this summer, together with the boll weevil, has
militated to some degree against the cotton crop,
but damage in Georgia has been less than in prac
tically all the other cotton-growing states. For
almost the first time in history, Georgia will ap
proach very near to the cotton production of Texas.
And from its crop, considering the seed as well as
the lint, a revenue of no less than $500,000,000 is
expected; truly a royal sum!
More reason has Georgia to be proud, however,
of its food raising record. The increase in food
production brings the unqualified statement from
J. J. Brown, state commissioner of agriculture,
that Georgia is actually feeding itself and more.
Food and feed acreage is greater than at any
period in the state’s history. Imports have been
cut nearly in half and exports have increased in
ratio. This has been done, too, without any great
reduction of the cotton acreage, proving that the
development in the cultivation of Georgia's lands
has been something remarkable.
The state's standard crops of corn, velvet
beans, peas. cane, sorghum and others have been
above normal. South Georgia has reaped millions
from its melon and fruit crops. At the same time
there has been a marked turning to crops hitherto
comparative strangers to the land. In certain
counties of southeast Georgia tobacco has been
raised in such quantities and of such high quality
that one hundred thousand pounds from Georgia
were recently sold on the North Carolina market
at thirty-five cents c pound. Farmers are now
preparing to increase their wheat acreage in
accordance with government request. It might
also be mentioned in passing that Georgia honey—
a sweet increasing in importance by reason of the
sugar shortage—recently sold in New York at
$7,000 for one hundred barrels, this from but one
Georgia apiary.
Time was when Georgia imported the greater
part of its meats from the west. Recent years
have seen a phenomenal change in this respect. In
1910 but thirty-three Georgia counties raised
enough hogs to sell meat out of their own com
munities. Today seventy-five Georgia counties are
exporting hogs by the carload. Members of the
boys’ and girls’ pig clubs are marketing pigs this
fall at SSOO the pair, which cost them SSO a pair
a year ago. It is estimated that the pig clubs will
produce this year more than ten million pounds of
dressed pork for the market.
What is true of hogs Is equally true of cattle.
The sandy, loamy soil of south Georgia, where the
velvet bean flourishes, has been found to be one of
the finest cattle countries in the world. It is
cheaper to maintain herds in first-class condition
in south Georgia than anywhere else in the United
States, according to cattlemen in this section.
Altogether. Georgia begins the harvest season
with glowing prospects. The chief drawback, and
really the only serious problem, is the shortage of
labor. The farmer, his wife and his children have
toiled like beavers from sunup to sundown. ’Facing
a greater task than any they have yet met—the
task of gathering the great yield which they have
made possible- they find themselves tremendously
handicapped. Only by the granting of furloughs
to as many farmer boys as possible in the army
and by the diverting of all non-essential labor
from the city to the country, can Georgia put into
her coffers the wealth of the fields that awaits
her.
THE ATLANTA SEMLWEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA, TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1918.
Germany 1 s Jungle Laws,
If there be any still reluctant to believe the
stories of German atrocities, they are referred to
the War Book of the German General Staff, as
quoted by Floyd W. Parsons in the Saturday
Evening Post.
Here we have not an excuse but an explana
tion of the crimes of the German army, which be
gan from the first day the Huns invaded Bel
gium. When details of German horrors were first
revealed to the civilized world, people were loth
to credit them, for the simple reason that they
seemed incredible. Can such things be? they
asked themselves, unable to understand the cold
savagery of mind that could not only tolerate
but encourage such practices.
But listen to this, only a few of the instruc
tions which German officers are taught:
"Can an officer compel the peaceful inhabi
tants of an invaded country to give information
about the strength and disposition of their na
tion's forces? Yes, it is regrettable but neces
sary.”
“Should such people be exposed to the tire of
their own troops? Yes, it may be indefensible,
but its main justification is that it is successful.”
"Should prisoners of war be put to death?
