LAST OF AN AIRSHIP DREAM.
Suit Is Filed for Non-Compliance
With Anti-Trust Laws.
Dreams of airship fame and their crumbling may be read between the lines of a suit filed yesterday in the circuit court against the Shultz Airship Manufacturing Company. It is a perfunctory matter, in no wise different from the 405 others which were brought against Missouri corporations which have failed to make anti-trust affidavits to the secretary of state.
The Shultz airship was the creation of George D. Shultz, an insurance man, who now lives in Independence. At the time of the company's incorporation his residence was Westport. His flying machine was the first attempt in this part of the country to solve the problem of heavier-than-air machines, a type which does not depend upon a balloon to give it buoyancy.
In the company were also Frank Pelletier of the company bearing his name and J. M. Cleary, attorney, who drew the papers. There were others, too, but their names have been forgotten.
Shultz worked for a long time on his airship, but when it was nearly completed two of the men who had supplied a large part of the funds and were looked towards for more, died. No more money being available, the project had to be left as it was.
It was in 1903 that the company was formed. Since the funds ran out it has practically ceased to exist. So there is little matter, say some of the incorporators, if the state declares forfeited a charter which now is of no value.
"There were a number of inquiries for the machine when it was announced that it was building," said one of the incorporation yesterday. "Had it been completed and turned out all right, the honor of imitating the bird's flight would have brought fame to Kansas City and Shultz, not to the Wrights and Delagrange, Ohio and France.
