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[[preprinted]] 
ORVILLE WRIGHT
DAYTON, OHIO 
[[/PREPRINTED]]

March 15, 1935.

Dear Mr. Gardner:

I have your letter of February 23 in regard to an Alexander Graham Bell Memorial Lecture.

The quotation given in the fifth paragraph of your letter is not altogether correct.  I suspect that you did not at the time quite understand the conversation at the M.I.T. dinner between Dr. Bell and myself.  I asked Dr. Bell how he could have been so positive that the Wright brothers had made flights with a powered aeroplane when talking to newspaper reporters in 1905 and 1906.  Dr. Bell was not then personally acquainted with us, and the general public and newspaper men at that time were very skeptical concerning reports of our flights.  Dr. Bell told me that he got his information with confidence from Professor Langley.  Charles M. Manly, who had been an assistant of Professor Langley's from 1898 to 1904, visited our flying field and was a witness of several flights in 1905.

I believe Dr. Bell had no knowledge in 1905 and 1906 of the construction of our machine nor of our laboratory work upon which it was based.  He merely knew at that time that we had made flights.  When asked by a newspaper reporter in what respect our machine differed from others, he answered,  "It flies".

Dr. Bell was a great and a fine man.  Though his chief contributions were to other arts than aeronautics, I think it is fine thing for all of us to join in doing him honor.

Sincerely yours,

[[signature]] Orville Wright [[/signature]]

Mr. Lester D. Gardner, Secretary,
Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences,
New York, New York.

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