 |
| , The great detective,Sherlock Holmes--portrayed by Basil Rathbone |
 |
| The Wright brothers--Orville and Wilbur |
 |
| The telegram to Father, Bishop M. Wright |
An Introduction
It is frustrating when traditionalist Wright historians use their positions as scholars of aviation to smother legitimate questions about the Wright brothers' claims.
The following contribution is different. It is not, as such, about the history of aviation, but about U.S. cable telegraphy of the early 20th Century. The opinion of aviation historians of whatever status or caliber upon its content and conclusions is brought down to the same level--a level playing field, in fact. No position in aviation "historianship," or lifetime number of aviation books and articles written, bestows the authority to dismiss evidence on the subject of the telegraph.
Its contents are long and detailed because of the need to lay down an absolutely watertight defense against pontifical pronouncements from those whose interests lie in muddying those waters. But it is a fascinating story and, like the best detective tales, contains a surprising denouement in its closing paragraphs.
Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes could do no better. The author, while acknowledging assistance from aviation specialists, wishes to remain anonymous for professional reasons.
The "Telegram to Father"--Fact or Fiction?
-1-
The case is opened.
In the early afternoon of December 17, 1903, we are told, a short time after the Wright brothers' fourth flight of the day,
they walk nearly four miles from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, to the U.S. Government Weather Service station at Kitty Hawk to send their father, self-appointed "Bishop" Wright, a telegram announcing a successful outcome to the day’s experiments. The message, bearing only the name of the younger brother, Orville, travels on the government lines to Norfolk, Virginia, and is then transferred to the Western Union commercial service for the remainder of its journey to Dayton, Ohio.
According to some accounts, the message passed through
several hands on its way to Norfolk, and, in later years, some of those hands offered contradictory versions of forwarding it. Certainly, it was launched from Kitty Hawk by Weather Bureau employee, Joe Dosher, whose office was in the United States Life-Saving Service building; and this might have occurred on the telephone, because part of the telegraph line to Norfolk was inoperative that day, reportedly with excessive traffic causing an overload. It was received by a government employee, either a Grey or a Grant, at Norfolk before being handed to Western Union for onward transmission.
As befits a document of great value, the message, upon receipt, was then carefully stored in the Wright family papers, eventually emerging many years later and proffered as unassailable, documentary proof of the brothers’ achievement and its date.
The historical significance of the telegram cannot be over-stressed. Without question, in the annals of human communication, no other telegram has been transmitted with more flagrant disregard of telegraph company operating procedures and standing instructions to operators; or contains such multiple inaccuracies and logical impossibilities. In contrast, its contribution to aviation history is a moot point, to be examined below.
Even when viewed in isolation, the telegram contains features which should have rung alarm bells in the mind of any person of natural curiosity and average intelligence, when it was first disclosed. Today, with the advent of the internet, an even more searching--and damning--analysis is but a mouse-click away.
-2-
The rule book must be obeyed at all times.
 |
| The Western Union rules, regulations, and instruction book. |
Most important of the tools required, the Western Union’s (WU) instruction book for its employees is available for download; and it contains precise instructions for transmitting and charging for telegrams, including those inserted into the network via “other [companies’] lines.”
The continued applicability of those instructions in 1903 can be checked by reference to the large number of WU telegrams of the period which have been lodged, for a multiplicity of reasons, on numerous historical websites. Google "Images" search engine, when interrogated for “Western Union”, “telegram” and a date (eg, 1902, 1903, etc) will yield more than sufficient for the purposes of comparison and explanation.
As might become apparent as this narrative unfolds, that facility to apply a reality check to the "Telegram to Father" could not have been imagined at the time it was released into the public domain several years after it was said to have been sent. It has become common practice for fervent supporters of the Wrights’ claims to declare that any witnesses with different recollections of events must be mistaken, senile or spiteful. Such debates can be continued back and forth ad infinitum with ever more fanciful explanations forwarded to obscure any "unfortunate" facts
No such latitude for interpretation or argument is permitted by the WU Rule Book; no claim of "trivial variation" can trump incontrovertible evidence — available to anyone, on any computer screen, anywhere in the world--that every other WU telegram known to exist handles a certain matter in a different way (different from the Wrights'): that is, the way which the Rule Book specifies. The Wright apologists must make the case that at least two neutral WU employees (one at each end; the first of them also possessing supernatural powers) deliberately risked disciplinary action or, even, placed their jobs on the line, in order to compose a telegram the way the Wrights wanted it sent and received, and not the way their employer ordered it to be done
Until recently, fawning historians have given the Wrights an incredibly easy ride, even cherry-picking phrases from witnesses’ statements while ignoring immediately following words which the Wrights found inconvenient. The ease with which the "Telegram to Father" can be exposed by the aids available on the Internet, in conjunction with both brothers’ own statements, is a warning to compliant historians that their duty is to scrutinize history, not write "the victors’’ self-serving version of it for them.
