The Meaning of Lindbergh`s Flight

Transcription

The Meaning of Lindbergh's Flight
Author(s): John W. Ward
Source: American Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring, 1958), pp. 3-16
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2710171 .
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by JOHN W. WARD
PrincetonUniversity
The Meaning of
Lindberghs Flight
ON FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1927, at 7:52 a.m., Charles A. Lindberghtook
off in a silver-wingedmonoplane and flew from the United States to
France. WiththisflightLindberghbecame the firstman to flyalone across
theAtlanticOcean. The log of flight33 of "The Spiritof St. Louis" reads:
"RooseveltField, Long Island, New York,to Le BourgetAerodrome,Paris,
France. 33 hrs. 30 min." Thus was the fact of Lindbergh'sachievement
easilyput down. But the meaningof Lindbergh'sflightlay hidden in the
next sentenceof the log: "(Fuselage fabricbadly torn by souvenirhunters.)"
WhenLindberghlandedat Le Bourgethe is supposedto have said, "Well,
writerasked "Did what?" Lindbergh"had
we've done it." A contemporary
no idea of what he had done. He thoughthe had simplyflownfromNew
York to Paris. What he had reallydone was somethingfar greater.He
had firedthe imaginationof mankind."From the momentof Lindbergh's
flightpeople recognizedthat somethingmore was involvedthan the mere
factof thephysicalleap fromNew York to Paris. "Lindbergh,"wroteJohn
Erskine,"servedas a metaphor."But what the metaphorstoodforwas not
easy to say. The New York Times remarkedthen that "therehas been no
explanationof the enthusiasmand acclaim for
completeand satisfactory
Captain Lindbergh."Looking back on the celebrationof Lindbergh,one
can see now thattheAmericanpeopleweretryingto understandLindbergh's
flight,to graspits meaning,and throughit, perhaps,to grasp the meaning
of theirown experience.Was theflighttheachievementof a heroic,solitary,
the triumphof the machine,
unaidedindividual?Or did theflightrepresent
the successof an industrially
organizedsociety?These questionswere central to the meaningof Lindbergh'sflight.They were also centralto the
livesof the people who made Lindberghtheirhero.
3
AMERICAN QUARTERLY
The flightdemanded attentionin its own right,of course,quite apart
fromwhateversignificanceit mighthave. Lindbergh'sstoryhad all the
makingsof great drama. Since 1919 therehad been a standingprize of
$25,000 to be awarded to the firstaviatorwho could crossthe Atlanticin
eitherdirectionbetweenthe United States and France in a heavier-thanair craft.In the springof 1927 therepromisedto be what the New York
Times called "the most spectacularrace ever held-3,600 miles over the
open sea to Paris." The scene was dominatedby veteranpilots. On the
European side were the Frenchaces, Nungesserand Coli; on the American
side,CommanderRichardE. Byrd,in a big tri-motored
Fokkermonoplane,
led a group of contestants.
BesidesByrd,who had alreadyflownover the
North Pole, therewere CommanderDavis, flyinga ship named in honor
of the AmericanLegion whichhad put up $100,000 to financehis attempt,
Clarence Chamberlin,who had alreadyset a world'sendurancerecordof
more than fifty-one
hoursin the air in a Bellanca tri-motored
plane, and
Captain Rene Fonck,the French war ace, who had come to Americato
flya Sikorskyaircraft.The hero was unheard of and unknown.He was
on the West Coast supervisingthe construction
of a single-engined
plane
to cost onlyten thousanddollars.
Then fate played its part. It seemed impossiblethat Lindberghcould
get his plane built and east to New York in time to challengehis better
equipped and more famousrivals.But in quick successiona seriesof disastersclearedhis path. On April 16, CommanderByrd's"America"crashed
on its testflight,crushingthe leg of Floyd Bennettwho was one of the
crewand injuringByrd'shand and wrist.On April 24, Clarence Chamberlin crackedup in his Bellanca,not seriously,
but enoughto delayhis plans.
