The Wright Brothers

by Fred C. Kelly

I believe my course in sending our Kitty Hawk machine to a foreign museum is the only way of correcting the history of the flying-machine, which by false and misleading statements has been perverted by the Smithsonian Institution.

In its campaign to discredit others in the flying art, the Smithsonian has issued scores of these false and misleading statements. They can be proved to be false and misleading from documents. But the people of today do not take the trouble to examine this evidence.

With this machine in any American museum the national pride would be satisfied; nothing further would be done and the Smithsonian would continue its propaganda. In a foreign museum this machine will be a constant reminder of the reason of its being there, and after the people and petty jealousies of this day are gone, the historians of the future may examine impartially the evidence and make history accord with it.

Your regret that this old machine must leave our country can hardly be so great as my own.

Reluctant to carry out his intention to send the Kitty Hawk plane out of the country, Orville Wright in 1925 proposed that the controversy be settled through the investigations of an impartial committee. But the suggestion got no response. He wrote a letter, on May 14, 1925, to Chief Justice William Howard Taft, as Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution, in the hope that it might yet be possible to have an impartial hearing. In this letter, after reviewing the relations of the Wrights and the Smithsonian, he said:

It was not until 1921 that I became convinced that the officials of the Smithsonian, at least Dr. Walcott, were fully acquainted with the character of the tests at Hammondsport. I had thought up to that time that they might have been ignorant of the fundamental changes which had been incorporated in the machine before these tests were made, and that when these changes were pointed out to them they would hasten to correct their erroneous reports. They did not do this, but have continued to repeat their early statements. By these the public has been led to think that flights were made in 1914 with the original Langley machine, with no changes, excepting such as were necessary to attach floats for the new system of launching.

When the proofs on both sides concerning these changes are shown, I do not think it will take you five minutes to make up your mind whether the changes were made and whether they were of importance.

It seems to me possible that you as Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution may wish me to present personally to you my evidence on these points and to have Dr. Walcott present at the same time to give his proofs to the contrary. It may be a way of cutting short a long and bitter controversy.

Chief Justice Taft replied that his position as Chancellor and head of the Smithsonian was purely nominal; that his other duties were such that he did not have the time to give any real attention to questions that have to be settled by the Institution’s Secretary.

A similar preference to stand aside was shown by others nominally in a position to exercise authority over the acts of the Smithsonian. That Institution has as its members the President of the United States, the Vice President, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and members of the President’s cabinet. Its Board of Regents is made up of the Chief Justice, the Vice President, three members of the Senate, three members of the House of Representatives, and six citizens appointed by joint resolution of Congress. Any one of these members of the Board of Regents could doubtless have forced an investigation of any reported injustice committed by the Smithsonian. But all had other duties to occupy their time and, like Chief Justice Taft, they were willing to let the Secretary of the Smithsonian act as he saw fit. Thus the Secretary of the Smithsonian, which administers several important government bureaus besides the National Museum, could exercise great influence. That is how it came about that the attempt to mislead the public regarding the epochal achievements of the Wrights went so long unchecked by official action. And as Orville Wright once said he had discovered, “Silent truth cannot withstand error aided by continued propaganda.”