has been handled, but the indications are that it will not be forthcomeing, since it has not yet been revealed. Careful inquiry among administration officials who are fully posted on what, has been going on fails to reveal any circumstances not yet disclosed. It does look, however, as if the fear expressed that the army flyers would not be able to do the job without running considerable risks was not taken very seriously.

Today the record is a tragedy that will cause plenty of embarrassment before the airmail business is clarified. The private companies will get justice because they will be permitted to bid again. This will save the small stockholders and investors, too, but the mothers of the young flyers who were unnecessarily sacrificed on a peace-time job that had no relationship to national defense will not find any consolation in the excuses that will be made for the accidents.

It is no reflection on the army that it cannot carry the mail without accidents. Airmail flying is different from army aviation. The army flyers who crashed were many miles off their courses. In the whole year of 1933 the total number of total accidents to airmail flyers numbered fifteen, but in the short space of seven days the army lost five men. The airmail companies, of course, had such losses when they first started. But all the dishonesty in the aviation companies never was sufficient to warrant the sacrifice of five lives.

The impulsiveness with which the administration acted may, however, teach a lesson for the future. For if it brings a more cautions course in respect to charges that require at least a hearing and establishment of guilt, then the controversy over airmail will not have been without its constructive benefits.

But the revision of such an important policy as the airmail cannot be accomplished in a week.