Evening Star Newspaper, May 5, 1929, Page 103

All Wires Lead to White House Telephone and Telegraph Pro- vision Always Adequate, With Total of Fifty-| eight Possible position of being better served with any part of the United States. Connections in| ~ . s Executive Wire| Room. BY ROBIN HOOD. Y ordering a telephone to be placed on his desk at the White House President Hoover auto-| matieally put himself in the | by telephone and telegraph than any- body else on earth. He can now get into almost in- stantaneous communication over his private telegraph and telephone system His cable connections can be joined up in a minute or two with any of the other capitals of the world. His lines, | too, are “wide open” 24 hours of the The service he gets is 100 per cent efficient. | “The line is biz-zy” is never heard | from “Central” when the President wishes to talk over the phone, and his | telegrams are always marked “Rush” and placed “on top of the pile.” The head of the greatest business and administrative establishment in exist- ence anywhere is literally at the very center of the network of millions of miles of telephone and telegraph wires and ocean cables that reach to the ut- termost_outposts of civilization. _Presi- dent Hoover can now call up London from his office desk and talk by wire- less with the American Ambassador, or gend a wire to the Isle of Yap or Yucatan, and get double-quick action every time. The President can “cut in” on the| Jeased wires of the great news-gather- ing sgencies, and thus the latest information or gossip on the course of those happenings about which he may at the moment be curious; such, for instance. as proposed tariff reprisals abroad or the maneuverings of rival rebel bands in Mexico. To run such an extraordinarily re- liable and comprehensive outfit one would expect to find a small army of operators in attendance. As & matter of fact, the White House wire room is manned by Chief Edward W. Smith- ers and four operators. This small staft is sufficient for a continuous day-and- night service. “;lnwevu, the equipment is far more impressive, consisting, &8 it does, of & switchboard and 40 telephone wires and a telegraph desk hooked up with 18 trunk lines. S 'HY so many lines? It is a matter of “safety first.” The head of the United States Government must not take chances. (m:lufles,k wmudoe:i s. floods or earthquakes may iy "moment bring down in some Dart or other on the United States one or more of these lines, and the President must never be cut off from contact With the outside world for however short a time. With 40 telephones and 18 telegraph lines at his disposal, it is felt that the President is pretty safe from the risk of ever being left ma- rooned on Pennsylvania avenue on ac- count of part of this service being “out of order.” The telégraph and telephone operators of the commerical le\pl'nld cle:cr“::: and make prompt conn 3’&3 the President wishes to talk or send a wire, He is also given the flshl of way when he has & cablegram for some distant corner of the globe. When the words “the President wishes to speak over long distance” are re- ceived at Central, the necessary wires are immediately opened for him. no matter who may be using them. The Nation's business gets the first call every time. sr){ould the President, for instance, decide to get into direct touch with the American Army or Navy ranking officer | in Shanghal, the Western Union ‘wire to San Francisco would be thrown open o him and a connection made with the Commercial Pacific Cable Co. by way of Honolulu, Midway Islands, Guam, Maniia, to Shanghal. In the same way, he could have expedited a message over any of the lvur{d's lb}(‘ u;d a half mil- lion miles of telegraph wires. In this country he has immediate ac- cess to any of the 18,000,000 telephones and 27,000 telegraph offices. He can command instant service over 37,000,000 miles of telephone wires and 1,800,000 | miles of telegraph Wires. ‘There is l‘rs.pechl call board in the ‘Washington Western Union office wateh for White House and QGovernment | business. It has 12 small lamps on it, one for the White House and the others for the big Government departments. But for the White House there is an additional lamp over the telegraph desk which is much larger than the others. When the President has something to send, the two White House lights flash out, and a special operator, who is al- ways on duty, immediately informs the wire chief of the fact, and the decks are at once cleared for action. Say the President wants to send | telegram to Denver. This is what bap- Smithers calls up the wire chief Western Union in Washington. The wire chief asks for the chief dis patcher in New York, who has entire control of the whole Western Union system, and the chief dispatcher “names” the wire between Washington and Chicago to be used. At Chicago the line is hooked-up to an “overland circuit” to Denver. In less than 10 minutes the President’s telegram is on its way Whn)( might be called “the first tele- | phone of the land” is listed as Main 6, Washington, D. C. That is the number | vou ask for it yonu want to get the| President on the phone or any of his | official family. If you should want to talk to the President or one of his secretaries, you | would have to identify yourself to (he} operator. If you have legitimate busi- ness, you would be connected with the %o | operator. a “Hello Girls” in the I handled. A section of the switchboard where all the President’s long-distance calls are THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, 1929—PART 1. E. W. Smithers the White House Joseph F. Sheahan, White House phone operator. There are no <xecutive Offices. International Photo. Photo by Temschert & PFlack. Booth