Part 14

General Picquart was not familiar with what had previously been done regarding the possible purchase of a Wright machine, as the negotiations had been carried on during the regime of his predecessor. But he had Commandant Bonel bring the records to him and when he looked them over was impressed by the fact that the Wrights’ invention had been considered seriously. No less impressed was Deutsch de la Meurthe. General Picquart said he realized the importance of the Wright invention and was disposed to take favorable action toward buying planes, provided the Wrights would guarantee that their machine could fly at a height of 300 meters.

That was enough encouragement for Deutsch de la Meurthe. In fact, he became highly enthusiastic over the outlook. He had not before appreciated the seriousness of the previous negotiations. Now he began to talk about details of the articles of incorporation of a proposed company.

Commandant Bonel was elated over the news that his government might at last be buying Wright airplanes. His pride and prestige had been hurt by the failure of his recommendations to be accepted. Moreover, for patriotic reasons, he wanted the French Army to be the first to adopt what he regarded as an epoch-making new invention. Now that the outlook was once again more favorable, he was in a communicative mood when he chanced to meet Fordyce, with whom he had traveled to Dayton.

Fordyce showed his surprise at what Bonel told him. He went at once to tell this news to his employer, M. Letellier. Now Letellier expressed great indignation. He had an agreement in writing, he said, that if the War Ministry bought any Wright airplanes the purchase should be made through _Le Journal_, and any departure from that plan he must construe as an unfriendly and illegal act. Immediately he went to the office of the Minister of War where with great politeness he showed to General Picquart a letter obtained from his predecessor.

Since the option the Wrights had given to Fordyce had expired, the agreement between the War Ministry and Letellier was no longer in force. But General Picquart, if he understood that, after a hasty examination of the records, did not argue the point. Possibly he was too practical a politician to enter a controversy with an influential publisher. At any rate, he asked Deutsch de la Meurthe to withdraw from the negotiations.

It was Deutsch de la Meurthe’s turn to be indignant. He believed at first that the Wrights had simply used him for a tool. But later, when he understood the facts and saw that the Wrights were not to blame for what had happened, he once more was friendly with them.

The Wrights saw that their most promising opportunity for an immediate contract was through Letellier and _Le Journal_. Consequently, Fordyce, representing that newspaper, came back into the picture. Within a day or two after negotiations were thus resumed, Fordyce came to Berg in an apologetic mood, showing deep embarrassment. He said he had been asked to submit a proposal that it hardly seemed worth while to discuss at all; and yet he had no choice but to convey a message, as had been requested of him, by a man high in government circles. The deal might go through at once, said Fordyce, but there would have to be a little re-wording of the contract. The Wrights must not ask 1,000,000 francs but 1,250,000 francs. Then they would receive their million francs.

Berg knew well enough what would happen when he told this to Wilbur.

There would be no objection to having the contract call for more money than the Wrights were to receive, said Wilbur calmly, _but_ the contract must give the name of the man who would receive that additional sum.

Berg went to the office of the man who had communicated, by way of Fordyce, the astounding suggestion. He hoped there had been some misunderstanding. But to Berg’s astonishment and disgust, the man said with shocking candor that he would indeed expect 250,000 francs ($50,000) as his reward for putting through the deal.

Before indignantly walking out of the man’s office, Berg told him the Wrights would never be a party to such financial irregularity and that the negotiations with the Minister of War would have to be carried on without the co-operation of anyone in the Government who expected to be paid for his efforts. (After the first World War that same man was tried for treason.)

Meanwhile, Wilbur had cabled to Orville to join him in Paris. And with the prospect that it might be necessary to make a demonstration of what the Wright machine could do, a plane was crated and shipped from Dayton to France.

Orville arrived in Paris around the first of August, and the Wright’s chief mechanic, Charlie Taylor, came about a week later.

While crossing the Atlantic, Orville had a talk with another passenger that illustrates his possession of a freakish kind of memory. An Englishman had been introduced to him and, after a few moments of conversation, Orville asked if they had not met before. No, the Englishman said, they had not. He had no recollection of any previous meeting, and he was sure if there had been one he would remember it. The man’s face was not familiar, but there was something about his voice and gestures that somehow stirred in Orville old memories. Finally, Orville inquired:

“Were you by any chance at the World’s Fair in Chicago back in 1893?”

The Englishman nodded.

“And,” asked Orville, “did you ever have occasion to explain to a bystander some kind of device at one of the exhibits?”

Yes, that also might have happened.

“There,” said Orville, much relieved that his memory had not played him tricks, “must have been where I saw you. I felt sure I couldn’t be mistaken about your voice.”

