T

HE plane by day and the train by night!

Mosaic-with reverse English. The pillar of cloud by night. The pillar of fire by day-the white fire of the lighted airway; the invisible fire of the radio beacon. For fog, as much as darkness, is the enemy of the airman.

Americans commonly crossing the continent in two days or so, riding in an airplane in the daytime and in a train at night.

The conception-and the phrasebelong to Charles Lanier Lawrance, President of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, Vice-President of the National Air Transport, pioneer of the aircooled engine, developer of the Eiffel wing. He believes that its realization is only a few years in the future-less than five.

"The way passenger service will start," Mr. Lawrance says, "is this: There will be a commercial air line, let us say, from Columbus, Ohio, to St. Louis. You will get on a train in New

York in the evening and go to bed. After breakfast, the next morning, you will get in the plane in Columbus and ride to St. Louis by lunch-time, with half a day for business that you would not have had if you had gone all the way by train. Or you will go on to Tulsa, say, by dark-several hundred miles farther than you could have gone by train."

That is the way it will start, but it

Two

WO weeks ago The Outlook ran an article by Mr. Whiteleather on European supremacy in aviation.

In order to satisfy ourselves as to America's position, we asked a man who ought to know. Said he, "The United States is the only country which is in a sound position in the air.”

His name is Charles Lanier Lawrance, and he is President of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, which builds the Wright Whirlwind Motors. His own inventions have brought every-day fly. ing nearer, and he is probably as closely connected with development in aviation as any man in the country.

-THE EDITORS.

will expand rapidly and, Mr. Lawrance thinks, by the end of five years passengers will be going from New York to San Francisco, all the way by plane, in about thirty hours and at tolerably reasonable cost-probably about what a Pullman stateroom would cost.

MR. LAWRANCE does not at all subΜ

scribe to the statement, so often heard, that the United States is behind European countries in the development

while United States planes carry mail and express on a sound business basis.

"Curiously enough," says Mr. Lawrance, "it is because of the business ability of the American people that we have not carried passengers to any great extent."

Passengers, he points out, require fine accommodations and superlative safety. Therefore, economically, a passenger is the worst thing that an American plane can carry. There will be no great development of air-passenger business until both comfort and safety can be assured.

But assurance is nearer than one might think. The prerequisites to safety are, by Mr. Lawrance's count, these:. Adequate airports and airways. Adequate systems of guiding planes in bad weather.

Comprehensive direction systems by radio beacon.

An altimeter that will tell an aviator how high he is, not above sea-level, but above the ground immediately beneath him.

Rigid inspection to determine what is to be allowed and what is not to be allowed.

contrary, he believes that the United States is in a more favorable position than any country in Europe. European planes carry passengers, with seventy per cent of the cost paid by Government,

way of realization. An altimeter is being worked out. The radio beacon is in operation. Public interest in airports and airways, apathetic before Lindbergh's flight, is active and eager.

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The Department of Commerce is just working out its inspection system, free from the military specifications that have hampered European aviation. Both Lindbergh's and Chamberlain's planes, Mr. Lawrance says, would have been ruled out on many counts in Great Britain or France.

Those are the elements of safety still to be perfected. Landing speed has already been controlled by wheel brakes. While non-capsizable, hovering planes might be desirable, they do not appear to be practicable. Anything that would bring about these results would be attained at the sacrifice of speed. "And," says Mr. Lawrance, "the essence of flying is speed. If you have not speed, you might better go some other way." Multimotored planes Mr. Lawrance regards as probably necessary to safety.

But, he points out, most accidents are caused by bad weather, not by bad equipment or bad flying. And accidents due to engine failure are fewest of all. Defects in equipment that cause accidents are usually in the fuel system.

Generally speaking, he says, planes do not fall. They have to make forced landings. And, if they know where they are, how high they are, and have an airport within reach, they are all right. After all is done, he admits, it will happen occasionally that an aviator will have to come down where there is no place to land, and there will be an accident. But it will just have to be as accidents are in automobiles, on railroads, and in ox-carts.

