University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE FATHER OF THE AEROPLANE Truth is Mighty and Will Prevail ISTORY teems with instances of discov- erers and inventors who have been de- prived of the credit and the fruits of long and patient labors by the machin- ations of influential pretenders who have made fraudulent claim to the hon- ors and emoluments of the achieve- ments of others. The word America is in itself an instance of the successful pretensions of the monumental impost- orj because the appellation was first given in the marvellous tale of the un- scrupulous Americus Vespucius, who was first in the field with a book on the Fifteenth Century ocean-navigat- ors, and who absolutely ignored Colum- bus and deceived nations and peoples into accepting and approving a false title to the glory of the name of the new world. The Vespucian spirit is distinguisha- ble in all lands and times. It is found today in the realm of aeronautics, where volumes have been written for the purpose of advertising and aggran- dizing commercially successful aviators and for the further purpose of con- structing an apparent foundation to baseless claims of originality of inven- tion by systematically ignoring the dis- coveries and inventions of the late Pro- fessor John J. Montgomery. That ' ' a prophet is not without honor save in his own country is once more exemplified by the fact that the Royal Aero Club of Vienna, Austria, in its of- ficial publication, after a critical dis- cussion of authentic records, three years ago declared that Professor Montgomery and not Otto Lilienthal, was entitled to be called the Father of the Aeroplane . The story of Montgomery, however, is like that of many another genius who, in spite of obstacles that would have driven ordinary mortals to de- spair, labored on with determined will, through long years of adversity, to see at last his nearly-perfected invention practically appropriated by men who refused to be deterred in a big game of chance by a mere breach of the legal rights of an unfinanced patentee. Witnesses of any of the wonderful aeronautical flights of the past few years, whether of the Wright or the Curtiss biplane or of the Bleriot or the Antoinette monoplane, have probably observed, if sufficiently close to the soaring vehicle, that it was provided with curved wings and that its wing- surface was manipulated by means of twisting. These combined and essen-