Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 312, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1919 — Full Price Paid for the Secrets of the Air; We Must Not Pay Again [ARTICLE]

Full Price Paid for the Secrets of the Air; We Must Not Pay Again

By PRESIDENT PAINLEVE,

•r French Air Commission

Flying is the true heir to the war. Our heroic youth in the air by their incredible daring, byi their lives and deaths, have taught the world more than it could have le|rned in 50 or 100 years of peace flying. It is for us to see that the world does not lose this precious, precarious _____ ■ * - . I knowledge. ~ , . The present generation of pilots, war-trained, is much the most important there will ever be. They are the beards of a precious knowledge which if lost will take decades of toil and risk equal to those already past, t!o bring it back to the ,same level again. We have paid the full price for the secrets of the air; we must see that at all costs this terrible price does not 1 have to be paid again—, . Left to itself, commercial flying, as it is at present, would perhaps sink to the leyelof a holiday sideshow —five-mile trips at 60 much per head. Governments must back it with money and encouragement so that the young pilots may not be lost to the art in opening up new lines and methods for its expansion. * _ The country which will do this courageously, in spite of the burden the war him laid upon it, will reap an enormous advantage. v t .