THE attainment of comfort in air

travel, too, is not so far away as it might seem comfort to the passenger and profit to the carrier. No plane of less than twenty-passenger capacity is either profitable or comfortable, Mr. Lawrance says, and we are just reaching the stage where planes are built as big as that. Indeed, no American plane today is as big as that. The biggest that we have are the Ford and the Fokker, each of nine or ten passenger capacity.

But Germany is building forty-passenger planes and is experimenting with one cf a hundred-passenger capacity. Other European countries are doing things of the same kind. "We in America," says Mr. Lawrance, "will probably imitate the Europeans and improve on their planes."

It is in the big, comfortable, profitable planes that the bulk of America's airpassenger business will be donc done by large air transportation companies that ultimately can make flying a chief mode of travel because they do not have to invest in roadbed.

But Mr. Lawrance. points out two other ways in which travel by air will increase rapidly-the privately owned plane and the taxiplane.

Short rides for thrills are just now very common, several times more so than they were before Lindbergh's flight. This practice, Mr. Lawrance thinks, is not to be commended, but the companies that engage in thrill flying are rendering a service in that they are familiarizing the public with flying. Pretty soon they will disappear or be transformed into taxiplane companies, carrying passengers for comparatively short distances where there are no regular commercial air lines or lighted air

particularly near the cities of the seaboard, where flying conditions difficult. But private ownership and operation will be, for a long time, an expanding part of American flying.

"But, after all," Mr. Lawrance continues, "the real future of travel by air rests with the airway and the big commercial company."

"The saving of time," he observes, "has always been the basis of our progress. And, since traveling by air does save time, it is bound to develop in the United States.

"It is bound to develop, too, because we are in a sound position to develop it. American companies, carrying mail and express and a few passengers, are either making money or breaking even. European companies, carrying passengers and mighty little mail or express, depend upon the government for all but thirty per cent of their income. They started on a subsidy basis and on a red-tape basis of inspection, and they cannot easily escape from either.

"We are far from being behind European countries in the air.

"The fact is that we are the only country on earth that is in a sound position in the air."

I

ONCE heard a story of an Englishman who got into a railway compartment with an old countryman, who proceeded to smoke a very dirty old pipe of extremely rank tobacco. At length he felt he could bear it no longer.

"Excuse me," he said, "but I am a doctor of twenty years' experience, and I think I ought to tell you that, in my opinion, every case of cancer of the throat I have treated has been caused by the smoking of bad tobacco."

The old farmer went on puffing for a few moments, then he removed his pipe

to say:

"Well, I've had sixty years' experience, and I think I ought to tell you that, in my opinion, every case of a black eye and a bashed-in nose I ever met has been caused by folks interfering with other folks' business."

THE

HE profound wisdom of this remark should perhaps be laid away in the heart of every English lecturer who visits America, for I fear the principle of non-interference has not always been remembered in the last few years. The popularity of the lecture in this country has indeed been exploited shamelessly. The lure of high fees in America has tempted from across the seas many a poet, dramatist, novelist, traveler, philosopher, or writer of memoirs in order to pose as a speaker at several hundreds of dollars per night. This may perhaps be forgiven, and the blame for its own subsequent disappointment may be laid to the hospitable American public whose curiosity to see the lions is really much stronger than its insistence on brilliant roaring. However, it does seem, to say the least of it, a breach of good manners for such speakers to pocket their fees and then rush into print to prove that the only "rift within the loot," as the poet says, is the horror of American advertisements or American accents, American hustle or American handshakes, American Puritanism or American Pullmans.

It is difficult to account for the very waspish temper of these visitors who sting the hand that feeds them, except by remembering what an enormous number of people do go through life with the schoolboy attitude that everything different from their own community habits

is necessarily inferior to them-the attitude of poor dear Britannus in "Cæsar and Cleopatra," who is so pathetically convinced that the customs of his country are synonymous with the laws of nature and the will of God. It is not a very favorable attitude for enjoying foreign travel.

