The program of the Aeronautics Board was invented by Automobile Production men before they had picked up their representation on that board, or even before the appropriations had been passed. They are now engaged in a grandiose project, incapable of fulfillment, which cannot but bring scandal and disaster, and which, in turn, can harm your administration. President Wilson was disturbed and sent a reply on December 5, asking Borglum to point out specifically the weaknesses in the aircraft organization as it then stood. Borglum replied at once and suggested that the Aeronautics Board should be really two boards, one of design and one of production, and that the military board should have nothing to do but order what sort of planes it needed. When he had posted this suggestion he went back to Dayton to take another look at the plant he had first seen, and he loitered on his way home at the Curtiss factory in Buffalo. That was a better-looking establishment, but it seemed disorganized and full of idle men, and it wasn’t producing any airplanes. Then, on Christmas Day, 1917, he wrote to Wilson the letter that, no matter what you may think of it, put his aircraft investigation in business. He said: Since writing you, I have visited two other factories and attended several aeronautics conferences. This so disturbs me that I must write further with the hope that Congressional investigation of the aeronautics bodies may be avoided while there is yet time to correct conditions from within and so avoid the ship-and-ordnance scandals. If the opportunity arrives, I will tell you of conditions which strike at the root of honest, disinterested public service; of irregularities, graft, self-interest and collateral profiting in the very heart of our production department. But public knowledge of actual aeronautic conditions would be a military disaster to American arms, as well as an unwarranted blow at our Government. Therefore I suggest: Immediate selection of three competent, fearless and incorruptible men, whose loyalty to you is above question. Give them authority, without publicity, to go quickly over the present plan and accomplishment in our aircraft and report on: Engines, planes and propellers. Contracts placed where, system employed selecting contractors. Supply sources, by whom held. Relation of members of production board to supply controls, also to contractors. Test experiments. Why are our planes inferior to all foreign planes and vastly poorer than German planes? What use is being made of data constantly being sent here covering Germany’s planes. Such inquiry should not audit accounts. A larger principle is at stake.