The Lone eagle: Lindbergh

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Part of The Cabletow

Title: The Lone eagle: Lindbergh
Creator: Burch, George Jr.
Language: English
Year: 1966
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Fulltext: Fascinating and inspirational. . . By GEORGE BURCH, JR. Almost impossible to capture now is that kind of magic which Lind bergh and his legend exerted upon those of us who remember him in the greatest years of his heroism and triumph in the late 1920's. Numerous newspapers and maga zines, as well as books, including “The Spirit of St. Louis,” which he authored, have been written about Lindbergh, the man, whom few men intimately knew and fewer under stood. In his book, "The Spirit of St. Louis,” he describes the planning and execution of the first non-stop airplane flight between the continents of America and Europe. It was four teen years in the writing. The phenomenon, known as '‘hero," bearing his name, which had loomed immensely over the Amer ican scene for thirteen years, had ceased to exist bv the end of 1941. He, of course, continued to be adadmired by many and worshipped by a small minority of Americans, yet the man survived his heroism, con tinued intensely alive, and active, even today. Lindbergh, partly as a result of his own acts and character, partly as the result of forces beyond his control, was worshipped, mobbed, photo graphed, vilified, as perhaps no other private citizen in the 20th Cen tury, and perhaps in all American history. By flying solo from New York to Paris in the “Spirit of St. Louis,” in CHARLES A. LINDBERGH May, 1927, he was transferred from an everyday life of an average Amer ican into a national legendary figure. His exploits converted aviation from airplane spectacles put on by stunt daredevil flyers in country fairs into the. most advanced and modern source of transportation of the 20th Century, both for passengers and freight. Men even today have dif ficulty in giving it proper place in the dynamic development of peoples and nations, and it remains for future history to read the effects of airplanes on civilization. LINDBERGH’S YOUTH In 1901, his father, Charles A. Lindbergh, following the untimely death of his wife, Mary, whom he Turn to page " March 1966 THE LONE EAGLE . . . From page 5 had married in 1887, and to whom were born two daughters, Eva and Lillian, was married to Evangeline Lodge Land, who like her husband, graduated from the University of Michigan, he in law and she from the school of education. His father was a successful attorney, who became a man of extensive affairs, building and selling houses, acquiring farms, a District Attorney, and finally, a member of Congress from Minneso ta’s Sixth District. Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., was born in Minnesota, February 4, 1902, and during his early years lived on a ranch located on one hundred and ten acres of primeval pines and hardwoods, stretching along the Mis sissippi. His father and mother evidently were too much alike to make a suc cessful marriage and while they were separated, they never were divorced. Lindbergh continued to live with his mother, but he spent a great deal of time with his father. His early environment made an impression, as a half century later Lindbergh wrote of his early youth as having been spent in an idyllic landscape of field and wood, river and lake. Lindbergh’s father was a great be liever in self-reliance, a truly rugged individual and these characteristics were impressed upon Lindbergh at an early age, who being an only son whose two half sisters were much too old for him to play with, played alone much of the time, and he found solitude in hunting and fishing. He even built a flat bottom boat on which, with his dog as his only com panion, he frequently made trips along the muddy banks of the Mississippi river, which was lined with oaks, elms and rustling cottonwoods. In his early youth, he recalled see ing two airplanes which were oblong boxes and were without solid side walls and whose tops and bottoms were held together by a forest of struts, a network of wires. He had a boyhood dream to fly, even though it was a dangerous pastime, but as flying was very expensive, he put aside his yearning to fly, although to his mother’s consternation he prac ticed jumping from tree limbs, and on one occasion dropped the family cat from a second floor so he could check whether or not it would land on four feet (it did). EDUCATION The Section in 1906 of his father to the United States Congress, fol lowed by four subsequent re-elections, was but the first of many drastic changes in Lindbergh’s life. During those years, while he was growing into adolescence, Lindbergh was so moved about the country, di viding his time between Little Falls, Minnesota, Washington, Detroit, with extended trips to the West Coast and elsewhere about the coun try, that he never completed a full term in any one school. His mother tried to fill the gaps with private tutoring, but deficiencies in his for mal education became inevitable. Notwithstanding his lack of book learning, his experiences became more edpeative than that to which most youths were then exposed to. The lessons taught him by his fa ther, encouraged Lindbergh never