With the first reports “confirmed” by the Associated Press, two papers, the Washington Post and Chicago Record-Herald, that had withheld the story bought from Mr. Moore at Norfolk, finally printed the Moore dispatch on the morning of December 19. The Washington Post even used it on the front page, but cautiously inserted qualifying phrases, saying “it is reported” that a flight was made. And the Chicago Record-Herald on December 20 had an editorial about the flights, or about “the” flight. But as the editorial restated many of the inaccuracies contained in the news report, it only added to the general misinformation.

(A few newspaper editors are still touchy about the inadequate reporting of the Wrights’ first flights. As recently as January 29, 1941, the Chicago Daily News had an editorial of nearly half a column defending the merit of the hopelessly inaccurate Associated Press dispatch from Norfolk on December 18, 1903. And shortly afterward, on February 12, 1941, in connection with a letter from a reader who sought to give the historic facts, the Daily News editor, still unwilling to accept the truth, added a note insisting once again that there was “nothing fantastic” about that AP report from Norfolk!)

At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in St. Louis, December 28 to January 2, Octave Chanute made an address on the subject of Aerial Navigation in which he referred to the Wrights’ flights. But little was said about the Chanute speech in the newspapers.

(Chanute used that address as the basis for an article in the March, 1904, issue of Popular Science Monthly in which he said: “Now that an initial success has been achieved with a flying-machine, we can discern some of the uses of such apparatus and also some of its limitations. Its first application will probably be military.” He said, too, that “it may even carry mails in special cases, but the useful loads carried will be very small. The machines will eventually be fast, they will be used in sport, but they are not to be thought of as commercial carriers.” He did not think it would ever be practical to carry loads “such as a store of explosives, or big guns to shoot them.”)

Almost as surprising as the lack of effort by the usually painstaking Associated Press to get the facts about the Kitty Hawk event, was the failure of the AP, or any other press association, or any newspaper, to rush a staff man to Dayton in an effort to obtain the whole amazing story of what the Wrights had done.

Desiring to correct the misinformation that had been printed, the Wrights prepared a statement about their recent flights, and gave this to the Associated Press with the request that it be published. This appeared, at least in part, in probably a majority of the Associated Press newspapers, on January 6; but the initiative, it should be noted, did not come from the press association, but from the Wrights themselves. A few editorial paragraphers made derisive comments on one sentence of the statement which suggested that “the day of flying had arrived.”

Exactly one month after the Kitty Hawk flights, on Sunday, January 17, the New York Herald, in its magazine section, had an article headed: The Machine That Flies. Despite the time that had elapsed, affording opportunity to get the facts, this article not only contained a mass of preposterous misstatements but even quoted Wilbur Wright for many of them. The article was accompanied by a drawing, an artist’s conception of the machine in flight, and a diagram, showing the two “six-bladed propellers,” one behind the machine and the other beneath it, to give it elevation!

VII
AFTER THE EVENT

The Wrights felt a glow of pride and satisfaction in having both invented and demonstrated the device that had baffled the ablest scientists through the centuries. But still they did not expect to make their fortunes. True, they had applied, on March 23, 1903, or nearly nine months before they flew, for basic patents (not issued until May 22, 1906), but that was by way of establishing an authentic record. Thus far they hadn’t even employed a patent lawyer.

Long afterward, Orville Wright was asked what he and Wilbur would have taken for all their secrets of aviation, for all patent rights for the entire world, if someone had come along to talk terms just after those first flights. He wasn’t sure, but he had an idea that if they had received an offer of ten thousand dollars they might have accepted it.