The trail is littered with clues.
"Each new discovery furnishes a step which leads on to the complete truth--"
from Sherlock Holmes: "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb"
 |
| Telegram to father--significant numbers. |
1.
Not random numbers, but a wealth of hidden meaning:
"176 C KA CS 33 paid"
This records (on Form # 168, for typewritten messages which are delivered to the addressee by messenger) the message number, sending clerk, receiving clerk and the number of words in the body of the message – the “Check”.
KA is the Western Union employee sending the telegram; CS is the employee receiving it at its destination. As well as being logical, the order of the sending and receiving initials is explained and confirmed in detail on WU form 1571, available for inspection, for example, at this link for the
illustration below.
 |
| An actual Western Union telegraph sent in 1900. All rules are followed. |
Immediately, there is a problem noted with the "Telegram to Father": The message contains 32 words, not 33. Rule # 45 allows no latitude: “No message will be considered as having been properly received, and no operator will allow a message to pass through his hands, without first counting the words, comparing the check, and otherwise satisfying himself it is correct.
”Rule # 46 permits delivery of an incomplete message to the addressee, if it appears the missing word may not be vital, but it insists upon urgent clarification being sought from "back down the line"; a note on the originally delivered version explaining what is happening; and a correction being furnished to the recipient with all speed once the discrepancy is resolved. Even if this were an interim "Rule # 46" telegram, it would carry an extra notification. It does not
To forestall possible other interpretations being offered as a diversion: (a) a crossed out word is not changed and (b) "Via Norfolk" is not charged as one word or, indeed, as any word (as a later telegram will demonstrate).
Yet to be established is who paid the sending fee and who collected it. On that matter, the telegram is silent.
-4-
The famous telegram has been reproduced numerous times, yet nobody has asked the obvious questions.
2. Every journey begins with a small step.....
"Via Norfolk Va"
Indicates entry into the WU telegraph network at this place. (Norfolk is, in fact, the Weather Bureau telegraphic node for that region of the Eastern Seaboard.)
3. .....courtesy Uncle Sam’s wires
"Kitty Hawk N C Dec 17"
The origin and date of the message. Some 98% of known WU messages include the year in the date, as company rules specify. Its omission in this case may be regarded as most unusual, but not, absolutely unique.
Under normal trading circumstances the words “Kitty Hawk N C Dec 17” would be charged as having come via ‘another line’ as far as Norfolk (Rule # 4). However, it is clear that there was a special arrangement --whether official or unofficial is unclear --to waive this fee for messages coming into Norfolk on the government line from Kitty Hawk.
-5-
No "but's": The receiving office must identify itself, as here:
4. The missing link
"RECEIVED at" [blank]
WU telegram forms # 1 (hand-written message), # 57 (early typed) and # 168 are printed with this statement.: "Received at." The receiving office (the one nearest the addressee) fills in this blank with its location. Larger offices have their address pre-printed on the form (eg RECEIVED at 143 East Bay Street, Charleston, S.C.); smaller offices employ a rubber stamp (e.g. RECEIVED at 497 Third Avenue, Manhattan Hardware Store) or typewriter; on Form # 1 the location is added by hand.
Orville Wright’s telegram of December 17, 1903, is the only known example of a receiving office not identifying itself on the form dispatched to the addressee. It is unique in the history of WU telegraphy of the period. All other form # 1/57/168 WU telegrams available on the Internet include this information – if for no other reason than to ensure that any reply generates business for the company and not a competitor. The reason for omission of the receiving office is mysterious in the extreme
Moreover, this is rule-breaking at the receiving office. Thus, as will become increasingly apparent from that which follows, the sending clerk flagrantly disregarded company rules and the receiving clerk did so, too.
-6-
"The curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident." remarked Sherlock Holmes--
Sherlock Holmes in"Silver Blaze"
How could it be that generations of Wright historians failed to "bark" an alarm over a hopelessly addressed telegram?
5. Telepathy or telegraphy?
"Bishop M Wright
7 Hawthorne St " [blank]
The destination city does not appear as part of the address.
Being a recitation of the blindingly obvious, Rule # 8 specifies “The address should be scrutinized, and if not deemed sufficient, a more complete one requested”.
