THE TIME OF THE RECORD FLIGHT COMPARED WITH THE TIME OF A MAIL TRAIN If a mail train had left San Francisco at the same time as did the air mail on February 22nd, it would have arrived at Green River, Wyoming at the time the air mail landed at Hazelhurst Field, Long Island. Traveling from New York the fastest train of the New York Central connecting with the fastest train west from Chicago, would have reached Omaha in the time the airplanes consumed between the Pacific and the Atlantic. Furthermore, the percentage of trips made on time is higher for airplanes than for trains soon to cross the German lines at night, guided all the way by wireless. Regularly, too, the London to Paris daily air express reckons on the wireless. From the very start, some Congressmen, like some others who can't believe that mail planes beat such trains as the Twentieth Century and the Empire State Express for regularity, have managed to keep the air mail working on a shoe-string. First, with slow and surplus Army training planes, beginning May 15, 1918, we flew the 180-mile run between Washington and New York and in the first year maintained better than 90 per cent. of perfect regularity, saved the department some money, and in response to insistent demands from business-men, found a way to advance one day the delivery of New England mail in Washington and southern mail in New York City. The success of that run justified the extension of the service over the Alleghany Mountains to Cleveland and Chicago, then from Chicago to St. Louis, to St. Paul, and to Minneapolis, where, by the way, the whistles of the entire city blew for three minutes when the first mail pilot rose and then the chimes in the City Hall tower continued with "Nearer My God to Thee." Then, on, at last, over the Rockies, which are higher than the Alps, the service was extended, to the Pacific Coast. Then, through three years, we maintained an average of regularity favorably comparable with that of the railways and twice as fast. In the swamps along Lake Erie, I know from experience, hunters and punters, like rangers in the Sierras, set their watches by the passing of the air mail. Regularly, on schedule to the minute usually, all the way, no matter the weather, those precious pouches go forward. During the 1919 tornado that swept Ohio and Illinois, killing more than a hundred persons, a mail pilot plugged through. Again, during last year's blizzard, when not a wheel between New York and Washington was stirring, the mail by air came and went on schedule. Nevertheless, some Congressmen had legitimate doubts. The immortal forty-niners, you know, only three generations ago took many weeks, in their Conestoga wagons, to cross, in frenzied thirst for gold. In June of the Centennial year, then, you remember, the Jarrett and Palmer theatrical company crossed in eighty-three hours and forty-five minutes over a roadbed costing about $20,000 every mile. That special train went those 3,311 miles at the unheard of speed of 39.5 miles an hour, and the record stood for thirty years, when, in successive tries, "Harriman specials" pulled the record down to seventy-two hours and twentyseven minutes. We planned to do it in a trifle more than a third of that flying time. Actually, our flying time across the Continent was twenty-five hours and twenty-one minutes. Two relays, each way, were started. Nutter had hopped off from San Francisco at 4:29 in the morning and in darkness had climbed three miles high over the Nevada Sierras. Eaton had taken up the relay at Reno at 6:45 A.M., and reached Salt Lake City, after a stop to change to another ship at Elko437 air miles at 11:30, Mountain time. Murray raced on, trying a non-stop flight of 381 air miles. He was forced to land at Rawlins for gas and oil, wait there forty-five minutes accordingly, yet swooped down on the Cheyenne field at 4:57. There Pilot Yager hopped off and ran on-into the night-flying seventy miles in total darkness with a hidden moon. He dropped down at North Platte at 7:48, and they cheered him for a perfect three-point landing. Harry Smith had beat him in from Cheyenne and at 9:30 flew on. Knight followed, five minutes after the motor of No. 172 had been restored to working order. He hopped off, on what he thought was to be his only run that night, at 10:44. Passing over the Platte River and running on toward Lexington, he says, he could see two large flares-bonfires! At Kearney, Nebraska, Grand Island and Central City there were flares-"to guide us and let us know that patriotic Americans watched and hoped for our success and the welfare of our undertaking." Leaving North Platte, our course paralleled the Platte and the Union Pacific for 150 miles, on to Central City. "Along there," he goes on, "things began to get interesting. There was a broken cloud layer from behind which the moon broke through at intervals, while down below, 2,200 feet, the river glistened, a winding silver ribbon, like phosphorus in the dark. By the time I reached Lexington the clouds had completely obscured the moon. The earth looked like a dungeon and I hopped up to a height of 6,200 feet to learn the depth of the cloudbank." The most beautiful sight in the world, he explains in his own way, is a cloud layer closeup, even in the daytime, when it looks like a sea of lovely suds! The sun plays on it. There are tints and colors, and you can spot the shadow of your plane. "At night, up there," he says, "the moon silvered that big sea-it was interesting-a good place to forget your troubles in the world, with not a sound except the old Liberty motor buzzing away. "You forget even that till it misses!" So he ran on, flying lower when the moon broke through below, checking his compass, spotting the lights of cities twenty to thirty miles away. Passing between David City and Wahoo, he says, he could see the lights of Lincoln. And over Wahoo, forty miles from Omaha, he could see the lights of his home town and even the red flares of the landing field. He dropped down at Omaha at 1:10-the field was lighted so well, he says, landing was as easy as in the daytime. A crowd of two thousand people was waiting "to watch and pull." A THE MEN WHO CREATED Automobile Manufacturers of Vision, and Their Agreement to FTER the automobile