Then on April 26, CommanderDavis and his co-pilotlost theirlives as
the "AmericanLegion" crashedon itsfinaltestflight.In ten days,accidents
had stoppedall of Lindbergh'sAmericanrivals.Nungesserand Coli, however,took offin theirromanticallynamed ship, "The White Bird," from
Le Bourgeton May 8. The worldwaited and Lindbergh,stillon the West
Coast, decidedto tryto flythe Pacific.But Nungesserand Coli were never
seen again. As rumorsfilledthe newspapers,as reportscame in that the
"WhiteBird" was seen overNewfoundland,
over Boston,over the Atlantic,
it soon became apparentthat Nungesserand Coli had failed,droppingto
theirdeathin someunknowngrave.Disasterhad touchedeveryshipentered
in the trans-Atlantic
race.
with
the
Now,
stage cleared,Lindberghentered.He swoopedacrossthe
continentin two great strides,landing only at St. Louis. The firstleg of
his flightestablisheda new distancerecordbut all eyeswereon the Atlantic
and the feat receivedlittlenotice.Curiously,the firsttime Lindberghap4
THE MEANING OF LINDBERGH'S
FLIGHT
pearedin the headlinesof the New York paperswas Friday,the thirteenth.
By thistimeByrdand Chamberlinwere readyonce again but the weather
had closedin and keptall planeson theground.Then, aftera week of fretfulwaiting,on thenightof May 19, on the way intoNew York to see "Rio
Rita," Lindberghreceiveda reportthatthe weatherwas breakingover the
ocean. He hurriedback to RooseveltField to haul his plane out onto a wet,
drippingrunway.Aftermechanicspainfullyloaded the plane's gas by hand,
as fateplayeditslasttrick.A muddyrunwayand an adverse
thewindshifted,
wind. Whateverthe elements,whateverthe fates,the decisiveact is the
hero's,and Lindberghmade his choice. Providinga chorusto the action,
the Herald Tribune reportedthat Lindberghliftedthe overloadedplane
into the sky"by his indomitablewill alone."
1927
THE
"
PIONEER SPIRIT STILL SURVIVES
Prom the Tribune0 (Chicago. Illin6is)
The parabola of the actionwas as clean as the arc of Lindbergh'sflight.
The dramashouldhave endedwiththelandingof "The Spiritof St. Louis"
at Le Bourget.That is whereLindberghwantedit to end. In "WE," written
afterthe flight,
and in The Spiritof St. Louis, writtentwentyimmediately
six yearslater,Lindberghchose to end his accountsthere.But the flight
turnedout to be onlythe firstact in the part Lindberghwas to play.
Lindberghwas so innocentof his futurethat on his flighthe carried
lettersof introduction.
The hysterical
response,firstof the Frenchand then
of his own countrymen,
had been no part of his carefulplans. In "WE,"
afterLindbergh'snarrativeof the flight,
the publisherwrote: "When Lindberghcame to tellthestoryof his welcomeat Paris,London,Brussels,Washington,New York, and St. Louis he found himselfup against a tougher
problemthanflying
the Atlantic."So anotherwritercompletedthe account
in the thirdperson.He suggestedthat "the reasonLindbergh'sstoryis differentis thatwhenhis plane came to a halt on Le Bourgetfieldthatblack
nightin Paris,Lindberghtheman kepton going.The phenomenonof Lindberghtook its startwith his flightacross the ocean; but in its entiretyit
was almostas distinctfromthatflightas thoughhe had neverflownat all."
Lindbergh'sprivatelife ended with his flightto Paris. The drama was
5
AMERICAN QUARTERLY
no longerhis,it was the public's."The outburstof unanimousacclaim was
at once personaland symbolic,"said the AmericanReview of Reviews.
