CHAPTER FOURTEEN

_AIRCRAFT INVESTIGATION_

The American Congress appropriated over one thousand million dollars that were expended for aviation during the nineteen months of war. When the armistice was signed, not a single American-made fighting or combat plane had reached the front. No American-made fighting or combat plane was ever produced. America depended upon her allies to furnish a few obsolete fighting planes with which our armies were equipped. Our contribution to wartime aircraft consisted of two hundred and thirteen “utterly dangerous” observation planes that reached the front with others on the way. That is the record. (Report of aircraft investigation under House resolution of June 4, 1919.)

Mr. Borglum is the man who started the entire aircraft investigation at the outset and performed a great public service. (Congressman James A. Frear, Wisconsin, speech to House of Representatives, _Congressional Record_, March 1, 1920.)

You may have gathered from the record thus far that Gutzon Borglum was a bit unused to doing things the way other people did them. There was only one of him, and there were so many of the rest of the population that maybe one shouldn’t be disturbed by this technique. He had a genius’ variety of talent; so it probably isn’t remarkable that his art studio should have been filled with frightening projects for roads, transportation, parks, breakwaters, engineering, airplane models, philosophy, abstract science and the saving of the world. He believed he could do anything--so he did it. All of this is fairly obvious on his history sheet. But, for all that, his investigation of the aircraft industry in 1918 remains today one of the most incredible things that ever happened to America.

We start our study of this attempt of one man to produce some honesty in a $1,000,000,000 delusion with the knowledge that Borglum was not only a fairly competent theoretical engineer, but also a practical mechanic who had been following closely the growth of air power. And that is fortunate, because few other matters in the aircraft investigation are that obvious or sensible. In November 1917, after the United States had been eight months in World War I, he got a look at an airplane factory in Dayton, Ohio. He was shocked, as he admitted, almost into a state of speechlessness. He had a brief visit with a man in a high position in the direction of aircraft production, listened to him, and, instead of going home, made a quick trip to Washington. Next morning he was at the White House, demanding to see President Wilson.

And here is the first amazing part of his procedure. He had seen that the United States wasn’t producing airplanes and he felt that something ought to be done about it. But he didn’t look for anybody to help him prepare the case for presentation to somebody who might be able to correct the situation. It never occurred to him that he needed any. The man best able to get quick action was, undoubtedly, the President of the United States.

Gutzon Borglum knew Woodrow Wilson and Woodrow Wilson knew Gutzon Borglum, but the pair took a dim view of each other, as well they might. Borglum, in his Progressive-party campaign, had been loudly critical of the Wilson administration. Wilson, who was a scholar, appreciated Borglum’s art. But, as the record shows, he didn’t think enough of his politics to consider him a crusader for the democratic ideal.

And yet Borglum was appointed, with authority direct from the President, to conduct his investigation from an office in the War Department. He ran the boys into corners for several months, and he stirred up senators and congressmen and Department heads and cabinet officers. That in the end his inquiry failed to put anybody in jail or get back any of the §1,000,000,000 is not surprising. What is incredible about the whole affair is that he was allowed to start at all.

There isn’t much doubt about our dismal performance in building airplanes in 1917-1918. The propagandized public was a long time finding out that the chief trouble with our planes was their continued nonexistence. But we did get to hear about the “dangerous” De Haviland Fours, of which we sent 213 to France. This plane was widely celebrated across the country as “The Flaming Coffin.” It had a large gas tank mounted in the most vulnerable position, and a pilot was seldom able to get away from one after it was hit.

Soldier after soldier from the front came before the Frear committee to tell of seeing his comrades shot down in these planes. Yet reports of such catastrophes, as the Frear report scathingly pointed out, did not prevent Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and Aircraft Director John D. Ryan from continuing the manufacture of DH 4s.