to show fear, and to make his way in the world with a minimum of de pendence upon other people. With the passing of years and the accu mulation of hurts, he became in creasingly reticent. Lindbergh, when he was five years old. stood bv his father’s side while the latter was sworn in as a CongressTum to next pege March 1966 11 LINDBERGH MASONIC RECORD On April 7, 1926, Keystone Lodge, No. 243, St. Louis, Missouri, of tho Mesonic Grand Jurisdiction of Missouri, received a petition for the degrees from a tall, slender, diffident youth. Brother Lindbergh first saw the light of Freemasonry on June 6, 1926. He was made a Fellowcraft in October and a Master Mason on December 15, the same year. During his progress through the degrees he displayed keen interest in the degree work and in the lectures. All degree work was done and lectures delivered with one exception by mem bers of the Lodge. The Entered apprentice and Master Mason "curtain lectures" (corresponds with our Master's lectures) was delivered by James M. Bradford, Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Missouri. Shortly after receiving the degrees came his famous flight ending at Paris, France, an event which will ever remain first in the minds of his Masonic brethren, es pecially in the minds of the members of Keystone Lodge, No. 243. In recognition of his achievement and tho honor which he had brought to him self, his country, the Masonic Fraternity and to Keystone Lodge, he was made a life member by tho lodge. In so doing. Keystone Lodge conferred upon him an honor which no other Masomc Body could give him. In 1928 he made his trip to South America where he was accorded every Masonic recognition: Lodge Libcrtad 20 Sanio Domingo, RD, invested him with the honor of Honorary Member of their Lodge. He is a member of St. Louis Chapter No. 33 Na tional Sojourners. On his history-making flight from New York to Paris he wore the square and com pass on his jacket. Years later when a movie was made telling the story of the flight the producers in their inimitable way turned this into a St. Christopher medal. man on the House of Chamber; fre quently was with his father on the House floor; and he listened to his father’s speeches in Congress, though for the most part, uncomprehendingly. When World War No. I broke out, his father through speeches and writing, charged that “Money inter ests’’ were issuing “propaganda” for the purpose of involving this Coun try on the side of the allies. His father during his last term in Congress in 1915 introduced legisla tion, which dismayed his political friends and delighted his enemies, calling for an investigation of charges brought by the Free Press Defense League, to the effect that the Roman Catholic Church opposed, and through its various organizations, sought to subvert the American Sys tem of public schools, freedom of the press, freedom of speech and as sembly, freedom of thought in mat ters of conscience, and the principle of separation of Church and State. Needless to say, this legislation was killed in committee. Following his retirement from Congress, Lindbergh’s father contin ued his attack on those whom he charged brought about the participa tion of our nation in World War I. Although his views were not rejected in Minnesota, whose farmers were generally distrustful of big business and which has a large GermanAmerican population, flsewherc throughout the country he brought considerable criticism upon himself. By the time Lindbergh entered his teens, machinery had become central to the boy’s life, particularly internal combustion engines. He graduated from high school in Little Falls. 12 The Cabletow Minnesota, and his classmates, al though few knew him intimately, will always remember him by his motorcycle, which he operated with what seemed to them an appalling recklessness. Following his graduation from high school, he farmed for two years, but because of depressed markets for farm products, following the close of the war, and the lack of thrill of ad venture in everyday farming, he concluded that the farm outlook was dreary if not hopeless and that he had had enough farming. In any event, he had never intended to de vote his life to agriculture. He began to consider, vaguely at first, the possibility that he might be come an aviator, remembering as he did, the air heroes who became “Aces” by downing five or more planes. Since the war’s end he had followed with avid interest the ac counts of record-breaking long dis tance flights. In May of 1919, an American Naval seaplane had flown from Newfoundland to the Azores with a crew of five men. A month later, an English pilot and an Amer ican navigator had flown from New foundland to Ireland, where they landed in a peat bog, winning the 10,000 pound prize for the first non stop Atlantic crossing. In the fall of 1920, he enrolled in the University of Wisconsin, because he wanted to takg mechanical en gineering. By this time this young man had reached the height of 6 feet, 3 inches. From his first day in col lege he kept pretty much to himself, and formed few friendships. His restlessness was reflected in his inat tention to class study and as a re sult, his grades suffered, and at the end of March, 1922, he left college, never again to attend a