Welcome to the American Story.

Stories about what it is that makes America beautiful

and worthy of our love.

This is Chris Flannery with the Claremont Institute.

I call this one daring young men in their flying machines.

On May 15, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson dispatched a personal letter of greetings to the mayor of New York City.

Nothing unusual there, except for the fact that it was to mark the inauguration

of scheduled air mail service by the US post office. This was a crazy idea

unnecessary on the face of it, thrown together hastily without adequate

equipment or preparation, something of a political stunt that often seemed on the verge

of failure.

But it ultimately succeeded

due to good luck, good timing, ingenuity, and courage.

Altogether, a very American combination.

The crazy idea was that of Otto Prager,

second assistant postmaster general,

with the prosaic purpose of improving the speed of intercity mail shipments.

But existing rail service already worked perfectly well for ordinary mail, and urgent messages could be sent by telegraph.

Prager had no idea how airplanes actually worked, and he especially had no idea how they didn't work.

The plane chosen for the first flight, an open cockpit training by plane,

the JN 4H, Jinni, even when modified, at best had a range of 180 miles if the wind was with it, which

it often wasn't.

...