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one is a modern Solomon and that the other is an incomparable human bird. And of course Mr. Oliver knows (the Shaws are dismissed, having served their turn in comparison), for not only is he her husband, but he is also her press agent, business manager, and master mechanic--four important posts, one must admit. It was as master mechanic that the representative of THE EVENING SUN found him, but as he talked it was difficult to distinguish in which of his various capacities he at various times acted. In the hangar that stands on the daisy-filled plain of Oakwood Heights, S. I., and bears, in large black letters, the name of the 188th pilot, this representative who was seeking that pilot, found a brown, sinewy man in overalls, very busy working over a huge mosquito skeleton of steel with monkey wrench and screw driver, but not too busy to talk as he worked. The master mechanic of an aviator, be it understood, is a most important person in the game of flying, for if he should happen to forget to adjust a single screw or to test every bit of wire - pity the man behind the steering gear. A flier is no safer than his mechanic makes him. "Flying's an easy matter," said he, "when you're a born aviator-but you've just got to be born to it. Women are just as good at it as men, of course. Orville Wright once said that a woman aviator was either as good as a man or no good at all. Women are the best passengers, Miss Law says, because they either know they will have nerve or they won't go up at all. A man-well, every man is sort of expected to have the nerve, you know. What makes a born aviator? Instinct, if you haven't got your equilibrium in your 'feel,' you can't get it at all. You must be able to feel that you have an even keel, fore and aft, without looking 'round to make sure. Why, when Miss Law starts off she doesn't look worried and she doesn't fix her eyes on this or that in front of her like an automobilist; she's looking at you, laughing and talking all the while, and before you know it she's up and off. "She anticipates what's coming-that's what I can instinct. Do you see this over here? Well, when she pushes that that moves these lateral planes," and as he demonstrated the big winds of the machine moved like the muscles of a supple body, writhing and rising and slowly falling. "She doesn't wait until the wind strikes her and then push her levers; she pushes them first and is ready to meet the wind. That's why she never has an accident. The other fellows, they react afterward, and sometimes they spill!" It's easy enough to learn to fly-the main thing is to be temperamentally fit for it. Miss Law takes only two and a half hours to teach her pupils, most of whom are men, by the way. "Is teaching the principal thing she does now? Or what is the business of an aviatrice?" "Flying for exhibits and flying with passengers. She's made over 900 flights, principally down in Florida, at Sea-breeze, where she took up some very famous people-John D. Rockefeller's physician, Dr. Biggar of Cleveland, for one. Now she's going to Newport-that's why I'm packing up this machine-where she's going to have all the biggest society people as passengers. Mrs. ___" but one should not record hopes; that shatters them. She gets $50 an ascent and on some fine days she makes two or three, lasting from twenty to thirty minutes each. For exhibition flying she get $1,000 each time. "Big profits in this business, aren't there?" Mr. Oliver laughed, thereby forgiving the speaker for her quick presumption. "You might think so, when you hear what she gets; but when you know what she has to spend on the machine, you'll know different. The original cost s $6,500 and the upkeep is enormous-she needs three mechanics"- [[image]] Miss Ruth Bancroft Law Just then a timid, brown-eyed young man stepped into the hangar and asked with a shy duck of the head whether Miss Law would have him for a mechanic. The two men stood aside for a while, discussing the stranger's qualifications. From the bits of the conversation that were wafted across the hangar and through the steel skeleton (much of it, by the way, is fine hand dried spruce) one learned that since he knew nothing about flying machines and Miss Law knew everything, but wanted to feel that her assistants knew just as much and could be depended upon to be mindful of all the parts he wouldn't do. Besides, she was the boss, said Mr. Oliver, and in the last analysis the one who did all the hiring. "What led Miss Law to take up aviation-is she a very athletific person?" "Her brother's Rodman Law, you know, and through him, naturally, she took it up. She's very fond of rowing-rowing fast, and she's good rider-fine. But she's happiest in the air. Once she's up there she's at home, she says. She hates the excitement, 'the circus business,' she calls it, of getting started, and she's always impatient to be up and away. "Did you know she holds the world's official record for altitude flying for women? Five thousand five hundred feet up she's been. Yes, others have claimed to have been 7,000 and even 8,000 but their records are not authentic, you see. And she holds the world's record for accurate landing-within four feet of a given spot.