AERONAUTICS: Magellans

From McCook Field, Dayton, four weary air Magellans took off (in two planes), flew to Chicago under perfect conditions in the easiest hop of their trip around the earth (TIME, Mar. 24 et seq.). In a windless Windy City, cheering crowds, notables,bands, committees, orators were on hand to welcome them. Lieut. Lowell H. Smith, Flight Commander, issued a statement. Said he: “The next time we go around the world, it is going to be in a boat.”

After a brief rest, they hopped 440 miles to Omaha, where their arrival was marked by a holiday for school children and others. In Tucson, Ariz., the next stop, they were again feted for their feat, in spite of the fact that Governor G. W. P. Hunt, stricken with appendicitis, could not be present. The following day, they hopped to San Diego and stared, like stout Cortez, with eagle eye at the

Pacific—their perils past, their proud adventure done. Three weeks ago, when the fliers arrived in Manhattan, James W. Wadsworth, senior U. S. Senator from New York, said: “At Boston, you saw thousands upon thousands of your fellow-countrymen thronging the streets and fillingthe open space in the centre of the old town so famous in the annals of the Republic—Boston Common. Your fellow-citizens indicated to you very clearly the quality of the emotions which fill the hearts of Americans today. You may have been stunned at the extent of that reception, as you may be with the reception accorded to you here, but you will find as you proceed along the homestretch that these are but the first evidences of the feelings which all Americans long to show to you.” Said the Daily Worker, bitter sheetlet of Chicago Communists: “Thousands of morons are gathering at Maywood, where the fliers will land, in order to get a glimpse at the red-blooded American pioneers. Special trains will be run and there will be more excitement in Chicago, than if the news had come that the King of Afghanistan had married the Queen of Sheba. . . . “When the airmen recover they will attend the reception of the bigwigs that has been arranged.”