Museum Piece

In the famed air museum of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., where the Spirit of St. Louis will be rolled to rest after her current journeys, the world's first airplane may be forever a notable absentee. Last week the machine in which the Wright Brothers made their inaugural flight at Kittyhawk, N. C., in 1903, started for a London museum.

Patriots pounced upon Orville Wright in Dayton crying: "Why?" Mr. Wright had his reasons. The first was the Kittyhawk flight. The second was famed Samuel Pierpont Langley, onetime secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Able Langley had made many experiments in aviation including the construction of a machine capable of sustaining man in flight. When, some years gone, the Smithsonian wrote the Wrights for a machine, the original "wings of man" was offered. It was gently refused with the suggestion that a later Wright machine might be preferable. It seems that the Smithsonian, honoring their secretary, had already in residence the Langley machine, placarded as the first heavier than air machine. Enlightening experiments had been made with this machine in 1903, but it is a matter of record that the Wright ship was the first actually in flight. Orville, grieved that his machine would not go to Washington, asserted that such was his late brother Wilbur's wish. But under the circumstances they preferred London, and credit where credit is due.

Dr. Charles Greeley Abbot, head of the

Institution, gravely regretted Mr. Wright's decision. He said the wording on the Langley placard had been altered; that the brothers Wright had long ago been presented by the Institution with the Langley Medal for "the first successful flight."