It is always ugly, but sometimes expedient.”
“May one hire an assassin, corrupt a citizen
or incite an incendiary? Certainly; it may not
be reputable and honor may fight shy of it, but
the law of war is less touchy.”
“Should the women and children, the old and
the feeble, be allowed to depart before a bom
bardment begins? On the contrary, their pres
ence is greatly to be desired; it ipakes the bom
bardment all the more effective.”
“War,” continues the book, “is an act of vio
lence which in its application knows no bounds.
If the necessity of war makes it advisable, every
sequestrian, every appropriation—temporary or
permanent —every use, every injury and all de
struction are permissible.”
Is it any wonder that a nation into whose sol
diers such principles are inculcated as part of
their military training is a nation of frends?
They have no laws of war but the laws of the
jungle and with the tools of the jungle must they
be met.
The South and War Industries.
The whole-hearted support with which the in
dustrial interests of the southeast have taken to
the plans of the government for increasing pro
duction of war materials is proof not only of their
patriotism, but of their wisdom and farsighted
ness as regards their own interests.
Since the inauguration of the Resources and
Conversions section of the National War Indus
tries Board in Region Number Twelve, which is
the Atlanta region, covering the four states of
Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and
Florida, southeastern manufacturers have re
sponded with the utmost enthusiasm to the calls
sent out for their co-operation by Edward H. In
man, regional adviser; T. K. Glenn, regional
chairman, and R. R. Otis, regional business man
ager.
It needed only an explanation of the plan to
convince them of its tremendous w : orth. Through
these regional headquarters, one in every section
of the country, the government is able to get au
thoritative information and to get it quickly on in
dustrial resources of any part of the nation. At
the same time, industries in the various groups
are always in direct touch with Washington in a
way that would never otherwise be possible.
The benefits of such a system are apparent on
the face of it. Not only will the government be
able to speed up its war program as never before,
but manufacturers heavily loaded with contracts
will be relieved, others now at low level will be
set working at full capacity, while some facing fail
ure as non-essential industries by putting their case
before the board, will be saved through an easy
conversion to war work.
Particularly does the South stand to gain by
the new scheme. It has long been felt that Dixie
was woefully lacking in industrial development, al
though her natural resources were second to none.
The deflection of war contracts from congested
parts of the east to the south will have an imme
diate effect in booming the wheels of southern in
dustries, w’hile the flow of government trade to
this territory is almost certain to bring a strong
following of non-government industry in its wake.
Moreover, it is generally understood that the
plans of the War Industries Board are designed not
alone to meet war conditions. The battle for world
trade after peace is declared, the establishment of
an American Merchant Marine, the marketing of
of American products in South America, the
Orient and other ports, all are considered by the
War Industries Board in its outlook. Southern
manufacturers, by putting themselves heart and
soul into this plan now, stand to reap a double
measure of profit in the future.
Another “Big Bertha? 11
There is much significance in the cryptic utter
ance which Paris dispatches state has been pub
lished in prominent type in the newspaper L’Heure:
“Will the echo to the great Bertha soon be
heard? Will that echo have a Yankee accent?”
Os course, the “big Bertha" referred to is the
German long-range gun which bombarded Paris.
And, of course, there is no other inference to be
drawn from this hint but that the United States
wrill put on the firing line a weapon of similar
proportions.
No indication has been given as to where
L’Heure gets any basis for its paragraph, but it is
not at all beyond the realms of possibility that
America should produce a “big Bertha” of its
own. Ever since the beginning of the war we
have been looking to Yankee ingenuity to evolve
just some such coup as this, and if ever the time
was ripe for it, it is now.
The long-range gun with which Germany
shelled Paris was a costly and cumbersome
weapon, mounted only with extreme difficulty and
firing only a nine-inch shell. But Germany has
also used long-range guns shooting sixteen-inch
shells to harass Dunkirk at a distance of twenty
two or more miles, and the newspaper Petit Pari
sien states that Ludendorff's army advancing on
Paris was equipped with similar guns with which
the Kaiser intended to destroy Paris it, he couldn’t
capture it.
