“And,” he summed it up, “don’t figure too close. Use your imagination.” When, finally, the long-awaited report of the Morrow Board was published, it came as a distinct letdown to many. The advocates of the independent air force let out loud wails of “whitewash,” and the press reflected its disappointment. However, in BUAERO there was satisfaction. The Board rejected the idea of the separate air force at that time. It did, however, recommend an Air Corps status for the Army Air Services, something quite compatible with the Army organization’s several branches such as Infantry, Field Artillery, Cavalry, Engineers, Coast Artillery, and so on. The report made separate recommendations for reorganization of the Army and Navy, which would later be enacted into law in the Air Corps Act of 1926. It referred to the need for waiving the requirement for competitive bidding in cases where the public interest required it, a provision that was later so garbled in the Air Corps Act that it became quite impossible to procure aircraft at all without violating the law. The Board especially turned thumbs down on the British plan of an air ministry charged with responsibility for both military and civil aviation. It took a strong position for the principle that historic American tradition called for armed forces for defense only, and it insisted they should be kept subordinate to the civil government. However, it urged the orderly expansion of air transport, preferably under private management and, to promote the orderly development of civil aviation, it recommended the establishment of a bureau of air commerce in the Department of Commerce, then under Secretary Herbert Hoover. It further recommended the appointment of an additional assistant secretary of commerce for air, to supervise the new bureau. The Board recommended a policy of continuity of orders for the aircraft industry and proposed a standard rate of replacement of operating aircraft in order to retain a healthy industry. This, it pointed out, must become the nucleus of rapid wartime expansion and should be administered as a continuing source of technological leadership. If the report proved lacking in sensationalism, it was none the less constructive. If now it could be implemented it might become the Magna Charta of American aviation. President Coolidge transmitted the report to Congress with his own approval and thus started it on its way to being translated into the Air Commerce Act and the Air Corps Act of 1926. These acts, in effect, placed the responsibility for promoting aviation directly upon the shoulders of the government. They made it the duty of those in authority to promote the orderly development of the air forces, our air commerce, and our aircraft industry; and thus, for the first time, enunciated a clear statement of United States air policy.