Limbo
Media
Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal
- Title
- Limbo
- Language
- English
- Source
- The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume XVIII (No. 8) August 1938
- Year
- 1938
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- August, 1938 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 11 LIMBO Pan American Airways had the catastrophic misfor tune to lose their Hawaii Clipper airship Friday, July 29, when the last word, about half past twelve, when luncheon must have been in progress, was that the ship was bucking strong headwinds and was some 600 miles from Manila off Surigao. Nothing since, and the most painstaking search by all concerned, notably the Army and the Navy, indicates that the plane must have plun ged into Mindanao Deep from some casualty not to be unexpected in such stiff weather, and to have sunk at once—fast at first, then more slowly, but steadily—to the bottom. Drama and tragedy collude to make such incidents of modern life startling and somewhat shock ing. Fifteen lives were taken by the vindictive ele ments in less than that many minutes; there were six passengers, nine crew members headed by Captain Leo Terletsky in command. The most valuable life involved seems to have been that of Dr. Earl McKinley, dean of medicine at George Washington University, whose researches in the biolo gical mysteries of leprosy seemed to have been ap proaching the mark. His purpose in returning to Ma nila was an errand related to his researches, he had colleagues here. There will necessarily be a stretch-out of the clip per Pacific service until another ship now under test replaces the Hawaii Clipper. Naturally, the new ship eclipses the old in size, speed, and power. Current as pirations are for stratoplanes, cruising higher, faster, and of course more safely, above strata of heavy winds and sudden storms, under cabin-pressure. They will be right along, you can find them described in detail in July’s Fortune. (By the way, ours is missing—it bears our name and we should like it sent to the office). Men ask whether the disaster will make a difference in Pan American’s patronage. We think not; it was never so either of ships or trains, and has not been so of air planes; fatalities aloft are fewer than fatalities in motorcars on highways, or of trains, based on passen gers carried and miles flown, and insurance companies wager with you that you’ll come scatheless from com mercial flights for very nominal sums. Men fly, that’s all, and henceforth always will; and it is rare that they do not fly with complete escape of danger. Formerly it was pestilence that took your friends off suddenly, and by wholesale, and in that day life’s span would not average forty years. Nowadays, occasionally, modern transportation does the trick, though on a diminutive scale comparatively, and life is both longer and pleasan ter. We prefer our times to the old centuries; we are glad to reason that the supernatural never intervenes, death comes when it will, and that man, though not om niscient, is, on the whole, the master of his whole en vironment, air and all. OCCUPATION DAY Since as matters stand the Commonwealth will have been separated from the United States in 1946 on July 4, two years before the fiftieth anniversary of the American occupation of Manila August 13, 1898 rolls round, President Quezon chose to have Filipinos cele brate the fortieth anniversary this year and was very successful in making the celebration cordial, sincere, and impressive. With honors and courtesies to America’s great representative here, High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, America herself was honored, and President Quezon did not neglect due tribute to the American com munity here. It was all gratifying, press commentaries included, and should have received a good hand in the United States. It was the first official and formal cele bration of Occupation Day; it was amendatory in char acter to soothe forgotten wounds and conciliate the future. We trust it will be no belittlement of all this if we seize occasion to make it plain that our doubts as to the new economy seemingly being evolved for the Common wealth are not allayed either by what we hear of these efforts or the current prosperity of the Commonwealth. Our confidence goes no farther than belief in the sin cerity of the good-neighbor policy of the Roosevelt ad ministration. We will not accept, on Occupation Day or any other day, a congressional policy complied with by President Roosevelt that does with Commonwealth commerce with the United States almost what it will. We think the weights in the balance far from equal, right now, and that more weight tends to be added on America’s side. We do want the two countries t" stay together, as apparently everybody here does—and pos sibly a sober majority of Congress always will, at the final test—but we sensed injustice from the first in abandonment of the McKinley policy and we still be lieve it should be revived. Congress is now skirting very close to exploitation; we will not give such a policy (I’lease turn to page 27) JAMES M. KOIIB ATTORNEY AT LAW Properly—\\ ills -General Practice Suite 613 Insular Life Bldg. Tel. 2-16-44 r PHILIPPINE ENGINEERING CORPORATION I I MACHINERY IMPORTERS—INDUSTRIAL CONTRACTORS— I ASSAYERS—MANUFACTURERS | || MANILA I Bi Cebu ------ Iloilo ------ Bacolod ------ Cotabato I San Francisco, California J i IN RESPONDING T1 ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CH AM HER OE COMMER(JOURNAL