It is difficult to imagine a transmission scenario – especially involving a transfer between different line networks (even including telephone, in one account) operated by different agencies – in which the absence of a destination city would be accepted by the clerk and would have been of no hindrance to the employees selecting the line appropriate for sending the message on the several legs of its journey.
Incredibly, no Wright historian finds it worthy of comment that a telegram with a laughably inadequate address can be routed along an intricate network of 23,000 possible destinations (the number of branch offices advertised on the standard telegram form) and delivered with unerring accuracy and minimal delay to its intended recipient — as if by telepathy rather than telegraphy. One might argue that this is a greater feat than building an airplane.
Note also, that the real Hawthorn Street in Dayton has no ending "e." It is unlikely that the Brothers forgot how to spell their own address.
City and State (but not street) are obligatory even when telegraphing a state governor, and there’s no exemption for airplane makers’ fathers. This form also confirms the position of the telegram number and the order in which the sending and receiving clerks identify themselves at the opening of the message.
6. Don’t get in a state!
[blank]
Further to emphasize the point immediately above, Rule # 49 concerns itself with the U.S. state of the recipient’s city: “The name of the place from which the message originates, and its destination, must be written out in full, whether passing through a repeating office or not. The name of the State must accompany the name of place in the address, in all cases, except the names of the leading commercial cities of the United States, such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco.”
Dayton is not listed; therefore, the sending clerk has also omitted “Oh” from the telegram form.
Additionally, it may be noted from the wording of the instruction that offices along the route of the telegram need to know its destination because messages are passed along a network, like the baton in a
relay race — not, in most cases, on a direct wire straight to their destination.
7. Hey, Pa, We're flying!
"Success four flights Thursday morning against twenty one mile wind"
While other evidence contradicts this aeronautical claim, the sole technical comment to be made concerns the fact that the Wrights were singularly unfortunate in being assigned the two most illiterate and/or slapdash telegraph operators in the whole of the WU company (see also that which follows). However, note (also below) the different versions of day identification supplied to newspapers.
8.
A sort of flat, downhill take-off.
"started from Level with engine power alone"
As is known, witness statements contradict this assertion. One may question whether the Bishop would grasp the nuances of this statement and, therefore, what purpose is served by detailing the airplane’s relationship to the horizon. However, in a letter to Carl Dienstbach on December 22, (MacFarland, Papers of Wilbur & Orville Wright, page 399) the Bishop describes the airplane running downhill towards a level section of track and then launching from that. Clearly, he is confused by the sudden change to “flat” take-offs.
-7-
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
Sherlock Holmes, The Boscombe Valley Mystery
57 or 59 seconds"?
That's not the matter at issue. The flagrantly ignored rule book is.
9. The rules are there for a good reason
"average speed through air thirty one miles longest 57 seconds"
The elapsed time appears in later, published accounts as 59 seconds, with an author’s note that this was, obviously, the telegraphist’s error. Indeed, telegraphists do make mistakes, which is why Rule # 7 states unequivocally: “In messages containing amounts or numbers, require the customer in every instance to write the message in words and duplicate them in figures, but in such cases the figures are not to be counted or charged for. Example…. Sold four hundred (400) bushels wheat at two (2) dollars forty-five (45) cents.”
“In every instance." Again, total disregard for the company rule book. At the least, “fifty-seven” should be spelled in full in addition to the numerals "57."
10. When I say "inform press," I mean "don’t inform press." Understand?
"inform press"
Subsequently, authors have portrayed Bishop Wright and brother Lorin standing by to tell the Dayton press as soon as they were, themselves, informed.
However, in an interview quoted in the Huntingdon Herald of March 16, 1904, Wilbur stated that Kill Devil Hills was “forty miles from a telegraph station. On our return trip to Dayton, upon reaching the first telegraph station, we sent a telegram home, and before we got away from the office a message came back from an operator at Norfolk, Va, asking if he could give out the information to the newspaper correspondents and we said ‘Certainly not’.”
This is a curious statement, and cannot be correct, but it is ignored by over-sympathetic historians and its implications disregarded.
-8-
“The more outré and grotesque an incident is, the more carefully it deserves to be examined.”
Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The issue of the mysterious crossing-out will return later.
11. Have you bought my present yet?
"home x/x/x/x/ Christmas"
Examples exist of other telegrams containing crossings out and those confirm that no charge is made for such "words." Not even this simple, homely statement is free from the taint of having been tampered with, as explained later.
12. Don’t you know me? I’m your son.
"Orevelle Wright"
The misspelling of the name is taken by some as evidence that the telegram is genuine. However, scientists have yet to isolate the gene which prevents a human from misspelling their own name.
