WRIGHT, ORVILLE. Typed letter signed ("Orville Wright") to Senator Hiram Bingham, Dayton, Ohio, 28 February 1928. 2 pages, small folio, on rectos only of two sheets of Wright's personal imprinted stationery. "THE MACHINE WAS DESIGNED AND BUILT IN DAYTON, AND ONLY THE ASSEMBLING AND TESTING TOOK PLACE AT KITTY HAWK" A long, informative letter on Wright's decision to exhibit the first Flyer in Great Britain, in which he accuses the Smithsonian of wrongly crediting Samuel Langley with having influenced the Wrights in the design of their aircraft. "I have... discussed with a number of my friends, in whose judgment I have confidence, the proposal of placing the Kitty Hawk machine in a museum at Kitty Hawk. Not one of them has thought Kitty Hawk the place for it. It is not my purpose to try to reach the tourist. I am trying to bring the facts to the university man; the man who writes history. The Smithsonian campaign of propaganda has been addressed almost altogether to these people. The influence on public opinion will be as great from the machine being in the Science Museum of Great Britain as it would be from being in the Smithsonian; but of course from national pride I would much rather have had it in the latter. "America is not the only place the Smithsonian has spread its propaganda. Evidently you are not aware of the extent to which this has been broadcast. NATURE and DISCOVERY, supposed to be scientific publications, both published the interpolated quotation in the 1910 Smithsonian Report. Then DISCOVERY adds: 'It was by following the scientific guidance of Langley and using mechanical ingenuity to extend it, that they (Wrights) were able to give practical effect to the desire of man to rise above the clouds.' Wright notes that there has been a "movement here in Dayton to erect a memorial building to house the Kitty Hawk machine. This has been talked of for several years; but I have given no encouragement to it.... I do not favor either proposal, but I think you will see that the Dayton proposition would be at least as important and Dayton as suitable a place as Kitty Hawk, since the machine was designed and built in Dayton, and only the assembling and testing took place at Kitty Hawk. "It has never seemed to me that Kitty Hawk was the place for the expenditure of a large sum of government money. When your bill was passed, I thought it was the intention merely to mark the spot where the first flight was made with a large chunk of concrete or some other inexpensive durable material. When I expressed uneasiness about the proposed monument being used for purposes of a real estate project, I did not have in mind any of the people about Kitty Hawk. I had been told that some New Jersey company had bought the land from Hatteras to Kitty Hawk; that they were laying out streets and lots...and that they were about to 'turn loose some three hundred high-powered salesmen on this unsuspecting world to sell the lots.'...
WRIGHT, ORVILLE. Typed letter signed ("Orville Wright") to Senator Hiram Bingham, Dayton, Ohio, 28 February 1928. 2 pages, small folio, on rectos only of two sheets of Wright's personal imprinted stationery. "THE MACHINE WAS DESIGNED AND BUILT IN DAYTON, AND ONLY THE ASSEMBLING AND TESTING TOOK PLACE AT KITTY HAWK" A long, informative letter on Wright's decision to exhibit the first Flyer in Great Britain, in which he accuses the Smithsonian of wrongly crediting Samuel Langley with having influenced the Wrights in the design of their aircraft. "I have... discussed with a number of my friends, in whose judgment I have confidence, the proposal of placing the Kitty Hawk machine in a museum at Kitty Hawk. Not one of them has thought Kitty Hawk the place for it. It is not my purpose to try to reach the tourist. I am trying to bring the facts to the university man; the man who writes history. The Smithsonian campaign of propaganda has been addressed almost altogether to these people. The influence on public opinion will be as great from the machine being in the Science Museum of Great Britain as it would be from being in the Smithsonian; but of course from national pride I would much rather have had it in the latter. "America is not the only place the Smithsonian has spread its propaganda. Evidently you are not aware of the extent to which this has been broadcast. NATURE and DISCOVERY, supposed to be scientific publications, both published the interpolated quotation in the 1910 Smithsonian Report. Then DISCOVERY adds: 'It was by following the scientific guidance of Langley and using mechanical ingenuity to extend it, that they (Wrights) were able to give practical effect to the desire of man to rise above the clouds.' Wright notes that there has been a "movement here in Dayton to erect a memorial building to house the Kitty Hawk machine. This has been talked of for several years; but I have given no encouragement to it.... I do not favor either proposal, but I think you will see that the Dayton proposition would be at least as important and Dayton as suitable a place as Kitty Hawk, since the machine was designed and built in Dayton, and only the assembling and testing took place at Kitty Hawk. "It has never seemed to me that Kitty Hawk was the place for the expenditure of a large sum of government money. When your bill was passed, I thought it was the intention merely to mark the spot where the first flight was made with a large chunk of concrete or some other inexpensive durable material. When I expressed uneasiness about the proposed monument being used for purposes of a real estate project, I did not have in mind any of the people about Kitty Hawk. I had been told that some New Jersey company had bought the land from Hatteras to Kitty Hawk; that they were laying out streets and lots...and that they were about to 'turn loose some three hundred high-powered salesmen on this unsuspecting world to sell the lots.'...
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
