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Wright - From Page 1

Kitty Hawk is Accepted
St. Louis, they heard Vice President-Elect Alben W. Barkley tell in his acceptance speech of the 12-second first flight by two bicycle mechanics who had put together "the assembly of strips of wood, of canvas, and of metal."
 "If, at the time of that historical event of 45 years ago, the possibility of human flight was unbelievable," said Barkley, 'life today without air transport is equally unthinkable."
 Some in the audience who knew the Wright brothers nodded as Milton Wright described the matter-of-fact way in which his uncles used their gadgets and 'planed the spruce strips and glued them together into ribs for their 'flying machine,' in their bicycle shop," where he played.
 "It left me with the impression that all bicycle shops did the same thing," he said. "It was very commonplace."
 Orville and Wilbur Wright were neither "demigods whose minds suddenly produced the answer to the problem of flight," nor "ignorant mechanics who stumbled on the secrets of flight," he said. "They were very normal young men who had an idea and saw a problem and set about to solve that problem."
 Wright said he was surprised, many years after the historic flight, to learn that the first plane had not been dismantled "since no one in our family could afford to waste good wood or metal or fabric."  Usually, he said, parts of old machinery were used to make up new machines.
 British Ambassador Sir Oliver Franks told of the care bestowed on the Kitty Hawk, or the Flyer, as the Wrights called it, during the 20 years it was in the Science Museum at South Kensington, London.
 Neither he nor Wright referred to the dispute between Orville Wright and Smithsonian officials, over the significance of the Kitty Hawk flight.
 The dispute led to his sending the Kitty Hawk to England in 1928, and it was brought back last month as a result of a request by Orville to the British in 1943. The inventor died last January 30. Wilbur had died many years before.
 Describing the Kitty Hawk as "the start of the twentieth century," and "one of the rarest of historical objects," Sir Oliver said the British were conscious of their historical responsibility in having its temporary custody, and took special precautions to guard it "against its progeny" during the war.
 President Truman's m e s s a g e, read by his Air Force aide, Col. Robert B. Landry said: "I feel that the entire Nation will rejoice because the historic craft is home again. I can think of no acquisition to the treasures of the National Museum, administered by the Smithsonian Institution, which would exemplify more eloquently the purpose of its founder in providing here in the National Capital and establishment for the increase of diffusion of knowledge among men."
 The Wright plane went on public display at 2 p. m. yesterday, following the acceptance ceremony.
 Vice President-elect Barkley described how the historic flight on that bitter December day was made "before an audience of three men from the Kill Devil lifesaving station, one other man and a boy."
 In Barkley's own audience was the "boy" he referred to, John Moore, now 62, and the only living witness to the flight. Looking up at the canvas craft yesterday in the Arts and Industries Building, for the first time since he saw it fly, he remarked that it looked about the same, "only cleaned up a bit."
 Mrs. Carrie Grumbach, the Wright family housekeeper for 48 years, another guest at the ceremony, recalled that the famous brothers used to sew the muslin wings for their planes at home.
 "They wee very good at sewing, too," she said. "They could do anything they wanted to, and they were always very methodical and meticulous."