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Show PAYING THE PRICE. As the biggest air battle of the war continues along the western front, Americans must feel a sense of remorse as well as of helplessness. Mad we been able to carry out our aeriel programme, there could be no doubt as to the outcome of the battle. Whether we are to blame for the breakdown of the programme is a matter mat-ter for debate, but in one way we have been culpable. Our din and clamor about what we were to accomplish penetrated pene-trated as far as the Wilhelmstrasse and stirred tho Germans to unparalleled efforts. At all costs they must try to gain control of the air and koep it until they accomplish their purposes. Our boasts gave German aircraft production pro-duction and aviation an impetus which it would not have had if wp had gone modestly to work, without beating of drums, to do wha we could. It is not of record that the British and French diminished their production in the least. They probably went ahead with their original programmes, knowing that it would be unwise to count too much on American effort. The consequence is that on the western west-ern front the allies still have a certain measure of superiority in the air, but the disaster in Picardy cost them heavily heav-ily in aviation stations and supplies. Their superiority today would be much greater than it is were it not for that disaster. The Germans, realizing that the allies have not the strength lit the air that they anticipated, are pressing the battle all along the line, hoping for a victory that will ''put out the eyes" of entente armies and thus give the Germsfns a liberty of strategic action which will permit surprise attacks on a large scale. |