Height: 6 ft. 2
inches. Age: 25. Eyes: Blue. Cheeks: Pink. Hair: Sandy. Feet: Large. When he arrived at the Embassy in France no shoes big
enough were handy. Habits: Smokes not; drinks not. Does not gamble. Eats a thoroughgoing
breakfast. Prefers light luncheon and dinner when permitted. Avoids
rich dishes. Likes sweets. Calligraphy: From examination of his handwriting Dr. Camille Streletski,
Secretary of the French Graphological Society, concluded:
Superiority, intellectualism, cerebration, idealism, even mysticism. Characteristics: Modesty, taciturnity, diffidence , singleness of purpose, courage, occasional curtness, phlegm.
Elinor Glyn avers he lacks “It.” Last week rumor rose that for next
summer a direct flight to China was proposed for the first of flyers.
An accomplished and reliable Chinese gentleman, also an aviator,
sponsored the rumor. Skeptics pointed out that such a spectacular bid
for Chinese good will was among the more remote problems of immediate
statecraft. Hard-headed U. S. men, soft-hearted U. S. women
grumblingly asked when the dangerous far-flung flights of Col.
Lindbergh would cease. To date he has flown to France; Belgium; England; Mexico; Canada in
the interests of aviation progress and the interests
of international good will. In his own writings last
week he pointed out the risks of flying over lonely Central American
mountains. Remarked dissenters: “How much more lonely are the wastes
of the Pacific; jungles below the Equator; tropic waterways of the
East over which he must fly if his portfolio of Ambassador of Good Will
is permanent.” Grumblers wondered if interest accruing to the national
welfare by his flights is worth the calamitous crash of principal
which would accompany his death. Col. Lindbergh is the most cherished
citizen since Theodore Roosevelt. Thought they: “He is worth
keeping.” One way to keep him is to keep him on the ground. Others argued savagely that Lindbergh must fly for his life in the
public eye; heroes age swiftly when seated at office desks; argued that
by his very nature he must fly. Unconscious of these wrangles over the national coffee cups, Col.
Lindbergh tended to business. He climbed into The Spirit of St. Louis at
Mexico City; nosed upward; set off for Guatemala, British Honduras,
Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama. In Detroit a school teacher put by her pointer and her students’ papers.
Mrs. Evangeline Lodge Lindbergh dressed herself warmly and was swept
southward by the propeller windstorm of a sturdy trimotored Ford
monoplane. One night she spent in St. Louis. The next day as her famed
offspring in Mexico City was piloting on his first flight President
Plutarco Elias Calles, the monoplane sprang to Tulsa, Okla. The third
sunset found her in Brownsville, Texas. Next day up from the crowded
field at Mexico City rose Col. Lindbergh in The Spirit of St. Louis.
Swallowed in the clouds he missed the monoplane which he had flown to
meet. Shouts from the field of “Vivi Senora Leenbaire” as Mrs.
Lindbergh stepped out of the Ford plane. She met her wandering boy an
hour later at the American Embassy.