After the war the taxpayers began to find out what they had purchased for §1,000,000,000. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, ace flyer and national hero, told them when he came home to testify before an investigating committee. “Why did the army continue to use French planes?” he was asked. This was his reply:

The answer is simple. We hadn’t any others except the two hundred and thirteen “flaming coffins.” The American air forces were in dire need of machines of all kinds. We were thankful to get any kind that would fly. The French had already discarded the Nieuport for the steadier, stronger Spad, and our government was thus able to buy from the French a certain number of these out-of-date Nieuports for American pilots--or got on without. Consequently our American pilots in France were compelled to venture out in Nieuports against more experienced pilots in more modern machinery. None of us in France could understand what prevented our great country from furnishing machines equal to the best in the world. Many a gallant life was lost to American aviation in those early months of 1918, the responsibility for which must lie heavily on some guilty consciences.

There had been a lot of inquiry before the House began its investigation. And when Congress had finished there was a widespread display of indignation with the aid of aeronautic associations, farmers’ associations and two New York daily newspapers. For a while the scandals they dug up overshadowed what had caused the wrath of Borglum. He had worked in wartime and in a closed circle, and what he found out was reported to the President and the few others who had a right to hear. He was satisfied with that arrangement, for he had no faith in the efficiency of official inquiries. On this subject he said:

There is a radical defect in a system that occasions such investigations. A political inquiry of this nature must inevitably arouse enmity and opposition in the most powerful quarters. The credit, nay, the very existence, of the government in power is at stake. An inquiry may seem to start something, but what it starts is an avalanche that will surely crush its initiators and the truth they seek to discover. Thus they will remain buried under the debris and obscured by the dust.

When Gutzon Borglum first took his demand for an aircraft investigation to the White House he was politely, if somewhat shortly, received by Joseph Tumulty, the President’s secretary. Mr. Wilson was frightfully busy on account of the war, Mr. Tumulty mentioned, but he would undoubtedly be able to read a note explaining the purposes of Mr. Borglum’s visit. Mr. Borglum left the note and went home to Stamford.

There in due time he received a short letter from Mr. Tumulty saying that the President wished Mr. Borglum to get in touch with Mr. Howard Coffin of the Aeronautics Board. Mr. Borglum thought this humorous inasmuch as Mr. Coffin was principally interested in automobile production, which was what Borglum found wrong with the Aeronautics Board. So he wrote something of the sort to the President’s secretary on November 22, 1917. He finished it somewhat tartly:

The program of the Aeronautics Board was invented by Automobile Production men before they had picked up their representation on that board, or even before the appropriations had been passed. They are now engaged in a grandiose project, incapable of fulfillment, which cannot but bring scandal and disaster, and which, in turn, can harm your administration.

President Wilson was disturbed and sent a reply on December 5, asking Borglum to point out specifically the weaknesses in the aircraft organization as it then stood. Borglum replied at once and suggested that the Aeronautics Board should be really two boards, one of design and one of production, and that the military board should have nothing to do but order what sort of planes it needed. When he had posted this suggestion he went back to Dayton to take another look at the plant he had first seen, and he loitered on his way home at the Curtiss factory in Buffalo. That was a better-looking establishment, but it seemed disorganized and full of idle men, and it wasn’t producing any airplanes.

Then, on Christmas Day, 1917, he wrote to Wilson the letter that, no matter what you may think of it, put his aircraft investigation in business. He said:

Since writing you, I have visited two other factories and attended several aeronautics conferences. This so disturbs me that I must write further with the hope that Congressional investigation of the aeronautics bodies may be avoided while there is yet time to correct conditions from within and so avoid the ship-and-ordnance scandals.

If the opportunity arrives, I will tell you of conditions which strike at the root of honest, disinterested public service; of irregularities, graft, self-interest and collateral profiting in the very heart of our production department. But public knowledge of actual aeronautic conditions would be a military disaster to American arms, as well as an unwarranted blow at our Government.

Therefore I suggest:

Immediate selection of three competent, fearless and incorruptible men, whose loyalty to you is above question. Give them authority, without publicity, to go quickly over the present plan and accomplishment in our aircraft and report on:

Engines, planes and propellers.

Contracts placed where, system employed selecting contractors.

Supply sources, by whom held.

Relation of members of production board to supply controls, also to contractors.

Test experiments. Why are our planes inferior to all foreign planes and vastly poorer than German planes?

