Mr. Taft Pledged to More Aeroplanes for War as Aero Club Announces Honors

Trophies Given by Messrs. Mackay and Whitney for Army and Navy.

AVIATORS ARE HONORED

Collier Prize Conferred on Glenn H. Curtiss for Hydro-Aeroplane and Medal on C. P. Rodgers.

President Taft last night pledged himself to a larger appropriation by the federal government for the development of aeronautics, especially as applied to army and navy uses. He told three hundred members and guests of the Aero Club of America that he has no sympathy with the “penuriousness of Congress” in this regard, and declared that he recognized the value of the work being done by aviators in this country.

The occasion was the annual dinner of the Aero Club at Sherry’s. William J. Burns was speaking when the President, accompanied by his secretary, Charles D. Hilles, and Major Archibald Butt, U. S. A., his military aide, entered, and the applause, which was led by Mr. Burns himself, ended the toast. Robert J. Collier, president of the club, who was toastmaster, immediately presented the case of aviators, in these words: —

“Mr. President, I want to give you a few statistics. They won’t take long, but they will, we hope, interest you. France is preparing to make an annual appropriation of four and one-half millions to further the science of aviation. The annual appropriation of the United States, the home of human flight, is $100,000. That does not begin to represent the place which this country should take among the nations of the earth in this regard.” He pointed to a full sized Blériot type monoplane, which was suspended from the ceiling of the ballroom. “As you speak,” he said, “you may face the emblem of your favorite bird, the dove of peace. Whenever you desire to fly over the wall which separates this country from Canada, whenever you wish to distribute your ideas on reciprocity, you will find this, the carrier pigeon of peace, awaiting you.”

President Expresses Sympathy.

“You have my sympathy in your feeling toward the penuriousness of Congress in this regard,” replied the President. “And in saying this I do not confine my feeling toward that body to the lower house. I am convinced that the science to which you men are giving and losing your lives has advanced sufficiently to justify a larger appropriation by the government of the United States for testing and experimenting in what can be done in the air with the inventions we have already as well as those to come. The Treasury of the United States may properly be used for the general welfare, and the cost of this science which is now being developed may best be defrayed out of the national treasury because the national treasury is best able to stand it.

“As men go on devoting and losing their lives for discoveries which may be made in the air, I am convinced that we have here an invention which will benefit mankind as much as the telephone, the automobile or any of the others, without which we would not now think life possible. I am here because I believe in the future of aviation, and am anxious to give it any encouragement which my presence may lend.”

To encourage the men of the United States army and navy on whom the country must depend to establish its military supremacy in the air, trophies will be given, it was announced, for the army by Clarence H. Mackay, and for the navy in memory of his father, once its head, by Henry Payne Whitney. The conditions of these awards remain to be determined, after consultation between the representatives of the club and those of the military forces.

For the first time also the Collier Aviation trophy was awarded by the club last night, its recipient being Glenn H. Curtiss, and the achievement named by the club being the development of the hydro-aeroplane.

For his transcontinental flight the gold commemorative medal voted by the club several weeks ago to Calbraith P. Rodgers was formally conferred on him at the dinner.

Men who are giving their lives to aviation were seated at the dinner among diplomatists, officers of the army and navy, business men, scientists and professional men, who have caught the spirit and enthusiasm of flight with the development of the aeroplane within the last few years. Robert J. Collier, president of the Aero Club, was the toastmaster of the occasion. At the guests’ table with him sat: —

President Taft, J. Jules Jusserand, French Ambassador; John Hays Hammond, Orville Wright, Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary, U. S. N.; Lieutenant General Nelson A. Miles, U. S. A.; Major General Leonard Wood, U. S. A.; Brigadier General James Allen, U. S. A.; Captain Washington I. Chambers, U. S. N.; Clarence H. Mackay, Charles Dana Gibson, Calbraith P. Rodgers, Claude Grahame-White, Professor Willis L. Moore, J. C. Montgomery, William Travers Jerome, Harold F. McCormick and James A. Blair, Jr.

