Civil Aeronautics Authority

Last time Franklin Delano Roosevelt stuck his oar into the affairs of U. S. commercial aviation he made a superb mess of it. Aroused by Senator Hugo Black's airmail contract investigation, the President precipitately directed cancellation of all airmail contracts (TIME, Feb. 39, 1934, et seq.). The Army was ordered to fly the mail, which it proceeded to do with a loss of twelve lives in eleven weeks. Months later, when the airlines finally got all their mail subsidy back, it was under the supervision of a newly constituted Air Mail Bureau of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and in the form of one-year contracts under which the carriers were never certain where their next meal ticket was coming from.

But strangely enough, if Franklin Roosevelt had last week ventured to ad dress Friends," the he would aviation have been industry as sure of a "My jabber of cheery answering echoes. For, after putting the finishing touches on the ultimate reform to grow out of the 1934 unpleasantness, he had brought into being a Civil Aeronautics Authority independent of all other branches of the Government except the White House itself, headed by a business man, peopled with non-political experts, and charged with "encouragement and development of an air-transportation system properly adapted to the present and future needs of the foreign and domestic commerce of the U. S.. of the defense." Postal Service, Regulations and were of to the be framed national "in such a manner as to assure the highest degree of safety . . . foster sound economic conditions . . . without unjust discriminations, undue preferences ... or unfair or destructive competitive practices."

Out of the Black inquiry came the first serious move to centralize regulation of aviation. Silvery Nevadan Pat McCarran wrote a Senate bill to place full control of the industry with the I.C.C. Year later, in the House, California's Clarence Lea offered a bill to create an independent Government bureau for aviation. Until the last Congress, neither bill had been able to make much headway. Both the Post Office Department and the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Air Commerce stood to lose firm political footholds if the centralization move succeeded. But this year the proposals were revived, promptly got mixed up in the Reorganization squabble. Pat McCarran had designed his bill to keep aviation well out of White House reach. Representative Lea's, more to Administration liking, sought to centralize control in the executive branch of the Government. Chief Administration argument was that since aviation is so closely related to national defense, its control ought to be centred where the President and his State, War and Navy Departments could keep an eye on it. Both bills were passed, and from joint committee conferences the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 emerged with most of the Administration-backed features retained. But one last safeguard against complete White House domination of the authority had been stamped on the final draft by Pat McCarran. No member of the authority except its administrator may be dismissed except for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.

The new law set up an air authority of five members and an administrator at annual salaries of $12,000, and an air safety board of three at $7,500 annually, one of them to be an airline pilot. To the authority was entrusted control over mail subsidies, with authority to fix rates, determine routes on request and recommendation from the Post Office Department and designate carriers. The authority was also to set maximum passenger and freight rates as the I.C.C. does for rail and bus carriers, and enfranchise existing airlines with certificates of convenience and necessity, continuing all present mail contracts during good airline behavior.

To prevent a recurrence of the situation that brought about the 1934 Black inquiry, when the Errett Cord interests half-cornered the airmail subsidy of $16.500.000, holding 13 of 26 contracts through mergers and consolidations, the Act forbids mergers, interlocked directorates and subleasing of carrier contracts without consent of the authority.

While everybody in the air transport business knew that the new act was far better for all concerned than anything previously devised for air industry control, they knew, too. in the words of Eastern Airlines' plain-talking War Ace Eddie Rickenbacker, that "the McCarran-Lea act will be only as good as the men who comprise the board."

Announced as chairman of the new Aeronautical Authority last week was no politician, no airline executive, no prominent kibitzer from the aeronautical sidelines. He was the man who makes candy Life Savers, 55-year-old Edward John Noble. An eminently successful business man, a flying enthusiast for ten years, a man with undeniable poise and organizational ability, tested in business and in the Wartime U. S. Army, he represented what the air industry has cried loudest for. An upstate New Yorker and a Republican, Edward John Noble worked for a time as a reporter on the Watertown Daily Times, became the best treasurer the Gouverneur Athenian Society ever had, then packed himself off to Yale. Broke when he entered, he organized and ran an eating club, marked himself as likely to succeed by being graduated (1905) with a financial surplus. He started making Life Savers 25 years ago in a one-room loft in Manhattan, stirring the peppermint flavor into the mixture himself.

As the Authority's administrator, Franklin Roosevelt appointed friendly, hard-working Career Man Clinton M. Hester, counsel to the Treasury Department and a frequent advocate of the Act during Congressional hearings. Born 43 years ago in Des Moines, Iowa, he has spent 20 years in Federal service, studying law at Georgetown while a Government clerk. His new job: to execute the Authority's orders.

Named vice-chairman was shrewd. 58-year-old, Carolina-born, W. (for William) Harllee Branch, a Washington news correspondent who, after 30 years in news paper work from typesetting to editing, became executive assistant to Postmaster General Farley in 1933. Only airline executive named to the Authority was 34-year-old Socialite George Grant Mason Jr., foreign representative of Pan American Airways in charge of Caribbean service. Iowa-born, New York-bred. Fourth Authority member is Mormon-born Democrat Robert Hinckley, assistant WPA administrator for Far Western States and supervisor of considerable WPA airport and airway project work. Fifty-year-old Indiana Republican Oswald Ryan, fifth member, has for six years been gen eral counsel to the Federal Power Com mission.

To the Air Safety Board, the President appointed two licensed transport pilots, dashing, mustached Texan Tom Oates Hardin, vice-president of the Airline Pilots' Association, veteran of 10,000 flying hours with American Airlines; and Alabama-born Lieut.-Colonel Sumpter Smith, War flier, aeronautical engineer, since 1936 director of the Division of Airways and Airports of the WPA. The third Safety Board member was not named. Among these appointments, peeled political eyes could discover no one recommended for appointment by dictator-fearing McCarran. But if Franklin Roosevelt gave the back of his hand to Rebel Pat McCarran, it was at the same time a helping hand to U. S. aviation.

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