From the momentof successtherewere two Lindberghs,the privateLindberghand the public Lindbergh.The latterwas the construction
of the
imaginationof Lindbergh'stime,fastenedon to an unwillingperson.The
tragedyof Lindbergh'scareeris thathe could neveraccept therole assigned
him.He alwaysbelievedhe mightkeep his two livesseparate.But fromthe
momenthe landed at Le Bourget,Lindberghbecame,as theNew Republic
noted,"ours .... He is no longerpermittedto be himself.He is US personified.He is the United States." AmbassadorHerrickintroducedLindberghto the French,saying,"This youngman fromout of the Westbrings
you betterthananythingelse thespiritof America,"and wiredto President
Coolidge,"Had we searchedall Americawe could not have founda better
typethanyoungLindberghto representthe spiritand highpurposeof our
people." This was Lindbergh'sfate,to be a type.A writerin the North
AmericanReviewfeltthatLindberghrepresented
"the dominantAmerican
character,"he "imagesthe best" about the United States.And an ecstatic
femalein the AmericanMagazine, who began by sayingthat Lindbergh
"is a sortof symbol.... He is the dreamthatis in our hearts,"concluded
thattheAmericanpublicrespondedso wildlyto Lindberghbecauseof "the
thrillof possessing,
in him,our dreamof what we reallyand trulywant to
be." The act of possessionwas so completethatarticlessincehave attempted
to discoverthe "real" Lindbergh,thatenigmaticand taciturnfigurebehind
thepublicmask.But it is no lessdifficult
to discernthefeaturesof thepublic
Lindbergh,that symbolicfigurewho presentedto the imaginationof his
timeall the yearnings
and burieddesiresof its dreamforitself.
Lindbergh'sflightcame at the end of a decade markedby social and
politicalcorruptionand by a sense of moral loss. The heady idealismof
theFirstWorldWar had been succeededbya deep cynicismas to thewar's
real purpose.The naive beliefthat virtuecould be legislatedwas violated
by thevast discrepancy
betweenthelaw and thesocialhabitsof prohibition.
A philosophyof relativismhad become the uneasy rationaleof a nation
whichhad formerly
believedin moralabsolutes.The newspapersagreedthat
Lindbergh'schiefworthwas his spiritualand moral value. His storywas
held to be "in striking
contrastwiththesordidunhallowedthemesthathave
for monthssteepedthe imaginationsand thinkingof the people." Or, as
anotherhad it, "thereis good reason why people should hail Lindbergh
and give himhonor.He standsout in a grubbyworldas an inspiration."
Lindberghgave the Americanpeople a glimpseof what theyliked to
thinkthemselves
to be at a timewhen theyfearedtheyhad desertedtheir
own visionof themselves.
The grubbinessof the twentieshad a good deal
6
FLIGHT
to do withthe shiningqualityof Lindbergh'ssuccess,especiallywhen one
remembers
that Lindbergh'sflightwas not as unexampledas our national
memorywould have it. The Atlanticwas not unconqueredwhenLindbergh
flew.A Britishdirigiblehad twicecrossedthe Atlanticbefore1919 and on
May 8 of that year threenaval seaplanes leftRockaway,New York, and
England.
one,theNC-4 mannedbya crewof five,got throughto Plymouth,
A month later, Captain John Alcock, an Englishman,with ArthurW.
land plane across the
Browne,an American,flewthe firstheavier-than-air
Atlanticnonstop,fromNewfoundlandto Ireland, to win twice the money
bytheLondon Daily Mail. Alcock's
Lindberghdid,a prizeof$50,000offered
and Browne'smisfortune
was to land in a softand somnolentIrishpeat bog
insteadof beforethe cheeringthousandsof London or Paris. Or perhaps
theyshouldhave flownin 1927.
of editors
The wild medleyof public acclaim and the homericstrivings
make one realize that the responseto Lindberghinvolveda mass ritualin
whichAmericacelebrateditselfmore than it celebratedLindbergh.Lindin whichthe
bergh'sflightwas the occasionof a public act of regeneration
rededicateditselfto something,the loss of which was
nationmomentarily
keenlyfelt.It was said again and again that "Lindy" taughtAmerica "to
HE FLEW INTO HER ARMS
By McCutcheon,in the Tribune0 (Chicago,111.)
7
AMERICAN QUARTERLY
liftitseyesup to Heaven." HeywoodBroun,in his columnin the New York
World,wrotethatthis"tall youngman raisedup and let us see the potentialitiesof the humanspirit."Brounfeltthatthe flightprovedthat,though
"we are small and fragile,"it "isn't true that thereis no health in us."
