Again, Mitchell

William Mitchell, the Brigadier General who talked himself down to the rank of Colonel and out of the Army by criticizing the War and Navy Departments' post-War air policies, this week began fresh repetition of his criticisms, in current issues of Aeronautics* and Liberty.

As many a lover of word-fights may have forgotten, Col. Mitchell has clamored for almost a decade for a Department of Aeronautics separate from the War and Navy Departments. His experiences during the War and immediately after persuaded him of the need. He was the first U. S. officer to fly over the German lines, was chief of the U. S. air service for the group of armies in the Argonne offensive, and shared in practically all the major A. E. F. operations. He was in more engagements than any other U. S. officer. For War and prior Army service he has a great battery of ribbons and medals./-

Since his court-martial, he has been living on his private estate "Boxwood," at Middleburg, Va., on the east slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains and not far west of Washington. Nominally he goes in for farming and horse & stock raising. While doing that and making frequent trips to Europe and Asia he has kept up his bombardment of the Government's air program. At first his attacks were heavy barrages of magazine articles and pamphlets. Lately he has directed only a desultory fire.

Now he has trained upon a target whom he dared to attack only by indirect fire during his Army service--President Coolidge. "I recommended in 1925," he now writes, "that a board of disinterested persons be convened by the President to determine how the aeronautical problem should be handled in this country.** President Coolidge, instead of appointing a disinterested board, 'stuffed the deck.' He appointed on it persons well known to be hostile to the independent development of aviation. . . . Instead of creating a department of aeronautics separate from the Army and Navy as the English, French, Germans, Italians, Russians and Spanish have, they merely appointed an additional secretary in the Army, Navy and Commerce Departments, which entrenched the bureaucracy more firmly and gave an opportunity of passing plums to friends.

. . . "With the appointment of the three new undersecretaries in the War, Navy and Commerce Departments, a great cry was made all over the country through Coolidge's controlled press that air power was being assisted and developed. Nothing of the kind was done, as it was still made the tail of the dog. It was not given a separate department in the Government under a cabinet member. This must be done eventually, so the sooner we create it the better."

Shortcomings of the U. S. as an airwise nation which General Mitchell considers important include lack of through transcontinental air lines, lack of transoceanic lines, the vulnerability of warships to planes ("battleships have become so top-heavy and useless that if they get a good crack below the waterline, they just turn over and sink of their own accord"), the excellent air targets which the aircraft carriers Lexington and Saratoga provide, the impossibility of protecting cities from air raids, the poverty of the Army and Navy in fighting planes.

*Monthly magazine until this month called Popular Aviation and Aeronautics. With 100,000 circulation it is largest-selling of U. S. air publications. Aviation is oldest. Aviation's editor is airwise Earl D. Osborn. Editor of Aeronautics is equally airwise Harley W. Mitchell, no relative of General Mitchell.

/-Including the U. S Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Commander ot the Legion of Honor, Croix de Guerre with five palms, Companion of the Order of St. Michael & St. George (British), Grand Officer ot the Crown of Italy, Commanditore S. S. Maunzio e Lazaro.

**The Coolidge air commission was composed of Dwight W. Morrow, chairman; Arthur C Dennison, William F. Durand, Major Gen. James G. Harhord, Rear Admiral Frank F. Fletcher, Howard E. Coffin, Senator Hiram Bingham, Representatives Carl Vinson and James S. Parker. The first "plums" (assistant secretaryships) fell to F. Trubee Davison (War) Edward P. Warner (Navy), William P MacCracken Jr. (Commerce).