Viewing page 422 of 468

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

her brows are delicate lines; her complexion the kind that goes well with light hair with a tough of natural gold in it, her eyes are blue and frank, her nose hints at retrousse, her mouth is mobile and well shaped. She is slight of build and perhaps a shade above medium height. 
  
The reporter hardly expected to be able to fit the word "charming" to a woman who had become the foremost aviatrix of America, who had flown across the continent, breaking all recods. Interesting of course. But the reporter found that she was forced to add "charming" to "interesting."

Why Choice of Flying
"What impelled me to take up flying?" replied Miss Law, Sitting across the corner of her chair in an attitude of graceful boyishness, "Well, ever since I was a little kid, I liked out-of-door sports. I was brought up with a brother only a year and a half older than I - we were almost like twins - and most of my games were played with him. I guess it made a tomboy of me. And so when flying first became popular, I was very anxious to take it up, but had no opportunity. 
"Then in 1912, it happened that I was spending the summer at Marblehead, near Boston, when the first Government aviation school was opened. I watched the aviators and got the flying fever. I think that everyone who is around aviator gets the fever sooner or later.
"I had great difficulty in persuading the aviators to give me a flight. Finally I prevailed upon one of the boys to take me up in his machine.
"From that moment I intended to enter the school. But I did have a time, I can tell you. I met refusal after refusal - simply on the ground that I was a woman. I could not help being a woman, and I intended to enter the school. Orville Wright refused absolutely to teach me, he would not be responsible he said. 
"However, at last tired out with my insistence, Mr. Burgess who was also an instructor, consented to teach me. In a month I had sufficient instruction to make a flight without an instructor - or so I thought. My first flight alone was made on August 1st, 1912, without permission of my instructor. I had become tired of waiting, [[?]] I have always been a little headstrong.

Easiest Thing Is Starting
"It is quite easy to get off the ground, but it is quite another matter to stay right side up after you get off. I realized this when I had risen about 500 feet, and didn't know how to get down. I wabbled around up in the air. Then gradually it came over me that I simply had to get my nerve - that until I had confidence I could not make a landing. So I flew around about fifteen minutes, and my friends were waiting anxiously on the ground, for they well knew that I had no business to be up there by myself. After a while I managed to get my nerves calm I managed to calm my nerves and more by good luck than ability made a very fair landing. After I landed, I thought I was quite some aviator.
"I took up aviation first as a sport and did not consider it as a profession, but there seemed to be such a demand for exhibition flights, that I decided to take it up seriously."
Miss law has flown in practically every city in the United States. She is the first woman to loop the loop and to fly at night and she broke the American long distance record in her flight from Chicago to New York, 600 miles of which she made without stopping. This flight was made in 27 hours, - a record that has not been duplicated. 
Immediately after that flight in January Miss Law went to France for the purpose of enlisting her serviced in the French Aviation Corps, but again she was faced with the disadvantage of being a woman. She found that the French Government would not permit even a French women to fly. However, she did manage to fly from Paris to the front lines and back in one of the very fast scout machines, travelling between 140 and 150 miles an hour. Although not permitted to serve the Government, she gained many some new ideas for they were doing what they called "war stunts" over there.

Offered Services to Country
"I returned to New York and four days afterwards the United States declared war," continued Miss Law. "I promptly offered my services to my own Government, again to be refused on the ground that I was a woman. I was not successful in getting a commission but they did give me permission to wear the Government uniform for the purpose of doing recruiting work, and making flights for the liberty loan."
One of the medals which Miss Law wears on her uniform was presented to her by the Director of the first Loan, for flying 2,500 miles, stopping at 32 different cities and towns where she distributed Liberty Loan literature. Another medal was given by the state of Alabama for making 16 consecutive loops in one flight. A third bears the inscription: "Presented to Ruth Law by Glenn H. Curtiss in recognition of her many successful flights in the interests of the Liberty Loan of 1917." The fourth came from the [[?]] Club of America, the gov- 

which, when touched off by by electricity, give the appearance of the aeroplane being on fire. 
"The night was a black one and after I had made a few loops I had no idea where I was going," said Miss Law. "It happened that there were some very high blast furnace chimneys which were throwing up heat columns to a great height. There is no resistance for an aeroplane in heated air, so when I got into one of these columns, I began to fall, and fall, and fall. I was having all the sensations of a full crash, when my good luck stepped it up as usual, and just before I hit the ground I stopped dropping and could land without injury. But it was a narrow escape. 
"The one real accident I had happened about three months after my first flight. There was a crowd of 50,000 people waiting to see the flight in the fair grounds near Providence. It was a miserable day, and in 1912 aeroplanes were not very efficient. If I had had more experience I should not have taken the chance, but in my ignorance I consented to go up. About 200 feet in the air a gust of air pitched my machine around like a feather. I began to turn upside down. Of course many times since I have deliberately turned upside down but at this time it was an unexpected stunt and I was not even strapped in. I was dropping to the ground very fast with the wind careening my plane around.  Well, I hit an auto which had taken refuge under a shed, my machine sliced off the top of that automobile as though it had been paper, and one of my wings was smashed.  There were seven people in the automobile, including five children, and not one of them was hurt.  Then the wind swung me around and the shed clipped off my other wing.  That was really the worst accident I ever had."
Miss Law believes that women will become as good fliers as men.
"The majority of women seem to be particularly fitted for flying.  I find that they are not the least bit afraid and seem to sustain no bad effects from flying.  I expect, when I return to America, to open a school of aviation for women.  It is not that women cannot learn to become good aviators, but there is no one now who will take the trouble to teach them.  Since I have been in Japan I have had a great many letters from Japanese women who want to learn to fly."

[[Chinese characters on an envelope.]]