What use is being made of data constantly being sent here covering Germany’s planes.

Such inquiry should not audit accounts. A larger principle is at stake.

For this report you need a highly trained engineer, an expert production man and a man who knows the art of machine flying and the history and possibilities of machines.

1. Your engineer should be an internal-combustion engine man who knows that an airplane engine is not merely a refined truck engine. He should know propellers. This latter item has almost been forgotten. No reliable propeller exists that can safely be standardized.

2. Your production manager should be trained as a specialist on organization.

3. The third position I should like to fill personally. There are no principles related to flying heavier-than-air machines that I am not thoroughly familiar with. I feel as Da Vinci did when seeking a commission. He wrote: “As for that art, I know all that is known.” The open-mindedness of this carries its own forgiveness. I observe accurately, avoid prejudices, have no fears that I know of. I know I’m a good organizer, one who can handle and keep the confidence of men. I am not only anxious but prepared to serve you and the great service which you, for America, have undertaken. I could put into your hands in the briefest possible time a report on existing conditions and war needs, and avoid scandal. Investigations during wartime should be periodic and automatic. This would rob them of abnormal interest and make them policy affecting functions.

Somebody slipped the letter out and published it. The automobile industry was noisily indignant and Borglum was much annoyed. But those results somehow seem natural in the circumstances. What must continue to confuse students of political procedure for some time is the fact that it brought a quick appointment. On the second of January President Wilson had written a letter. The Secretary of War would be pleased to give Mr. Borglum full authority. Stanley King of the Secretary’s personal staff would be at Mr. Borglum’s disposal for advice or assistance. Mr. Borglum would be put in touch with General George Squier, whom he already knew, and he was to have the assistance of any experts he might think required. He was to report directly to President Wilson.

Why this appointment should have come through is one of the things that surpasses all understanding. It is quite likely that Wilson suspected what was wrong with aircraft production and thought an investigation by a recognized Republican not connected with politics might stir up some action without hurting the administration. That is one thought. It also comes to anyone who has watched political maneuvering that a good way to get rid of an investigator who was getting troublesome would be to put him where he couldn’t talk for publication.

Anyway, the sculptor went to Washington, notified the White House and the War Department of his arrival, called on the Secretary of State and was assigned to a room on the second floor of the War Department offices. Borglum felt that he would have every possible aid. The Secretary’s office door was just across the hall.

Gutzon went to work at once. He asked Mr. King to get him a report on how many war planes had been ordered and how many delivered up to January 1, 1918. The War Department’s answer was quickly brought and easily digested: “Training planes contracted for, 7,500; delivered, 1,444. Service planes contracted for, 12,500; 4,000 to be built by Dayton Wright. Service planes delivered to January 1, 1918, none.”

Borglum called that same day on Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, who telephoned instructions to the Intelligence Bureau of the Navy. Naval records were laid open to the sculptor and he went through them personally, making what notes seemed relevant. Three days later when he went to the War Department he was informed that they had none of the records he requested--nor any memory of any. He was virtually compelled to pick up a copy of the Aeronautics Committee report from the office of the chairman, who apparently did not even know of its existence. He was blocked in an effort to get Intelligence reports on spy activities in Buffalo. Secret Service men were assigned to follow him wherever he went. One of his aides in the War Department warned two of his witnesses not to talk to him. He was informed of the looting of a bank in Dayton, Ohio, by an agile group which substituted Aeronautics Board agreements and checks for tangible assets. He was invited to join the Aeronautics Board, but he didn’t accept. He discovered that his office telephone was tapped and that his mail was being systematically examined. He opened an outside office as headquarters for his own aides, investigators and stenographers.

By the end of February he knew that we hadn’t planes of any kind and that we hadn’t engines of any kind and that, nearing the second year of war, we had less than 130,000 soldiers at the front and that they were using shoes, socks and other equipment provided by France and England.

Borglum went to talk about this to Secretary Baker. Baker, slumped in his chair with his feet on his desk, puffed his pipe and listened with indifference. Not until the condition of aircraft manufacture was reached did he show any animation. Then he shifted his feet and said casually, “Why, Borglum, you don’t think we are actually getting into this war, do you?”

