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Tribune New York City Nov 21 1916

Evening World Daily Magazine
Congratulations!

By J. H. Cassel

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WHAT A WOMAN CAN DO.

The young woman who made two new American aviation records in the course of her eight hour and fifty-five minute flight from Chicago to New York deserves a lot of extra credit for the way she did it.

If Miss Law had accomplished the 590 miles of unbroken flying between Chicago and Hornell, N.Y., in a big up-to-date airplane, fitted with all the latest improvements and comforts, it would still have been a record feat. But the airplane makers would not believe that a woman could handle one of their large machines. So this plucky aviatrice set out in a small propellor-pushed plane of only twenty-eight feet wing spread, with an undersized gas tank and a motor little more than half the horsepower of that used by Victor Carlstrom in his flight from Chicago Nov. 1.

Miss Law's machine was of the older type, which provided no warmth or windshield for the aviator. Wrapped in layers of wool and buckskin, she sat strapped in an open seat, took her own bearings and followed her route from memoranda held inside one of her leather gloves. Yet, despite these handicaps, she outmaneuvered wind and fog, and with a larger gasoline tank would undoubtedly have achieved a non-stop flight from Chicago to New York.

It would have been counted fine flying for the most experienced male aviator in a first class, up-to-date plane. The more credit, therefor, to a woman who had the courage to attempt it and the nerve to carry it through in an old style machine, which was all "the men" would trust her with.

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The Woman Who Flew

Miss Ruth Law, fair, small and twenty-five, shattered the long distance air record of America when she landed on the Hornell fair grounds, 590 miles east of Chicago. She also crossed another item off the once long list of things no woman can do. On both counts, we applaud and congratulate her.

It has been a bad century for that historic list of non-womanly occupations. The few years thus far run have done more to upset the established facts about women than did the whole century preceding. The war did it. But for the episode touching an Archduke and its varied consequences, we should still be listening to our conservative friends, contending not only that woman's place is in the home, but that she is utterly incapable of defending that home, and that therefore she is of obligation a helpless ward of man. How these helpless wards have left their homes to make shells and run railroads and generally do a good half of the work of defending their homes is now history. The beautiful assumption of a woman's hopeless inferiority to man has beautifully glimmered.

With this new record has come the discovery that a woman can do an amazing array of things and still be a woman. Miss Ruth Law, for example. Without laying too much stress on the fact that she carried a skirt with her all the way from Chicago to New York and donned it over her bloomers as soon as she struck land, the point is significant. Unquestionably, it is possible to hold the non-stop air record of America and remain distinctively feminine—even agreeably and charmingly so. All things considered, we should be inclined to rate this detail as a very important part of Miss Law's very important achievement.

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Heraldry for Aviators.

Aviation experts are impressed by the complaint of Miss RUTH LAW, who recently flew from Chicago to New York, that it was impossible for her to identify from a high altitude the cities and towns beneath her. She found that no method yet devised enabled her to assure herself that a populous centre she was approaching possessed an aviation station at which she might alight. It is hard, she discovered, for a flier to make use of a code book that couples numbers or letters with the names of places beneath an aviator's chosen route.

Would not the use of symbolism, the employment of some kind of aviation heraldry, solve a problem that must be overcome before air navigation can become as popular as automobiling? Though the name or number of a town cannot be plainly seen from an aeroplane, a heraldic device, constructed upon a large scale, would be visible from a lofty height.

Circumstances have conspired to make the above suggestion feasible. The crude beginnings of what might be called local blazonry have long existed in this country. To illustrate the possibilities of the scheme suggested, let us take, for example, the city of Troy, N.Y. A gigantic collar and a pair of cuffs raised above its aviation station would serve to give even the least intelligent birdman his bearings. A huge bag of salt could but Syracuse on the aviator's map. A bottle of beer for Milwaukee, a plate of beans for Boston, a huge terrapin for Baltimore, an automobile for Detroit, an oak tree for Hartford Conn., a big blue football for New Haven Conn., a large phonograph for Orange, N.J., are among the heraldic devices that suggest themselves as applicable to the scheme.

Would it not be admirable for American aeronauts to establish at once a College of Town and City Heraldry for the Encouragement of Aviation? An alliance between local pride and the needs of airmen could be easily accomplished, and the thousands of men and women who are anxious to fly away from Chicago at the earliest possible moment would not be confronted by certain annoying difficulties that hampered Miss RUTH LAW in her recent arial escape [[best guess]] from the Lake City.

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out of two times without a stop will be attempted, [[best guess for the top line]] for that would sufficiently stress both the machine and its operator. We do not expect either locomotives or locomotive engineers to make more than a small part of such distances with our fast trains, and doubtless we shall be equally considerate as regards aerial expresses.

Not a little interest is added to Miss LAW'S flight because her machine was a small one and was provided with a notably simple equipment of instruments to assist in its guidance. The able workman, as is well known, likes the best of tools and plenty of them, but in case of need he can get along with few and poor ones, and with them produce results impossible with any armamentarium for the amateur or tyro. Evidently Miss LAW can supply many lacks by the use of brains.

It was, however, a serious oversight for her not to take along something to eat on the way. Food, judiciously selected, would have made her task far less exhausting, and helped her to endure the cold of the upper airs.

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A BIG ACHIEVEMENT

There are high flyers and high flyers. Miss Ruth Bancroft Law is one of them. The flight of the aviatrix from Chicago to New York but with one stop and in record-breaking time, is another indication that women can succeed in almost any line. Miss Law is a daring person and if she possessed the timidness ordinarially attributed to women, she would have never made the wonderful record that she did yesterday.

Such demonstrations go to prove that the aeroplane is no longer an experiment but a practical machine. Accidents come from fool-hardy experiments rather than sane use. Miss Law will do well to stick to such demonstrations rather than trying "daredevil" feats scuh as she did at Sheepshead Bay at the Military Tournament this Summer. Rising to the dizzy height of some nine hundred feet, Miss Law threw her machine into a perpendicular position and dived towards the ground at a terrible speed while spectators, not knowing that she was executing a trick, waited breathlessly to see her killed. And when, a hundred feet above the ground, she righted her machine and flew on, they were so sore at being "joked" that it took a minute for them to break out into one grand American pendemonium [[pandemonium]] of applause. Miss Law comes from a daring family. She jumped off Brooklyn Bridge with her brother, Rodman Law, and has done several other equally hair-raising stunts. Miss Law and her brother will well abstain from such performances and better the world. A dozen trips in a sky-rocket, such as Rodman attempted, would be of no value to anyone, while a trip such as Miss Law completed yesterday is a direct scientific achievement.

Transcription Notes:
There are 6 clippings on the page. The top right one is incomplete and the top line is cut off. Transcription of this line is best guess only. Sometimes the subject's name is set in upper case "LAW" and with letters of different type size. -rhw301