Omaha daily bee., 1903-06-07
DOOM OF The STENOCRAPRER
Talking Machines Menace the Business Oi
the Short Hand Artist.
CRACK OF DOOM FOR QUAIL TRACKS
of Recording Machines
Realised By Court Reporters
Market Already OvercrOwded
with stenOgraphers.

Market Already OvercrOwded
with stenOgraphers.
Keen competition in every trade, every
field of labor and even in the very arts Is
always felt among the average, but at the
top" of every line of endeavor always sur
wives an envied minority which serenely
holds it's own, seemingly safe from the
fierce struggle of the many and well forti-
fed to meet every device and invention of
mechanical science to replace individuals,
whether they stand for ideas, theories, facts
or control the agencies OF produce or ma
ture.
AT the top of one profession at least, or
subprofession, a stoical bow to the inev-
liable is in order where the competition has
not been felt. as 1t has been lower down in
the ranks. This is the stenographic pro-
fession.
Only a few years ago in New York an
expert and experienced stenographer could
make more money with his notebook and
pencil than In any other business which can
be engaged in without much outlay of cap
ital. Stenography is seriously practiced as
an art by the court stenographers, the men
who are under oath to take down and
transcribe correctly every word that drops
from the bench, bar witness box. In
turn these men, until recently, dictated the
minutes of their cases to the equally ex-
pert amanuenses and typewriters. And this
was a field of strenuous stenographic oper-
ations, in It's significance known to but few
outside of the legal profession. Here only
great skill and intelligence are of account;
and to attain to the necessary expertness
required more than ordinary SKILL quickness
and training, this fact alone limiting tho
number of competent ,ones. And after the
necessary training of years to become thor
oughly proficient a competent person could
always find plenty to do among the busy
court reporters, always anxious to get out
their cases expeditiously and WELL and the
demand for such trained assistants was
often in excess Of the supply.
Introduction of the PhOnoErnph.
But now up at the once apparently unas-
sailable top" a revolutionary little ma
chine has changed the aspect of this once
Ell Dorado of lightning workers. This has
been effected by heartless, soulless, but
neat looking small yellow box. 1t is at
tached by piece Of wire to electric power
that turns a roller that carries around and
around a wax cylinder; tube placed over
this carries the .dictators voice and words
words which, as soon as uttered are
engraved on to the wax cylinder, which
repeats them at any rate of speed at the
will of an operator" (1esh and blood this
time), who transcribes them on the type
writer This is Miss Commercial Talking
Machine, alias Photograph, alias GRAPHIC
phone.
This invention has put the expert amanu-
ensis "out of court" before he got there
to which literal destination all the intelli-
gent male asSafants aspirad opd fro,,,
whose ranks nine-tenths of the best court
reporters of today were recruited. For only
through such training, under a practical
court official, writing out his cases from
his dictation, was graduated his fully
equipped successor. Nowhere else can the
necessary training be acquired.
But now that Miss Talking Box is on the
scene, and is here to stay, shorthand. so
widely used in its day. will in a few years
become, II not a lost art, at least a rare
art. This prediction is made at time
when the market seems overcrovded with
hundreds of applicants to each and every
one of the thousands of positions where
stenogrnphers are called for, for even tho
average will be ousted by this same ma
chine, for 1t repeats exactly what is die
tated to 1t, never makes ''pi" out of SEN
tences, except when an illiterate employer
talks into 1t, and the twenty stenograph-
ers who will be replaced by the one "oper-
ator' like poor Lo, must move on"
Machine Never Gets Tired,
The court reporters themselves, some of
whom have spent more than two score
years debating their notes to intelligent
amanuenses, find the recording machine a
most convenient helper. They say it never
gets tired or Independent in manner, is not
afraid NJ
out lunch or supper when crowded for
time and has no oppressive or distractine
personality (as the case may be- to obtrude
itself between the questions, answers OBJ
1ections and rulings which make UP the
court records of cases. The reporter can
now sit up all night with his trusty ma
chine, unburdening his hundreds of folios
into her waxy breast, and no questions
will be asked by his wife as to whether
the typewriter is young, pretty bright or
what not; and he will not be nagged at
because, unawares, he has betrayed fhe
fact that she possesses alluring black or
tender hazel eyes, for the Operator" now,
who takes the dictation straight from the
cylinders. will no longer have to sit along
side OF her employer. He can shut himself
up alone with the machine and will not
even have to exchange the days greetings
with Miss Minnie Brown She can after.
ward go alone into the room and just tran
scribe the voice and send the finished work
I'm by the office boy.
There is little heavy tragedy, however
for "the pretty typewriter in all this. Be
low those suspiciousy wicked raven locks
or Titan tresses are shoulders which have
carried heavy burdens, and some of these
busiest of busy workers have been the
breadwinners of families carrying others
burdens as we'll as their own. Cheerfully
Fastening back and forth, making IL" and
trolley connections between perhaps a little
Harlem fiat and the dingy business office
at all hours of the day and night-such
were the demands of the business; but no
other field OF labor offered reward sufficient
to cover the expenses of one ct al Now
these are on the outside; Miss Wind-up
Talking Machine within.-New York
Herald.