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civil aviation and only twice as many pilots actually flying them. What is he to believe, and is there anything in this whole aviation picture that means anything to him personally? Is it worth while for him to analyze the future of his business and the facilities of his community in relation to the industry and commerce of the air, or is it something that he can forget about in the economy of his affairs?
The task of presenting the story of life in a world that flies is squarely up to us. The critical status of the task must be self-evident to every intelligent man who can see that the significance of aviation has been so unrealized by the accredited leaders of the world that every nation finds itself plunged into complicated relationships that never should have been allowed to develop. We who have known our responsibility can no longer shift that responsibility. Like the frontiersmen of old we have been so busy staking out our individual claims that we could not pause to build a common highway or plan a common good. If now, because of the industrial and commercial surge, we each grab our rations from the mess line and run off the consume it in guarded isolation we shall eventually find ourselves once more gnawing on the bare bones.
Organization for air progress will first depend upon the statesmanship of the aviation leaders of this nation. Any individual privileged to participate in the establishment of new social frontiers is an architect on the walls of time. If he has no imagination, no intellectual dignity, no sense of the largeness of his toil, then let him be buried with the gadget-makers.