college class. He then entered upon a world as distinct in some ways, from his boy hood as Minnesota had been from Sweden for his grandfather, that of aviation, and with it he acquired his first nickname, “Slim.” He became an enrolled student in an aircraft school, which did not last very long, largely due to lack of interest in the future of aviation. Lindbergh next bacame a mechanic and a helper on a friend’s barnstorming, airplane ex pedition, and he even offered to pay his own expenses, so great was his interest in aviation. The average pi lot’s life expectancy in the air, by this time, was nine hundred hours, or about six weeks — it grew longer every year thereafter, until it com pared favorably with relatively safe occupations. Lindbergh next took up parachute jumping, and this experience gave him a confidence which stood him in good stead when he subsequently flew solo across the Atlantic. On his twenty-first birthday, his father continued to oppose his flying as being too dangerous, but when he realized his son’s mind was made up, he signed his note so he could pur chase a surplus army training plane, better known as “Jenneys,” and which were being auctioned off for as little as $50.00. He came close to injury, or death, on his first attempt to fly and land this machine, as he never had previously soloed, as in those days no license was required of a pilot. During the months that followed, he became a proficient flyer, becom ing acutely aware, as all his fellow flyers were, of the difference in out look between aviators and earthbound people, as aviators living more rapidly, devoting their energies to the present instant, and ignoring the past and future within which most people planned their activities. Turn to next page March 1966 13 Lindbergh, solitary and unknown, moved from place to place by sud den impulses and sheer restlessness, barnstorming through the middle west and the south, barely making expenses some weeks, but showing on the whole a modest profit. Lindbergh realized that commer cial aviation was still several years off and that any flyer who wished to grow up with it would do well, in the meantime, to gain the prestige and technical proficiency resulting from army training. March 15, 1924, he was inducted at Brook’s Field, San Antonio, Texas, as an Air Serv ice Cadet, and for the first time he flew the most modern planes. His father died in 1924. At his request, his son took his ashes aloft in an airplane, and circling the woods and meadows, spread them upon the wind. Of the original class who became air corps cadets with Lindbergh, only eighteen remained to receive their wings in March of 1925. Lind bergh was graduated number One among them. The following- week most of the graduates resigned from active service in order to retain their freedom as members of the Air Corps Reserve Corps, and Lindbergh with no definite plans for his future in mind, boarded a train for St. Louis. The army had enlarged his circle of casually friendly acquaintances and had given him, evidently for the first time in his life, a sense of belonging, or being a member. THE AIR MAIL PILOT In 1925 the Congress passed legis lation transferring the air mail serv ice, which the Post Office Depart ment had inaugurated in 1918, using army planes and personnel, to pri vate industry. Certainly the hazard of flying the mail was great enough to challenge him. He was hired by the Robertson corporation as its Chief mail pilot, on the run between Chicago and St. Louis. The worse the weather, the better he seemed to like it. Current news did not interest Lindbergh. There was, however, one strand of news lacing through the whole of the age in which his in terest became great, indeed. It was the continuing story of the Orteig Prize and of the men competing for it. He read it with increasing fas cination as it unfolded from the spring through the summer into the fall of 1926, until in November, he himself became a part of it, though at first obscurely. The story had begun some ten years before, in the mind of a Frenchman named Raymond Orteig, who operated hotels in New York. He resolved, following the conclu sion of World War I, to encourage flights between United States and France, and in such a way to bind his native land more closely to the United States. He agreed to award $25,000.00 “to the first aviator who shall cross the Atlantic in a land or water aircraft (heavier than air) from Paris or the shores of France to New York, or from New York to Paris or the shores of France, with out stop.” He stipulated that the flight be made within five years after the offer was announced. But when the five years were up, the prize re mained unwon and in fact there had not even been an attempt to win it, such a flight in the early 1920’s seemed utterly impossible, and fail ure would most certainly result in death. By 1926, Orteig renewed his prize offer for another five years (he had by this time returned to Paris to live). Airplane motors and design had sufficiently improved to make a non-stop flight of 3600 miles seem 14 The Cabletow possible but without any margin for error. The possibility of a transatlantic flight had become an obsession with Lindbergh, and he concluded that since the limiting factor on long dis tance