More importantly, this issue diverts attention from the far greater problem with the sender’s name. Bishop Wright is aware that his unusually-named son is one of a minute number of people in the world experimenting with airplanes, and he is expecting a message from the boy announcing success or failure. Why, then, does the son find it necessary to remind his father that they share the same surname?
13. Making haste slowly: The snail’s pace scoop
"525P"
Message arrived at the [anonymous; presumed downtown Dayton] receiving station at 5:25 PM. Some time would elapse while other messages for the same side of town were received and collected together to make a worthwhile satchel-load for the messenger, who would then cycle round the district making deliveries, not necessarily calling on Hawthorn Street first.
This delay would complicate the matter of getting the story into the next day’s newspaper, even if the local reporters had believed it when delivered from the mouth of a "Bishop" (self-proclaimed, or otherwise), or his son.
In addition, detailed accounts of the day (the 17th)) have the brothers eating their lunch and washing the dishes before setting out for Kitty Hawk and the telegraph terminal. Obviously, and at least initially, there was no rush for a place on the next day’s front page.
14. "Wright" your own history for Washington’s archives
Typeface.
The typeface used by the telegram appears to be identical to that of a typewriter used (a) by the Wright Aeroplane Company and (b) at an unknown date to provide what are proffered by the Library of Congress as letters from Wilbur Wright to the Smithsonian, concerning his early studies into flight.
No great significance should be attached to this fact, as the same typeface has been seen on telegrams entirely unconnected with the Wrights.
That said, it should not pass without comment that official U. S. archives regard copies of alleged letters furnished by an interested party (Orville Wright) as having the same authenticity as original papers from that party kept in a controlled archive by a disinterested party. The ‘two sides’ of a correspondence between Wilbur Wright and the Smithsonian held by the Library of Congress are, in fact, both furnished from the Wright papers, with that critical fact going unremarked. There is no proof from an independent source that the Wright-furnished copies of the declared originals are, indeed, authentic. The Wrights are writing their own history.
Such willingness--even by taxpayer-funded bodies --to avoid all elementary rules of evidence and provenance has bedeviled objective examination of the Wright Brothers’ claims and led to the present situation in which a patently undeliverable telegram, written and delivered in contemptuous defiance of WU operating procedures, is afforded the status of Holy Writ
-9-
"The Dayton Journal" was one among many papers to report "Local boys make good."
15. Man flies — hold the eighth page!
The quoted telegram
On the evening of December 18, a Dayton newspaper printed a more complete and more accurate version of the flight story broken (with manifold errors) elsewhere that morning. The "Dayton Daily News" published (on page 8 – sic, page eight) what it says is the telegram received a day earlier:
Kitty Hawk, N.C., Dec. 17. We have made four successful flights this morning, all against a 21-mile wind. We started from the level, with engine power alone. Our average speed through the air was 31 miles. Our longest time in the air was 57 seconds. ORVILLE WRIGHT”
There are minor differences, some of which seem to be the result from the paper putting the message into its own ‘house style’ and expanding the text to cover traditional telegraphic brevity. For similar, journalistic reasons, it sees no reason for a Dayton newspaper to repeat "Dayton" in a telegram’s address. The sender is identified with the courtesy of a full name, spelled correctly. There is no obvious explanation for the change from "Thursday" to "this."
“Inform press. Home Christmas” does not appear in that newspaper’s version. "Home Christmas" is an Xmas gift no newspaper "hack" could ignore a mere week before the event. Had the phrase been in the telegram, it would have been quoted in the article. As it was, two days elapsed before the Dayton Press headlined “Wright boys are coming home." And that by quoting an agency report from Scripps-McRae Press Association.
The news of impending return appears not to have originated in Dayton.
The" Daily News" story included details of the Flyer's dimensions and weights, strongly suggesting that technical information was supplied from a Wright source--whether at Dayton or Kitty Hawk is currently unclear.
Other papers picking up the story included the "Dayton Journal "on December 19, which gave the
home address as "7 Hawthorn Street," (obviously supplied with this information independently and not
taking the text from "The Daily News.") quoted "started from level," and also referred to "this morning" and not "Thursday": and the "Dayton Herald," on December 18, mentioning "the level" and misspelling
Hawthorne Street, while adding "We" to personalize the message.