Lindbergh'sflightprovidedthe moment,but the meaningof the flightis
to be foundin the deep and pervasiveneed for renewalwhich the flight
broughtto the surfaceof public feeling.When Lindberghappeared at the
nation'scapital,the Washington
Post observed,"He was giventhatfrenzied
acclaim whichcomesfromthe depthsof the people." In New York,where
4,000,000people saw him,a reporterwrotethat the dense and vociferous
crowdswere swept,as Lindberghpassed, "with an emotiontenseand inflammable."The LiteraryDigest suggestedthat the answer to the heroworshipof Lindberghwould "throwan interesting
lighton the psychology
of our timesand of the Americanpeople."
The Nation noted about Lindberghthat "therewas somethinglyricas
well as heroicabout the apparitionof thisyoungLochinvarwho suddenly
came out of the West and who flewall unarmedand all alone. It is the
kindof stuffwhichthe ancientGreekswould have workedintoa mythand
the medievalScots intoa borderballad.... But what we have in the case
of Lindberghis an actual,an heroicand an exhaustively
exposedexperience
whichexistsby suggestion
in theformof poetry."The Nation quicklyqualifiedits statementby observingthat reporterswere as far as possiblefrom
being poets and concludedthat the discrepancybetweenthe fact and the
celebrationof it was not poetry,perhaps,but "magic on a vast scale." Yet
theNationmighthave clungto itsinsightthatthe publicmeaningof Lindbergh'sflightwas somehowpoetic.The vast publicityabout Lindberghcorrespondsin one vital particularwiththe poeticvision.Poetry,said William
ButlerYeats,containsopposites;so did Lindbergh.Lindberghdid not mean
one thing,he meantmanythings.The image of itselfwhichAmericacontemplatedin the public personof Lindberghwas full of conflict;it was,
in a word,dramatic.
To heightenthe drama,Lindberghdid it alone. He was the "lone eagle"
and a fullexplorationof thatfacttakesone deep into the emotionalmeaning of his success.Not only the Nation found Sir Walter Scott's lines on
Lochinvarappropriate:"he rodeall unarmedand he rode all alone." Newspapersand magazinesweredelugedwithamateurpoemsthatvindicatedone
rhymester's
wry comment,"Go conquer the perils / That lurk in the
skies- - / And you'll get bum poems / Right up to youreyes." The New
York Times, that alone receivedmore than two hundredpoems,observed
in tryingto summarizethe poeticdeluge that "the fact that he flewalone
made thestrongest
impression."
Anotherfavoritetributewas Kipling's"The
8
FLIGHT
Winners,"withits refrain,"He travelsthe fastestwho travelsalone." The
otherswho had conqueredthe Atlanticand thoselike Byrdand Chamberlin who were tryingat the same time were not travelingalone and they
hardlyrode unarmed.Other than Lindbergh,all the contestantsin the
trans-Atlantic
race had unlimitedbacking,access to the best planes, and
all were workingin teams,carryingat least one co-pilotto share the long
burdenofflying
theplane. So a writerin theNew YorkSun, in a poemcalled
"The FlyingFool," a nicknamethat Lindberghdespised,celebratedLindbergh'sflight:". . . no kinglyplane forhim; / No endlessdata, comrades,
moneyedchums; / No boards,no councils,no directorsgrim- / He plans
ALONE . . . and takes luck as it comes."
Upon secondthought,it mustseem strangethat the long distanceflight
of an airplane,the achievementof a highlyadvanced and organizedtechnology,shouldbe the occasion forhymnsof praise to the solitaryunaided
man. Yet the National GeographicSociety,when it presenteda medal to
Lindbergh,wroteon the presentation
scroll,"Courage,when it goes alone,
has evercaughtmen'simaginations,"
and comparedLindberghto Robinson
Crusoe and the trailmakers
in our own West.But Lindberghand Robinson
Crusoe,the one in his helmetand fur-linedflyingcoat and the otherin
his wild goatskins,do not easily co-exist.Even if Robinson Crusoe did
have a tidycapital investmentin the formof a well-stockedshipwreck,
he still did not have a ten thousanddollar machine under him.