used for the White House long-distance calls. Photo by Tetschert & Flack. the President’s family is known to have retired. From midnight until the day rrives for duty calls at the switchboard are handled by a House po- liceman who is on duty. ‘The switchboard is in a small room in the Executive Office Building, ad- jolning the room where the presiden- mains on duty until midnight, or until 1 tia] secretaries are located and not far | | from the President’s office. In the same | room are the telegraph sending and re- quickest manner, as there are direct|the Senate chamber. Direct connection lines to the offices, and even to the|can be made with the regular Capitol homes of the officials with whom he is|switchboard in case the White House most likely to talk frequently. Direct [ wishes to talk to any member of Con- connection can be made with the Secre- | gress in his office. tary of War, Secretary of the Treasury| Almost every room in the White {and so on. House, both in the executive offices and A direct line goes to the Capitol, ' residential quarters, can be reached from | but has not been the official presiden- sometimes uses for long-distance calls Another booth, rather larger than the average, i8 in the same room as the switchboard and is frequently used by the secretaries for long-distance calls, |celving instruments, which are used | chiefly for handling official reports. President Hoover is a believer in the efficiency of the telephone in business and originates many calls. The switch- board is so arranged as to facilitate the ' | (I telephone system ,were enlarged. * % % x |of these time-saving discoveries. BY C. MORAN. ISCOVERY of the Mediterranean truit fly in Florida has thrown the Department of Agriculture into consternation. Every re- source is being marshaled by the Federal entomologists to repel this pest, whose unchecked spread will set back the American fruit industry half a century. Just how the fly managed to elude the Government quarantine corps at coast ports is unknown; it may have come in the baggage or clothing of im- migrants, through the malils, or in ship’s stores. The Mediterrancan fruit fly occurs in many tropical and subtropical coun- tries, where it causes enormous damage to crops, including oranges, grapefruit, plums, peaches, grapes, melons, squash, beans and other products. It also at- tacks guavas, mangoes, certain cherries and many other tropical and subtrop- Ical fruits and vegetables grown in vary- Secretary to the President. or one of the assistant sectetaries. He would try to zettle whatever matters were brought up, and unless your eall was of the very greatest importance, it would get no | further than the Secretary to the Presi- | dent, or the President’s personal secre- tary. i There are persons whose calis to the President are seldom halted, such as cabinet members, some of the leaders of the House and Senate and personal friends. From long essociation, —the ! operator's recognize the voices of the | most frequent callers. They know with whom he is willing to talk, and when. Discovery in Florida Means Necessity of Marshaling Every Resource of Government in Attempt to Overcome Menace—Pest May Have Come From Hawaii—Parasites Employed in Campaign. | ing quantities in Florida and other parts | | of the United States. The pest breeds | with enormous rapidity, a siagle female | depositing upward of 600 eggs. In warm | weather there may he a new generation | every month, a fccundity which makes | possible within a single season the com- plete destruction of & crop of produce. It 15 suspected that the pest now in Florida came from Hawail, against the shipment of whose fruits and vegetables the Department of Agriculture has en- forced a rigid quarantine for many years, Immediately upon discovery of the fruit fly in Florida, Dr. C. L. Marlatt, chief of the plant quarantine and con- trol _administration, proceeded to that | State to get first-hand information of conditions and to co-operate with State officials in a campaign of eradication. The State Plant Eoard has now mobil- { ized its entire personnel, with the ex-| ception of its port guardians, in thc Aex'g N infested area. | B ; | Although the Mediterranean fruit fly | is largely a_subtropical pest, it i structively abundant over such reng the Mediterranean region of Europe and | in parts of South America, Australia and South Africa as to indicate to the Government_entomologists the proba- | more than 100,000 plants and plant | products barred from the United States on account of harboring this and other | pests being seized at Mexican border sorts alone last year. More than 50 per cent of the huge los: annually of American crops from pests and diseases is attributed to pests and diseases which have come from foreign Jands. Scme of the worst enemies of our principal crops include the Hessian , the cotton boll weevil, the alfalfa the Japanese beetle, the San Jose scale, and such plant diseases as | the wheat smut, pine blister rust, citrus canker, potato wart, chestnut blight | and many others, | , Altogether they include upward of 100 | important plant enemies and many hundreds of lesser importance, whose | board and lodging cost this Nation from | one to two billion dollars annually. ‘The San Jose scale, which was intro- duced with flowering peach from China | some 50 years ago, is now costing this country at least $10,000,000 a year for the spraying of orchards and in reduced output and value of fruit crops. Citrus canker, introduced with Jap- ancse trifoliate orange stock some 20 years ago, has cost in actual expendi- 1 bility that it wculd thrive with us at least throughout the cotton belt and | the citrus-producing regions of Califor- | nia, Arizona and New Mexico as