• U.S.

AERONAUTICS: Spirit of Canton

1 minute read
TIME

In the restaurant of the estimable Lin Hing, at No. 2, the Bowery, Manhattan, there assembled last week 15 notable Chinamen who proceeded to found the Chinese Aero League of America. President of the League Dr. Tien Lee Huang announced for next August a 10,000-mile air race from Dallas, Texas, to China, for a purse of $50,000 offered by Col. W. E. Easterwood of Dallas, Texas. He declared that 13 planes are already entered, including his own giant all-metal, trimotored Spirit of Canton. The League was then addressed by Philosopher-Lecturer Dr. Huang (“the Chinese Count Hermann Keyserling”), now touring the U. S. “It was the great Kum Ming of the Province of Han,” said he, “who, in the fourth Christian century, invented, made and flew the first airplane. . . . Its motive power was magnetic. . . . Kum Ming, who was a poet and a wise ruler, destroyed his airplane just before his death for the protection of mankind. . . . He had bombed and destroyed many of his enemies in the air; but he was a poet and remorse overcame him.”

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