Postmaster General New
States Government is Merely
Showing What Can be Done;
Looks for Private Concerns
Take up Task Transporting
Mail by Airplane
South Plainfield, July 2 [1925]. -- A
crowd estimated at fifteen thousand,
who came in automobiles and on foot,
lined the outskirts of Hadley Field last
night, when Postmaster General Harry S.
New officially dispatched the first
airplane inaugurating the night air-mail
service between New York and Chicago.
Hadley Field will be the terminal of the
east-bound planes.
Two planes were dispatched for
Chicago last night, the first carrying
three sacks of mail weighing
eighty-seven pounds, left at 8:47 p.m.
The second rose from the field about an
hour and a half later with thirty-six mail
sacks which weighed in the
neighborhood of three hundred pounds.
Addressing a select few who
were admitted to the office of P.P.
Kirkham, acting manager of Hadley
Field, Postmaster General New stated
that the event marked one of the most
important epochs in aerial history, and
that within a period of six months he
hoped to see the service in the hands of a
private enterprise in the same way that
mail, passengers and freight are being
conveyed by the railroads. �The
Government is merely doing the
missionary work to demonstrate that it
can be accomplished,� Postmaster
General New added.
The arrangements made by Chief
of Police McCarthy to handle the record
crowd were admirable and despite the
fact that over two thousand cars were
parked in the vicinity of the flying field,
their arrival and final dispatch was
accomplished without a single accident
being reported.
At 2 a.m. the first ship to arrive
from Chicago glided into the flood lights
on Hadley Field and touched the ground,
two hours ahead of schedule. At 4:36
a.m. the second mail plane landed, 24
minutes ahead of schedule. The mail
from both machines was rushed to New
York by train and was delivered in the
first distribution.
Cleveland, O., July 2 [1925]. -- D.C.
Smith piloting one of the first New York
to Chicago night mail plane arrived here
today after having been forced down
twice by engine trouble.
Smith arrived here one hour and
a half behind schedule, nearly
exhausted. He had been forced down at
Kylertown, Pa., and Solon, Ohio.