Whether or not the Allies turn a “big Bertha”
against German defenses, certain it is that the
Kaiser has forfeited long ago any claim to exemp
tion from its shells. The man who approved the
launching of the shot that wrecked a Paris church
can not expect anything less in return.
Big Bertha, with your “Yankee accent,” good
luck to you, wherever you are!
Germany Gets the Truth.
The Prussian government at last has been
forced to admit the overwhelming presence of
American troops in France and the waning hopes
of the German cause.
Notices have appeared in practically all news
papers of the German press, admitting that Secre
tary Baker is correct in his estimate of nearly a
million and a half American troops in France.
There is no doubt that this statement was made
with official sanction, reluctant though it may have
been given.
Simultaneously, Admiral von Hintze, the Ger
man foreign secretary, is quoted as saying, “Our
cause is an exalted one, but it is in great danger.”
How pressed, indeed, must the Hun war lords
have been to allow free publicity to the facts and
to permit such statements as the foreign secre
tary’s! How widespread must have been the truth
already among the German people! And with
what feelings must they receive this admission!
For more than a year the German people have
been fed on such pap as this: “Americans are
afraid to fight. Our submarines will make it im
possible to send a single American troopship to
France. America can never get prepared in time
to save France and England from destruction.
America, bah!”
If the German people did not realize the truth
before, they have it now from their own masters.
They must know that the triumphant victory they
were promised this summer has been snatched
away from them by those very Americans they af
fected so to despise. They must know’, too, that
this same American army, plus thousands more
every month, is arrayed against them. They have
been told lie after lie before; will they believe the
statement with which the German editors tone
down their admissions that Americans are in
France, the statement that only four hundred
thousand Yankees are prepared for battle? No,
they must realize the truth and the truth can only
mean to them despair.
TRAVELETTE—By Niksah
ALBUQUERQUE
The California-bound tourist, who always stops
in Albuquerque about twenty minutes, sees a large
sprawling hotel, built out of cement in imitation
of the Southwestern missions; a group of thrifty
Indians bent on selling pottery and grapes, and all
of the smoke, dust and confusion that go with a
railroad town the United States over.
If he strays away from the station, he will be
still more disappointed in his hungry hunt for local
color. Most of it, in the form of Indian blankets,
baskets and bracelets, is for sale in little shops.
For the rest, he will see the prosperous business
section of a town of twenty thousand, full of au
tomobiles, well paved and well lighted.
Usually, that is as far as he gets. Having pur
chased a bow and arrow’s —guaranteed not to *jhoot
—a bracelet for his wife, a Sombrero for hixiself,
which he will never have the nerve to wear, ami a
New York newspaper, he will climb back on his
Pullman with a renewed realization that the world
is everywhere surprisingly uniform in appearance
after all.
But if he had just gone a mile farther, into
that section of the city known as “Old Town,”
his longing for sights would have been amply sat
isfied. Old Town was all of Albuquerque, in
those sleepy days before the railroad came. It is
a village of squat, brown adobes about a public
square; of old, spreading cottonwood trees; ol
sunshine, silence and peace. Mexicans repose on
the shady sides of the houses, smoking their tiny
brown cigarettes. Wagons drawn by scrawny
ponies creak through the streets, bringing loads
of wood from the mountains. All is surprisingly
much as it was half a century ago. For the rail
road, disdaining to go to this huddle of Mexican
houses, built its station a mile away. “New
Town” of course, grew up around the station,
leaving Old Town to its meditations and its an
cient ways.
• • •
EDDYSTONE
Great buildings of framework steel painted a
glaring red, the rumble of a thousand derricks,
sputtering locomotives, lines of freight cars back
ed on sidings, swarms of men and women moving
about, a few dozen guards armed to tne teeth,
and off in the distance a pretty little creek with
pleasant trees overhanging its banks.