-Oh, you ought to see her-glides down and in like a bird, smooth, without a hitch. It's great, I can tell you. I've never seen anything like it. "She and her brother are going to fly across the Atlantic some day-you just wait and see. It will have to be with a monoplane, perfected and going a least 100 miles an hour. This here can take only forty-five to sixty, which is twelve miles more than the ordinary Wright machine, and made especially for her. "What does she wear? Oh, black suit and goggles. Too bad you came just a day late; you might have gone up with her. No one should write about aviation who hasn't been up in a machine-nobody can." But this is not an article on aviation; it is an appreciation of an aviator by her husband, master mechanic, business manager and press agent, one Oliver. [[image]] [[image]] horses will be seen on the track, and $10,000 in purses insures some of the fastest races of the year. Among the special attractions will be the appearance of Ruth Bancroft Law, the famous women aviator, who will give daily exhibitions in flying. The vaudeville program will contain some of the most up-to-date acts extant, and there will be a continuous stage show in front of the grandstand every day. Thursday will be Governors' day. Hundreds of dollars in prizes are offered for the slow race and the parade of decorated cars, which are to be the leading features of Friday, automobile day. [[image]] ROCHESTER FAIR 1918 [[image]] carried him over the Hudson, but he had to wait until he had a space free of river craft in which to drop. Two dynamite bombs were attached to the balloon by long cords. Law used a cigar which he was smoking with which to light the fuse. He has stuffed his ears with cotton and also wore a helmet to protect himself against the force of the explosion. The bombs went off almost simultaneously, and Law was lost for an instant in the thick cloud of smoke which blotted out the balloon. He shot out of the smoke at a terrific pace, but his parachute opened in time to check his flight. Thousands of people along the drive and on the New Jersey shore saw the performance. [[image]] Photography by Joseph Johnson FRANK R. LAW BLOW UP HIS BALLOON HIGH IN THE AIR. Photographs showing the burning gas bag after the explosion and the daring aeronaut coming down, hanging to his parachute, and of Law after he had ben picked out of the Hudson River. 6. THE SUN, FRIDAY, MARCH LAW FIZZLES AS HUMAN RICJET 900 Pounds of Powder as Tail Piece Blows Out, Not Up. STEEL WALLS BURST Passenger the Only Thing in Vicinity Not Broken to Bits. Thousands in Jersey See the Fireworks-Movie-Suicide Performance. Rodman Law who flirted with death so often that he can stare that well-known person right out of countenance, tried to qualify at the Human Skyrocket yesterday afternoon. He did not do it. Instead of going up in the air for hundreds and hundreds of feet just ahead of 900 pounds of powder, and then being shot out into space like a spark on Fourth of July night, to float down on a parachute while moving picture mean busily reeled underneath, the aviator-high jumper simply fell fifty feet as fast at it ever has been done. The big steel rocket that had been constructed for the stunt couldn't stand the strain and exploded, dumping him on soft ground, which saved his life. All this happened over in Jersey City, near the factory of the International Fireworks Company, at the Newark Bay end of Williams street. More than a thousand persons witnessed the performance after waiting around in the soggy marshes of the salt meadows for several hours while the fireworks people and the moving picture men scrapped with a detachment of Jersey City police, who couldn't see their way clear to letting, as they expressed it "that fool commit suicide in this town." Finally they were brought around and retired to a distance to watch the doings. Those who witnessed the affair can't understand how Law came out alive. Everything else in the immediate vicinity was blown to bits, but the performer came down to earth with nothing worse than a few contusions and abrasions and a million or so bells ringing in his ears n[?]] was needed PICTURES SHOW HOW LAW WAS INJURED [[image]] Ready for the Ascension [[image]] Shot into the Air With His Parachute. [[image]] How He Landed. PHOTOS BY UNDERWOOD 1 UNDERWOOD
Transcription Notes:
The Rochester Fair ribbon is covering the last paragraph.
