An interview.

Progress, Volume VI, Issue 1, 1 November 1910, Page 435

An interview.

Dr. Graham Bell and Mr. Baldwin. (R.A.L.) As representative of Progress it was my good fortune to meet Dr. Graham Bell and Mr. Baldwin during the few hours they were in Well inert on their way hack via

telephony has been reached yet on the American Continent, and he at once declined to admit that there is such a thing as a limit -at all. We have not yet got beyond certain distances, but what the operating distances may be in time no one can possibly say. The upshot was that we arrived at the fact that the longest distance is still, as was stated in this journal two or three years ago, the distance between New York and Omaha. As to the telephone, the Doctor had a great deal to say, of course, and he said it in easy, picturesque fashion, making it very interesting, and the crisp accuracy of all his statements was an education. Here is a man who has learned to avoid waste of time through looseness of statement. He said much of his invention and of the

struggle he had made to get it to the front, but did not add anything to the full details published in our last. Of course he remembered the service done him by the Don Pedro of Brazil at the Philadelphia International, and was duly grateful. It was the Emperor who, being a scientific man himself, was struck by the invention and insisted on proving to the Committee, who ere inclined to ignore it, that it was really the most important thing by far among the many things waiting to be shown. Mr. Baldwin, young, slim, fresh and vigorous, met the questions put to him with gravity and a seif-possession very remarkable. One detects a constant vigilance in his attitude and expression, and a calm deliberation very notable. One realises the man accustomed to carry the responsibilities of aviation with a due sense of their great importance. He makes no gestures like the Doctor, who

swept space at times for illustration, and emphasised —oints betw--"" -fi-nr»Q-r» and thumb, after the manner of the argumentative expounding man. On the contrary, you could see that this man had no movement to waste. It was the manner of one accustomed to keep his strength exclusively for the steering of his machine. When the penalty is death for an instant's forgeti' ulness of the all important use . of the hands on the levers, one gets, it is evident, into the habit of keeping very still, in readiness to act with the speed which has to make up for the want of the automatic. Mr. Baldwin turned out, by the way, not to be the Captain Baldwin who figured at St. Louis in his famous dirigible, and has been flying in various States from time to time in the interval. This one is a young man, well known in Canada, before he took to flying, as the son of the first Premier of Ontario, a famous man in his day.

The two talked, aviation with great. gusto for the best part of an hour, sometimes answering questions drawn from various episodes published in Progress and other journals, and sometimes speaking out of the fullness of their experience without prompting or suggestion. Mr. Baldwin is one of the coming aviators of the American Continent, where he now holds the record, or did a few days ago, for the longest flight- miles. The Doctor is, on the contrary, more of the scientific pioneer than the flyer of to-day. But he has done more for the science than many fliers from the day when he made the world understand the achievement of Langley with his famous aerodrome, to the day when the association he started (at Baddeck) for the study and practice of flight closed its labours because it had accomplished its purpose of pioneering. Speaking of Langley, he was very appreciative and sympathetic. It was the Doctor who took the photos of the aerodrome when it flew over the waters of the Potomace, one of which we reproduced in Progress four years ago. Why did the finished machine not succeed like the

model aerodrome? The Doctor was present on that lamentable occasion. Things were not quite ready, and the inventor had to start before he was quite easy in an unsuitable place. The machine caught in some part of the pontoon before it could rise, and got damaged, the U.S. Government lost faith, refused further supplies, and poor Langley died of a broken heart. Such is the story which has appeared in these pages. We merely talked about it, and the Doctor and his friend both sighed as they spoke of the pity of it.

Of Chanute and his scientific work on the subject of heavier than air they had much to say that was appreciative: the French engineer settled in Chicago they regard as the father of aviation as practised to-day. Of the Wrights, too, they had much admiration. But others had gone ahead with good work on similar lines, while the Wrights were keeping plains the failure of the famous brothers to sustain their claim for an injunction. The main work in which the two had been associated to the great profit of aviation was as members of the Aero. Association of Canada the Aero. Club of Canada, of which Mr. Baldwin is vice-

presidentbut a private little company got together by the two friends for the uwgctucj. uy tnc lwu -LxicjJLus iur lilt;

work of getting into the air, as they put ~ mr, n ■, i / it. mere were five, and each was to constl'UCt a flying machine, the convincing ground being at Baddeck, the home of Dr. . Graham Bell, in Canada (Nova q~n ' v mi 1 n The first of the quintette party to construct a machine, a biplane—in fact, they all had a predilection for the biplane form T,ro„ t;„ +„ •j. a -us ■ i £ xi tto —was Lieutenant Selfridge, .of the U.S. Army. His machine was known as the "Kedar." Except the Wrights, he was the first American flier, performing some Kin. +»;„, ,„„ „i +i -c 4. a • big trips He was also the first American Victim, for he was killed when Orville Wright came to grief in the act of handing the machine over to him on behalf of the American Government. The second machine constructed was Mr. Baldwin's "White Wings," a very successful flier — and Mr. Baldwin bowed as the old Doctor made ■. +i, , complimentary.-Reference, made-the. ■ complimentary--reference, Wen Curtis followed" With the "June Bug," and that was the beginning of his meteoric career, quite the brightest in the States. This was before the high flights states, imswas betoie the i high flights 01 Drexel (7100 feet) and Johnstone (7303 feet) at Long Island the Other day, and Eadley's 20 miles in 19min. 48 2-ssee. The fourth of trip flvprs was MpPnrdv .■I X %i £ In i-l McCurdy, with the Silver Dart,". which also gave a good account of itself. The fifth was Dr. Bell's "Cygnet," which has not yet been in the air, but the Doctor hopes to + •. , • , l get It going on his return. These were the pioneers of aviation in the States, independent of the Wrights, whose merits they were, however, the first i„ „„„ ■ tt • \ ' , P to recognise. Having done so much for the cause with these machines, they dissolved their association as having fulfilled 'its mission. When will you fly like the birds without a propeller? They look birds without a propeller? They look ask US something easier. '■

After much chat with the distinguished aviators, the representative of Progress took , his leave with thanks and good wishes for the prosperity and success of his new friends, with whom he had been so long acquainted through the descriptions of their work, and had only just met. Not the least pleasant incident of many, during the interview was one which may be called personal to Progress. When the name of the paper was mentioned, as it 1. , 1 j. . t. . j. . • . j .VP n • . • had to be to jus in y the irruption on the privacy of flio ciis will *tl*3,VSlloi*S they declared, both of them, that they had frequently seen the paper during their travels through the country, and they were surprised at finding anything of such a character in the Dominion, so far away from the scientific centres of the world.