"I Want To Be First"

In 1931 air-minded Humorist Will Rogers told Pan American Airways: "If you boys ever get around to flying the oceans, I want to be your first passenger," offered to make a cash deposit for the privilege. The airline refused his money, but put him at the head of its waiting list for both Atlantic and Pacific crossings, then only misty dreams. Before taking off for Siberia in 1935, Will Rogers tailed Pan American, asked if he could get back in time for the first Pacific flight. He could have, easily--but for the crack-up in lonely Point Barrow, Alaska, which killed him and his pilot, Wiley Post.

This week, as the press preview round trip completed its westward flight and a scheduled flight over the northern route was headed east, Pan American's 41-ton Dixie Clipper (Captain Arthur E. La Porte, commanding) was readied at its Port Washington, L. I. base to take off for Lisbon and Marseille via the Azores, on its first regular passenger flight (44 hours).* It was just 20 years to the month since Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic hop. In the seat once reserved for well-loved Will Rogers sat W. J. Eck, assistant vice president of Southern Railway, an engineer whose hobbies are photography and globe-flying and whose name was first of some 300 first-flight applicants.

Not the least of Pan American's headaches had been what to do with these eager trippers. The Dixie Clipper can carry 74, but sleeps only 40. Twenty-two applicants were finally booked, on a first-come-first-served basis. Many, not knowing how much the fare would be, had sent varying amounts (biggest: $1,500). The airline decided on a one-way fare of $375; round trip, $675.

Among the 22 early birds: Benjamin ("Sell 'em Ben") Smith, demon speculator in oil, gold, airplanes; rich Long Island widow Clara Adams, inveterate first tripper who is trying to round the world in 16 days (for passage on the Graf Zeppelin in 1928 she paid $3,000); Mrs. Elizabeth Stettinius Trippe, wife of Pan American President Juan Terry Trippe; Captain Torkild Rieber, Board Chairman of Texas Corp.; United States Lines President John M. Franklin; Investment Banker Harold Leonard Stuart; a lawyer from Allentown, Pa., named Julius Rapoport; San Francisco Shipowner Roger Lapham, whose American Hawaiian Steamship Co. was in trouble with union stay-at-homes.

*New York-to-Paris, 47 hours. Fare: $400.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.