Evening Star Newspaper, November 17, 1929, Page 83

FRST BROADCAST | CVEN N CAPTAL Initial Complete Air Program Radioed From Trinity Church in 1919. BY EDWIN FAIRFAX NAULTY. To Washington belongs the credit | and hondr of being the birthplace of | the radio program of diversified ele- ments, easily proven by the files of the Washington newspapers of August, 1919. The actual birthspot was Trinity Church, Third and D streets; the time, from 8 to 10 o'clock, Sunday, August 24, 1919; the parent, it had only one, was the writer; the godparent was the United States Signal Corps and the infant prodigy was christened “The Voice of the Air.” The presentation of the first radio program was not the casual result of accident nor a gradual development, but was carefully thought and worked out to combine vocal and instrumental speech, both of run- ning explanation of the features pre- sented and the oral features themselves; electrical space broadcasting and dircct Joud speaker broadcasting at the same time, and interstate air coverage over the District, Virginia and Maryland. ‘The first radio program was heard by every crystal set in Washington at “Graham "THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, McNamee Speaking—” FRIEND of mine who is given to occult research, and who, in- cidentally, came from the County ‘Wexford, Ireland, once told me solemnly that radio was distress among the “little fol they lived within the range of vibrations. and that while the wave im- pulses did not come to them as sound. they were most disturbing and has caused the migrations of many fairies to remote places. I had supposed that this friend was the only person in the world who was thinking about this, but here today is a letter from Gavin Dis- hart, a coal miner, who says some of his mates are worrying about radio driving ;.:’; ‘Tommy Knockers” out of the es. Text of Dishart's Letter. i I reproduce Mr. Dishart's letter, post- | marked Wilkes-Barre, Pa., as an in- | tensely interesting document: Dear Mac: You have a good Scotch name, 50 I am sure you will be giving a bit of your valuable time to hearing about something that is causing a deal of bother and argu- ment among the lads in the coal mines. There is a Cornishman called ‘Walter Andrew who has a great store of knowledge about the Tommy Knockers. These little creatures are kind-hearted little people, and they will give a man warning of a cave-in or an erplosion by tapping on the face of the shaft. Sometimes we coal miners think we haven't a friend that time that was capable of “listen- ing A" by 2,500 persons in Trinity Church, all of whom saw the installa- tion used: by about 15000 persons crowding the streets adjacent to the church, by many persons scattered throughout the city, who heard the program as conveyed through wires from microphones placed near the altar to four loud speakers installed in the south steéple of Trinity; on board the Mayflower, cruising down the Potomac that hot Summer night; st Arlington and by the owners of radio sets oul- side - the District. who phoned in acknowledging their reception that night and Monday. _Service Not Religious. Although Trinity Church was used for the purpose the service was not a religious one. It was the cencluding evening of Trinity Forum, which h-fi been organized to discuss cnd debate the treaty of peace with Germany and the League of Nations by Senators away from the limitations of the Sen- ate chamber and which had continued discussion ‘of other public questions, the one under consideration on the night of the radio broadcast being, “Thc High Cost of Living.” Although the files of the Washing- ton newspapers from August ©0 to August 25, 1919, today show the fore and subsequent reports of the broad- casting, while the Associated Press and other press associations carried the story in their dispatches, and with the exception of the late Vice President, ‘Thomas R Marshall, all those who participated are still alive to give lively Witness, it may be well to quote di- rectly from The Sunday Star of Au- gust 24, 1919, which, under the head- ing, ‘‘Device Will 'Spread Marshall Speech—H. C. L. Address Tonight to Be Flashed Over Wires,” also printed, in part, as follows: “Science will serve as the handmaiden of economy tonight,when an address by Vice President Marshall at the Trinity 'Clvic Forum will be sent all over the city by the new ‘great voice’ apparatus for magnifying sound, and will at the same time be flashed to more distant points by means of the less telephone and telegraph.” ‘Radio had not yet fully supplanted ireless” as a term. There were no “radio editors” in those days and the Teporter was struggling to explain the perhaps confusing combination of radio broadcasting, audition in person within the church edifice and amplification by the apparatus used between the altar and the loud speakers in the steeple and the open telephone connecting the restrum and Arlington wireless station. ‘The article after further explanation continues: “The Forum will begin with Secre- tary Fairfax Naulty issuing the call by the ‘great voice,’ the carrying power of ‘which will be determined somewhat by electrical and atmospheric conditions (we had and knew “static” and “fs o even in those far-back days), but which will make the ‘voice of the speaker audible within most of the District of Columbia, it is sald. Fairfax Naulty will call all citizens of Washington to attend the program by giving attention :': tg!ir homes or wherever they ay be. Music Precedes Address. “Dr. Covell (the rector of Trinity Church) will then read the Eighth Psalm, the congregation will sing ‘On- ward, Christian Soldiers.” A cello solo, ‘The Palms’; a cornet solo, “The Holy City’ and the playing of Gounod's “‘Sanctus’ on the pipe organ will follow in turn, afiar which the Vice President will speak. “The entir® program will be magni- fled by means of the ‘great voice,’ and it is expected that the 'cello solo will be particularly pleasing, as the vibra- tions will be taken directly from the bridge of the instrument and not from the air, as will be necessary with the other numbers. Maj. Gen. George O. Squier, chief signal officer of the War Department, has co-operated with Mr. Naulty to make the transmission of the program a success and the actual work (of in- stallation of the apparatus) has been in charge of Lieut. Col. Paddock, a ephew of Gen. Pershing. who has been decorated by the French government for bravery.’ The program was given as announced and was reported fairly in the morning and evening newsoapers of the follow- | ing day. and the event passed into his- tory. "With the exception of its orig- inator and Maj. Gen. Squier, few per- sons realized that the affair was epochal and that, as the writer and Gen. Squier agreed in discussicns prior to the event, “the day is coming soon in’the world, but we always know that the Tommy Knockers are look- ing out for us. Many's the life that has been saved by these wee things with their knocking. Well, this Wal- ter Andrew is rumping water out of an old sump, when along comes an- other big Cousin Jack and says the companies ought to put radio in every level of the mine, so we could have music when we were working. Walter Andrew stops pumping and looks as if he would be at the other man’s throat. “Would ye drive out the few Tommy Knockers we have left?” he yells. “With all this squealing and blathering coming t through the earth, it's bad enough for them as it is. With one of these radio boxes, with its great din filling the mine, how could we hear them knocking, even if they weren't panicked and driven away? The day would come when ‘we'd all be caught In a cave-in, with never a word of warning from the little people.” ‘The other man was strong-headed, and we had to tear them apart and quiet them as best we could. Since then there has been such a great bellowing and arguing among the men that three times the pit boss has had to stop it. Yesterday a powder monkey stole the picks of two of them to keep them from bashing each other with them. To have a bit of peace, it was thought best that I write you. And ‘would you be interested to tell us if there be likelthood that the radio could come into the great blanket veins where the Tommy Knockers hide and cause them worriment? Respectfully, GAVIN DISHART. Being somewhat unschooled in both coal mines and Tommy Knockers, I do not feel quite up to this. Perhaps we | should make it an open forum. Can any one tell what the radio is doing to the “little people,” particularly the Tommy Knockers? Thanksgiving Program Elaborate. Speaking of the “little folk” and folk tales in general, the Thanksgiving day broadcast of electrically recorded folk music of nine countries be one of the most interesting radio events of ;hs year. ‘Lhmc"o‘?l ‘were gathered y & spec n s penetrating into remote places in Eu- rope. They were gathered by portable sound apparatus in England, Germany, France, Scotland, Italy, Austria, Hun- gary and the Balkans, and also include the native music of the United States. It will be & two-hour pi , broad- cast by 38 stations. As it is electrically recorded, a national network will not be necessary for the broadcasting. Think of & quaint old song, such as that Yorl song, “To Be.a Farmer's Boy,” bel picked up magically and sent the world hundreds of years after the boy learned to “reap and sow, to plough and mow”! Perhaps Mr. Gavin Dishart’s Tommy Knockers and the other little folk are just becoming peevish over this competition in magic. Nothing which these old folk tales re- cord seems more miraculous than this business of wafting them to millions in far countries on the air waves. Announcer Scorns Financial Tip. A few weeks back, when the market was beginning to lurch, just before the big slide, I heard a story that a certain radio operator had been offered some vast sum by a Wall street buccaneer to | announce false quotations at a ‘critical time to start a slump and enable the bears to clean up. The brave announcer scorned the offer, and the market slumped on its own account. The story sounded like tank melodrama, and such inquiry as I found it possible to make convinced me that it was. It did, how- ever, touch up the extremely important role which radio now plays in the big market doings. I am informed that from 12,000,000 to 15,000,000 persons were in on this recent stock excitement. Many of them were getting quotations from the radio. Unquestionably quick and concerted stock movements are the result of this national dissemination of market news. I received a letter from C. L. Hartley, doing some Fall shooting up near Danbury, Mass, in which he said he had been saved from the loss of ood slice of his fortune by getting i radio market news in his shack in the woods. He was able to keep in- con- tinuous touch, and wired his brokers to sell with the first ominous beginning of the slide. Test in Broadeasting Mausie. Leopold Stokowski, receiving thou- sands of letters about his symphony concerts of October 6 and November 3, when wireless sets far beyond anything we now have will be as common as motor cars now are,” hence not a great to-do was made over the matter, It was not forgotten, either by par- ticipants or oral or “wireless” auditors, but lay in abevance—an accomplished | and while commercial eommunication | fact awaiting commercial application | between shore and shore and ship and | and gencral usage. All the material ue>d was from the United States Sig- | 2 nal Corps’.cquipment, the best in the Jand then, with the exception of the loud speakers, which were furnished by a San Francisco maker. Receiving sets, pt military, naval and communica- tions corporations, were crude affair: ut all those in use near Washington istened in.” Relay Plans Arranged. Arrangements were made to rebroad- cast or relay the ‘program throu Arlington in an effort to get it to Secre- tary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, then