Lindbergh,in nearlyeveryremarkabout his flightand in his own writingsabout it, resistedthe tendencyto exploitthe flightas the achievement
of an individual.He neversaid "I," he alwayssaid "We." The plane was
not to go unrecognized.Nevertheless,
there persisteda tendencyto seize
upon the flightas a way of celebratingthe self-sufficient
individual,so that
among many othersan Ohio newspapercould describeLindberghas this
"self-contained,
self-reliant,
courageousyoungman [who] ranksamong the
greatpioneersof history."The strategyhere was a commonone, to make
Lindbergha "pioneer"and thusto linkhimwitha long and vital tradition
of individualismin the Americanexperience.Colonel Theodore Roosevelt,
himselfthe son of a famous exponentof self-reliance,
said to reporters
at his home in OysterBay that "Captain Lindberghpersonifies
the daring
of youth.Daniel Boone,David Crocket[sic], and men of thattypeplayed
a lone hand and made America. Lindberghis their lineal descendant."
In Outlook magazine,immediatelybelow an enthusiasticendorsementof
Lindbergh'sown remarkson the importanceof his machineand his scientificinstruments,
therewas the statement,"Charles Lindberghis the heir
of all that we like to thinkis best in America.He is of the stuffout of
which have been made the pioneersthat opened up the wilderness,first
9
AMERICAN QUARTERLY
~~~~~~~~~~~-\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~7
GOOD NEWS!
Hardingin the BrooklynEagle.
on the Atlanticcoast, and then in our great West. His are the qualities
whichwe, as a people,mustnourish."It is in thismood that one suspects
it was importantthatLindberghcame out of the West and rode all alone.
Anothercommonmetaphorin the attemptto place Lindbergh'sexploit
To speak of the air as a
was to say that he had opened a new "frontier."
of the meaning of American
"frontier"was to invoke an interpretation
historywhich had sourcesdeep in Americanexperience,but the frontier
of the airplane is hardlythe frontierof the trailmakersof the old West.
simplicityof the American
Rather than an escape into the self-sufficient
past, the machinewhich made Lindbergh'sflightpossiblerepresentedan
lay in using an
advance into a complexindustrialpresent.The difficulty
instanceof modern life to celebratethe virtuesof the past, to use an
extremedevelopmentof an urban industrialsocietyto insistupon the
in Americanlife.
of the frontier
significance
month
afterLindbergh'sflight,JosephK. Hart in
a
A littlemore than
back
to Walt Whitman'spoem for the title of
Surveymagazine reached
an articleon Lindbergh: "O Pioneer."A school had made Lindberghan
honoraryalumnus but Hart protestedtherewas little available evidence
"that he was educated in schools." "We must look elsewherefor our explanation,"Hart wrote and he looked to the experienceof Lindbergh's
10
FLIGHT
youthwhen "everything
that he ever did ... he did by himself.He lived
moreto himselfthanmostboys."And, of course,Lindberghlived to himself
in the onlyplace conceivablypossible,in the worldof nature,on a Minnesota farm."There he developedin the companionshipof woods and fields,
animals and machines,his audaciously natural and simple personality."
The word,"machines,"jars as it intrudesinto Hart's idyllicpastorallandscape and betraysHart's difficulty
in relatingthe settingof nature upon
whichhe wishesto insistwiththe factthatits productspenthis whole life
tinkering
withmachines,frommotorcycles
to airplanes.But exceptforthat
one word,Hart proceedsin uncriticalnostalgiato show that "a lone trip
acrossthe Atlanticwas not impossiblefora boy who had grownup in the
solitudeof the woods and waters."If Lindberghwas "clear-headed,naif,
untrainedin the ways of cities,"it was because he had "that 'naturalsimplicity'which FenimoreCooper used to attributeto the pioneer hero of
his Leatherstocking
Tales." Hart rejectedthe notionthatany student"bent
to all the conformities"
of formaltrainingcould have done what Lindbergh
did. "Must we not admit,"he asked, "that thispioneeringurge remained
to thisaudacious youthbecause he had neversubmittedcompletelyto the
repressions
of the worldand its jealous institutions?"
Only thosewho insiston reasonwill findit strangethat Hart should
use the industrialachievementof the airplane to rejectthe urban,instituHart was dealing with somethingother
tionalizedworld of industrialism.
than reason; he was dealingwiththe emotionevokedby Lindbergh'ssolitude. He recognizedthat people wished to call Lindbergha "genius" because that "would releasehim fromthe ordinaryrulesof existence."That
way, "we could rejoice with him in his triumph,and thengo back to the
contractedroutinesof our institutional
ways [because] ninety-nine
percent
of us mustbe contentto be shaped and mouldedby the routineways and
formsof the worldto the routinetasksof life." It is in the word,"must,"
of the phenomenonof Lindbergh
that the pathos of this interpretation
lies. The world had changedfromthe open societyof the pioneerto the
worldof a modernmachine-oriented
close-knit,
interdependent
civilization.
