CHECKLIST For the early airlines.

CHECKLIST

For the early airlines, air mail was essential for survival

Visionary entrepreneur are many times credited with creating America's commercial airline industry, and federal airline regulation is assumed to have played no significant part until President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938

Airlines and Air Mail by the agency of F. Robert van der Linden (University Pres of Kentucky $35) reinterprets the increase of the airline industry, arguing that it was the Progressive Republican policies of Herbert Hoover that actually levy commercial aviation on the map in the United States.

L through Hoover's postmaster general, Walter Fogle Brown the conduct promoted the combination of sturdy financial enterprises with substantial regulation guidance through economic incentives to expand commercial aviation in the public interest while avoiding the question s experienced earlier during the progressive growth of the railroads. Through the use of air mail contracts, the federal command provided a critical indirect subsidy and a solid economic foundation for this nascent industry.

Postmaster General Brown directing the expansion of a rational network of airlines flying along well-defined roads used these air mail contracts as a carrot and a stick to make secure the survival of the pioneering companies.

While his vision frequently conflicted with that of Congres and with that of the small airline operator, Brown was responsible for building the vast air transport network that exists today.

In 1934 Senate investigations of the aviation oligopolies quicked Roosevelt to suspend the air mail contracts. Ultimately, Roosevelt was forced to revert the contracts to the large airlines.

Even although the New Nationalism of Progressive Republicans that favored efficient large enterprises was replaced by the agency of the New Freedom of the Progressive Democrats that abhorred trusts, the proceeds were essentially the same. Congres abolished the aviation holding companies, unless the same financially strong airlines favored on Hoover and Brown continued their dominance in a less degree than federal regulatory protection.

...

Home