That is Eddystone, in Pennsylvania, one of the
great munitions centers of the eastern United
States. Its growth has been of the mushroom
variety, which has marked the development of
most munitions manufacturing towns. Originally,
Eddystone was a modest, even isolated community,
taken under the placid guardianship of the Dela
ware, with no more pretention to note than a
couple of woolen mills and a boathouse or tw’o.
Most of its inhabitants were English mill workers,
or the descendants of emigrant weavers from Not
tingham, who founded the colony in the eighteenth
century, and a few boatmen living in the cottages
by the river front.
A few years back, the Baldwin Locomotive
Works established a plant at Eddystone and
brought to the hamlet a drove of its mechanics and
laborers. Some time after the outbreak of the
European war, the plant was turned into a muni
tions factory which led to a still further influx of
workmen from Philadelphia, Chester, Wilmington
and other places. Then the Remington Arms
company built its factory there, to be followed
shortly by the Midvale Steel corporation, and the
transformation of Eddystone was complete.
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
“I want to have a tooth drawn,” announced the
small boy with the steel gray eye, “and i want gas.”
“You’re too young to have gas, my little man,”
said the dentist. “Besides, I’m sure you aren’t
afraid of being hurt. Sit still and be a man.”
“It isn’t that at all,” said the boy, “but I’m
afraid I shall not be able to help giving a bit of a
squeal when it comes out.”
“Well, that won’t matter at all,” said the den
tist. “I’m sure 1 shall not mind.”
“No, but I shall. Look out of that window.”
The dentist looked and saw a lot of grinning
lads standing under the window.
"They’re all the kids I’ve fought and whacked,”
said the customer, “and they’re come to hear me
holler.”
« • •
Speaking at a recent dinner Senator Henry C.
Lodge, of Massachusetts, referred to technical au
tomobile terms and told the following story:
One afternoon some time ago two young girls
were sitting on the veranda knitting for
soldiers, when one of them turned the conversa
tion to an auto ride she had the evening before.
“Mr. Jones’ ability in running an automobile is
simply wonderful,” declared the pretty one. “I
never dreamed that it was possible to go quite
so far without machinery.”
“Co without machinery?” was the wondering
rejoinder of the other. “Do you mean to say that
such a'thing happened?” .
“Yes,” promptly replied the first. “We must
hav<J gone at least twelve miles before Mr. Jones
discovered that the engine was missing.”
• • •
“It says here that a wealthy western man
has left $500,000 to the woman who refused to
marry him twenty years ago,” said Mrs. Gabb as
she looked up from the newspaper she was read
ing.
"That’s what I call gratitude,” commented
Mr. Gabb.
NATURE’S POLICE FORCE—By H. Addington Bruce
HAVE you made any study of the wonderful
police force nature has organized to aid
man in getting rid of dangerous pests? Are
you always careful to discriminate between na
ture's police force and the marauders it tireless
ly hunts?
Certainly most people do not discriminate.
To them every little creeping, crawling or
flying creature should be put out of the way as a
nuisance, if not a potential enemy of mankind. But
myriads thus slaughtered are man’’s friends, mem
bers of nature’s efficient police force.
As 1 step out of the door of my summer home
I almost tread upon a curious looking beetle.
His hardshell back of many colors gleams won
drously in the sunshine. But the variegated coat
he wears is his only claim to beauty.
He is, in fact, a lumbering hulk of a beetle, of
truly formidable appearance. He carries his
head thrust forward threateningly. His bite, one
feels, must be a serious matter. So it is
—for certain destructive caterpillars’ hunted by
him with tireless zeal.
I would not dream of killing this ungainly in
sect. He is the calosoma beetle, whose special
mission it is to check the depredations of the gipsy
and browntail moths.
Other beetles, whom all should learn to know,
belong to nature’s police force. So do most of the
spiders, for whom so many of us feel a positive
abhorrence.
