Page:The Fun of It.pdf/104

84 protest duties that were levied by cruel customs men upon my purchases and my gifts!

The Friendship was sold to an American and by him later to three South American flyers who planned another crossing of the Atlantic. Their project was not fulfilled, and recently I was told that the faithful old plane has become the air force of a band of revolutionists in South America.

At Southampton Mrs. Frederick Guest, sponsor of the flight, met us. More than ever then did I realize how essentially this was a feminine expedi­tion, originated and financed by a woman, whose wish was to emphasize what her sex stood ready to do.

To me, it was genuinely surprising what a dis­proportion of attention was given to the woman member of the Friendship crew at the expense of the men, who were really responsible for the flight. The credit belongs to them and to the flight’s backer as well as to the manufacturers of the plane and motors. This thought I have tried to bring out at every opportunity.

But I happened to be a woman and the first to make a transatlantic crossing by air, and the press and the public seemed to be more interested in that fact than any other. Though palpably unfair, the circumstance was unavoidable. I think in the fu­ture, as women become better able to pull their own weight in all kinds of expeditions, the fact of their sex will loom less large when credit is given for accomplishment.