flying was the load of gasoline a plane could lift, any plane which set out to break the distance record must be stripped of every ounce of excess weight, including the cutting of the crew to one. There seemed to him many reasons why St. Louis businessmen who knew him and respected his profes sional competence, would finance his proposed flight, New York to Paris, and after considerable negotiations his proposed flight was underwritten. He selected the Ryan Aircraft Co. of San Diego to manufacture his plane, which was to be equipped with a Wright Engine, and late in Feb ruary, 1927, this company, under the strict supervision of Lindbergh, built the Spirit of St. Louis. He directed ever}' detail, even the most minute, of the plane’s construction and he did not leave San Diego until he was ab solutely sure that the smallest part, the weakest link in the mechanism of his ship, was strong enough to with stand strain before which other planes had succumbed. He trained for his flight as boxers train for a ring battle, but his trainwas to defeat the “sandman,” for he was to fly solo, and as a result of this training, he was able to remain awake and at work for as many as 40 hours, with no time out or sleep or relaxation. Lindbergh was not the only poten tial entry for the race from New York to Paris, or from Paris to New York, as several well-known pilots filed formal entries for the Orteig prize, Lindbergh being the second to file a formal entry. One plane actual ly left Paris for New York, but the plane after passing Ireland was never seen again. In less than nine months, the Paris-New York project had claimed the lives of six men, as well as injury to three others. By midday of May 10, 1927, the Spirit of St. Louis, with Lindbergh at the controls, lifted at the airfield at San Diego. The non-stop flight to St. Louis had begun, and on May 11, 1927, the Spirit of St. Louis landed at Lambert Field, St. Louis. He had flown 1,550 miles in fourteen hours and twenty-five minutes; this was farther than any solo pilot had ever flown non-stop before. The next day he took off for New York and as he landed in Roosevelt field he learned that the number of transatlantic planes poised on Long island was increased from one to three. THE FLIGHT Early morning, on May 20, 1927, the Spirit of St. Louis, in a blinding rain storm, with mud soaked run ways, raised gently forward toward the point of no return, Paris. Abruptly, across America, the peo ple focused their minds on a single lonely youth of twenty-five years, who carrying the hopes and prayers of his fellow countrymen, with only a sandwich in his pocket to sustain him. Rain, sleet, snow and ice added to the- complexities of his flight prob lems and in the twenty-eight hours of his flight, he for the first time saw land, Ireland. He had accomplished a masterpiece of navigation, one worthy of the genius of dead reckon ing, Christopher Columbus. He was now only 600 miles from Paris. PARIS France, which had not forgotten its emotion of joy, when, in 1917, it saw the first American regiments on Tum to next peg* March 1966 15 the streets, was so taken by the au dacity of Lindbergh’s solitary at tempt, that as a nation they yearned for the triumph of this “lone boy” as Americans did. Many articles have been written about his triumph and reception in Paris on his arrival, sub sequently followed by his tour of the Western capitals of Europe. Many flamboyant congratulations were re leased by various heads of govern ments throughcLit the world, but per haps the nearest approach to the flight’s essential meaning, as felt rather than thought by the millions, was made by Dr. Bowie of Grace Episcopal Church in a sermon enti tled “The Lure of the Impossible.” He said in speaking of Nungesser, Coli, they lost their lives in attempt ing the flight which Lindbergh made, saying: “The chances are over whelming aainst success. In these men we see manifested that in domitable heroism which whether ... in victory or defeat, has made possible the progress of the human race toward the mastery of the world.” The President of the United States placed the flagship of the Commander of the European fleet at Lindbergh’s disposal for the homeward voyage. The Spirit of St. Louis, dismantled, was returned to the United States and was subsequently presented to the Smithsonian Institution Washing ton, D.C. As the Memphis, all flags flying, steamed slowly up the Potomac, past Alexandria, pandemonium broke loose. Church bells, fire sirens, au tomobile horns, factory whistles joined in such ear-splitting din as had not been heard in Washington since November 11, 1918; while overheard, circled scores of military planes; on the water were dozens of small boats, then came the roar of mighty cannons. When the Memphis docked, a very touching scene took place, the Admiral of the ship descended to the gangplank first, and when he went back up the plank, as he promptly did, thousands cheered and hun dreds wept; he had upon his arm the hero’s mother. His government, headed by the President of the United States, Cal vin Coolidge, paid homage to its dis tinguished citizen, who by this time had been elevated to the rank of Col onel in the Officers Reserve Corps. The reception given him in Wash ington was probably