Another version of the telegram comes from Bishop Wright’s diary, below. The official transcription says “In the afternoon about 5:30 we received the following telegram from Orvill[e], dated Kitty Hawk, N.C., Dec. 17. Bishop M. Wright: Success four flights Thursday morning all against a twenty-one mile wind started from level with engine power alone average speed through the air thirty one miles longest 57 seconds. XXX home Christmas. Orville Wright”
The handwritten diary entry differs from its official transcription in that ‘57’ appears as ‘59’ — the figure that was claimed some period of time later. While it may be argued that 57 was subsequently and innocently changed to 59 ‘just to keep the record straight’, that must have been done with unusual forethought. The density of the diary’s handwriting fluctuates every few words, revealing where the nib was dipped in the ink and then began to run progressively drier. The number was written with a nearly-empty nib, and if there was a later intervention to change a "7" to a "9," then it was carefully effected after first ensuring the nib was identically part-charged. It is easier to imagine the later, innocent correction of a single figure being made with a freshly-dipped nib and, thus, being denser.
There is also a small difficulty with the time of the telegram’s quoted delivery, in that it arrived in the WU office at 5:25 and, as mentioned earlier, there would have been some appreciable delay before it appeared on the Wright doorstep. One figure of the arrival time has also been changed in the diary (see above), and on this occasion the correction has been made with a full nib, as one would expect.
The figures are difficult to decipher, but it looks like father has changed 5:40 to 5:30, suggesting the telegram was both written-up and delivered a distance of 1½ miles by jet-propelled messenger in five minutes.
In his diary, the Bishop finds it necessary to remind himself who he is, but is confident enough of his home address not to bother with copying that part of the telegram. He introduces the whole as being “from Orvill” (sic) and notes, further, that it is signed-off by “Orville Wright”. Clearly, there is no latitude for mis-identification.
-10-
“You see, but you do not observe.” Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia
When compared, employing even "sub-Holmsian" levels of observation, a curious story of contradictory telegraphy emerges.
Other telegrams (afterwards)
Suddenly, the Dayton telegraph office shapes up.
A "perfect" telegram from the Dayton Western Union office, below.
(They can do it when they want to.)
 |
| Orville's telegram to his sister, Katherine. December 24,1903. It follows the rules in every respect. |
On the journey home to celebrate Christmas, Orville sent his sister a telegram advising that the Brothers were almost there. It redeems the staff at the Dayton office and WU in general, for this is the epitome of a correctly sent and received telegram. Staff at the Dayton office could follow company rules to the letter...when they wanted to.
The telegram, held in the Library of Congress, says:
97C KA BM 9Paid
RECEIVED at Dayton, Ohio; Office at 185 Jefferson Telephone 382 and 603
D and O Depot, Huntington, WVA Dec 23rd –03
Katharine,Wright
7 Hawthorn St Dayton O
Have survived perilous trip reported in papers. Home tonight.
Orville.Wright
147PM:-
Correctly addressed with city.
Correctly addressed with state.
Correct number of words.
Correctly stamped with receiving office and its address.
Correctly dated.
Correct spelling of Hawthorn.
Correct spelling of Orville
The one error appears to be the rail depot, which at Huntington, was more likely C & O (Chesapeake & Ohio).
Little of aeronautical importance is conveyed by the telegram, above. Its value is in underlining the multitude of irregularities in the message which, supposedly, preceded it by a few days. Bishop Wright's diary finds receipt of the telegram of sufficient importance for a special mention. The actual arrival on the doorstep of his two beloved sons is added as it it were an anticlimax. ("Katharine got a telegram from Orville, saying he and Wilbur would be at home tonight. They came at 8:00.")
The "perilous journey" appears to be a humorous comment on a sensational story of their reported flight by the "
Norfolk Virginian Pilot," which was widely circulated to other newspapers.
Other telegrams (before)
Wilbur is ripped off--in more senses than one.
Western
Union was not the carrier of choice for telegrams out of Kitty Hawk, as
that of
December 14 (as well as others) confirms. How it gained the
December 17 traffic is unclear
The abortive flight attempt claimed by Wilbur on December 14 is the subject of a telegram also held in the Library of Congress. Whereas, Orville put his name to the message conveying success three days later, this admission of human error is signed by Wilbur:
69 C H FN 20 Via Norfolk, Va.
Kittyhawk, N.C, Dec . 15, 1903
Bishop M. Wright, 7 Hawthorne St., Dayton, O
Miss Judgement at start reduced flight one hundred twelve power and control ample rudder only injured success assured keep quiet.
Wilber Wright.
3:27 pm
However, this is not a Western Union telegram. It was conveyed from Norfolk to Dayton by a different firm: the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company, and “Received at N. E. Cor. 4th & Jefferson Sts, Dayton, Ohio (where any reply should be sent). Telephone 309 & 1320.”
Hawthorn(e) Street again suffers, as does Wilbur’s name. And Wilbur’s pocket—for he has been charged for 20 words through the misspelling of ‘misjudgement’ as two words. Why he said nothing when being over-charged is not immediately obvious.