The toads that haunt our gardens, the frogs
in our ponds, have police duties to perform. They
may not appeal to our esthetic sense, but we
should at least leave them in peace.
Nature also has aviator policemen innumer
able, from dragon-flies to birds. The dragon-fly
THE EMBATTLED FARMERS—By Dr. Frank Crane
The report that comes from the Americans
fighting in the advance northward from the Marne
is significant in that it shows that their quality as
fighting men is no less than that of the trained sol
diers.
These Americans, taken from the shop and
farm, and subjected to a short period of intensive
training, have proven their ability to stand against
the picked soldiery of Prussia. They have fought
hand to hand with the select troops of the Prus
sian Guard, and have come off victorious. They
have shown themselves as contemptuous of death
and wounds, as intelligent in military tactics, and
as resourceful in strategy as those trained men
who have been soldiers all their lives and whose
fathers were soldiers.
The language of one of the French communi
ques is:
“The young soldiers of the United States give
each day a fresh proof of their spirit of Initiative
and audacity, as well as of their perfect adaptabil
ity to present conditions of warfare.”
Every one of the more responsible military
critics has highly praised the quality of the
American troops.
The Germans have been amazed at the military
efficiency of these Americans —clerks and farmers.
It has been a sort of gospel among them that after
they have bombarded with high explosives and
deadly gases the enemy should be terrified and sur
render. Their frightfulness, however, does net
TRANS-ATLANTIC FLIGHT —By Frederic J. Haskin
WASHINGTON, D. C., August 23. —Can Amer
ican airplanes be delivered in France on
their own power? This is a question which
is now receiving serious consideration by the v. ar
department, by European aviation officials and by
aviators in general.
* * »
The shipment of large quantities of air
planes to France requires a tremendous amount
of tonnage which can ill be spared at the present
time, and which could be saved if the machines
could be flown across the Atlantic. Most aviation
authorities are convinced that it can be done, and
while the American aircraft board has refused to
make public its secret thoughts on the matter, it
is consistently rumored that an experimental
flight will be made some time in September.
• • •
Giovanni Caproni, inventor of the big Caproni
triplane, declares that he will undertake to deliver
President Wilson’s orders to General Pershing in
48 hours by airplane. "A trip across the Atlan
tic can be accomplished with the present-day ma
chines during July, August and September, and
probably October,” says Caproni. “For the rest
of the year the weather would be unfavorable.”
Caproni points to the prodigious development
in aeronautics since the war began, and declares
that nothing which the future may bring forth
should surprise us. Constant improvements are
being made in airplane motors. At the beginning
of the war the largest bombing machine had only
100 horse power; today, the largest bombing ma
chine is 1,000 horse power. Now Caproni pre
dicts that “airplanes carrying 100 men and equip
ment, with engines equal in power to those in a
medium-sized steamship will be developed within
three years.”
Major General William S. Brancker of the
British Royal Air force, and considered one of
the foremost authorities on aviation, also believes
that a flight across the Atlantic is perfectly prac
tical. He points out that in 1914 the flight across
the British channel was thought an extremely
hazardous undertaking, whereas now, in 1918, all
British airplanes are being delivered in France by
that method. Only one casualty has resulted in
thousands of flights across the channel, he de-
General Brancker does not think that the
flight should be attempted without, a thoroughly
reliable motor, however. He advocates the use of
the English motor, the Rolls-Royce, which has
proved its power in other sustained flights. The
American Liberty motor, he says, is very efficient,
standing up under all the tests of European avia
tors, and at its present rate of development should
be able to make a trans-Atlantic flight by next
year.
