Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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hour made the first Trans-Atlantic flight under Lieutenant Com. A. C. Read of the U. S. N., people were astonished. It seemed impossible that such a thing could have been done. Then when the Italian triplane was brought before the public, they were duo for another surprise. Italy still has the lead in airplane building. Caproni, the greatest of all airplane builders, not being satisfied with the success of the triplane, built one of the triple tandem type; that is with two sets of wings, three .decks in a set, which carried some forty passengers, but the latest in his line is the new novi- plane which is now under construction. This immense craft will be 72 feet long and will have the carrying capacity of a hundred passengers. The motive power will be supplied by eight Liberty motors having a total of 3200 horse power. The motors will be arranged in two groups, one on the front planes and the other on the rear; each group will consist of 3 tractor motors and one pusher motor. Now, comes the last word in development; the plane will be navigated in the same manner as an ocean liner, the pilot controlling from the “bow”. It will be steered either from an enclosed cabin or from an ex- posed “bridge”. In fact it will be the Leviathan of the air. Caproni intends to cross the Atlantic in thirty-six hours with this new type of machine. How can we doubt the success of this plan? He has already established regular passenger routes in Italy. His planes have carried as many as forty passen- gers before. Barring accidents, we shall no doubt be visited by the mons- trous air craft in the near future. We have all seen skiing parties en- joying themselves flying down the larg- est hills in this town at breakneck speed. Perhaps we have wondered at the skill of the skiers. What should we think if we should see motorless airplanes glide from these same hills into the air soar- ing like the birds; hundreds of feet above our heads? Yet in Germany and France the people have witnessed this very thing. Gliders, as this type of plane is called, have become a fact. Men have learned to build planes that will be propelled only by the natural eiemients. Hun- dreds of these planes have been tried. Some obtained the height of a thousand feet, more reach five hundred feet, some only a few hundred ’feet ; all, however, succeeded in gliding. This new branch of aeronautics has been termed a “new sport”. It is a sport in every sense of the word. It is a battle of skill, ex- perience, and nerve against the elements of the air. We have noted the great development in aeronautics in the past 140 years. Things that before were thought hardly more than a dream have been ac- complished. And as yet we have not touched the real importance of science. We seem on the verge of greater things. Let us hope therefore, that the United States will be foremost in the field of aeronautics in the future. James Burke. Woman’s Invasion Into Politics A century ago woman was considered to be quite inferior to man. The bare suggestion that she go into politics or even be allowed the privilege of voting would have raised anger, contempt, or at least amusement from husband, father, or brother ; anger that she should want to interfere in men’s af- fairs ; contempt and amusement that she should think she had brains enough to play the political game. Gradually, however, woman began to 20

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tempted to cross the English Channel in a balloon of this combination type, but although the theory was correct the application was in error for the dis- tention of gas in elevation forced the contents of the bag into the carriage and when it reached the fire that gener- ated the rarefied air it ignited and burned the balloon causing the death of the inventor. The history of the balloon from that time on is a record of flights, distances, time, and height, for very little change has been made in the form or theory of the invention. True some few improve- ments have been added, as the ripping panel to aid in a quick assent and the drag rope to steady the elevation of the balloon. Perhaps the first time a balloon was employed by an army was during the French Revolution when it found a place as an observing agency. In al- most every war since, we find the bal- loon holding its own. While speaking of v ar it might be well to touch on the dirigible type since that word in con- nection with balloons will probably be more familiar to you. We must remem- ber that dirigibles as perfect and effi- cient as the German Zeppelin of the late war were the result of countless ex- periments. This will be more clearly seen by following through the develop- ment of that type of air craft. At first oars were used to propel the dirigible but it was found that there was not enough power in this method so in 1852 a small steam engine weigh- ing one hundred fifty four pounds to the horsepower was introduced by Henri Gifford. It was not successful, however, and in 1870, during the siege of Paris we find the hand propelled machine in use again. It was not