well as Florida. The pest injures the fruit or vegetable only and does not atiack the plant. | The eggs are deposited by the adult within the host fruit or vegetable, | hatching into maggots, which feed on the pulp until full grovm. e TH!: White House wireroom men, all of whom are veterans of 20 or more years at the job, are more than mere operators. For one thing. they cam work both the telegraph and the phone They take a lot of work off the Presi-| dent’s hands, and also off the hands of the secretaries. They often transact | official business on their own responsi- bility by switching calls to heads of departments rather than bother the Chief. But while they many times “pass | the buck” in this way for the President. | they must forever be on the lookout for the Prasident’s friends or there will be trenble. Two of a‘e in GOVERNMENT SUGAR CANE EXPERT, NAMINATION OF RECENT IMPORTS. DR, €. 1. MARTATT, PLANT: i ADANTIN ISTRATIN . DIGFOTG AL OV THUE ¢'A ATG THE, MEDILWE ALEN FLY. TEDTRAT “Imately | reason that, according to Dr. Marlatt, ¢ and | 10 to 20 years may be required for a fruit | pest to develop sufficiently it is| ence to become known. been Fruit flies have frequently been inter- cepted by the quarantine inspectors, operator: | or its pres- and night | | the White ine dav énring “busincss £r4 the ather. relievipg him, re- for thn tures of Federal and State moneys in | control work approximately $3,000,000, and in the value of orchards and nur- series which have been burned to the ground in the effort to exterminate this Agricultural Scientists Gird for Fruit Fly Battle | riculture to establish a national defense | against entry of plant pests. Plant im- porters oppesed the m four years of effort get the legisla- tion through both Houses of Congress. During these four ye: in this contry, these pests including the Oriental frult worm, Japanese beetle, citrus canker, potato wart, European corn borer, camphor scale and gypsy moth in New Jersey. The primary object of the plant quar- antine act is to give authority to con- trol imports of plants and plant prod- ucts to prevent entry of pests. A list | of insects and diseased products sought to be smuggled into the United States and captured by the quarantine inspec- tors last_year fills 58 closely printed pages. The list ircludes long-tailed mealy bugs, diamond-back moths, cloudy-winged white flies, pickle worms, crazy ants, Pharoah’s ants and many mites, thrips, worms and flies of other species. Fruit in passengers’ baggage and in ships’ stores frequently contain larvae of the Mediterranean fruit fly. The fruit flies are discovered in guavas and oranges from the Azores; in avocados, coffee berries, mangoes, papayas and tomatoes from Hawaii; in oranges, peaches, pears and prickly pears from Ttaly, and in loquats from Madeira. They are found in the mails from for- eign lands by the post office inspectors, who co-operate in enforcing the agri- cultural quarantine regulations. Many measure have been taken to destroy pests by means of arsenicals and other poisons, but the devastation has increased year after year. Now the hope of the scientists is that there may be found in the countries where the pests originated species of parasites that prey upon the insects, and that these diseas2 in Florida and other Gulf States upward of $17.000.000. The Oriental the United S ries about 1911, ular demand for thi tree developed, threatcns to b> cn» of the most serious checks cn ths produc- tion of all common deciduous fruit. Al-{ ready it is known to be well established | in half a dozen Esstern States. Other | foreign pests which take enormous toil of American crops include the European | corn borer and th> cotton ball wee The plant quarantin= act of 1912 gave authority to the Department of Ag- parasites, reared in great numbers Government laboratories, may be used their hosts in this country. lentists report that to date ap- mately 100,000,000 predatory and “awr-itic insects. representing 45 spactes. Rave been found in Europe and released in the Nertheastern States to prey upon 1o gypsy moth. At least 15 of the species have become established here and are attacking the insect. Similarly, | more than 500.000 insects of 11 species, parasites which attack the Japanese Dboetle. have been imported from Japan and in the United Sta (Continued on Seventh Page.) sure and it took many pests gained entry and became established esk When President Decrees Other Business Over Needed Line Must Be Sus- pended When His Call Is Received. May Be Put in Touch With Git:- cials in All Parts of the World. Throughout #he Civil War one of Lincoln's favorite resting places was the telegraph office in th> War Dapartment. There was then no wire into the White House. In times of great suspense, dur- ing actual or impending battles, it was his practive to go informally to the office of the War Secretary and there spend hours reading the telegrams as they were received in the adjoining tel- egraph room | It was while sitting at the desk in the cipher room of the War Depart- ment, telegraph office that Lincoln wrota the first draft of the Emancipa- tion Proclamation Th= telegraph facilities in Lincoln's | time were very crude compared with those of the present day. Nowadays messages 4are handled by automatic telegraph devices which can speed as | many as eight telegrams over one wire | simultancously. Before the Civil War no Government | department, not even the War Depart« | ment, had ‘any telegraph organization. Only in April, 1861, did the American Telegraph Co.. which afterward became | part of the Western Union Telegraph Co. and whos> lines reached Washing- ton from the North, extend its wires to the War Department, Navy Yard, Ar- senal and other outlying