Two nights and one day each week were devoted to military service by these officers and the enlisted men under them. Their pay was small and most of them lost more from neglect of their business than they received for their military services. The remuneration was hardly considered. However they joined the Guard for two reasons: first, because of the opportunity it offered to keep in flying training, and second, because they considered it a patriotic duty to keep fit for immediate service in case of National emergency. Appropriations were not large and often insufficient but, although at times it required part of the squadron’s pay checks, the ships were kept in the air. The National Guard squadrons offer an excellent opportunity for young men to get a start in aviation. Instruction is given each week, covering practically every branch of military aeronautics, and practical flying experience is obtained both in the air and on the ground under actual operating conditions. Each year a few members of the squadron are sent to the army schools at San Antonio for flying training, and upon returning these men take their places in the commissioned personnel of the organization. The inauguration of our Air Mail service was to take place on April fifteenth, and as spring drew near we were kept busy making preliminary preparations. The De Havilands were to be completed and tested; a ground organization built up; the terminal airports decided upon and facilities for taking on and discharging the mail arranged for; in addition to the untold detail arrangements which go to make up the organization of a successful airline. Contract air mail routes are located by the Post Office Department and are so arranged that the mail service can be improved by use of air transportation over other means of communication. The route is opened for bid and the contract awarded to the lowest bidder who is responsible and in a position successfully to carry on operations. The contractor can bid any amount up to three dollars per pound of mail and is paid by the pound for the actual amount carried over his route. Our route, between St. Louis and Chicago was operated on a schedule which saved one business day over train service to New York. A letter mailed in St. Louis before three-thirty P.M. was rushed to Lambert Field by a fast mail truck, transferred to the plane which was waiting with engine turning over, landed on the Air Mail field at Maywood, Illinois at seven-fifteen, transferred to one of the Chicago-New York overnight planes, retransferred at Cleveland, Ohio, and was in the Post Office in New York in time for the first morning delivery. An answer could be mailed at New York in the evening and be delivered in St. Louis before noon on the following day. If sent through the ordinary mail it would not arrive until one day later.