Certainly, for the lover of experiences, to whom everything different is an adventure, there is no better way of exploring "the real America" than by a lecture tour. This landing strange, friendless, alone, without even. the merest acquaintance on the whole continent, totally ignorant of American customs, organizations, or geography, and traveling anywhere where an audience can be found that will pay to listen.

Such a tour, as can well be imagined, is very different from those arranged by the well-known agents for their menageries, but I doubt if the lions have half the fun of the independent vagrant speaker. They don't stay in the hotels where you sit in a rocker in the window, and they don't ever speak in smaller cities. I mean the sort of city where you are always entertained in the Congregational Church parlors; where you always eat the same meal of tomato soup, chicken, salad, and ice-cream, and where the first half of the lecture is given to the accompaniment of the dishes being washed behind the scenes, while during the second half some one comes to practice on the organ in the church.

blue and friends are untrue; if trade is poor; if you feel all out of sorts; if you can't have your own way; and so on. But, in spite of all the helpful instruction in the texts, they do not cover all the situations which confront the inexperienced speaker, and there is, alas! no book of etiquette for lecturers. Would that there were! Introductions, for example, and how they should be met, would be a useful chapter, and one especially required by the beginner. The lion has little trouble here. He may have to listen to praise which is a little exaggerated (but it is unlikely that he will think so), or the tale of his exploits may take a little too long, but every one is at least waiting eagerly to listen to him. Not so with the newcomer. The audience, indeed, has often to be molded and cajoled into a receptive frame of mind. The speaker must remember that many of the figures before her do not really want to be there at all. They have probably come from a sense of the duty of cultivating their minds, a sense of loyalty to the club, or a sense of friendship for some member of the committee. The knowledge of this, moreover, may creep inexorably into the harassed president's introduction of the speaker, try she never so hard to be tactful.

It was in a small Middle Western city in midwinter. I found that the one train in the day which connected it with my last stopping-place, less than a hundred miles off, arrived an hour after I was due to speak. A perplexed club secretary explained over the long-distance telephone that if I took a train to another junction I could there find a trolley which would bring me within thirty miles of my destination and could come on thence by motor bus. This was at nine o'clock in the morning. At four o'clock in the afternoon I emerged from the bus, thanking whatever gods there be for my unconquerable constitution. Any one who has traveled over a dirt road in midwinter during a hard frost will understand what that thirty-mile journey had been like; one appeared to be traversing a solidified choppy sea. However, I had arrived, and could speak as per schedule. The room was well filled. "Ladies," said the president, "Miss Drew has had great difficulty in reaching us today, and I know you will

210

all join with me in expressing our gratitude to her for coming. But," she went on, evidently feeling some overmastering necessity for touching the delicate topic, "as I look round the room this afternoon, Miss Drew is not the only person to whom I feel gratitude. Some of you may know that we have been a little nervous about this lecture. We all know

how hard it is to get people to come to a lecture when it is competing with entertainments, and there were several entertaining events scheduled in the city for this afternoon. So that I feel, before asking Miss Drew to give us her talk, I should like to say how very grateful I am to the members of the club for supporting us in this way this afternoon. And I am happy to say that next month I have no doubt that the meeting will be a large one, as we have Mr. Louis Anspacher coming, and I need say no more."

Or, again, there was an unfortunate moment in a very small town in Canada. "This is an event in the history of our club," began the president, "for it is the first time we have ever had a woman to address us." (Again this overmastering impulse.) "Of course, we know that a good many members of the committee think we are making a very great mistake in changing our rule, but we had a majority in favor of a trial. Miss Drew is going to speak to us about George Bernard George, and I know there is a treat in store. I have myself been enjoying 'The Outline of History' lately, and I feel sure that Miss Drew is going to make it equally interesting to all of you." What text can give inspiration at such a moment? Feverishly the speaker gropes in her mind for something which shall smooth her way. Fragments of the Red Queen's advice present themselves: "Curtsey while you are thinking what to say; it saves time. . . . Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thing. . . . Turn out your toes and remember who you are." But what is there to do but to crave at least the Johnsonian attitude towards a woman speaking in public-"it is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It is not well done, but you are surprised that it should be done at all"-with the faint hope that remarks about "Back to Methuselah" will duly mislead those who insist on an outline of history.

