Arthur Brisbane to Woodrow Wilson

SUGGESTION RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED TO THE PRESIDENT
BY ARTHUR BRISBANE.

THE WINNING OF THE WAR DEPENDS ON PROMPT INTENSIVEUSE OF THE FLYING MACHINE ON THE WIDEST SCALE.

The most serious war problem is due to the energy of the Prussians in utilizing the new weapon, the submarine, in the attack on English, and all shipping.

The English should long ago have retaliated with complete use of the other new weapon, the flying machine. As the submarine goes under the English fleet so the flying machine should go over the Hindenburg line, not occasionally, as an isolated tour de force, but in vast numbers.

I know that your chief thought is to save the lives of Americans, next to saving and perpetuating human liberty.

Every man in a flying machine dropping dynamite on Germany would, I believe, do the work of a hundred men in the trenches, and shorten trench warfare.

The English are slow, deliberate.

They say that for every flying machine in the air, there are required forty-six men on the ground.

If you gave the order, followed it up from day to day, this country would send thousands, tens of thousands of small flying machines that would be operated by ONE man in the air, and looked after on the ground by ONE man, not forty-six. There are in the United States more than two hundred factories, plants of various kinds that manufacture automobiles and automobile engines. I am informed that only six are actually employed in the making of aeroplanes.

In any case the number of aeroplanes finished and planned is limited. And we seem to be going along the line already followed by the English who have used the flying machine chiefly for observation, scouting and defense against enemy fliers, few in numbers. The flying machine should be our chief offensive weapon, not a mere anxiliary.

Our energies and vast expense are concentrated on production of the most efficient flying machine.

Is it not probable that the use of A SUFFICIENT NUMBER of smaller, slower flying machines would answer the purpose, scattering dynamite thickly in Germany behind the lines and making the Germans feel that they have had enough of war?If I were in power I should remind the War Secretary and other Army men of the great power that is in numbers, greater than the power of speed or individual efficiency.

The mosquito is slow, but NUMEROUS ENOUGH, he can drive the strongest man indoors.

The Englishman's Rolles-Royce, a magnificent automobile, with two men on the box and three or four men in the garage, is something like the British flying machine with forty-six men on the ground for one machine.

Cannot the United States produce something like the Ford car, which does all the transporting work of a Rolles-Royce, with one man and a very small fraction of the expense?Should we not have in the air over Germany, dropping constantly millions of small dynamite bombs, a fleet a swarm of small flying machines, comparable to the fleet of a million Ford cars that cover United States soil and make possible the work of farmers, mechanics and professional men?Such machines might not be quite as safe or quite as effective as the great machines that we are planning. But they WOULD DROP DYNAMITE. They could be sent as a cloud above the German people, they could send upon Germany a rain of small dynamite shells as terrific as all the Seven Plagues of Egypt put into one.

In addition to these machines it is said to be possible to construct small light machines that would carry dynamite above and back of the Hindenburg lines, WITHOUT A MAN in the machine.

I am informed that it would be easy to manufacture small aeroplanes, arranged to fly in a certain direction, with calculation as to speed and objective, each taking with it a dynamite explosion to arouse the Germans interest in peace.

Henry Ford, I am told, is prepared to manufacture such "man-less" flying weapons on a large scale. My information does not come from him but from another manufacturer.

I know that you will be patient with a prolix suggestion, if you believe it to be based on sincere desire for the public welfare.

I wrote on this subject in many newspapers long before the war began, have written about it frequently since. I have spoken and written to the Secretary of War and to others about it.

There is only one power that can make of this war what I believe it ought to be, A WAR IN THE AIR, and you are that power.

If you absolutely demand the quick building and sending to Germany of thousands upon thousands of flying machines of all kinds and all sizes it will be done, and the Germans will want peace.

It will not be done otherwise. Only your strength of will and constant pressure will drive this country and the allies to use the new weapon effectivelyand fight Prussia in the air with more energy than she has shown in her fight below the water and on land.