The answer is simple. We hadn’t any others except the two hundred and thirteen “flaming coffins.” The American air forces were in dire need of machines of all kinds. We were thankful to get any kind that would fly. The French had already discarded the Nieuport for the steadier, stronger Spad, and our government was thus able to buy from the French a certain number of these out-of-date Nieuports for American pilots--or got on without. Consequently our American pilots in France were compelled to venture out in Nieuports against more experienced pilots in more modern machinery. None of us in France could understand what prevented our great country from furnishing machines equal to the best in the world. Many a gallant life was lost to American aviation in those early months of 1918, the responsibility for which must lie heavily on some guilty consciences. There had been a lot of inquiry before the House began its investigation. And when Congress had finished there was a widespread display of indignation with the aid of aeronautic associations, farmers’ associations and two New York daily newspapers. For a while the scandals they dug up overshadowed what had caused the wrath of Borglum. He had worked in wartime and in a closed circle, and what he found out was reported to the President and the few others who had a right to hear. He was satisfied with that arrangement, for he had no faith in the efficiency of official inquiries. On this subject he said: There is a radical defect in a system that occasions such investigations. A political inquiry of this nature must inevitably arouse enmity and opposition in the most powerful quarters. The credit, nay, the very existence, of the government in power is at stake. An inquiry may seem to start something, but what it starts is an avalanche that will surely crush its initiators and the truth they seek to discover. Thus they will remain buried under the debris and obscured by the dust. When Gutzon Borglum first took his demand for an aircraft investigation to the White House he was politely, if somewhat shortly, received by Joseph Tumulty, the President’s secretary. Mr. Wilson was frightfully busy on account of the war, Mr. Tumulty mentioned, but he would undoubtedly be able to read a note explaining the purposes of Mr. Borglum’s visit. Mr. Borglum left the note and went home to Stamford. There in due time he received a short letter from Mr. Tumulty saying that the President wished Mr. Borglum to get in touch with Mr. Howard Coffin of the Aeronautics Board. Mr. Borglum thought this humorous inasmuch as Mr. Coffin was principally interested in automobile production, which was what Borglum found wrong with the Aeronautics Board. So he wrote something of the sort to the President’s secretary on November 22, 1917. He finished it somewhat tartly: