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- <text id=93HT1385>
- <title>
- Man of Year 1927: Charles A. Lindbergh
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--Man of the Year
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- January 2, 1928
- Man of the Year
- Lindbergh
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <list>
- <l>Height: 6 ft. 2 inches.</l>
- <l>Age: 25.</l>
- <l>Eyes: Blue.</l>
- <l>Cheeks: Pink.</l>
- <l>Hair: Sandy.</l>
- <l>Feet: Large. When he arrived at the Embassy in France no shoes</l>
- <l>big enough were handy.</l>
- <l>Habits: Smokes not; drinks not. Does not gamble. Eats a</l>
- <l>thorough-going breakfast/ Prefers light luncheon and dinner when</l>
- <l>permitted. Avoids rich dishes. Likes sweets.</l>
- <l>Calligraphy: From examination of his handwriting Dr. Camille</l>
- <l>Streletski, Secretary of French Graphological Society concluded:</l>
- <l>Superiority, intellectualism, cerebration, idealism, even</l>
- <l>mysticism.</l>
- <l>Characteristics: Modesty, taciturnity, diffidence (women make</l>
- <l>him blush), singleness of purpose, courage, occasional curtness,</l>
- <l>phlegm. Elinor Glyn avers he lacks "It."</l>
- </list>
- <p> Last week rumor rose that for next summer a direct flight
- to China was proposed for the first of flyers. An accomplished
- and reliable Chinese gentleman, also an aviator, sponsored the
- rumor. Skeptics pointed out that such a spectacular bid for
- Chinese good will was among the more remote problems if
- immediate statecraft. Hard-headed U.S. men, soft-hearted U.S.
- women grumblingly asked when the dangerous far-flung flight of
- Col. Lindbergh would cease.
- </p>
- <p> To date he has flown to France; Belgium; England; Mexico;
- Canada in the interests (his) of aviation progress and the
- interests (governmental) of international good will. In his own
- writings last week he pointed out the risks of flying over the
- lonely Central American mountains. Remarked dissenters: "How
- much more lonely are the wastes of the Pacific; jungles below
- the Equator; tropic waterways of the East over which he must fly
- if hid portfolio of Ambassador of Good Will is permanent."
- Grumblers wondered of interest accruing to the national welfare
- by his flights is worth the calamitous crash of principal which
- would accompany his death. Col. Lindbergh is the most cherished
- citizen since Theodore Roosevelt. Thought they: "He is worth
- keeping." One way to keep him is to keep him on the ground.
- </p>
- <p> Others argued savagely that Lindbergh must fly for his life
- in the public eye; heroes age swiftly when seated at office
- desks; argued that by his very nature he must fly.
- </p>
- <p> Unconscious of these wrangles over the national coffee
- cups, Col. Lindbergh tended to business. He climbed into The
- Spirit of St. Louis at Mexico City; nosed upward; set off for
- Guatemala, British Honduras, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua,
- Costa Rica, Panama.
- </p>
- <p> In Detroit a school teacher put by her pointer and her
- students' papers. Mrs. Evangeline Lodge Lindbergh dressed
- herself warmly and was swept southward by the propeller
- windstorm of a sturdy tri-motored Ford monoplane. One night she
- spent in St. Louis. The next day as her famed offspring in
- Mexico City was piloting on his first flight President Plutarco
- Elias Calles, the monoplane sprung to Tulsa, Okla. The third
- sunset found her in Brownsville, Texas. Next day up from the
- crowded field at Mexico City rose Col. Lindbergh in THe Spirit
- of St., Louis. Swallowed in the clouds he missed the monoplane
- which he had flown to meet. Shouts from the field of "Vivi
- Senora Leenbaire" as Mrs. Lindbergh stepped out of the Ford
- plane. She met her wandering boy an hour later at the American
- Embassy.
- </p>
- <p> En route Mrs. Lindbergh was loquacious. Previously laconic
- regarding the achievements of her amazing child she expressed
- herself to the press thus:
- </p>
- <p> "He has always been my boy. I have always loved him, been
- proud of him and thought he was the world's greatest."
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-