at sea on the way to Hawaii, and a spe- cial telephonic ‘installation’ was made which was held open, and which would relay the program across the Potomac to Virginia to the Arlington Station from the altar. This was part of my plan for the program, but whether it was actually done or not I have never ascertained. Vice President Marshall was much impressed with the function. He stressed, in his talk that night, the translation of both Greek and Latin texts of Luk~. {l14. “Pax inibus bonae voluntat as “Peace on earth to men of good will,” instead of the more common “Peace on carth and good will to men,” and when later I -got him to write this for me I gave point to it by citing Gens. Squier, Saltzman and Col Paddock, Bishop Harding, Rev. Dr Covell and others as “men of good will” who had helped me start what I be- lleved to be a means of peace through world-wide exchange and distribution ©f ideas by means of space radio. viwuu apeeches and music discusses the technical requirements and possible future improvements in broad- casting music from large instrumental | broadcast before our program was given | shore had been established, our broad- | cast was the first ever made of a com- { plete “program,” announcer and every | thing, and it was not until November, 11921, that KDKA began its broadcast- |ing. So Washington leads Pittsburgh |and the world by more than two years, and I can legitimately claim to be the dean of all radio program announcers as well as the originator of the varied radio program, with vocal, instrumental and oral features. | But if it had not been for the interest of the staff of the United States Signal Corps and the permitted use of their apparatus, of the liberal view taken of the matter by Bishop Harding and Dr. Covell in allowing the use of Trinity Church for Trinity Civic Forum, and the transformation of the space below tha altar into a rostrum by ths inter- position of an American flag between the chancel rail and altar, by the vol- untary contributions of the auditors that night to Trinity Forum to help meet the expenses incurred, by the dignity given the afflir by the presence of the Vice President of the United States on that occasion and his active participation in my plan for an inter- | state broadcast by radio telephone transmission for re-broadcast, oral a dition in lieu of a radio program would have been a technical layout without practical application. Perhaps those of us who participated day form a ploneer organization. We passed our tenth radio birthdate last August and so are rapidly growl.nfl up from crystal sets, or no sets at all, to multiple tubes, super-ultra, dynamics as functionaries and auditors will some | assemblies. This and other incidents have pointed to the rapidly approaching day when the man in the monitor’s booth will be a combination of techni cian and musician. The monitor con- trols volume. While he now works ef- fectively by signals from the conductor, seen through the glass door of this | soundproof booth, ~ his performance | would be vastly improved if he himself | were a musician, so he could control | volume, not mechanically in response to signals, but quickly and instinctively as |'a” musician sensitively following the | score. With all its splendid achieve- ments to dlt!,‘ I‘l’dlol is l:ln{umm{: t ess in just such af en! 5"‘:n3,'°"mm orchestra leaders are learning something almost every day about the placing of instruments and the arrangement of microphones. New orchestra compositions of strings, wood- winds and brasses are being studied. As the technicians acquire musical pro- ficlency the radio millennium will be approached. McNAMEE'S QUESTION B m McNamee receives a great deal of ut each week he will publish the an- 0se questions holding the & t est. Al qu be accompanied by mp dressed envelope and addressed to G cNamee, in care of this Dewspaper. make qour fons brief. Q. When was the radio first used to broadcast _election returns?—Mrs. Carl Hershey. Columbus, Ohio. A. When the victory of Warren G Harding was broadcast, November 2, 1920. Returns were sent out from sta- tion KDKA, at East Pittsburgh, with Dr. Frank Conrad, one of the ploneers of broadcasting, at the microphone, It was recelved by crystal sets with phones, as this was before the day of the loud speaker. Q. I was much interested in the re- cent radio broadcast of the life story of Franz Liszt. It seemed to me to be splendidly done. Can you tell me whether this is the beginning of a series of biographies of great musicians, and whether the life of Mozart has ever been put on the air?—Willlam Meyer~ bach, Syracuse, N. Y. raham Please raphy has ever been given in detail, although his compositions frequently have been prefaced %‘;‘- few short notes about his career. I know of no definite plan for any biographical series, but occasional blographies will be given. were appreciated and turned over to our program director. Q. When will the annual report of the Federal Radio Commission be made public?—W. H. B., Baltimore, Md. A. Probably the first week in De- cember. ment, and, if so, what is the present status of the negotiations?—R. G. Freund, Cleveland, Ohio. A. It already has been given the final approval by the Reichpost Minis- terfum of Germany. Three programs a day will be exchanged between the Na- tional Broadcasting Co. and the Deutsche Rundfunk Gesellschaft of Ger- many. News events and music of spe- cial interest to the two countries will transmission has been erected in Ger- many, Koenigswusterhausen, Q. Is Virginia Ray, the radio singer, Mrs. Edgar F. Ray of Boston, who ap- peared in light opera several years ago? —Ella. C. Empson, Scitus Mass. A. No. Miss Ray is a native of Louis- ville, Ky. While still in her early twen- tles. she has sung in operatic roles, in- cluding Gilda in “Rigoletto.” She is a writer of lyr}tz‘:s GET THE NEW STEWART.- WARNER RADIO AT GIBSON’S 917 G St. N.W. 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