greater than any given a private citizen in all history until then. But it was promptly ex ceeded by that given him in New York. His tour of the United States only added to his stature — such was his modesty and selfless idealism. On his good will trip to Mexico, his host in Mexico was the American Ambassador, Dwight Morrow and whose daughter, Anne, later became his wife. His triumphal tour of Mexico was such as the Mexicans had not accorded another man. Lindbergh was not happy at being a public figure, as except for what he had accomplished, he preferred to be treatod as a private individual citizen, which developed into an estrange ment between him and the working press. While it was unfortunate that this breach developed, it came as no great surprise to those who knew Lindbegrh best, as he was a very humble man. At any rate, there was abundant evidence by the late spring of 1929, that the Lindbergh legend, whether or not the press ap proved or disapproved, had a strong life of its own, overcoming every ef fort to destroy it. 16 The Cabletow THE LONE EAGLE AND ANNE Anne Lindbergh in many ways re inforced Lindbergh’s qualities; her basic shyness was akin to his own; she shared his desire for privacy and need for solitude, while in other ways, she was his complement, as she cared more than he for the opinion of other people. Came June 22, 1930, Anne’s twenty-fourth birthday, in the home of her parents, she gave birth to a son, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. By February of 1932 the Lind bergh’s had moved into their new secluded home; for the first time since their marriage they had estab lished their own home. On the evening of March 1, 1932, the Lindberghs looked in on their sick son Charles, only to find that he was not in his crib and they quickly realized that their baby was stolen. Many of us are familiar with the nation-wide search for the kidnap pers of Baby Charles, the nation wide grief and sympathy for the suffering of the Lindberghs, discov ery of the murdered baby and the subsequent capture in the fall of 1934 and the conviction and execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann. The de tails of the kidnapping are indelibly written in history, and it would add nothing to this articles were we to go into any of its details. So great was the grief of the Lind berghs on the finding of the body of their murdered child, that they moved from their New Jersey home, never to return again. Later a second son, Jon Morrow, was lx>rn to the Lindbergh’s followed bv another son and a daughter. Lindbergh then became interested, with others, in the development of a mechanical heart, and he spent a de cade in this endeavor. A medical break-through in medical science was scored, with the successful develop ment of a mechanical heart, open ing up unlimited medical future de velopments. EUROPEAN YEARS Following the completion of the Hauptmann murder trial — and his work on the mechanical heart, the Lindberghs moved to a quiet village in England, where they could live completely private lives. While in Europe a third son was born to them, whom they named Land Mor row. While thus living in Europe they saw the unfolding of future history: Mussolini, the renegade socialist, had come to power in Rome; Lenin had seized power in St. Petersburg, fol lowed by Stalin representing blind reaction in its purest form; Hitler and Nazi Germany, with Sadism, the principal arm of the Third Reich, nourished by a ruthless egotism, which had longer been evident in German philosophy than in that of any other land. All through this pe riod, Soviet Russia struggled with increasing disposition to shape with Britain and France a strategy of col lective security, whereby the deci sions of the League of Nations could be implemented with effective sanc tions, economic and political. A de cisive importance had become at tached in London and Paris to esti mates of the relative strengths of the Axis Powers, the Democracies and the Soviet Union. This, then, is the historic context in which we must judge the general idea Lindbergh was shaping, and these are the circumstances in which we must view the political role Lind bergh chose to play in the lurid tragic scenes which impended. Turn to next P*8® March 1966 17 In the summer of 1936, Lindbergh spent several weeks in Nazi Germany hobnobbing with Nazi bigwigs; cer tainly, this did not increase his pop ularity, but neither was it notably decreased. Whatever “bad” public ity he received from his Nazi asso ciation was immediately offset by the favorable publicity accorded to him in Copenhagen. Certain it is that Lindbergh was impressed to the point of awe by the air power which he witnessed in Germany. He reported his observa tions to Prime Minister Baldwin of England, who was entirely indiffer ent. However, other officials, parti cularly those of America’s State and War Departments, continued to evince great interest in what Lind bergh had to say. Contrary to what certain politicians had to say con cerning Lindbergh's sympathies, he was entirely sympathetic to the Brit ish. but he felt that our only sound policy was to avoid war now -at al most any cost, due to the lack of military preparedness, as over the years following World War No. 1, the democracies had