On November 2, Wilbur had telegraphed the Brothers’ mentor, Octave Chanute and invited him to Kitty Hawk. This telegram, too, went by Postal Telegraph, a company only second to WU in its size at that time.
Again, proper attention to detail in the sending of this message draws attention to the unusual nature of the December 17 communication. A Postal Telegraph rule book is not available, although the regulations to be followed seem to be similar in nature to WU.
It would appear that the usual onward commercial route for telegrams leaving the government line at Norfolk was Postal Telegraph. Why just the "Telegram to Father" went onward by another company is an unexplored mystery.
-11-
DEDUCTIONS
"...and meanwhile take my assurance that the clouds are lifting and that I have every hope
that the light of truth is breaking through."--Sherlock Holmes. "The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes
One has only to question the previous consensus to discover anomalies in "approved" accounts and histories.
Analysis of witnesses’ statements has permitted the generation of a parallel, but still coherent version of the events of December 17, 1903. It contradicts the "approved" (Wright) account, because it relies on the testimony of independent participants--that is to say, people who had no inventors’ credentials to burnish, egos to flatter, or profits from patents to maximize.
The truthinaviationhistory.blogspot.com presents this alternative account of December 17’s proceedings, noting that witness testimony differs from the Wrights’ in such fundamental matters as the number of flight attempts and whether or not take-off was downhill. Although of vital importance, its findings will not be duplicated in any great detail here, but it will suffice to say that the blog contains alternative testimony from key individuals, concerning who sent what telegrams, to whom, and when they did it. A working knowledge of the basic facts from the blog will assist understanding of that which follows.
The evidence both cited above and in the blog suggests that not only is the ‘Telegram to Father’ superfluous to the events which animated the media that day, it is highly likely that it never existed in its known form on December 17. For further measure, had it existed and been accepted for transmission by a negligent clerk, it would have been impossible to route and deliver because of a fatally incomplete address.
"I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have omitted"--Sherlock Holmes. "His Last Bow"
The confusion displayed by witnesses to the different telegraph message that was sent that day, and formulation of the initial newspaper story, might be the consequence of them honestly attempting to recall an event which did not take place. Was the Dayton paper’s quote taken from the ‘Telegram to Father’ — or was the telegram (or the version of it released into the public domain) composed afterwards, taking the made-up newspaper text as its inspiration?
Katharine Wright’s telegram to Octave Chanute, supposedly on the evening of the 17th quotes some detail of the reported flight (MacFarland, page 397). However, the actual telegram has never been revealed, so this claim cannot be verified. There is also the difficulty of testimony which says that Katharine received a progress-report telegram earlier the same day, so could have alerted Chanute before Father was "officially" informed.
MacFarland reports Chanute telegraphing to the Brothers jointly (uncharacteristic; he usually corresponded with Wilbur), on 18th seeking permission to disclose the news, but the critical matter of to where the telegram was addressed (Dayton or Kitty Hawk) is not considered worthy of disclosure. The original documents are not made available and the presumption is that Chanute failed to keep the historic telegram, while carefully preserving others of lesser importance.
The historian is, therefore, faced with the unsavory task of considering whether the "Telegram to Father" is a fabrication — or, to put the best gloss on the matter, a tidying up of loose ends after the fact.
Before proceeding, it may be significant to note that blank telegraph forms were not printed with serial numbers, implying that they were not kept securely, nor required to be individually accounted for. The most prescriptive WU rule mentions blank forms only in the context of ordering fresh supplies via the District Superintendent (Rule # 83) and there is no requirement for staff to report spoiled or damaged blank forms. It would have been relatively easy for blank forms to have been acquired by other persons for their own purposes.
Another "unique" telegram from those Dayton boys.
At this point, it must be conceded that the absence of a full address for the recipient is not unique to this telegram. One other message which would and should have been rejected by the receiving clerk exists – and, amazingly, it was also sent by the Wright Brothers.
Many were later eager to jump on the Wrights' bandwagon. There is no suggestion the Brothers were involved in the particular subterfuge.
 |
| An example of a telegram that has been "faked," dated Oct. 17, (1899?). |
It was dispatched on October 18, 1899 to “Mitchell & Smith, Charleston, S.C.” and is written in the first person singular, despite being signed by the plural “Wright Brothers” beneath which are two signatures (Orville’s in first position). It is suggested by other sources that this message is in connection with purchase of land for flying experiments and that the addressees are realtors.
Be that as it may, the image of a Carolinian realtor requesting the autographs of a couple of Daytonian bicycle-salesmen in 1899 is risible. The signatures will have been added "after they were famous’" – the question being "when"? That may be left for others to ponder, leaving "on file" the curious, unique and most unfortunate habit of the Wrights of sending telegrams with inadequate addresses.
