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There is no need, in my mind, of having a large air force developed under the Army and another developed under the Navy, doing nothing but practice flying and the like, when the Post Office Department hired civilians to carry the mail by airplane, the Forestry Service wishes to hire airplanes to patrol its forests, the Treasury Department wishes to patrol the borders by airplanes to keep out smuggling, the Bureau of Fisheries wishes to have airplanes patrol the coasts looking for schools of fish, the Coast and Geodetic Survey wishes airplanes to map the entire coast, the Geological Survey wants airplanes to photograph and accurately map the entire country, the Coast Guard wants airplanes to patrol the coasts, and I suppose, in a short time there will be a variety of other departments demanding aviation for other work. 

All these activities should be concentrated under one head, in which the air force should be paramount, and, when the air force is not immediately necessary for the defense of the country, it can be used for establishing aerial posts everywhere throughout the country, for mapping the country for the Geological Survey, mapping the coasts for the benefit of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, finding fish for the Bureau of Fisheries, patroling the coasts for the defense of the country, watching the borders to prevent smuggling for the Treasury Department, and say other duties that civil departments of the Government may demand, for we must have a standing air force just as we have a standing army and a standing Navy, and, as the main function of the Air Force is flying, this civil utilization of its efforts is exactly the training that it needs. 

III      The organization and equipment of an adequate Air Force is, at best, a most expensive undertaking. Other things being equal, that country will have the best aerial defense that utilizes her Air Force, in times of peace, to take care of the civil aviation requirements of the Government as outlined in the preceding paragraph, and that nation will be best prepared to carry on an aerial war who has a large aeronautical industry built in peace times upon commercial output in order to take care of the war time demands. 

An [[.?]] Air Force is like a standing army. It will never be large enough to care for the needs of the country in times of war or foreign hostilities. Therefore, a well developed peacetime airplane industry is a great asset in the national defense of any nation. An airplane is an extremely technical weapon. It takes a long time to design it, and even to build the first one, and a much longer time to put it into quantity production. Under war pressure, it took this country sixteen months to put the first squadron of American built planes on the Front. We can ill afford to wait sixteen months in the next war, but that is exactly the situation that will occur if we allow our airplane industry established during the war to become liquidated as it would seem will be the case byall present indications. 

The nation will be best fitted to carry on aerial warfare who has a large commercial industry built and a large number of flyers engaged in commercial pursuits. With the industry operating on a peacetime commercial bases, the production can be turned from commercial planes to military planes upon a moment's notice for an airplane is an airplane, no matter whether it is commercial or military, and the building of a commercial airplane requires the same material, the same skilled men, the same organization as does the building of a military plane. The airplane industry is as necessary to adequate national defense as are navy yards and the ship-building industry. Airplanes must be converted into military planes the same as commercial ships into warships and transports. England and France realize this, and, for this reason their governments, in addition to assisting in