U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [464]
braid and postponements and vandyke beards and the
outspread palms of politicos. For amusement
they played diabolo in the Tuileries gardens.
They gave publicized flights at Fort Myers, where
they had their first fatal crackup, St. Petersburg, Paris, Berlin; at Pau they were al the rage,
such an attraction that the hotelkeeper
-283-wouldn't charge them for their room.
Alfonso of Spain shook hands with them and was
photographed sitting in the machine,
King Edward watched a flight,
the Crown Prince insisted on being taken up,
the rain of medals began.
They were congratulated by the Czar
and the King of Italy and the amateurs of sport,
and the society climbers and the papal titles,
and decorated by a society for universal peace.
Aeronautics became the sport of the day.
The Wrights don't seem to have been very much
impressed by the upholstery and the braid and the gold medals and the parades of plush horses,
they remained practical mechanics
and insisted on doing al their own work them-selves, even to fil ing the gasolinetank. In nineteen eleven they were back on the dunes
at Kitty Hawk with a new glider.
Orvil e stayed up in the air for nine and a half
minutes, which remained a long time the record for
motorless flight.
The same year Wilbur died of typhoidfever in
Dayton.
In the rush of new names: Farman, Blériot, Cur-tiss, Ferber, Esnault-Peltrie, Delagrange; in the snorting impact of bombs and the whine and
rattle of shrapnel and the sudden stutter of machine-guns after the motor's been shut off overhead,
-284-and we flatten into the mud
and make ourselves smal cowering in the corners
of ruined wal s,
the Wright brothers passed out of the headlines
but not even headlines or the bitter smear of news-print or the choke of smokescreen and gas or chatter of brokers on the stockmarket or barking of phantom mil ions or oratory of brasshats laying wreaths on new monuments
can blur the memory
of the chil y December day
two shivering bicycle mechanics from Dayton,
Ohio,
first felt their homemade contraption
whittled out of hickory sticks,
gummed together with Arnstein's bicycle cement,
stretched with muslin they'd sewn on their sister's sewingmachine in their own backyard on Hawthorn
Street in Dayton, Ohio,
soar into the air
above the dunes and the wide beach
at Kitty Hawk.
NEWSREEL LIX
the stranger first coming to Detroit if he be interested in the busy economic side of modern life wil find a marvelous industrial beehive; if he be a lover of nature he wil take notice of a site made forever remarkable by the waters of that noble strait that gives the city its name; if he be a student of romance and history he wil discover legends and records as entertaining and as instructive as the continent can supply
-285- I've a longing for my Omaha town
I long to go there and settle down
DETROIT LEADS THE WORLD IN THE
MANUFACTURE OF AUTOMOBILES
I want to see my pa
I want to see my ma
I want to go to dear old Omaha
DETROIT IS FIRST
IN PHARMACEUTICALS
STOVES RANGES FURNACES
ADDING MACHINES
PAINTS AND VARNISHES
MARINE MOTORS
OVERALLS
SODA AND SALT PRODUCTS
SPORT SHOES
TWIST DRILLS
SHOWCASES
SHOWCASES
CORSETS
GASOLINE TORCHES
TRUCKS
Mr. Radio Man won't you do what you can
'Cause I'm so lonely
Tell my Mammy to come back home
Mr. Radio Man
DETROIT THE DYNAMIC RANKS HIGH
IN FOUNDRY AND MACHINE SHOP
PRODUCTS
IN BRASS AND BRASS PRODUCTS
IN TOBACCO AND CIGARS
IN ALUMINUM CASTINGS
IN IRON AND STEEL
IN LUBRICATOR TOOLS
MALLEABLE IRON
METAL BEDS
-286- Back to the land that gave me birth
The grandest place on God's green earth
California! That's where I belong.
"DETROIT THE CITY WHERE LIFE IS
WORTH LIVING"
CHARLEY ANDERSON
First thing Charley heard when he climbed down from the controls was Farrel 's voice shouting, " Charley Ander-son, the boy with the knowhow. Welcome to little old Detroit," and then he saw Farrel 's round face coming across the green grass of the field and his big mouth wide open. "Kind of bumpy, wasn't it?"
"It was cold as hel ,"