In considering the proposition of flying air
planes across the Atlantic, many factors must be
considered. It is not a matter to be disposed of
lightly, as some enthusiastic but inexperienced
aviators seem to think, but one requiring elabor
ate study. Numerous pilots are not only willing
but eager to make the attempt, but the govern
ment is loth to authorize it until it feels sure of
success. Good pilots are too valuable to lose now,
and if the flight proved a failure the news would
greatly encourage the German government which
is believed to be also planning a trans-Atlantic
aerial act.
Unfortunately, the principal factor in such a
flight is a thing over which man has never been
able to exercise any control —the weather. Flights
across the Atlantic could be made only when the
weather was favorable, and any sudden and un
foreseen storm would prove highly disastrous.
For this reason a route must be chosen which
lies through a fairly reliable weather area. Thus,
the route favored by most authorities is from New
foundland to the Azores (1,195 miles) and from
the Azores to Portugal (850 miles). From Portu
gal it would be but a short flight to France. More
direct routes have been suggested. For example
it would be much shorter to fly from New York
to Ireland via Greenland, but much more hazard
ous on account of the dense fogs that occur along
this ioute at various intervals. For the same rea
son. a direct route from Newfoundland to Ireland
would be impracticable.
So important is this weather factor that a sys
tem of weather signals would have to be establish
ed along the route, and all those signals would
have to be favorable before an airplane could set
forth.
The Newfoundland-to-the-Azores route has one
conspicuous drawback, however. According to au
thorities who have investigated the matter, many
difficulties would be encountered in establishing
is undeservedly unpopular with humans. As Frank
E. Lutz points out in his “Field Book of Insects”:
“The dragon and damsel flies have been called
‘Devil’s darning needles,’ and accused of sewing
up the ears of bad boys; ‘snake doctors’ or ‘snake
feeders,’ on the theory that they administer to
the needs of reptiles; and ‘horse stingers,’ on the
equally mistaken notion that they sting. As a
matter of fact, they are dangerous only to other
insects.”
As to the birds, particularly the song birds, it
may be laid down as almost axiomatic that the
great majority are policemen especially assigned
to safeguard human interests.
Destructive insects, caterpillars, grubs, noxious
weeds are sum manly arrested by the bird-police
men. Swallow and oriole, kingbird and peewee,
nighthawk and v o ip-poor-will, flicker and cuckoo,
all in their seveial ways patrol a world-wide beat.
In the stoma, h of one yellow-billed cuckoo the
ornithologist Ch; pman found “the partially di
gested remains < f forty-three tent caterpillars.”-
Writing of the annual destruction of weed seed
by the junco bird 'u the state of lowa, F. E. L.
Beal tells us:
“Upon the basis of one-fourth of an ounce of
seed eaten daily by each bird, and supposing that
the birds averaged ten to each square mile, and
that they remained in their winter range two hun
dred days, we should have a total of 1,750,000
pounds, or 875 tons, of weed seed consumed by
this one species in a single season. Large as these
figures may seem, they’ certainly fall short of the
reality.”
Surely it is worth learning just who nature’s
policemen are, and treating them always as among
the best friends man can have.
seem to affect the Americans, who come out into
the open, often rashly and unnecessarily, to meet
the worst they have to offer.
"We could not take the village, because the
Americans were where they had no business to be,”
said a German prisoner, captured at Xivray, on the
Toul sector. “They came right through the bar
rage, and it wasn’t right.” Asked why it was not
right, the German replied naively, "They might
have been killed.”
Without boasting, it may be claimed that a
finer and fitter body of men never went to war
than those that now form the American’contingent
in France. They may not be experienced sol
diers, but they have superb health, a high quality
of intelligence, which is better than the, courage of
custom and obedience.
And they have what is better—an indomitable
spirit. It is the spirit of a righting democracy.
They are not giving their lives for a king, nor a
system, but for an idea and an understandable
principle. They have the courage of intelligence,
which is better than the courage of custom and'
obedience. Every common, soldier among them
knows as well as the general commanding, what
he is fighting for. and what the conflict means in
its larger issues.