Or there was that evening lecture when, with the help of a new dress and the kindly artificial light, I was evidently looking my best, and the friendly introducer wanted to pay me a compliment on my appearance. "I understand," she said, "that Miss Drew, besides having

The Outlook for October 19, 1927

lectured at Oxford and Cambridge, England, is also the author of a very clever book-though I am sure you will all agree with me," with an arch look at me, "when I say that no one would think it to look at her!"

INDEED, I defy any lecturer to have a

shred of vanity left about himself at the end of his, or her, pioneer tour. I suppose an optimist might be defined as some one who believes what is said

about speakers in their elders, but the unhappy performer often has need to fortify his courage by recalling some of it to mind himself. It was a fellowworker in the profession who told me once what happened to him. He spoke without payment on some philanthropic scheme in which he was interested, but on one occasion there had been some misunderstanding as to terms, and after the lecture he was presented with a small check. He explained that he did not wish to be paid, on which, turning to a friend, the treasurer exclaimed, 'Dr. says we do not owe him this check, so we can put it in the fund. Isn't that nice?" "And may I ask what your fund is for?" inquired the speaker. “Oh, it's a fund we've started so that we can afford better speakers next year."

Or again, there was the occasion when two colleges in the same city chose the same subject for a lecture, and I wrote to ask if it was of any consequence. The secretary meant no discouragement, I know, but what she wrote was: "My dear Miss Drew, it will not matter at all if you speak here twice on the same topic. I think it is most unlikely that any one who hears you in the afternoon will be in the audience of your evening lecture."

B

UT there are the compensations. The glorious times when everything seems to go well. When, like the favorite politician, if you make a joke you are immediately voted brilliant and witty, and if you can't think of a joke you say it is no time for trifling and are immediately voted able and sincere. Moreover, there are times when your popularity does not depend at all on what you say. Ladies have often told me, and I know it is a compliment, that it wasn't so much what I said, but to hear it said in an English accent, which kept them spellbound. Once too I saw a lady bring in a little girl of nine or ten years old. "Why have you brought Virginia?" asked the friend she sat beside. "Miss Drew is not speaking for children, you know; I don't think Virginia will understand." "Oh, I don't

really mind what Miss Drew says," replied the mother, "but I think it will make her geography so much more real to Virginia if, when she hears about England, she can visualize a native from that shore." Against which I should, in all fairness, put the story of the English schoolboy who asked me, innocently, "How many wives is it an American may have if he believes in the Monroe Doctrine?"

THE lions, again, must, in the nature

of things, miss many of the adventures by the way. Their agents plan their schedules for them and tell them which trains to take-make, I mean. They can never get the charming letters I used to receive pointing out with such tact and gentleness that if I had planned to speak one day in North Dakota and two days later in Idaho, I could not arrange a booking for the intermediate day in Tennessee. Nor do I think that lions ever travel in day coaches. I am sure no drummer in electric washing-machines ever printed for any of them across the top of his newspaper, "R. U. ALONE AND LONESOME?" I suppose the correct repartee to that is, "If lonesome or blue or friends untrue, turn to 1 Timothy xix. 7," or words to that effect; but I should have missed a most agreeable conversation if I had made it.

Another train acquaintance was anxious that I should know his name before we parted. "You'll never forget it, I promise you," he declared as he chuckled in anticipation of the joke that was coming. "Now, what's the opposite of natural?" "Unnatural," I suggested, not feeling very intelligent. But he was patient with me. "Try again. The opposite of a natural flower is an❞— "Artificial." "That's it! That's me! Arty Fischel, that's who I am! You'll never forget that, will you?" he insisted, as he handed me his visiting card; and indeed I don't suppose I ever shall.

