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WASHINGTON TIMES
THE NATIONAL DAILY

WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1925.

ARMY AND NAVY "FRAMED" AIR RACES, MITCHELL SHOWS

VICTORIES EQUALLY SPLIT BY FLIERS

Colonel Gives Court-Martial
  Official Letters Fixing
    Pulitzer Results
By WILLIAM K. HUTCHINSON
International News Service
  A bombshell sensation burst at the court-martial of Colonel William Mitchell when the flying colonel produced official documents proving his charge that the army and navy agreed to divide equally all victories in the Pulitzer air races. 
  The documents were offered in evidence at Mitchell's insistence by Major Hubert R. Harmon, junior aide at the White House, and they revealed the agreement was entered early in 1924 between Major General Mason M. Patrick, chief of the army air service, and Theodore Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 

Roosevelt Made Offer
  The offer was made by Roosevelt and accepted by Patrick, the official correspondence disclosed. 
  While smiles lighted the faces of even the generals, Harmon calmly read the letters.  Outbursts of laughter came when both Roosevelt and Patrick referred to the agreement as "a sporting offer."
  "Have you any correspondence relating to an agreement between the army and navy as to air races?"  Reid inquired, when Harmon was called to the stand.
  "I have several letters, which together constitute an agreement on that subject," Harmon replied.  He produced them in evidence.
  The first was a letter from Theodore Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, dated November 10, 1923, to General Patrick. 
  Roosevelt began by saying there was "too much of this idea in the army and navy that we are competing services, one against the other."
  "I feel we both should consider the two departments as sister services," Roosevelt continued. 
  Then he proposed they could "properly get together an divide the next year's (1924) air races."

Two Prizes Split
  "Your service can take one of the Pulitzer races and we will take the other," Roosevelt wrote.  In a reply dated November 13, 1923, Patrick began by referring to Roosevelt's "very kind letter."  He said he agreed "very hearitly (heartily) we should be sister services in heart, thought and action."
   Patrick pointed out that the army had won the Pulitzer race at Detroit in 1922 and that he had told the navy they would not build any faster ships for the 1923 races, even though faster ships could be built.  
  When the navy did win the 1923 race, Patrick said, "no one offered more congratulations to the navy than I did."
  Referring to Roosevelt's offer that the "army shall take one of the two races this coming year (1924) and the navy the other."  Patrick said; "I thank you for the generosity of your offer."
  Patrick protested that this arrangement would bring about "no further advance of speed in Americaica's (America's) fighting planes," when the fact was "faster planes can be built."