“My God!” said Borglum. “Do you mean to tell me that all this is just a gesture?”

Baker nodded and puffed contentedly.

Borglum couldn’t contain himself. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said, “that all America has to do is hint that she is going into war, loan Europe a lot of money, send over a regiment or two and that this is going to bluff Germany into retirement?”

“I mean,” Baker said, “that there won’t be any real war as far as we are concerned.” And so closed an astonishing interview.

Hurriedly and in anger Borglum made his second report to the President. He hadn’t been too successful with his first report; there had been leaks concerning its contents. His second report, which he delivered himself on February 9, was in the hands of Secretary Baker on February 11. Baker made light of it after it had become public property.

Who released the report was never learned, but shortly the newspapers had it and were charging that America, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars for aircraft, had produced nothing but brag and bluster; that we were in a war with no planes and no engines of our own. White House and War Office press departments began to make counter charges, ridiculing the report and charging Borglum with falsehood.

Washington seethed for a couple of weeks. Some unknown person called the Dayton factory to fill two freight trains with airplane parts and to paint on the boxcars in big letters, “Planes for Europe,” “Right of Way,” “Our Boys Need These Planes,” and similar legends. Newspaper reporters and government agents were posted between Dayton and Hoboken to see these trains pass with their painted signs. From them the news flashed to all parts of the country, and Borglum was a liar by official count.

Borglum had his own agents scattered over the route and he knew that not a single plane had left Dayton for anywhere. He was just getting part of the pay for his appointment. Verification of the reports of his own investigators was made two or three days later by General Goethals, whom he met at breakfast at the Metropolitan Club. General Goethals was then Quartermaster General and well acquainted with what was shipped out of Dayton. Borglum wrote in his journal:

About this time Senator Thomas of Colorado turned bitterly upon me and introduced a resolution “inquiring into the charges that Gutzon Borglum had so recklessly made.” A small committee, composed of himself as chairman, Senator Reed of Missouri, Senator Frelinghuysen of New Jersey and Senator Wadsworth of New York was appointed. Its duty was to visit the factories against which Borglum had cast aspersions.

This committee proceeded via New Jersey up the Hudson to the great Curtiss plant, on to Detroit and down to Dayton. At Elizabeth, New Jersey, they reported that the speed and anxiety of the workmen to get parts of planes into cars and on their way to Hoboken was “little short of phenomenal.” The officer in charge was courteous to the senators but begged them to keep out of the way, saying that the boys in Europe needed planes and there must be no delay--all of which impressed the senators so much that they thanked him and left. Then they proceeded north to the Curtiss plant at Buffalo--a plant having 14,000 men on the payroll and producing only ten to twelve planes a day. (In Toronto a factory employing 2,800 people was producing twelve fighting planes and twenty-four training planes a day.) There was present the same kind of apparently furious activity which the senators had witnessed at Elizabeth.

The committee then went on to Dayton Field, where, after watching a schooling of the officers and a workout of the young men, they turned to leave. As they were walking away, the officer of the day approached Senator Reed and said, “Aren’t we going to be heard?” Without waiting for a reply he said, “I’m through. You can strip my buttons off, but I’ll have no more damned humbug. I am killing two boys a day. We dig two graves every morning before breakfast, just to be ready for their deaths. You may do what you like with me. I am through.”

As a result, so the senator himself told me, the committee determined to return secretly to the factories they had just visited. There the men who had brusquely pushed the committee aside in their anxiety to ship planes to Europe were disgorging the airplane parts they had so carefully boxed. Thomas, who had been very rude to me, wrote the report and presented it to a Senate that had less than a dozen members in their seats. He complained feelingly of the lack of interest, the lack of patriotism in a matter which had impugned the honor and the integrity of our War Department. To one of his committee he said afterward, “I wish there were some way I could apologize to Mr. Borglum and tell him how mistaken I have been.”