until 1883 and 1884 that Tessandier suc- ceeded in raising a dirigible with an electric motor. After a number of methods were tried, one with the propeller in front which made fourteen miles an hour ; another, with a cigar shaped balloon driven by a gas motor which was wrecked by an explosion, and still an- other having an aluminum frame which was damaged beyond repair, the theory of light, powerful sources of propul- sion developed and motors of incred- ible power and lightness resulted. Beside the lighter than air crafts we have another branch of aeronautics dealing with heavier than air type, the airplanes. Europe took the lead early in the development of this new craft but in 1900 the scene shifted to the United States, when the Wright bro- thers completed a plane and after two years of experimenting in Ohio and on the planes of Kitty Hawk N. C. made their first public flight in 1908. In Sep- tember of that year Orville Wright made a duration flight at Washington, staying in the air a little over one hour. The next year, 1909, in July Jean Bleriot crossed the English Channel in a plane of his own invention, and in 1910 Charles Rolls made a trip from Dover, England to Calais, France and return, a distance of fifty miles. The two types of ships used by these early aviators were biplanes and mono- planes, the biplanes being the Wright brothers’ invention while the mono- plane is credited to Bleriot. Airplanes have developed since 1900 in countless ways. During the late war many new machines were built each one somewhat different and more perfect than the one before. When the American tractor biplane, N. C.-4, driven by four Liberty Motors, having a total of 1600 horsepower, at the average rate of eighty miles an 19

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think of these things; of her inferior position ; of her lack of political rights ; of the reforms that were needed and which she was sure she could bring about. She began to have decided ideas on these subjects and to air her ideas. It was then that the men began to realize that their women were not so contented as they had thought them. Hiisbands voiced their disapproval in various ways; one became sentimental and said that politics was a dirty game and that no woman of his family should soil her honor and reputation by con- tact with it; another merely informed his wife that she hadn’t the brains for anything more serious than clothes and with an amused smile advised her to forget politics; still a third autocrati- cally decreed that a woman had no right to an opinion different from that of her husband and that politics was not for her. Nevertheless, regardless of mascu- line opinion, about 1,840 suffrage socie- ties began to be formed and meetings were held in earnest. The first demon- stration of this was a large meeting held at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, led by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The work was later carried on by Susan B. Anthony whose well phrased text of 1875 now forms the Nineteenth Amendment to the Consti- tution of the United States. The first state to yield and give woman suffrage was Wyoming in 1869. This state was followed by twelve others giving presidential suffrage and two giving primary suffrage between 1869 and 1920. In 1913, stung by the indifference of President Wilson, the various suffrage organizations held a huge parade in Washington, D. C., the first ever at- tempted in the national capital. From then on waged the battle to have the Nineteenth Amendment introduced and passed in Congress. From 1918 to 1919, angered by Presi- dent Wilson’s continued indifference, the suffrage parties picketed the White House. In the six years between 1913 and 1919, the suffrage movement was carried on by two main parties, the National Woman’s Party and the Nat- ional American Woman’s Suffrage Asso- ciation of which Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt was the president. In June of 1919 the proposed Amend- ment was passed by the Senate and soon after signed by the President. Then began the campaign to have the re- quired number of states ratify it in time for women to vote in the November election. It was at this time that a writer for the Independent Magazine said; ‘Tt is not a question of women’s going into politics when they get the vote. They have been in politics for six years.” In the work of ratification the wom- en’s parties were assisted a great deal by President Wilson, now won over to the cause, Homer S. Cummings, chair- man of the National Democratic Execu- tive Committee, Attorney General Pal- mer and Secretary Daniels. The ratification campaign was won in time for the election and immediately woman began to make herself felt in the political game. Miss Anne Martin from Nevada became a candidate for the United States Senate, and Miss Alice Robertson of Oklahoma, who had form- erly been an anti-suffrage leader be- came a candidate for the United States House of Representatives. Women be- came members of party committees, and they ran for city, county and state offices. All in all the political world was quite upset. Meanwhile other countries had been 21