(Forestalling two possible – and desperate – objections in advance: (a) the "Telegram to Father" was not edited for latterly imposed reasons of privacy, because the world then knew the Wrights lived in Dayton; and (b) even if Mitchell & Smith were familiar to the entire population of Charleston, the originating clerk [in Washington, D.C.] would not have been aware of that and would still have insisted upon a full address. Even Alexander Graham Bell, at the height of his powers, was not considered sufficiently prominent to receive telegrams without a full address.)
There is one final difficulty with the Mitchell & Smith telegram: It has been tampered with. The printed sign-off, “Wright Brothers,” has been added using a different typewriter which has a different size of typeface and slight differences in style of letters – noticeably the ‘g’ and ‘e’. However, from the imagery view-able at a distance, it is unclear how the original (typed) signature has been erased.
Nothing implicates the Brothers in this apparent forgery — for it is not known whether the signatures are genuine — but the matter is a reminder that deception is all around when the credit for great matters is being assigned. Nowhere is that more true than on the tongues and pens of those intent upon securing for themselves a place in history.
-12-
CONCLUSIONS
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?--Sherlock Holmes--"The Sign of the Four"
An alternative scenario for the ‘Telegram to Father’, therefore, offers itself, based on all the witness reports rejected by the Wrights and their fellow-travelers: The December 17 trial merely shows a little promise (eyewitness, Johnny Moore stated that it skimmed the ground for 50 feet on its best attempt, not the claimed 852 feet), but the Life-Savers hype the results to play a joke on the press, telling tales of a three-mile flight, swooping and diving between the sand dunes. The Wrights are front-page news in several papers with this fantastic story the following day and somebody acting on their behalf makes an instant decision to ‘ride the wave’ of publicity. The details are rapidly organized on December 18, perhaps—when relative slowness of communication is considered—even, with Dayton taking the initiative.
That is suggested by the "Chicago Tribune" of December 19, which quotes a telegraph operator, saying on the 18th that “many private messages passed over the wires to and from the Wright Brothers today...” But, surely, the vital facts had been transmitted on the 17th and other, private details could wait until the family was round the dining table in Dayton. It may be suggested that this flurry of urgent correspondence was to liaise with Dayton-base on a rapidly developing media situation.
For this, among other, reasons it is conjectured that the "Telegram to Father" is a fake; an invented version of events which is copied from the Dayton newspapers of December 18 in an attempt to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. Two unimpeachable witnesses, and their father, all confirm this deduction to be accurate.
Wilbur sent his friend Carl Dienstbach a copy of a Dayton newspaper for January 6, 1904, stating it to be the only true account of the events three weeks earlier. The article begins with Wilbur’s unambiguous statement, “It had not been our intention to make any detailed public statement concerning the private trials of our ‘Flyer’ on 17th of December last; but since the contents of a private telegram, announcing to our folks at home the success of our trials, was dishonestly communicated to newspaper men…”
And again, the interview given by Orville Wright at the celebrations at Kitty Hawk in December 1928: a quarter of a century later. Talking to Harry Moore, the journalist who first broke the (inaccurate) story, and explaining why Moore’s telephoned request for details was denied on the day, he said (Kansas City Star, pp 1-2, 12-17-1928) “…we were not willing to make public our success until further flights were made." That squares with the December 15 (“keep quiet”) telegram; so what changed two days later?
“Inform press. Home Christmas.” Inform press? Inform press! Across an interval of 25 years, both Wright brothers absolutely denied telling anyone to “inform press” and, for good measure, took every opportunity to place on record their great annoyance at the press having, allegedly, informed itself. No known Wright historian has addressed why what the Brothers supposedly wrote in the telegram, and what they said a few days later, are diametrically opposed. Even on December 19, the Scripps-McRae Press Association was syndicating a report to the effect that, “They are not pleased that the matter was made public."
Make up your mind: Just two days after "Inform press" we learn, "They are not pleased that the matter was made public...." They also say they will return to Kitty Hawk in January--which would have been pointless, as Orville later claimed they took the "Flyer back to Dayton with them in December (although Wilbur stated the opposite in a letter written in 1906. (Dayton Press, December 19, 1903, Late Edition)
Neither has any known Wright historian commented on Wilbur’s bearing of false witness. Had the press dishonestly intercepted the "Telegram to Father," as alleged, there would have been no stories of three-mile flights in the next day’s newspapers, because the correct quote (852 feet) would have been at hand. During the following day, a nonsensical story was supplanted in the press by a believable—but not, necessarily accurate—one, fed to the media through Hawthorn Street.
