The story of the airplane, so far as its relation to the American Army is concerned, begins on the little flying-field of Fort Myer, on the Virginia side of the Potomac, opposite Washington. In the late winter of 1907 the Signal Corps had issued an advertisement and specifications for a heavier-than-air flying-machine, the chief requirement being that it must remain in the air for an hour without landing. Most of us will remember the world-wide interest which was aroused by this promised realization of the dream of the ages. During the trials the eyes of the world were centred on the parade-ground at Fort Myer. The President and the members of his cabinet were in frequent attendance and even Congress adjourned when it was announced that a flight would take place. The story of how the strange contrivance, looking like a combination of a box-kite, a baby-carriage, and a windmill, which had been brought on from Dayton by the two sober-faced brothers, was trundled out onto the field; how, after skimming along the ground, it rose into the air as gracefully as a swallow, and how, after fulfilling every condition imposed by the War Department, the first machine was purchased by the government, needs no elaboration here. The most amazing feature of the affair, barring only the performance of the airplane itself, was the fact that during the eight years following the demonstration at Fort Myer _the entire appropriations by the government for military aeronautics amounted to less than a million dollars_. Think of it, my friends! With the secret of aerial navigation in our hands—a secret which had been sought for by scientists all down the ages—Congress devoted less money to its development during the first eight years than it spent on many a post-office or government building. But the astounding apathy which characterized our attitude toward this epoch-making invention did not extend to the great European nations. They, always seeking to obtain military superiority, instantly recognized the significance and the potentialities of those early flights at Fort Myer. France, in particular, during the next few years making marked advances in aircraft design and construction. Thus it came about that when the war-cloud burst over Europe in the summer of 1914 the United States, where the airplane had its birth and where it had first demonstrated its practicability, possessed only a few decrepit and almost obsolete training-machines, while our fliers could almost have been numbered on the fingers of one’s two hands. Whose was the fault for this deplorable and inexcusable condition? A certain amount of blame undeniably attaches to the army, for in those days many of our higher officers were graduates of the old Indian-fighting school, who regarded with doubt and scepticism the claim that these new-fangled flying-machines could have any real military value. I think, however, that the real cause of the neglect in developing