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MILLING, T. DEWITT, BRIG. GEN. USAF - BIOG FILE- FOLDER NO. 3 ITEM NO. 11A

THE NEW YORK HERALD
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
SEPTEMBER 27th, 1911

[[stamp]] SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
NATIONAL AIR MUSEUM [[/stamp]]

[[Bold]] Fliers Threaten Strike. [[/Bold]]
The day began inauspiciously enough, with an aviators' strike, and it looked for a time as though there would be no meeting yesterday or at any other time this year at Nassau Boulevard. All the aviators except Claude Grahame-White, Thomas Sopwith and the aviatrices joined in the strike, and the difficulties were not adjusted until four o'clock in the afternoon, delaying the start of the day's programme half an hour.
During the strike Mr. Timothy L. Woodruff broke all altitude records, going higher into the air than any man has ever gone without an aeroplane. There has been dissatisfaction among the aviators with the way the met has been conducted from the very first, but this had been diffused heretofore and had never become concentrated into a specific protest.

Mr. Woodruff admits frankly that he knows nothing about practical aviation and refers to himself as an indoor aviator. Although he has been excellently advised he has made many mistakes, and the worst of these has been the error of constantly changing the rules without giving the aviators a chance to know before they went into the air the exact conditions of the contests in which they were to participate.
In Nassau Boulevard he has an ideal course, the flat, dreary, almost untenanted plains, stretching away for miles on all sides, forming an almost perfect billiard table surface for aviators to fly over.
The events have been so carded, however, as to give to Claude Grahame-White and Thomas Sopwith, the two English aviators, virtually all of the money offered for prizes. The contests are nearly all for speed, and, against the Nieuport of Mr. Grahame-White and the high powered Bleriot of Mr. Sopwith, the other aviators have virtually no chance to win any except the bomb throwing prizes of the prizes such as that won by Lieutenant Milling yesterday. In a passenger carrying contest Mr. Grahame-White, in his Nieuport or his "Baby Grahame-White," has virtually no chance, nor has Mr. Sopwith, but there are few of these contests compared to those in which the prizes are offered for speed.
The aviators lined up at the hangars yesterday afternoon shortly before the meet was to begin and talked over their troubles for some time. Their special grievance was the report generally circulated that Mr. Grahame-White and Mr. Sopwith had been paid heavy guarantees before coming to the meet. This was regarded as an unjust discrimination, as no other aviators had been paid guarantees.
At the hour set for opening the day's programme teh aviators, headed by Lindsey Hopkins, of ATlanta, Ga., spokesman; Captain Beck, Lieutenant Arnold, Lieutenant Milling, Lieutenant Ellyson, George W. Beatty and Captain Baldwin, the last named acting for Lee Hammond, matched over to the judges' stand and called for Mr. Woodruff. Briefly and concisely they placed before him their grievances.
For half an hour the matter was talked over, while the crowd in the stands awaited impatiently for the beginning of the day's programme. When the matter of the guarantees was put up to him Mr. Woodruff declared that he had no guarantees to Mr. Grahame-White and had promised none. In support of this statement, he called upon the English aviators, both of whom confirmed his statements.
The aviators also insisted that the money prizes not contested should be added to the other prizes so that the total amount awarded would equal that originally announced. A protest was also made against the selection of Mr. Sopwith to race against Louis Disbrow, the automobile driver, the contention being that all who cared to should be permitted to race.
Mr. Woodruff assured the aviators that all these matters would be adjusted to the satisfaction of all the aviators, and with this promise nearly all agreed to continue to appear. Eugene Ely, J. A. D. McCurdy, George W. Beatty, "Bud" Mars and Harry Atwood will not be seen again at the meet, some having other engagements and others refusing to continue because of their feeling of dissatisfaction.
Owing to the lateness of the start it was decided to send off the contestants in the first and second events together, and at the first bomb the passenger carrying monoplanes and the two biplanes, each carrying two passengers besides the aviator, were sent away at four o'clock.
The monoplane contest was easily won by Claude Grahame-White in his Bleriot, and after the monoplanes had come down the crowd watched the battle between George Beatty and Lieutenant T. De Witt Milling. Lieutenant Milling in his Burgess-Wright biplane carried with him Private Paul Revere and Private William Ecke, both of Company L, of the Twenty-ninth infantry. Revere weighed 112 1/2 pounds and Ecke 140 pounds, their combined weight being 252 1/2 pounds, just two and a half pounds over the weight required by the rules of the contest. Mr. Beatty carried F. T. Blair and John Kimball, their combined weights being 253 pounds.
For the first rounds of the pylons the Burgess-Wright of Lieutenant Milling and the Wright biplane of Beatty hung closely together, but at the end of twenty-nine minutes Beatty made a quick vol-plane to the ground and the officials of the field, who rushed out to find out what had caused him to descend, found his passengers in a state of panic. The crank shaft casing had broken in the air and he had been forced to come down.
It was just fifteen minutes after five o'clock when Postmaster General Hitchcock said "Goodby" to Attorney General Wickersham, climbed into the Curtiss biplane of Captain Beck and started off to Mineola, clutching a sack of mail. The biplane was piloted by Earle Ovington in Bleriot No. 13 and the two sailed away together. Their return was greeted with another loud roar of cheers. At the same time Mlle. Dutrieu was in the air with her Farman, and the crowd was evidently getting their money's worth. 
"It's my second trip," said Postmaster General Hitchcock. "I went up last year with Count de Lesseps, at Baltimore. As to the practicability of the aeroplane there can be no doubt. In crossing the Colorado River, for instance, between Parker and Yuma, in Arizona, where it is necessary to make a detour of sixty miles, an aeroplane would be a valuable addition to postal outfits."
Summaries.
First event.-Passenger carrying race for monoplanes; ten miles. Won by Claude Grahame-White, 10m. 21 4-5s; second, Thomas Sopwith 10m. 59 4-5s.
Second event.-Hotel Knickerbocker Prize, for the first aviator to make a flight of one hundred minutes with two passengers besides himself. Purse, &1,000. Won by Lieutenant T. De Witt Milling, U. S. A., 114m. 42 2-5s, (1 hour, 54 minutes, 42 2-5 seconds); second, George W. Beatty, 29 m. 18s. Forced to descend with broken crank shaft casing.
Third event.-Bomb throwing contest. Won by Thomas Sopwith, 21 feet, 10 inches; second, Lee Hammond, 92 feet.
Fourth event.-Cross country race for monoplanes, eighteen miles. Won by Claude Grahame-White, 16 m. 35 2-5s.; second, Thomas Sopwith, 17m. 40s.