National Affairs: Progress

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As a result of its investigations, a committee headed by Dwight W. Morrow made recommendations last December for more and better aviation—principally: 1) That peacetime activities be put under a Bureau of Air Navigation headed by an additional Assistant Secretary of Commerce; that the U. S. Air Mail Service be extended, preferably by contract. 2) That an Assistant Secretary of War in charge of aviation be created; that a flying officer be placed on the general staff; that extra pay and insurance be granted those on flying duty; that the aviation reserve be strengthened. 3) That similar actions be taken in the Navy Department. Armed with this program, Congress set the ponderous wheels of lawmaking into motion, and during the session just closed passed three bills following, in the main, Mr. Morrow's recommendations. Last week the President signed the last of these bills—the formidable Army Air Bill authorizing an expenditure of $150,000,000 over a period of five years, at the end of which 2,200 first-class fighting planes are to have been built. There are to be in the service 1,650 regular flying officers, 550 reserve officers, and 15,000 enlisted men, ($89,000,000 had previously been appropriated for naval aviation.) Simultaneously the President nominated and the Senate ap proved Edward P. Warner and Frederick Trubee Davison as Assist ant Secretaries of the Navy and Army, respectively, to direct aviation. Edward P. Warner, skilled aero-engineer and aerodynamicist, young enthusiast, has been professor of aeronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he also conducted a post-graduate course for army and navy officers. Said the New York Times: "A better appointment could hardly be made." F. Trubee Davison. In the summer of 1917, people of New York were too busy with War chatter to notice three planes circling over the harbor. The leading machine was making a beautiful spiral. Suddenly it sideslipped, pitched into the water, crumpled. A yacht steamed over to the wreckage and a young naval lieutenant almost drowned in releasing the pilot from the tangled wires. The pilot was Trubee Davison. His back was broken, he was crippled for life, he would never fly over the French battlefields. The year before, a mere sophomore at Yale, Trubee Davison had seen the stark necessity for trained U. S. aviators, had, by incomparable enthusiasm, created the Yale Aviation Unit, of which Admiral Sims later said, "The great aircraft force which was ultimately assembled in Europe had its beginning in a small group of undergraduates at Yale" (TIME, June 14, BOOKS). Trubee's father, the late Henry P. Davison, Morgan partner, and his father's friend, were unable to withstand his arguments, his zeal. They became ardent backers, bought flying boats and equipment for the Unit. In September, 1917, 29 fliers were thus made ready for the War—except for Trubee, who continued to be the spirit that held the organization together, even from his hospital bed. After the war young Davison sought election to the New York State legislature, where he has subsequently become noted as one of the hardest-working members. He first emerged into national prominence last year as the head of the unofficial Crime Commission, sponsored by Judge E. H. Gary and other worthies. Doubtless no one is better pleased with Mr. Davison's appointment than his father's old friend,

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