had passed the "horseless carriage" age of the late nineties, and the pleasure of skimming over the roads without a slow-going horse ahead of one overcame the public ridicule that greeted the first cars, it became evident that this infant industry had been born with a silver, if not a gold spoon in its mouth. The making and selling of four thousand curved-dash Oldsmobiles in 1903 showed many people the possibilities in the business. The early dreams of Charles E. Duryea, Elwood Haynes, R. E. Olds, and other pioneers were coming true. Then began the great growth of the industry. The bicycle manufacturers followed Alexander Winton and E. R. Thomas into this new field. The wagon makers, led by the Studebakers and Mitchell, became interested. The Cadillac Company and the Ford Motor Company sprang up and became successful. Henry B. Joy, Buick, Marmon, and others, in addition to those who had been trained at the Olds Motor Works in Detroit, started with companies of their own. In the next few years many others entered the industry. And there was enough business for all, for the public demand for automobiles grew beyond all expectations. Companies which had good management, sufficient capital, and produced cars that the public liked made large profits. But the industry was not without its failures -many of them. Young men of mechanical bent but little manufacturing ability got into it. Some were financed by rich fathers and then that backing was withdrawn before they had established a place for their cars. In fact one of the great drawbacks in the whole industry was the lack of capital. Bankers were almost unanimous in the belief that the "craze" for automobiles would die out. Then later they complained that there were already too many companies in the field; they would not risk their money in new ventures. If the industry had not been established on a cash basis at the start, and if the parts-makers had not extended liberal credit to the companies, this timidity of capital might have proven fatal to the young industry. It certainly would have retarded its marvelous growth. Fortunately there were a few rich men who had the vision of the future of the automobile and were willing to risk their money in it. This was particularly true in Michigan where there were men who had made fortunes in mining and lumbering in the Northern Peninsula and were at the time looking for other fields to go into. But when the 1907 money panic came a good many automobile companies went under. And in 1910 the death rate was as high as one a week. Among the men with money who became interested in the business was Henry B. Joy, of Detroit, known by his friends as Harry Joy. He not only invested his money, but went into the industry himself and became an important element in its successful development. He had tried to buy one of Henry Ford's early experimental cars, but Mr. Ford had told him to wait for the next one, that it would be a better car. Meanwhile Mr. Joy heard of the phaeton Col. J. W. Packard was making in Warren, Ohio, and he went down there and got one. At that time, Mr. Joy and Mr. Emory W. Clark, now president of the First and Old Detroit National Bank, were making plans to start in the banking business. After Joy got his Packard phaeton, however, Clark saw little of him for a month or more. Joy was out on the roads around Detroit at all hours, in and under his new car, testing it and tinkering with it. His enthusiasm for the automobile grew rapidly and it was contagious enough to influence other Detroit men of means, including the Algers and the Newberrys, to put money into the building of a large factory in Detroit for the manufacture of the Packard car in quantities. Col. Packard was to come on from Warren to run it. At the last minute, however, he could not come, and it devolved upon Joy to take charge of this four hundred thousand dollar plant. The first year the company lost two hundred thousand dollars. The factory became known around Detroit as the 'millionaires' folly." But Joy increased the production schedule for the next year, and by his own untiring efforts, together with the financial backing of his directors, made the Packard Company a success. MR. SELDEN AND HIS PATENT FOR several years the Selden, patenty was a the case to the United States Circuit Court of dominating influence in the industry. Mr. George B. Selden, a patent lawyer of Rochester, N. Y., with inclinations toward mechanics, invented the gasolene automobile in 1879. He immediately made application for a patent, but there followed repeated delays-apparently encouraged by Selden himself, who was trying to interest capital in his new inventionand it was not until 1895 that the patent was issued. Mr. Selden did not manufacture under it and in 1899 sold control of his patent to the Columbia & Electric Vehicle Company which soon afterward became the Electric Vehicle Company. William C. Whitney,. Anthony F. Brady, P. A. B. Widener, Thomas F. Ryan, and other Eastern capitalists were interested in this company. They began a campaign of vigorous enforcement of the patent the next year. Appeals and gave bond to cover damages to the complainants while the case was pending. The other so-called "independents," who were interested with Ford in the fight, but were not as strong financially as the Ford Company, decided, after Judge Hough's sweeping decision, that they could no longer afford to run the risk of heavy penalties, and practically all of them went into the Association of Licensed Manufacturers. Ford continued the fight alone. In January, 1911, Judge Noyes delivered the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals that the patent was valid, but that Ford did not infringe it because Selden described an engine of the Brayton type while the defendents and almost all modern automobile makers used the Otto type. Mr. Ford said that the advertising his company got from this case was worth more than all it cost. It was in this Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, in the American Motor Car Manufacturers Association, formed to combat it, and in the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers, organized in 1900 Suit was brought against the Winton Motor Carriage Company for infringement. This suit