In the end it will be spirit and intelligence that
will win. Organization is good, and military
strategy is good, but the thing that finally de
termines victory is “the spirit of man. which *l3
tne candle of the Lord.’ ”
an aerodrome on the coast of the islands, and a
good landing place is one of the prime essentials
in the business of aviation. Its psychological ef
fect on the aviator alone is by ao means negligi
ble. Imagine the nervous strain involved in a
trans-Atlantic flight, the long hours of vigil, the
discomfort of the pilot who must guide his ma
chine for hours occupying one position. The
landing—his destination —is always in mind
for he knows that his endurance must
last until then. A bad landing, with
its additional strain upon the pilot, is, avia
tors say, a depressing infiuenee which lasts
throughout the voyage. Since the route to the
Azores is favorable in other respects it has been
suggested that hydro-airplanes could be used for
the intial flights—until a proper site could be
found for the building of hangars and other equip
ment. It would not be difficult for hydro-air
planes to land in the water upon reaching the is
lands.
• • a
It is doubtful if any of the hydro-airplanes now
being built could keep up a sustained flight of
nearly 2,000 miles, but with ships stationed at in
tervals—say about every 300 miles—along the
route to supply them with fuel, they could easily
make it, it is believed. Small boats such as traw
lers and schooners could be used for this purpose.
* ♦ *
That the airplane in its present stage of de
velopment is capable of a long and sustained flight
has been proven by expenditlons that have been
made in this war. most conspicuous of which was
the flight made by four British airmen in a bi
plane equipped with two 270 horse-power engines
from Hendon, not far from London, to Constanti
nople—a distance of over 2,000 miles. Descents
were made at Paris and Pisa to obtain supplies,
after which the machine flew over the Albanian
Alps to Saloniki. Here a landing was made, the
machine overhauled, and once more it took up Its
flight, this time armed with bombing apparatus.
Needless to say, no landing was made at Constanti
nople. The airplane remained long enough to
drop several bombs on the Turkish war office,
playing havoc with its Oriental dignity, and man
aged to get back to Saloniki on one engine and
with bullet holes in twenty-six different places.
Two of these, having endangered important
mechanism, had been cleverly stuffed with a good,
grade of American chewing gum.
In the past year the allies have made rapid
progress in developing their high-power bombing
planes. In the early part of the war the Germans:
claimed and are admitted to have had the advan
tage in the air. The Zeppelins were undeniably
successful. But the Germans, either through lack,
of material or false optimism, have remained sat
isfied with a few standard makes and have allow
ed the allies to get ahead of them. Since the Ger
man offensive at Picardy on March 21, the allies
have held the advantage in the air. Their ma
chines are better, their fighters better trained-
This is because they have not stuck to a few mod
els; they have constantly built new ones. . So
rapid has been the development in aeronautics in
the allied countries tnat one type of airplane be
comes obsolete in a single year.
What the allies know about aeronautics they
are teaching us. Members of the Italian aviation
corps are in this country showing American manu
facturers how to make Italian war models; plans
of the newest French types have been turned over
to the American government, and a new British mo
tor, which carries a machine to an altitude of 29,-
000 feet and gives it a speed of 150 miles an hour
at 3,000 feet has just arrived in this country. In
addition to these ready-made facilities at our dis
posal, Americana are applying their own inventive
genius to the manufacture of aircraft. In ths
next six months hunureds of planes will be ready
for shipment, but will there be sufficient shipping
space? There seems to be a great dea? of doubt
concerning this, but apparently very little concern
ing the of a trans-Atlantic flight. If
the war lasts through another summer we may
yet deliver American airplanes in France
on their own power.
1 |
NAMES IN THE NEWS
DUMEZIL SHELLS are a special form of
shell used to demolish barbed wire defenses.
They are discharged from trench howitzers at
a distance of about 1,200 feet. The force of
the explosion of one shell is capable of clear-,
ing an are? of about 100 square feet in a net-,
work of wire.
