Turnback

Through the sky Death continued to dog the Army Air Corps carrying the mail. All in one day last week the following occurred:

P: Lieut. Otto Wienecke, a seasoned Army pilot who had flown less than 24 hr. in the last 18 months, was ramming a planeload of mail from, Newark, N. J. through a snowstorm, toward Cleveland. About 20 mi. short of his goal, he groped for a landing. His plane crashed on John Hess's farm near Burton, Ohio. Farmer Hess ran to the wreck, shook the pilot's shoulder. Lieut. Wienecke did not budge. His neck was broken.

P: A twin-engined bomber with a crew of three and the southbound mail, landed at Daytona Beach, Fla. It was five hours late, and fuel in the right wing tank was running low. When it took off again Private Ernest Bair Sell was in the middle cockpit, pumping fuel by hand. At 500 ft. both engines quit. The plane plumped into a cypress swamp. Private Sell's head was mortally smashed.

P: Up from Cheyenne, Wyo. flew an Army observation plane with Lieuts. Frank L. Howard and Arthur R. Kerwin Jr., on a practice mail flight to Salt Lake City. The ship circled the town once, headed west from the airport when the motor began spitting. Slanting downward the plane whipped through a high tension line, bored into the ground, burst into flame. Lieuts. Howard & Kerwin were cremated.

Next day President Roosevelt called to the White House General Douglas Mac-Arthur and Major-General Benjamin D. Foulois. Last month before he canceled all domestic airmail contracts the President had been told that the Army could handle the job. General MacArthur had known nothing about the Army airmail plan until newsmen told him. But General Foulois, eager for his Air Corps to make history, had told the Post Office Department he could do the job. and they had told the President. What was the matter? Had he been misled into a policy that was damaging the Administration with the country? The two generals marched out of the President's office looking very subdued and sober. After they had gone, Mr. Roosevelt dictated a letter to Secretary of War Dern. Excerpts:

"On Feb. 9 the Army Air Corps was given the temporary assignment of carrying the airmail. . . . This action was taken on the definite assurance given me that the Army Air Corps could carry the mail.

"Since that time ten Army flyers have lost their lives. ... I appreciate. . . that almost every part of the country has been visited during this period by snow, fog and storms, and that serious accidents, taking even more lives, have occurred at the same time in passenger and commercial aviation [see p. 55].

"Nevertheless, the continuation of deaths in the Army Air Corps must stop. . . . Will you therefore please issue immediate orders to the Army Air Corps stopping all carrying of airmail except on such routes, under such weather conditions and under such equipment and personnel conditions as will insure . . . against constant recurrence of fatal accidents? . . .

"Because military lessons have been taught us during the past few weeks. I request that you consult immediately with the Postmaster General and the Secretary of Commerce in order that additional training may be given to Army air pilots through co-operation with private companies who later on will fly the mails. This should include, of course, training in cross-country flying, in night flying, blind flying and instrument flying. . . ."

Thus did President Roosevelt, shocked and grieved by the death list of Army pilots and hounded by Republican Congressmen charging "legalized murder," retrace one step on his politically unfortunate course on the airmail situation. General Foulois answered by suspending all Army mail service for a few days while he and his aides conferred with Post Office officials on elimination of routes and schedules. Tentatively they planned to fly about 40% of the mileage formerly covered by private operators. A House Committee announced it would find out what, if anything, was wrong with the Air Corps' planes. While the President was ordering air mail curtailment by the Army another newsworthy event was taking place at the War Department. Into Secretary Dern's office marched Colonel Charles Augustus Lindbergh who, at the Secretary's invitation, had flown from New York with Mrs. Lindbergh. What the Secretary and the Colonel talked about for an hour and a half, they alone knew. Mr. Dern explained that he had sought "general advice" on aviation. Some newshawks interpreted the invitation as another backtrack to cover the Administration rebuke dealt to Colonel Lindbergh whom Second Assistant White House Secretary Early had branded as a publicity-seeker for protesting the President's cancellation of airmail contracts (TIME, Feb. 19).

But the biggest turnabout of the week was the President's decision to return the airmail to private hands. With Army flyers crashing, with others running into debt because the Senate had failed to pass temporary legislation authorizing their special expenses, the President asked for speedy enactment of new, permanent legislation.

His wishes were set forth in a letter to Chairman McKellar of the Senate Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads. Excerpts:

"... I believe we should make new contracts with commercial air carriers as soon as possible. ... I suggest that new airmail contracts be let for a period not exceeding three years on full, open and fair competitive bidding, with a limitation of the rate of compensation above which no contract will be awarded."

The President laid down the following qualifications:

1) To make bidding "really competitive," only speed, useful load capacity and safety factors and devices should be considered in equipment specifications.

2) A successful bidder should be given six months in which to qualify for performance of the contract.

3) Six months before any contract expires, the Interstate Commerce Commission should pass on its public convenience and necessity and fix its future rates.

4) No contract should be awarded to a company affiliated with any other company (or holding company) in the aviation business.

5) No mail contractor should merge with another and no contract should be sublet or sold.

6) No contract should go to any company, "old or new. any of whose officers were party to the obtaining of former contracts under circumstances which were clearly contrary to good faith and public policy."

7) Safeguards should be inserted in each contract to prevent "the evil practices of excessive salaries, unearned bonuses and illegitimate personal expense accounts, detrimental to the interests of legitimate stockholders and the public."

8) Maximum flying hours, minimum pay and a pension system for pilots should be established by each contracting company.

Two days later Senators McKellar & Black jointly introduced the Administration bill, which made all of the President's points, limited salaries & bonuses of airline officials to $17,500 a year, set mail compensation at a maximum of 30-c- per airline mile for the first 300 lb.

The terms laid down by the President for the return of the airmail to private enterprise brought no cheers from late airmail operators. Not one of them could be sure he would be in the air transport business six months hence. Excepting American Airways, which Errett Lobban Cord gobbled up 15 months ago, all big companies were manned by officers who ''were party to the obtaining of former contracts." The "good faith and public policy" clause might rule them out of office. All were tangled up in holding companies, affiliates and interlocking directorates. First to speak out was President Ernest R. Breech of North American Aviation Inc.. a General Motors subsidiary which controls, among others, Transcontinental & Western Air. Said he:

"The legislation would result in the greatest possible confusion . . . sacrificing not only the results of pioneering efforts to date, but in effect confiscating the properties and investment of the airmail carriers prior to the sweeping cancellation order. . . . The strong, well-managed and adequately financed companies now face the prospect of having their investments wiped out by the opening up of these routes to competitive bidding, instead of authorizing changes in the law which would immediately end governmental subsidy and alleged abuses."

Mr. Breech proposed restoration of the contracts to the old operators, payments reduced to 2 mills per pound mile, regulation by a board similar to I. C. C., direct subsidy to operators who cannot break even because of small mail volume, reduction of airmail postage rates to 5-c- per ounce for letters, 3-c- for "lettergrams." And: "prosecution ... of any individuals who might be proved guilty of fraud in connection with any previous airmail contracts, after giving every individual an opportunity to be heard."

Exploded President Richard W. Robbins of TWA: "The airlines have been the victims of a well-conceived plan of a few men with purely selfish interests to ruin the present air transportation system of this country. Both President Roosevelt and Postmaster General Farley have been cruelly misinformed."

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