The institutions
of a highlycorporateindustrialsocietyexistedas a constantreproachto a people who liked to believe that the meaning of its
experiencewas embodiedin the formless,
independentlife of the frontier.
Like Thomas Jefferson
who identifiedAmericanvirtuewith nature and
saw the cityas a "great sore" on the public body, Hart concluded that
"certainly,in the responsethat the world-especially the world of great
of thismidwestern
cities-has made to the performance
boy,we can read
of the homesickness
of the human soul, immuredin citycanyonsand routinetasks,forthe freerworldof youth,forthe open spaces of the pioneer,
11
AMERICAN QUARTERLY
for the joy of battlingwith nature and clean stormsonce more on the
of the earth."
frontiers
The social actualitywhich made-the adulation of Lindberghpossible
had its own ironyfor the notionthat America'sstrengthlay in its simple
uncomplicatedbeginnings.For the public responseto Lindberghto have
it did, the worldhad by necessityto be the intrireachedthe proportions
But more than
catelydeveloped world of modem mass communications.
ironywas involved.Ultimately,the emotionattachedto Lindbergh'sflight
involvedno less than a whole theoryabout Americanhistory.By singling
out the fact that Lindberghrode alone, and by naminghim a pioneerof
the public projectedits sense that the source of America's
the frontier,
strengthlay somewherein the past and that Lindberghsomehowmeant
that Americamust look backwardin time to rediscoversome lost virtue.
The mood was nostalgicand Americanhistorywas read as a decline,a
decline measuredin termsof America'sadvance into an urban, institubeyond
tionalizedway of lifewhichmade solitaryachievementincreasingly
anLindbergh's
Because
the
people.
of
cent
per
the reach of ninety-nine
cestorswere Norse, it was easy to call him a "Viking" and extend the
were open. He became the
emotionfar into the past when all frontiers
"Columbus"of anothernew worldto conquer as well as the "Lochinvar"
.. .. .
...
. ..
IT IS A 1310 RELIEF TO l3E LOOKING UP INSTEAD OF DOWN
IrelandIn the ColumbusDispatch
12
FLIGHT
who rode all alone. But therewas always the brute,irreduciblefact that
Lindbergh's
exploitwas a victoryof themachineoverthebarriersof nature.
If theonlyresponseto Lindberghhad been a retreatto the past,we would
be involvedwith a mass cultural neurosis,the inabilityof America to
acceptreality,the realityof the worldin whichit lived. But therewas another aspect, one in which the public celebratedthe machine and the
highlyorganizedsocietyof whichit was a product.The responseto Lindberghreveals that the Americanpeople were deeply torn between conflictinginterpretations
of their own experience.By calling Lindbergha
pioneer,the people could read into Americanhistorythe necessityof turning back to the frontierpast. Yet the people could also read American
historyin termsof progressinto the industrialfuture.They could do this
by emphasizingthe machinewhichwas involvedin Lindbergh'sflight.
Lindberghcame back fromEurope in an Americanman-of-war,the
cruiserMemphis. It seems he had contemplatedflyingon, around the
whole world perhaps,but less adventurousheads prevailedand dictated
a surermode of travelforso valuable a piece of publicproperty.The New
Republic protestedagainst bringingAmerica'shero of romance home in
a warship.If he had returnedon a greatliner,that would have been one
thing."One's firsttripon an oceanlineris a great adventure-the novelty
of it, the manypeople of all kindsand conditions,floatingfor a week in
a tinycompactworldof theirown." But to returnon the Memphis,"to be
put on a graybattleshipwitha collectionof people all of the same stripe,
in a kindof ship thathas as much relationto the lifeof the sea as a Ford
factoryhas! We mightas well have put him in a pneumatictube and
shot him across the Atlantic."The interesting
thingabout the New Republic's protestagainstthe unromantic,regimentedlife of a battleshipis
that the image it found appropriatewas the Ford assemblyline. It was
thisreactionagainstthe disciplineof a mechanizedsocietythat probably
led to the nostalgicimage of Lindberghas a remnantof a past when romance was possiblefor the individual,when life held noveltyand society
was variegatedratherthan uniform.But what the Ford AssemblyLine
represents,a societycommittedto the path of full mechanization,was
what lay behindLindbergh'sromanticsuccess.A long piece in the Sunday
New YorkTimes,"LindberghSymbolizestheGeniusof America,"reminded
its readersof the too obviousfact that "withoutan airplanehe could not
have flownat all." Lindbergh"is, indeed,the Icarus of the twentiethcentury;not himselfan inventorof his own wings,but a son of that omnipotentDaedalus whose ingenuityhas createdthe modem world." The point
was thatmodernAmericawas the creationof modernindustry.