There was a little more to come before Gutzon could be through with his aircraft investigation. His inquiry had brought reliable evidence of the theft of securities worth more than a million dollars from a Western bank through the connivance of some members of the Aeronautics Board. This matter he took to Gilbert Hitchcock of Nebraska, chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, whom he had known for many years. With his own authority from the President he took it for granted that he would not have to tell the names of the people involved until after subpoenas for them had been issued. Hitchcock agreed. The next day he declared he couldn’t do it, and the day after that he made a speech in the Senate declaring that he had had a long conference with Mr. Borglum, had seen all the aircraft evidence and that there was nothing to it.

Monday morning Borglum saw Hitchcock and was in the middle of his attack when Senators Joseph Frelinghuysen, James Reed, John Thomas and James W. Wadsworth, the military committee, came into the room. Somewhat informally, as everything in Washington seems to have been done in those days, they sat down and listened to Borglum’s demand for blank subpoenas. Senator Reed nodded, stood up, and said, “Mr. Chairman, owing to the high character of this witness, I move that the subpoenas he asks be given. If he gets the evidence he says exists, I will move from the floor of the Senate the hanging of those men.”

Borglum thanked him. “Senator Reed,” he said, “I have not told you the half of it, and I can’t. I beg of you to give me the subpoenas and assist me in getting the evidence.” Frelinghuysen and Wadsworth seconded the motion.

The subpoenas voted by the committee were never issued, however. The chairman, in whose hands the matter was left, never seemed to find time. He retired to private life after the next election.

Borglum’s last interview with Hitchcock relative to the subpoenas was just about the last of his aircraft investigation. President Wilson telegraphed that Gutzon had “misunderstood” his letter of January 2, and that he wished the inquiry stopped. When the sculptor was slow in stopping, the President made his order of dismissal public. Borglum published a letter in which he asked: “What is it, Mr. President, in this country that you are afraid of? What is it in this America that the President of the United States dare not face?”

Charles Evans Hughes conducted the next investigation. He worked from May until October in 1918. The New York _Times_ of November 1, 1918, printed his report. Gutzon said of it that it reminded him of the story of an Irishman who was sent to locate a bucket lost in the bottom of a well. He climbed down and he climbed back with great difficulty. Then he returned to his office and reported: “Sure, it’s there.”

And that, in truth, was the result of the aircraft investigation. There were other inquiries and other suggestions, but nobody went to jail. Nobody seems to have been seriously discommoded. There weren’t any airplanes that anybody could lay a hand on. And the $1,000,000,000 just disappeared.

Gutzon Borglum was much disturbed about this. He could get angry thinking of it to the day of his death. But it always seemed to a casual friend that he was puzzled by the wrong side of airplane production. What he should have contemplated as the scintillant miracle of all the days he was to live was the fact that he was allowed to make the investigation at all.

* * * * *

It is a little late after all these years to try to figure out how a billion dollars could disappear without leaving a trace on somebody. Borglum used to get indignant about the matter ten or twelve years afterward, but the targets of his wrath were always anonymous. He had some shrewd suspicions, but left at the bottom of the well was the evidence which in this situation would have been necessary to convict anyone of wrongdoing.

To give the fiasco a fair estimate, it seems likely that we were very young then. Up to the time when war was declared we had left the building of our planes to rugged individuals who whittled out the parts for them with jackknives and put them together in moldering barns and sheds. When we had to get an air force aloft we did the best we could, which wasn’t very good. We didn’t trust our cow-barn airplane manufacturers. Largely, they weren’t where we could find them anyway. They had gone into the air corps themselves.

So the searchers for planes took a chance on some people who apparently knew something about a gasoline motor and how to make forms out of tin--that is to say, of course, the automobile makers. These lads muddled through and nobody got any airplanes. They produced pieces in large numbers and blithely shipped them away to places where they were supposed to be assembled into airplanes. But, apparently, nobody had thought to provide an assembler.

It is one thought about this--a thought that would have meant nothing to Gutzon Borglum--that nobody about the airplane production, if it can be called that, got rich ... not so far as can be determined. Nobody seems to have had the remotest idea of what he was doing, and it takes at least a billion dollars to keep thousands of men in jobs where they have nothing to do but nothing.