After Orville had joined Wilbur at the Hotel Meurice, the brothers did not find their business affairs too pressing to do a lot of sight-seeing. Neither one spoke French, but Orville had acquired a fair reading knowledge of it. Oddly enough, Wilbur, who had learned Greek and Latin easily, made no effort to learn French. He jokingly said it was a convenience not to know it, as it saved him from a lot of talking.

As they went about their sight-seeing, Wilbur, always a reader of history, was especially fascinated by all places of historic interest. Orville found himself spending much time each day in the Louvre. Those days gave him an appreciation of good paintings that he never lost.

Negotiations with the French Government dragged on. For weeks the Wrights were kept in uncertainty. They never saw any of the people they were dealing with. Their only contact with anyone at the War Ministry was through Fordyce, and they had no way of knowing, except from what he told them, whether any progress was being made.

Nothing came of the long negotiations. The Wrights were not alone in being disappointed. Commandant Bonel, not long afterward, perhaps as a consequence of the failure of his recommendations to be accepted, resigned from the Army.

Late in the summer of 1907, the Wrights left Paris. Orville went first to London, at the suggestion of Flint & Co. to have a talk with the receiver of the Barnum & Bailey circus and the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, then in bankruptcy. The receiver wondered if the Wright plane could be flown within an enclosure where an admission fee could be charged.

Wilbur Wright had set out with Berg for St. Petersburg. They changed their minds about going to Russia, however, and, instead, stopped at Berlin where Orville shortly afterward joined them.

As the train on which Wilbur and Berg traveled was passing through Belgium, Wilbur noticed a sign indicating that they were in the little town of Jemappes. Then he recalled that a great battle took place there back in 1792. He began to discuss the battle with an exact knowledge of details that astounded Berg. Wilbur had read about it in his youth. Over and over again, Berg and others who dealt with Wilbur Wright, were similarly impressed not only by the range of his reading but by the fact that no knowledge he had once acquired ever seemed to grow dim.

In Berlin, the brothers were able to gain direct contact with top flight men--with the minister of the Kaiser’s war department,[8] and also with the minister of the department of transportation. These German officials were highly intelligent and not slow about recognizing the tremendous importance of the Wright machine if it would perform as the brothers said it could. The Wrights had proposed a contract in which they would agree to furnish a machine capable of carrying, at a speed of forty miles an hour, two men and a supply of fuel for a flight of 125 miles, and to make a demonstration flight of one hour fulfilling every requirement of the contract before one pfennig should be paid to them. The German officials could not deny the fairness of this offer, and could see no reason why the Wrights should have made it unless they could carry it out. Besides, they were not altogether unacquainted with the earlier work of the Wright brothers, accounts of whose glider and power flights had been appearing for five or six years in German technical publications. But in spite of all this the officials were in a quandary. They could not bring themselves to believe that what the Wrights now offered could be possible. They were afraid to sign their names to a contract that generally would be considered as foolish as a contract for a perpetual motion machine. They might become the laughingstock of the world.

On the other hand, these officials did not want to let an invention of such potentialities, if it really existed, slip through their fingers. They therefore gave, instead of a signed contract, their solemn verbal promise that if the Wrights would make a flight before them, such as had been offered in the proposed written contract, they would buy planes on the terms the Wrights had offered.[9]

The Wrights felt that these officials, being at the head of important departments, could be relied upon, and they were willing to take their verbal guarantee to buy planes upon the successful demonstration of the machine. When they left Germany, they fully expected to return the next March to make such a demonstration. (They could not foresee that they would have too many other engagements in definite contracts elsewhere before another four months had passed.)

Wilbur Wright returned from Europe in November of 1907. But Orville remained a little longer to attend to having a number of engines built in Paris by the firm of Barriquand & Marre. The Wrights wanted to have in reserve duplicates of their American engine, at that time in customs, at Le Havre, for use the next year. Barriquand & Marre were manufacturers of precision instruments and had built light motors. They doubted if the Wright motor gave as much power as was claimed for it, but they felt sure that if it did, the copies they made of it--on account of more careful workmanship--would give considerably more power than the original. But as later events showed, they gave less. At that time it was not known that when one motor is made as an exact copy, to the thousandth of an inch, of another motor, of supposedly the same steels and other metals, but from different foundries and mills, months of experiment are required before the new motor can be made to work properly.

XIII

A DEAL WITH THE U. S.