Bishop
Wright, it will be recalled, carefully copied the ‘Telegram to Father’
into his diary, recording even the ‘XXX’ to denote a typist’s error.
This display of excessive diligence did not, it seems, apply to the
words “Inform press”, which are entirely absent from whatever telegraph
form it was that the Bishop supposedly copied from.
The observant will note that this extravagant attempt to stamp authenticity
on the latter-day version of the telegram flounders upon the fact that
the Bishop wrote “XXX home Christmas” in his diary, whereas the
published telegram, below, says “home XXX Christmas"
A second miracle: Two journalists lost for words
Indeed, the Bishop is a "loose cannon." His diary for December 26th notes “Miss Bertha Comstocks interview with W. & O. for Chi. Trib. [Chicago Tribune] in the forenoon & J.D. Siders for N.Y. World in the evening.” What was said by Wilbur and Orville at these meetings (their first post-homecoming appointments) is not known, for newspaper archives (e.g. fulton history or chicago tribune ) show these papers did not carry any report in their (today, digitally available) following issues. The Sunday Tribune did print an airplane story in its next edition — about a 3-foot model flown by James Douglas of Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Why the brothers (if father’s diary is to be believed) agreed to give these interviews, then stuck to their policy of remaining tight-lipped, is a mystery. Why the two journalists did not justify their traveling expenses by producing a small story about having been in the presence of, even, uncommunicative celebrities, is no less curious. There is no new, first-hand input to the press until the statement beginning, “It had not been our intention....” was distributed to the media on January 5.
"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important."--
Sherlock Holmes--"The Boscombe Valley Mystery."
Two little letters: perhaps of greater importance than two whole volumes glorifying the Wrights.
There is one further matter causing great puzzlement. It has already been cited in the preceding text, but, like the vital clue in a detective novel, might not have been noticed by the reader at the time.
The December 17 telegram sent onward from Norfolk, Virginia, carries the Western Union company code letters and numbers “176C KA CS 33 paid.” The telegram from the WU office in Huntington, West Virginia, on December 23 is coded “97C KA BM 9Paid.” The two offices are 350 miles apart, yet, by coincidence --an insult to the most primitive vestige of common sense-- the telegraph clerk who sent the most irregular, full-of-errors, rule-book-defying "Telegram to Father" from Norfolk had the same initials (KA) as he who transmitted from Huntington the “home tonight” message to sister, Katharine.
The "Huntington KA" honored the rule book and, for good measure, persuaded his Dayton colleagues also to behave properly and even spelled sis’s unusual name right. This staggering coincidence of identical initials hardly vouches for the authenticity of the "first flight" telegram and begs the question why the Brothers temporarily became neglectful of their spelling and punctuation while in North Carolina. It is not difficult to imagine the unsavory circumstances in which the suspect telegram came to be created (by someone ignorant of telegraph company procedure) carrying code letters properly belonging to another, more genuine-looking WU message.
It was "KA" who done it
The "Telegram to Father" is condemned by host of technical, telegraphic and logical evidence; by being the only version of the telegram in which the “Inform press” instruction appears; by being the only known telegram out of Kitty Hawk not transmitted on the Postal Telegraph company’s lines; by the highly suspicious ubiquity of telegraph clerk "KA"; by the ignored testimony of witnesses whose recollections of the day differed from the Wrights’; and by the Brothers’ own, strong contradictions on the "inform press" issue. All imply the "Telegram to Father" to be a fabrication after the fact.
And if that presumption is correct, then all other matters surrounding it are subject to the same implication. And all "facts" it describes for December 17, 1903, become unverified assertions. Recent rigorous examination of witness and photographic evidence—not to mention computer analysis of the Flyer’s aerodynamic configuration—is revealing significant irregularities in evidence relating to December 1903. To those may now be added the "Telegram to Father."
"Implication,"yes; absolute proof, no. The story of the 17th is still not complete, but it can no longer be concealed that the account composed by the Wrights deliberately suppresses key facts and invents self-serving connections between disconnected occurrences. Those revelations take diligent historians halfway to finding the truth.
Persons other than the brothers handled those messages from Kitty Hawk; perhaps were entrusted with taking them to the telegraph; perhaps, were sloppy with their spelling and punctuation; and employed a few exaggerations to play a joke on the press. Could it be that the Wright Brothers’ smartest move was not in flying an airplane in December, 1903, but jumping aboard a bandwagon that somebody else had casually started rolling?
"Excellent." I cried. "Elementary." said he. Sherlock Homes--"The Crooked Man."