I shall never forget one trip across the desert. Weary of the constant succession of vast industrial cities, each, to the alien eye, more ugly than the one before, and each regarded by its inhabitants as the apex to which all civilization had been slowly clambering since the birth of time; weary of the vast stretches of the plains (for grain-bearing country when it is not bearing grain is as uninspiring as an empty theatre), the eye and the mind rest with a new-found delight on that strange wonderland. Those friendly traces of an older civilization-Mexican huts and Indian pueblos; the men and women working the (Continued on page 220)

A

SI came out of the city this afternoon to my home in the country I entertained myself on the train by reading William Lyon Phelps's always readable "As I Like It" in "Scribner's Magazine." His mensual comments on books, the drama, sports, morals, good taste, good English, men, women, and animals are not only entertaining but informing and provocative of thought. To be provocative of thought is one of the finest qualities of an essay, and in this respect Professor Phelps's paragraphs are essays in miniature. I find myself almost always in agreement with him, but I cannot accept his laudatory estimate of cats.

His readers, of whom I am one of the faithful, are aware of his fondness for cats. His animal friendships are feline rather than canine. This assertion can be mathematically proved by a paragraph in the current installment of "As I Like It:"

In addition [he says] to my two dogs, Rufus H. Phelps and Lad H. Phelps, and my three cats, I have recently acquired a South American parrot, who speaks English and Portuguese fluently, and shakes hands like the chairman of a reception committee. From this it is apparent that Professor Phelps is three-fifths a cat lover while he is only two-fifths a dog lover. Now this is a puzzle to me. I have never been able to discover any spiritual qualities in cats, but I have known, and known of, dogs in whom such qualities were highly developed the qualities, for instance, of courage, loyalty, affection, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, devotion. I can recall dogs, friends of mine, whose faces, manners, tricks of expression, and temperaments were as individualistic as

By LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT

Contributing Editor of The Outlook

if they were humans. They stand before my mind's eye while I write as distinct personalities although their bodies were turned to dust years ago. But of the scores and scores of cats that I have seen in my life my memory cannot distinguish one from another. Professor Phelps would doubtless say that I belong to the camp of the dog partisans and am incapable of rising above my prejudices.

If that is true-and I confess to being often a victim of prejudice in controversial questions-then the whole range of English literature is tainted with prejudice against the cat. In his advocacy of cats I wonder how Professor Phelps, preeminently a man of letters, gets over this literary obstacle. The very word feline has a secondary meaning of cruelty, treachery, stealthiness. The adjective canine has no such obnoxious connotation. To call a woman catty is an insult, but a man takes it as a compliment to be called dogged. "It's dogged as does it," is one of the most highly honored of British proverbs.

Moreover, let me ask what has the cat ever contributed of consequence to literature? Is there any anthology of feline poetry comparable to Robert Frothingham's "Songs of Dogs"? Are there any cat stories like Ouida's "A Dog of Flanders"? Or Dr. John Brown's "Rab and

His Friends"? Or John Muir's "Stickeen"? The only literary precedent for Professor Phelps's feline attachments that I can think of-and I admit that it is a very affecting and powerful one-is Dr. Johnson's tenderness for his cat, Hodge. Leslie Stephen thus transcribes the story from Boswell:

His cat, Hodge, should be famous among the lovers of the race. He used to go out and buy oysters for Hodge, that the servants might not take a dislike to the animal from having to serve it themselves. . . . Boswell, who cherished an antipathy to cats, suffered at seeing Hodge scrambling up Johnson's breast, whilst he smiled and rubbed the beast's back and pulled its tail. Bozzy remarked that he was a fine cat. "Why, yes, sir," said Johnson; "but I have had cats whom I liked better than this," and then, lest Hodge should be put out of countenance, he added, "but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed." He told Langton once of a young gentleman who, when last heard of, was "running about town shooting cats; but," he murmured in a kindly reverie, "Hodge sha'n't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot!"

Johnson "had cats." Hodge, it appears, was not a whim, but a habit. After this a love of cats cannot be called by the doggedest opponent a feminine passion, for Dr. Johnson was the most masculine of men of letters.

Nevertheless, in spite of Dr. Johnson -whom I would like to follow in most of his judgments except that in which he pronounced all reformers to be "Whig dogs"-I am inclined to the opinion of M. de Buffon, who, Alexandre Dumas informs us, condemned the cat in the following terrible sentence recorded in