Lawson, 1913, Educate Congress and Newspaper Editors
- Alfred William Lawson. "Educate Congress and Newspaper Editors", Aircraft, vol. 4., no. 1, March 1913, pp. 5–9.
Refers to a letter, published in the previous issue of Aircraft, a copy of which Lawson sent to every member of Congress, the President, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and others.
In this article he reproduces letters of receipt from Champ Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and from William G. Sharp, House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Sharp's response "shows that the aeronautical movement "has at least one real champion in the House of Representatives who is willing to sacrifice his reputation in the interest of air traffic."
Lawson received a reply, less enthusiastic, from Charles D. Hilles, secretary of President William Howard Taft. (By way of appeasement Hilles mentioned the recent creation of a Commission on Aerodynamic Laboratory.) Captain Irving W. Chambers replied on behalf of George Von L. Meyer, Secretary of the Navy.
Quoth Lawson: "Captain Chambers thinks that an appropriation of $150,000 is sufficient, whereas I think $10,000,000 is not enough."
Lawson focuses especially on the strength of Germany's aerial forces, and compares them with those of France, the next runner up in spending.
He called for a the addition a secretary of aerial affairs to the Cabinet. [This wish was, technically, never granted, since when the Secretary of the Air Force appeared on the scene in 1947, the three services had been reorganized into the Department of Defense. However he did rather immediately get a new secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, whom we might tentatively judge friendlier to his cause.]