Those at the dinner included Jerome Moore, J. C. Montgomery, William Travers Jerome, Harold F. McCormick and James A. Blair, Jr., H. Joyce, Nikola Tesla, A. Holland Forbes, Charles Jerome Edwards, A. Leo Stevens, George W. Beatty, Baron L. d’Orcy, General Thomas L. Watson, Percy Rockefeller, Ernest G. Schmolck, R. A. C. Smith, E. P. Noel, William Loeb, Jr.; Sereno S. Pratt, Philip Rhinelander, Richard Sutro, George T. Wilson, Thomas A. Hill, Henry Woodhouse, Colonel George Harvey, Colonel F. T. Leigh, Major Samuel Reber, W. Redmond Cross, Frank Coffyn, J. B. Regan, Andrew Freedman, Lyttleton Fox, Timothy L. Woodruff, Captain Charles de F. Chandler, Jr.; W. Butterick, E. T. Jeffery, S. H. Valentine, Alan R. Hawley, James Elverson, Cortland F. Bishop, Charles R. Flint, Clifford B. Harmon, Frederick A. Duneka, Charles E. Spratt, General Nelson H. Henry, G. C. Loening, A. E. Gallatin, J. T. Burden, Jr.; J. S. Barney, M. R. Guggenheim, V. E. Macy, R. S. Mead, H. A. Willis, James Jenkins, J. H. Duckworth.

Machine in Distress.

Parodies on several popular songs of the day by Walt Mason, Arthur Goodman and Wallace Irwin were introduced, to the amusement of those assembled. “I Belong to de Government Now” was applied by Mr. Irwin to the modern aeroplane, which after being exalted in pride by government ownership had a fall, thereafter discovering that—

“To mend a broken strut required red tape through every rank,
And it took an act of Congress to supply a leaky tank.”

General Allen, as the representative of the army, expressed its thanks for the creation of the prize offered by Mr. Mackay, as announced by Mr. Collier in an address. Captain Chambers, for the navy, made a similar speech of appreciation of the gift of Mr. Whitney.

Glenn H. Curtiss, who is in California, was unable to attend the dinner. The terms of the deed of gift of the Collier trophy given to him are that it shall be awarded annually for the greatest achievement in aviation in America, the value of which has been demonstrated by use during the preceding year. The trophy is a group in bronze by Ernest Wise Keyser, of this city, representing the triumph of man over gravity and other forces of nature. Its donor was Robert J. Collier.

Explains Curtiss Award.

The award of this honor to Glenn H. Curtiss for 1911 was made by a committee of the club composed of Henry A. Wise Wood, James A. Blair, Jr., and W. Redmond Cross. Mr. Wood in a brief address explained that the prize had been conferred on Mr. Curtiss for the successful development and thorough demonstration of the hydro-aeroplane, citing the conditions of the gift. Mr. Curtiss, he said, had been the first to put water flying on a practical basis, recalling attempts abroad that had failed to reach the goal. He recalled in proof the remarkable flights of the American machine during the last year, including Mr. Curtiss’ flight out to the cruiser Pennsylvania at San Diego, Cal., the flights of Lieutenants Ellyson and Towers down the Chesapeake from Annapolis to Fort Monroe and that of Hugh Robinson down the Mississippi. He pointed out that it had added vastly to sport through the medium of a safe and delightful pastime, no life having been sacrificed or serious injury inflicted.

Calbraith P. Rodgers, who came here from Los Angeles for this occasion, responded briefly when informed that the club’s commemorative gold medal was bestowed upon him for his flight across the continent last fall. In former years the club’s medals have been given to the Wright brothers, Glenn H. Curtiss, Thomas S. Baldwin, Alan R. Hawley, Augustus Post, Alfred Leblanc and Edgar W. Mix for notable flights. The inscription on the medal reads: —

“Presented to Calbraith P. Rodgers for the first American transcontinental flight from Sheepshead Bay, L. I., September 17, 1911, to Long Beach, Cal., December 10, 1911.”

New Periodical Announced.

Another of the important announcements of the dinner was in the shape of No. 1, volume 1, of a new periodical, the Aero Club of America Bulletin, an aeronautical digest and official organ of the club, which will be published monthly.

Mons. Jusserand, the French Ambassador, in an address referred to the work of the Wright brothers in Dayton, Ohio, from the time they began their work with machines heavier than air.

“Their first successful attempt,” he said, “dated back to 1903 when one of the brothers had been able to keep himself in the air and move about for not less than 59 seconds. It was a great deed and a great date.

“When the early Montgolfiers rose from Paris your minister there was the most illustrious of your scientists, inventors and thinkers. Some one said in his presence, ‘What is the good of these balloons?’

“With his usual wisdom and foresight he answered: — ‘What is the good of a newborn babe?’

“The newborn babe to me it seems is now nearing manhood.”

Other speakers were Claude Grahame-White, William Travers Jerome and J. C. Montgomery.

The cuts are captioned Calbraith P. Rodgers, Glenn H. Curtiss (who receives the Collier trophy), Robert J. Collier, Clarence H. Mackay, Henry Payne Whitney, and “The Collier Aviation Trophy. Copyright, 1911, by Keyser.”