points. There was no appropriation then to meet the expenses of a Government telegraph service, and for six months | or more the president of the American Telegraph Co. advanced the money to pav all bills, aggregating thousands of dollars for poles, wires, instruments and salaries. It seems hard to believe nowadays but_the first tidings of the capitulation of Vicksburg to Gen. Grant did not reach the President for a week. It was not unusual for the first announcement of & battle raging. “tapped hot from | the wires” on its way north to som- New York newspaper. to reach th- | President through its Washington cor- respondent. * % * N the war with Spain, President Mc- Kinley, for the first time in historr. realized in practice the constitutional provision that the President not only shall be. but is. the commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United | states. At all times, from the first warlik~ movement of troops from their hom= stations during the long term of un- broken peace, the President, as com- mander in chief, was within tap of the telegraph button. Such facilitles of practically instan' communication between the commander in chief and the active fighting forces of a nation were then not only abso- lutely new but novel in the art of war. ‘The “war room” in the southeastern corner of the second floor of the Executive Mansion will always hold a pre-eminent place in the history of the stirring events of 1898. Before the out- break of hostilities this apartment was devoted to the peaceful routine of executive administration, devolving in detail upon John Addison Porter, secre- tary to President McKinley. The necessity of being constantly in intercourse with all parts of the countrv early became apperent to the President and those about his person and subjec! to his convenience in the transaction of | public business. In order to bring the President int~ | direct contact with the requiremen'< of the situation. Secretary Porter, Co! Bingham, United States Engineers, an”’ | Lieut. Col. Montgomery. United State | Signal Corps, at a conference at th | Executive Mansion projected a compre- hensive scheme of wire and cable con- nections with the systems of the commercial companies. To secure the necessary isolation of the telegraph from the clerical routine of the executive office, Secretary Porter vacated the apartment which he had occupied. Col. Bingham rearranged the connections outside of the mansion, bringing them in contact with the in- struments within. There had existed in the room across handling of the President's calls in the | connecting with a booth convenient to | the switchboard. There is a booth just | tial booth since about 13 years ago, when | the corridor a switchboard arrangement outside the President's office which he|the White House Office Building and | with the systems of the great telegraph | lines of the country for the transaction | of ordinary business by relay through | the central offices of the city. This T was some time after the telegraph | crude method, though inconvenient at and telephone had been invented be- It was originally bullt for President Taft, | fore the White House took advantage|the dav; but when war became inevi- times, answered the requirements of table, facilities of direct communication equal to the exigencies of the new con- ditions were demanded. A new switchboard accommodating 20 wires was “connected up single and cuplex” for telegraph purposes. The French and English cables, in addition to the regular wires of the commerical mpanies and press associations, con- necting with the Executive Mansion | thus brought the President in direct and constant communication with every | part of the United States and the rest |{of the world. A “cable box,” with accommodations for 15 telephone wires, placed the Pres- ident in official intercourse, separate and distinct, with the Senate and House of Revresentatives at the Capi- tol; also with each of the eight execu- tive departments, a special wire leading direct to the desks of the respective | chiefs, the latter beln? recorded tele- | phonically each under its own number. | President Coolidge, as mentioned, had 40 telephone wires at his disposal. e RESIDENT HARDING was the first Chief Executive to employ the tele- phone extensively to transact his daily j routine business. His predecessor, Mr. Wilson, seldom used the service, and the White House operators had instruc- | tions never to ring him. Roosevelt did {not_continue the precedent set by Mr. McKinley, using the telephone only in |an emergency. President Taft, how- | ever, found it a great convenience. | _The President leads an existence which is every moment in the full glare | of publicity and yet is so strangely iso- | lated. He must make important de- }dsions‘ and he should be at the White House proper or in the office, or “on the line.” practically all working hours. The availability of the President to his { cabinet and to members of Congress is of the utmost importance. Decisions can then be quickly made. Our Government is the biggest busi- ness in the world. Our President rep- resents in his own person more author- ity and responsibility than are centered in any other human being. The President is both the nominal and the real head of this stupendous cstablishment. His piace is that of the sovereign who reigns and of the ruler who actually governs. Every admini trative policy is subject to his dete; mination. He conducts our foreign re- lations. He is comander-in-chief of the Army and Navy. ‘Thanks to the extraordinerily efficient White House telephone end telegraph service, the President is not only “Johnny on the Spot” from “9 to 6.” but also during the whole of the re- maining 24 hours. | |