While in Paris, in 1907, the Wrights naturally had visits with Frank S. Lahm, who had arranged with his brother-in-law, Henry Weaver, of Mansfield, to investigate the reports from America of human flight. Lahm invited the inventors to his home and there they met his son, Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm,[10] who was recuperating from an attack of typhoid fever. The younger Lahm, a former instructor at West Point, had recently spent a year at the French Cavalry School at Saumur. He, as well as his father, was much interested in aeronautics. The previous October he had won the James Gordon Bennett balloon race by starting at Paris and landing in England. Probably the only American Army officer who recognized that the airplane should now be taken seriously, he was delighted to meet the Wright brothers, with whom he now began a lasting friendship. After he had learned a little about their negotiations in France, he began to urge the United States War Department to take more interest in the airplane.

It so happened that, in September, 1907, only a few weeks after this meeting, Lieutenant Lahm was transferred by the War Department from the Cavalry to the Signal Corps, to be stationed at Washington. His first assignment was to make a tour of Europe, before returning to Washington, and report on the situation regarding dirigible aircraft in several countries. Soon afterward he returned to Washington. The presence of a man in the War Department there who felt enthusiasm for the airplane’s possibilities, and who had strong faith in the Wrights, may have had its effect on his associates. At any rate, there was now in the War Department a man who believed in the Wrights.

When Wilbur stopped in Washington shortly before Thanksgiving, 1907, en route to Dayton, on his return from France, he had a talk with General Crozier and Major Fuller of the Ordnance Department, and with General Allen, head of the Signal Corps--the organization that would conduct tests of the airplane and use it if the Ordnance Board sanctioned and provided funds for its purchase. At this meeting Wilbur stated the price the Wrights would accept ($25,000) and the performance of the machine that they were willing to guarantee. These terms, agreed upon between the brothers before Wilbur left France, were stiff enough, it was thought, to bar any competition. The Ordnance Board was to have a meeting on December 5, and Wilbur was invited to appear before it. He did so; but the meeting did not inspire him with confidence that an early contract could be obtained at the price of $25,000. The Wrights were not willing to accept less, because they thought they had better prospects abroad. However, the Signal Corps soon began drawing up specifications, and, on December 23, advertised for bids.

Inasmuch as the Wright machine was the only one in existence that could meet these requirements, and the price was understood in advance, advertising for bids may have been superfluous; but it was considered necessary to meet demands of red tape. Among specifications set forth in the advertisement for bids were these: the plane must be tested in the presence of Army officers; it must be able to carry for one hour a passenger besides the pilot, the two weighing not less than 350 lbs.; it must show an average speed of forty miles an hour, in a ten-mile test, and carry enough fuel for 125 miles. Also, the machine must have “demountability”; that is, it should be built in such a way that it could be taken apart, and later reassembled, without too much difficulty, when necessary to transport it on an army truck from one place to another.

Almost from the day the advertisements for bids appeared, the War Department was subject to editorial attacks--not because it had been so slow about interesting itself in the airplane, but because it had done so at all!

The New York _Globe_ said:

One might be inclined to assume from the following announcement, “the United States Army is asking bids for a military airship,” that the era of practical human flight had arrived, or at least that the government had seriously taken up the problem of developing this means of travel. A very brief examination of the conditions imposed and the reward offered for successful bidders suffices, however, to prove this assumption a delusion.

A machine such as is described in the Signal Corps’ specifications would record the solution of all the difficulties in the way of the heavier-than-air airship, and, in fact, finally give mankind almost as complete control of the air as it now has of the land and the water. It would be worth to the world almost any number of millions of dollars, would certainly revolutionize warfare and possibly the transportation of passengers; would open to easy access regions hitherto inaccessible except to the most daring pioneers and would, in short, be probably the most epoch-making invention in the history of civilization.

Nothing in any way approaching such a machine has ever been constructed (the Wright brothers’ claims still await public confirmation), and the man who has achieved such a success would have, or at least should have, no need of competing in a contest where the successful bidder might be given his trial because his offer was a few hundred or thousand dollars lower than that of someone else. If there is any possibility that such an airship is within measurable distance of perfection any government could well afford to provide its inventor with unlimited resources and promise him a prize, in case of success, running into the millions.

The _American Magazine of Aeronautics_ (later called _Aeronautics_) devoted its opening article in the issue of January, 1908, to pointing out the absurdity of what the War Department was trying to do.

