“Think of it,” mourned August Belmont. “We could have had a thousand aeroplanes so easily—two thousand for the price of one battleship. And now—to-morrow—three hundred aeroplanes might save this nation.”
Cornelius Vanderbilt nodded gloomily. “The lack of three hundred aeroplanes may cost us the Atlantic seaboard. These aeroplanes would be worth a million dollars apiece to us and we can’t get ‘em.”
“The fifty aeroplanes of the Post Office are mighty useful,” observed Ex-Postmaster-General Frank H. Hitchcock to Postmaster-General Burleson.
“It isn’t the fault of you gentlemen,” said Emerson McMillin, “if we did not have five thousand aeroplanes in use for mail carrying, and coast guard and life-saving services.”
This remark was appreciated by some of the men in the group, including Alexander Graham Bell, Admiral Peary, Henry A. Wise Wood, Henry Woodhouse, Albert B. Lambert, and Byron R. Newton, head of the Coast Guard and Life Saving Service. For years they had all made supreme but unavailing efforts to make Congress realize the value of an aeroplane reserve which could be employed every day for peaceful purposes and would be available in case of need.
“Five thousand aeroplanes could have been put in use for carrying mail and express matter and in the Coast Guard,” said Mr. McMillin, “and with them we could have been in the position of the porcupine, which goes about its peaceful pursuits, harms no one, but is ever ready to defend itself. Had we had them in use, this war would probably never have taken place.”
A little later, as we were supping in a farmhouse, there came a great shouting outside and, rushing to doors and windows, we witnessed a miracle, if ever there was one. There, spread across the heavens from west and south, sweeping toward us, in proud alignment, squadron by squadron—there was the answer to our prayers, a great body of aeroplanes waving the stars and stripes in the glory of the setting sun.
“Who are they? Where do they come from?” we marvelled, and, presently, as the sky strangers came to earth like weary birds, a great cry arose: “Santos Dumont! Santos Dumont!”
It was indeed the great Santos, the famous Brazilian sportsman, and president of the Aeronautical Federation of the Western Hemisphere, who had come thus opportunely to cast his fortunes with tortured America and fight for the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine. With him came the Peruvian aviator, Bielovucci, first to fly across the Alps (1914), and Señor Anassagasti, president of the Aero Club Argentino, and also four hundred aeroplanes with picked crews from all parts of South America.
There was great rejoicing that evening at General Wood’s headquarters over this splendid support given to America by her sister republics.