Guggenheim Wind-up

About to leave for Cuba as U. S. Ambassador, Harry Frank Guggenheim went and had a long talk with his father, Daniel Guggenheim about the latter's Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics which the former has been administering. They discussed the things they had done for aeronautics, the things they wanted to do. A half-million dollars more, they decided, would take care of the final odds & ends of their cultural-industrial project. Then they could consider their self-imposed job done. Dec. 31 this year would be a good day to mark the Fund's end. So they decided, and so Harry Guggenheim announced last week.

Things Done. In 1925 Daniel Guggenheim gave New York University $500,000 to create a school of aeronautics. Then he gave $2,500,000 to start the Fund, making his son president. Anyone with an intelligent idea about flying has had opportunity to put his thought before the younger Guggenheim. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Leland Stanford University, California Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, the University of Washington received between them almost $1,200,000 for schools of aeronautics. The Fund helped publicize the Lindbergh, Chamberlin and Byrd flights to Europe, gave U. S. aviation the impetus it needed.

The Fund financed Lindbergh and Byrd in their undertakings. Fund money supported a weather service on the Pacific Coast, which the U. S. Government now runs. More money went to help the Royal Aeronautical Society (England), Aero-Club de France, Associazone Italiana d'Aerotecnica, Aero Club von Deutschland to collect and disseminate important technical information which otherwise would not be published. Syracuse University got $30,000 to develop aerial photographic surveying and mapping. For a flying laboratory in which to try out instruments which would permit flyers to go through fog and darkness went several thousand dollars; for prizes in a safe airplane contest, $150,000. To the Government of Chile also went $500,000, to develop aviation, a gift from Daniel Guggenheim apart from his gifts to the Fund.

Things to Be Done. Syracuse University needs $30,000 more for its surveying and mapping studies. It will get it by New Year's Day, said Harry Guggenheim last week. The European aeronautical societies each want $10,000. They will get it.

Besides these there were three new, surprise donations, for which Daniel Guggenheim gave yet another $500,000 last week: 1) $250,000 to the City of Akron (if the city raises a like amount) for an Airship Institute, to study lighter-than-air problems under supervision of the California Institute of Technology; 2) $140,000 for a Chair of Aeronautics in the Library of Congress; 3) the balance to some southern university for an aeronautical school. Which southern university will get the money depends upon the proved enterprise of its faculty.