There is not a known flying-machine in the world which could fulfill these specifications at the present moment, [declared the editorial].... Had an inventor such a machine as required would he not be in a position to ask almost any reasonable sum from the government for its use? Would not the government, instead of the inventor, be a bidder?... Perhaps the Signal Corps has been too much influenced by the “hot air” of theorizers, in which aeronautics unfortunately abounds, who have fathomed the entire problem without ever accomplishing anything; talk is their stock in trade and models or machines are beneath them because beyond their impractical nature.... Why is not the experience with Professor Langley a good guide?... We doubt very much if the government receives any bids at all possible to be accepted.

To the surprise of nearly everyone, forty-one proposals were received. Most of the bidders were the same kind of cranks the Ordnance Board had at first supposed the Wrights to be; and their bids were rejected when they failed to put up a required ten per cent of the proposed price of the plane, as a sign of good faith. Two other bidders besides the Wrights did make a ten per cent deposit. One of these, J. F. Scott, of Chicago, had made a bid of $1,000, and promised delivery of a plane in 185 days. Another was A. M. Herring. His price was $20,000; delivery to be in 180 days. The Wrights’ bid was $25,000, with delivery promised in 200 days.

Receipt of these unexpected bids created a problem. Everyone assumed that none of the bidders except the Wrights had anything practical to offer; and yet the government would be expected to accept the lowest bid and let the winner show what he could do. No matter how dismally he failed to meet requirements, dealing with him would take up time and cause delays.

General Allen, of the Signal Corps, went to Secretary of War Taft to inquire how the War Department might get around the difficulty. Taft said they could accept all legal bids and as only the Wrights could meet the requirements, the others would be eliminated. The only difficulty was that even if no money would ever be paid to the other bidders, yet it would be illegal to accept the bids unless enough money to pay for whatever was ordered was known to be available. However, Taft suggested a way around that. He knew that the President had at his disposal an emergency fund to do with as he saw fit. If the President wished to he could guarantee that all bidders would be paid if they met the tests.

General Allen, accompanied by Captain Charles De Forest Chandler and Lieutenant F. P. Lahm, Signal Corps officers, called upon President Roosevelt who promptly agreed with Taft’s suggestion. He told them to accept all bids and that he would place funds at their disposal to meet legal technicalities. The Signal Corps then agreed to buy planes from all three bidders if they met the necessary requirements.

One of those bidders soon eliminated himself by asking the Government to return his ten per cent deposit. Though the government was not obliged to return the deposit, it nevertheless did so. Herring, the only remaining legal bidder besides the Wrights, hung on a while longer.

What A. M. Herring had in mind was simply to obtain the contract in consequence of his lower price and then try to sublet it to the Wrights. He even had the effrontery to go to Dayton to see the Wrights and make such a proposal. Naturally, they were not interested.

The Wrights’ bid was accepted on February 8, 1908.

As it happened, this was not the only important contract the Wrights entered into at about that time. On March 3, three weeks after the Signal Corps had accepted their bid, they closed a contract with Lazare Weiller, a wealthy Frenchman, to form a syndicate to buy the rights to manufacture, sell, or license the use of the Wright plane in France. Upon completion of certain tests of the machine, the Wrights were to receive a substantial amount in cash, a block of stock, and provision for royalties. The French company would be known as La Compagnie Générale de Navigation Aérienne. A member of the syndicate was M. Deutsch de la Meurthe who had taken steps toward forming a French company some time previously.

One provision of the U. S. War Department contract was that the Government could deduct ten per cent of the purchase price for each mile per hour that the machine fell short of the forty-mile goal. That is, if it went only thirty-nine miles an hour, the Wrights would be docked ten per cent; if only thirty-eight miles, another ten per cent, and so on. If the machine did not do at least thirty-six miles an hour, then the Government didn’t have to accept it at all. On the other hand, the Wrights would receive a ten per cent bonus for each mile per hour they attained above forty.

It was the intention of the Signal Corps, and the Wrights so understood it, that these reduced or additional payments would be for either a mile or a fraction of a mile. But a Government legal department made a surprising interpretation of that part of the contract. If at the time of the tests the plane went 40-99/100 miles, the Wrights would not be paid for more than 40; but if the plane fell short of 40 miles an hour by only 1/100 of a mile, or even less, then they would be docked for a full mile.

(Orville did not learn of that astounding example of the legal mind at work until after he arrived at Washington to prepare for the tests and it was then too late to build a faster plane. But in the final tests the next year, he had a plane that he knew would give the buyer no opportunity to take advantage of what he regarded as a one-sided interpretation of the contract.)

Though the Wrights had done no flying since October, 1905, they had done much work on improving both plane and engine. Their newest engine, capable of producing about thirty-five horsepower continuously, was also so much better as to reliability that now long flights could be made without danger of failure of the motive power.