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314 NATIONAL POLITICS I918-I922
Yale Club in the early afternoon on December 6. This special committee of the aircraft industry was headed by Mr. Lawrence and included A. P. Loening, Glenn Martin, Chance Vought, Carl Fritsche, Frank Russell, and Sam Bradley as secretary. By that time they had already conducted two meetings among themselves and had formulated a brief, clear statement outlining the scope and purpose of their work. They had reached the conclusion that all aircraft manufacturers should be invited to the next open meeting. They also agreed on by-passing all detailed questions of a controversial nature. It was this decision which made progress possible. It is often the only basis on which any competitive group, not naturally drawn together, can accomplish anything of a lasting nature. By the time I met the committee they had prepared a statement of policies, together with their suggestions for best effecting them. By the close of that day, they had signed the resolution stating their purposes and had written letters of invitation to all the aircraft interests to attend an open meeting, enclosing a copy of their newly formulated resolution for all members in the industry to accept or reject.
The special committee met regularly thereafter, each Saturday at one in the Yale Club, well up to the end of June 1925. Together we worked out statements of policy, resolutions, arrangements for meetings with government officials, and various phases of co-operation within the industry, until all were reasonably sure that they had built up a framework in which manufacturers and government could work successfully to mutual advantage, and in which the industry itself could build a healthy expansion. Twenty-three competitive aircraft companies approved the resolution of co-operation, and later the industry endorsed the committee's statement of policy.
Several sections in the policy indicated the prevailing ills which the manufacturers were seeking to eliminate in order to avoid eliminating each other, as the movie interests had almost done during their early days. Section one was a pledge of mutual confidence and cordial relations; all differences were to be stated and settled among the aircraft interests themselves. In addition, the most annoying thorn was removed by the inviolate protection of "design rights," making healthy expansion possible. This operated to eliminate the bad features of the cross-license system which had been inaugurated as an emergency war measure in 1917, under which system Curtiss and Wright had been severely penalized, for airplane manufacturers without engineering staffs could take advantage of time and money put into engineering developments by other companies simply by paying an initiation fee of $1,000 to the government and a royalty— originally $200, later $100— for each plane built!
Another feature of the policy represented a move toward standardization of parts and equipment, with the purpose of being of greater value