ran along until 1903 when the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers was formed and ten companies signed an agreement recognizing the validity of the Selden patent and agreed to pay a roy--before the other two-including both “lialty of 1 per cent. of the retail price of all cars sold by them. The Electric Vehicle Company had an arrangement with Mr. Selden as to amount of the royalty he was to get. Mr. James Rood Doolittle, who wrote "The Romance of the Automobile Industry," estimates that Mr. Selden realized about two hundred thousand dollars from his invention. As the industry grew this 1 per cent. royalty soon began to run into large sums and the payments became burdensome on the industry. It was then that Henry B. Joy, president of the Packard Company, led a vigorous fight within the ranks of the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers censed" and "independent" companies, that the leading figures in the automobile industry learned many lessons in coöperation. They also learned something regarding the costs of patent suits and the uncertain value of patents. But the full fruits of this knowledge would probably never have been realized if there had not been drawn into the industry at an early date a man who had seen at first hand the disastrous results of patent litigation in another field, and who had the perseverance to follow an ideal for many years, until he finally got practically all the automobile manufacturers of the country to accept it. This man is Mr. Charles C. Hanch, who That started in the automobile business with the Nordyke & Marmon Company of Indianapolis. That company was, and still is, a large manufacturer of flour milling machinery. industry had many points of similarity to the automobile industry. Just as there had been little improvement in the means of road transportation from the days of Babylon, when wheeled vehicles were used, until the automobile was invented; so for thousands of years flour was made by grinding grain between two stones, until rollers were invented in Hungary about 1883. That invention was immediately brought to this country and many improvements were made upon it. The making of this flour milling machinery was a highly profitable business. There were about fortyfive companies engaged in it, and they were all so busy making money for the first ten years that they had little time to fight each other. But about 1893 the profits began to get smaller, and patent litigation became active. The resulting business feuds and bitter competition were so destructive that only about five out of the forty-five companies survived. When the Nordyke & Marmon Company entered the automobile field, Mr. Hanch saw that there was likely to be the same rapid development as in the flour milling machinery business, and he foresaw that unless something was done to prevent it there would be even a worse tangle of patent litigation. He went to see Mr. Chester Bradford, of Indianapolis, who had been an attorney in much of the flour milling machinery litigation. Mr. Bradford suggested that a main corporation be formed to take over the patents of the various automobile companies, to issue stock to the different companies in proportion to the value of which includes all the leading automobile producers, except the Ford Motor Company, agreed to a plan of cross-licensing their patents which permits of their use by every other member free of charge. It is not surprising to find that C. C. Hanch was chairman of the patents committee that put this plan through. The other members were Wilfred C. Leland, Howard E. Coffin, Windsor T. White, and W. H. Van Dervoort. Frederick P. Fish, counsel for the N. A. C. C., helped to convince the members of the practical value of such a plan. plan. The chief credit, however, belongs to Hanch. In the six years between the birth of the idea in his mind and 1915 he had not been idle. Upon every suitable occasion he had advocated a scheme that would eliminate patent litigation. He had the background of experience in the flour milling machinery industry to draw upon for horrible examples. But even he never dreamed at first that a plan could be effected that would permit of the free interchange of patents. It was when the committee started work on a definite plan and the difficulties of appraising the value of patents and fixing royalties for their use became apparent that it was suggested that no charge at all be made. As no manufacturer had patents worth as much as the aggregate value of the patents of all the others, there was a sound basis of fairness in this proposal. It was this argument that finally convinced the automobile manufacturers in the N. A. C. C. and induced them to adopt the plan. Each one had much more to gain from it than he was asked to contribute. THE EXCHANGE OF PATENTS their patents, and to fix reasonable royalties THIS cross-licensing agreement does not to be charged for the use of the patents. Mr. Hanch talked to some of the automobile manufacturers about this. They all said, "Go to Detroit and see Harry Joy. If you If you can get him interested in the scheme, there is a chance of getting it adopted by the industry." So Hanch went to Detroit, but Mr. Joy could see no possibility of getting the automobile manufacturers to agree to such a plan. Mr. Hanch's hopes were checked, but he did not abandon his idea. That was 1909. In 1915, practically all the companies in the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, the successor of all the earlier organizations of manufacturers, cover radical patents, for it was felt that any company making inventions of a striking character, involving a radical departure from what is known, should be entitled to special compensation if such inventions proved valuaable. At present there are no patents owned by the members of the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce that have been determined to be of this class., Nor are design patents which apply to the outward appearance of a car its shape and lines-included in this agreement. But all other patents, such as improvements on the engine or on other parts of the car, come under the cross-licensing agreement and can be used by all the parties of this agreement free of charge. There are |