Lindbergh
"revereshis 'ship' as a noble expressionof mechanicalwisdom.. . . Yet
13
AMERICAN QUARTERLY
in this reverence. . . Lindberghis not an exception.What he means by
the Spirit of St. Louis is really the spiritof America. The mechanical
genius,whichis discernedin HenryFord as well as in CharlesA. Lindbergh,
is in the veryatmosphereof [the] country."In contrastto a sentiment
thatfearedthe enforceddisciplineof the machinethereexistedan attitude
of reverenceforits power.
Lindberghled the way in the celebrationof the machine,not only implicitlyby includinghis plane when he said "we," but by directstatement.
"You fellowshave not said enoughabout
In Paris he told newspapermen,
that wonderfulmotor."Rarelyhave two more taciturnfiguresconfronted
one another than when Lindberghreturnedto Washingtonand Calvin
Coolidge pinned the DistinguishedFlyingCross on him, but in his brief
remarksCoolidge found room to expresshis particulardelightthat Lindberghshouldhave givenequal creditto the airplane."For we are proud,"
said the President,"that in everyparticularthissilentpartnerrepresented
Americangenius and industry.I am told that more than 100 separate
companiesfurnished
materials,partsor servicein its construction."
The flightwas not the heroiclone successof a singledaringindividual,
but the climax of the co-operativeeffortof an elaboratelyinterlocked
technology.The day after Coolidge's speech, Lindberghsaid at another
ceremonyin Washingtonthat the honorshould "not go to the pilot alone
but to Americanscienceand geniuswhichhad givenyearsof studyto the
advancementof aeronautics.""Some things,"he said, "should be taken
into due consideration
in connectionwithour flightthat have not heretoforebeen givendue weight.That is just what made thisflightpossible.It
was not the act of a singlepilot. It was the culminationof twentyyearsof
aeronauticalresearchand the assemblingtogetherof all that was practicable and best in Americanaviation." The flight,concludedLindbergh,
"represented
Americanindustry."
The worshipof themachinewhichwas embodiedin the public'sresponse
to Lindberghexaltedthoseveryaspectswhichwere denigratedin the celebrationof the flightas the workof a heroicindividual.Organizationand
careful method were what lay behind the flight,not individual selfand daring romance. One magazine hailed the flightas a
sufficiency
thatthisera
"It is not to be forgotten
of
"triumph mechanicalengineering."
who have through
is theworknotso muchof braveaviatorsas of engineers,
of
patientand protractedeffortbeen steadilyimprovingthe construction
be
from
The
lesson
to
learned
Lindbergh'sflight,thoughta
airplanes."
writerin theIndependent,"is thatthesplendidhumanand materialaspects
of Americaneed to be organizedfor the ordinary,matterof fact service
of society."The machine meant organization,the careful rationalization
14
FLIGHT
of activityof a Ford assemblyline,it meantplanning,and, if it meant the
loss of spontaneousindividual action, it meant the material betterment
of society.Lindberghmeant not a retreatto the free life of the frontier
past but an emergenceinto the time when "the machine began to take
firstplace in the public mind-the machine and the organizationthat
made its operationpossibleon a large scale." A poet on this side of the
matterwrote,"All day I feltthe pull / Of the steelmiracle."The machine
was not a devilishenginewhich would enthrallmankind,it was the instrument
whichwould lead to a new paradise.But the directionof history
implicitin the machinewas towardthe future,not the past; the meaning
of historywas progress,not decline,and Americashould not lose faithin
thefuturebetterment
of society.An addressby a Harvardprofessor,
picked
up by the Magazine of Business,made all this explicit."We commonly
take Social Progressfor granted,"said Edwin F. Gay, "but the doctrine
of Social Progressis one of thegreatrevolutionary
ideas whichhave powerfullyaffectedour modernworld." There was a danger,however,that the
idea "maybe in dangerof becominga commonplaceor a buttof criticism."
