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II. AVOIDS DUPLICATION

There have been arguments advanced that the creation of a Department of Aeronautics will not increase the aerial efficiency of the United States, and that the only way in which aerial efficiency can be increased is by larger appropriations on the part of Congress. This argument is fallacious to the extreme. Congress has been too liberal with aviation. They have not looked into the expense accounts of our Air Service. Our Congress has been repeatedly asked by the people to explain why England and France have wrested from the hands of America the supremacy of the air, whon Congress has made such huge appropriations, on the face of which a complete aerial domination would be insured.

It is pointed out that as a whole, the appropriations of the United States for aviation exceed those of other countries, such as France and England. Yet, no one denies that America is a third or fourth class aerial power, and that, while America conceived, build, and developed the airplane, it is now a straggler in its utilization.

The truth of the matter is that England and France have centralized their activities under one command and have made one department responsible for their aerial defense and development, and, as a consequence, aviation in those countries has been developed by air officers, from a standpoint of national need, and immediate and rapid utilization in case of threatened hostilities or war, while, in this country, aviation has been developed under artillery, infantry, and naval ordnance officers, post office railroad officials, and a variety of other officers who know absolutely nothing about aviation from an air standpoint. They have developed aviation sincerely enough for the good of their own particular service and as an adjunct thereto, without any reference to the national good and its total rapid utilization in case of emergency. As a consequence, the taxpayers' money has been used up by overhead expenses, the salaries of five officials where one would be sufficient, and in a general duplication of effort everywhere.

An air force when idle is the most expensive weapon of national defense conceivable, but an air force when engaged in constructive peacetime work is very economical, considering the necessity of an air force regardless of the work in which engaged, and considering the multiplicity of duties and missions that aviation can perform in peacetime.

At present, the Army and Navy have stations on the same landing fields at Washington, D.C. at Langley Field, Virginia, at San Diego, California, and at Ford Island, Hawaii. This is a useless duplication on the face of it, because they are doing precisely the same work, yet they are two complete and separate organizations working absolutely independent of each other and without general reference to anything except the utilization as an adjunct to the Army or the Navy.

There are certain units which should be assigned to the Army and Navy permanently, and this could be done under the Department of Aeronautics. Then, in case of war, if it is land warfare, give the aviation to the Army; if it is sea warfare, give the air force to the Navy; if it is airawarfare, give such part of the Army and the Navy as may be necessary to the Air Force. Otherwise, as a matter os strategy, if we allow our aviation to be developed among these four or five different departments, working at cross purposes, in case of an aerial attack by a nation such as England or France, who has a Department of Aeronautics and a well trained force, any attempt to defend ourselves by the utilization of our widely separated aviation units would be just like a scrub football team, without an practice whatever in formation, in signals, trying to buck up against a well organized and trained "college eleven".