devoted their ef forts to peace and had cut back their military expenditures, particularly when it concerned the Air Corps. WORLD WAR II As the result of Lindbergh’s re port to Washington, Congress voted large sums of money for new planes, the first step toward a goal of 6000 planes for the Air Corps. He placed himself at the disposal of his govern ment, and he was directed to inspect the nation’s existing research and manufacturing facilities. In April of 1938, his family returned to the United States. Events moved rapidly toward the tragic conclusions implicit in the Mu nich Pact. In March, 1939, Nazi troops had overrun helpless Czecho slovakia; Hitler’s Nazi gangsters be gan at once the round-up of Jews, intellectuals, anti-Fascists. Two weeks later, Mussolini sent his troops into Albania, which became the spring board for his imminent invasion of Greece. France was prepared to fight only a defensive war, huddled behind her Maginot Line; Britain seemed unprepared for any war at all, save upon the high seas; and with this state of affairs, Russia felt that the democracies could give it little as sistance against a German attack, and it turned more and more to ef fecting an alliance with Germany, and as we know, these two nations event ually entered into an alliance, which later broke when he invaded Russia. Then the explosion: in April 1936. Denmark was occupied, Norway in vaded and conquered; followed in May by the conquering of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and France, thus leaving England stand ing alone, following the almost miracu lous evacuation of 340,000 troops at Dunkirk; to millions of Americans it appeared that the course of freedom in Europe was hopeless, and to and for these millions, Lindbergh spoke; this speech given with all the sincer ity which he possessed, caused many to believe that he was pro-Nazi, when all along he was merely trying to point out our unpreparedness. Lindbergh became a spokesman for the America First Committee, which only added to the charges that he was Anti-British. In the spring of 1941, a large majority of Americans by then were convinced that Britain’s war was our own, for if she went down, our free doms, our very survival as a nation, would be gravely imperiled. Lindbergh, because of criticisms of the President, resigned as Colonel in the United States Air Corps Reserve, dedicating himself to continue to 18 The Cabletow serve his country to the best of his ability as a private citizen. . On Sunday, December 7, 1941. Japanese bombs rained down on Pearl Harbor, and our readers know of the holocaust of World War II. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the story which this article set out to tell was brought to a conclusion. We have attempted to show how Lind bergh, a great popular hero, was created and was undone in Twen tieth Century America. The government afforded him no official standing, but few men served their country as valiantly and effec tively as did he during World War II. He did everything he personally could to prove though he may have been a bad historical prophet, mis taken in his estimates of the power potential in the Western democra cies, that he was devoted to his coun try. He became a key figure at Ford’s Willow Run plant in the spring of 1942, in the production of B-24’s; he also engaged in high altitude igni tion-breakdown tests of a Thunder bolt fighter plane; in the fall of 1943, lie transferred from Ford to United Aircraft corporation, which was producing Corsair fighter planes for the Navy and Marine Corps: in the spring of 1944, he went into the Pa cific as a technical representative of United States, authorized to "study” under combat conditions the planes he helped to make and test. Lind bergh's definition of "study" meant flying planes in combat. The military could not be a party to permitting a civilian to fly in combat, but they solved the problem for him by placing an extra plane on the line when a mission was being staged, and into it Lindbergh would climb just before the take off. After a few combat mis sions on one island base he would move to another so as not to cause any military problems for their com manders. Altogether, he flew fifty missions, thoroughly convincing younger pilots that he was a valuable asset to their hazardous enterprises despite his ad vanced years, being then 42, and 30 years was "old” for a fighter pilot. Twice, at least, he shot down Ja panese Zeroes. He made many contributions to ward the more effective use of planes in combat, not the least of which was to extend the flying range of combat planes by as much as 500 miles. In 1953, when the Eisenhower ad ministration took office, steps were taken to correct the political injustices that had been done to him. The President nominated him for ap pointment to the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force Reserve, a nomination which was confirmed in 1954. To his old buddies, Lindbergh is "Slim,” to his business associates, newer friends and his wife, he is Charles; to recent acquaintances, “General”; to the public, he is merely the ghost of “The Lone Eagle.” To the Masons he is Brother Lindbergh. A A A // we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. —Theodore Roosevelt March 1966 19