The speakerrecognizedwhy thismightbe. Americawas "worn and disillusionedafterthe Great War." Logically,contentment
should have gone
with so optimistica creed,yet the Americanpeople were losingfaith.So
Lindberghfilledan emotionalneed even where a need should have been
lacking."He has come likea shiningvisionto revivethe hope of mankind."
The highideals of faithin progress"had almostcome to seem like hollow
wordsto us-but now here he is, emblematicof heroesyet to inhabitthis
world.Our beliefin Social Progressis justifiedsymbolically
in him."
It is a long flightfromNew York to Paris; it is a stilllongerflightfrom
the fact of Lindbergh'sachievementto the burden imposed upon it by
the imaginationof his time. But it is in that furtherflightthat lies the
full meaningof Lindbergh.His role was finallya double one. His flight
providedan opportunity
forthe people to projecttheirown emotionsinto
his act and theiremotionsinvolvedfinallytwo attitudestowardthe meaning of theirown experience.One view had it that Americarepresenteda
briefescape fromthe courseof history,
an emergenceinto a new and open
world with the self-sufficient
individualat its center.The othersaid that
Americarepresented
a stage in historicalevolutionand that its fulfillment
lay in the developmentof society.For one, the meaningof Americalay in
the past; for the other in the future.For one, the Americanideal was
an escape frominstitutions,
fromthe formsof society,and fromlimitations
put upon the freeindividual;for the other,the Americanideal was the
elaborationof the complex institutions
which made modern societypossible,an acceptanceof the disciplineof the machine,and the achievement
15
AMERICAN QUARTERLY
of the individualwithina contextof which he was onlya part. The two
viewswere contradictory
but both were possibleand both were presentin
the public'sreactionto Lindbergh'sflight.
The Sunday newspapersannouncedthat Lindberghhad reached Paris
and in the veryissue whose frontpages were covered with Lindbergh's
storythe magazinesectionof the New York Times featuredan articleby
the Britishphilosopher,BertrandRussell. The magazine had, of course,
been made up too far in advance to take advantage of the news about
Lindbergh.Yet, in a propheticway,Russell'sarticlewas about Lindbergh.
Russell hailed the rise to power of the United Statesbecause he feltthat
in the "new lifethatis America's"in the twentiethcentury"the new outlook appropriateto machinery[would] becomemore completelydominant
than in the old world." Russell sensed that some mightbe unwillingto
accept the machine,but "whetherwe like this new outlook or not," he
wrote,"is of littleimportance."Why one mightnot was obvious.A society
builton themachine,said Russell,meant"the diminutionin the value and
independenceof the individual.Great enterprises
tend more and more to
be collective,and in an industrialized
of the comworld the interference
munitywith the individualmust be more intense."Russell realized that
while the co-operativeeffortinvolvedin machine technologymakes man
collectively
morelordly,it makesthe individualmore submissive."I do not
see how it is to be avoided,"he concluded.
People are not philosophers.
They did not see how the conflictbetween
a machine societyand the free individualwas to be avoided either.But
neitherwere theyreadyto accept the philosopher'sstatementof the problem. In Lindbergh,the people celebratedboth the self-sufficient
individual
and the machine.Americansstillcelebrateboth.We cherishthe individualism of the Americancreed at the same timethat we worshipthe machine
which increasingly
enforcescollectivizedbehavior.Whetherwe can have
both,the freedomof the individualand the powerof an organizedsociety,
is a questionthat still haunts our minds. To resolvethe conflictthat is
presentin America'scelebrationof Lindberghin 1927 is still the task of
America.
16

The Meaning of Lindbergh`s Flight

Transcription

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