“I have been desired by the British Government to express to Colonel Lindbergh on this occasion in behalf of all the people of Great Britain their warm congratulations on the safe return home after his historic flight across the Atlantic. The British people regard Colonel Lindbergh with special admiration and affection not only for his great courage and resource, but also for his equally great modesty in success and generosity in giving their due to other aviators who have gone before.”
At the end of this bewildering array of orations and gifts the speaker of the evening was announced. One has only to put oneself in Lindbergh’s place after reading some of the eloquence listed above to admire the moral courage it took to face that huge audience and once more speak with directness and precision of the things nearest his heart—things often furthest from the burden of the discourse:
“I want to express my appreciation of the reception I’ve met in America and the welcome I have received here tonight.” It was plain the flier was going to cover another field than the infinitely delicate one he had touched earlier in the day. “When I landed at Le Bourget a few weeks ago, I landed with the expectancy and hope of being able to see Europe. It was the first time I had ever been abroad. I had seen a number of interesting things when I flew over Ireland and Southern England and France. I had only been gone from America two days or a little less, and I wasn’t in any particular hurry to get back.
“But by the time I had been in France a week, Belgium a day and England two or three days—by that time I had opened several cables from America and talked with three Ambassadors and their attachés and found that it didn’t make much difference whether I wanted to stay or not: and while I was informed that it was not necessarily an order to come back home, there was a battleship waiting for me.
“The Ambassador said this wasn’t an order, but advice,” the aviator added.
“So on June 4 I sailed on the Memphis from Cherbourg and this morning as I came up the Potomac I wasn’t very sorry that I had listened to it.
“There were several things I saw in Europe that are of interest to American aviation. All Europe looks on our air mail service with reverence. There is nothing like it anywhere abroad.
“But, whereas we have airlines, they have passenger lines. All Europe is covered with a network of lines carrying passengers between all the big cities. Now it is up to us to create and develop passenger lines that compare with our mail routes. For this we have natural advantages in the great distances here that lend themselves to rapid transportation by air. Moreover, we can make these long trips without the inconvenience of passing over international boundaries.
“The question comes up, ‘Why has Europe got ahead of us in commercial airlines?’ The reason is, of course, that the Governments over there give subsidies. I don’t think we want any subsidies over here. Of course, if we had them they would create passenger lines overnight, so to speak, but in the long run the airlines, the distance they covered and the routes would be controlled entirely by the subsidies.
“What we need now more than any other one thing is a series of airports in every city and town throughout the United States. Given these airports, in a very few years the nations of Europe would be looking toward our passenger lines as they now look at our mail routes.”
Sunday was another full day. Under able guidance of the Chief Executive, Lindbergh did the things every good American would expect him to do. And, as one who has seen the lad at close range, we can say that he did them gladly and with profound appreciation for the privilege of doing them. After you come to know him you find out that’s the kind he is.
He went to church with President and Mrs. Coolidge. Accompanied by his mother he laid a wreath upon the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the great memorial amphitheatre in Arlington Cemetery. He drove to Georgetown and visited the wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital. He attended a celebration in honor of the 150th anniversary of the American flag, for which services were held on the steps of the Capitol and presided over by Charles Evans Hughes.
It was at this last ceremony that Lindbergh received the Cross of Honor. His response to the honor was brief and typically to the point. He declared that credit for his flight should “not go to the pilot alone but to American science and genius which had given years of study to the advancement of aeronautics.”
“Some things should be taken into consideration in connection with our flight that have not heretofore been given due weight. That is just what made this flight possible. It was not the act of a single pilot. It was the culmination of twenty years of aeronautical research and the assembling together of all that was practicable and best in American aviation. It represented American industry.
“In addition to this consideration should be given the scientific researches that have been in progress for countless centuries. All of this should have consideration in apportioning credit for the flight. Credit should go not alone to the pilot, but to the other factors that I have briefly enumerated. I thank you.”
This was the day well worthy of what Lindbergh had done and what he stood for. And again, by the spiritual values it
