The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1914-12-05

communication with the friends on the other side
of the enemy.
Homing pigeons have been used from time i'm
memorial, and they also were used at Santiago.
Today a different condition exists. AS the Ger
mans were sweeping down on Paris the operator
in Eifel tower whispered through the very air the
Germans we're breathing to convey information to
St Petersburg or Petrograd.
The swish of the wireless was unstoppable. The
Spaniards shot down the American signal men on
the embankments in front of Santiago, but the
rife bullets from the Germans could not interfere
with the wireless message as it went on its way.
One of the most wonderful developments of the
wireless telegraphy came at the opening of the Eu.
ropean war when it became possible to talk all
the way from Berlin to Long island. Germany
talked across the British fleet to her own ships
sailing the Atlantic and warned them of the
suddeA tremor
The only way to stop the wireless was to de-
stroy the operator and he was thousands of miles
away. In our last war wires were stretched all
over the fields back of the fighting men. Dis
patchers carried word from colonel to general
where there had not been time to string the
wires.
In this war wires, too, have been stretched on
the fields, pigeons still have carried messages,
dispatchers have galloped back and forth, but in
addition to all these messengers of war the fight
es all depended more on the invention of Mar
conf, the great wireless telegraph.
The wireless telegraph has proved its value
right on the field of battle. The man in the front
ranks, or the outpost miles from the headquarters,
could place himself in instant communication with
his chief. The wireless telegraph made it posi-
BILE for a German soldier fighting his way through
Belgium to talk to a German soldier defending
Alsace. 1t made 1t possible for a soldier at Brus-
sells to shout news of victory back to Berlin with
out an instant's delay.
1t made 1t possible for the French and British
to keep in communication with each other and
map out a new line of defense when the Germans
we're hurting their mighty hosts against them.
Marconi had already made himself famous be-
fore the war broke out. His invention was one
of the greatest boons to humanity because 1t
saved lives aboard ship in time of sea horror. 1t
brought rescue to the distressed and expedited
shipping. From an instrument of humanity and
peace 1t sprang to an instrument of war and ter
ror.
Like the pigeon or dove, the personifcation of
peace, 1t became an instrument Of war.
Perhaps next to the wireless stations, the most
efficient messengers OF war are the homing pig
cons. These birds, the wisest of their kind, are
employed to great advantage in English, French,
German, Austrian, Italian, Russian and Japanese
armies. Military authorities hold there is no bet
ter means for small detachments to communicate
with their headquarters nor could they want bet
ter.
On the fields of Europe the flights Of the birds
are in most instances so short that they do not
have to stop for a rest, thus preventing the mes
sages from falling into the hands of the enemy.
A pigeon in it's flight scars so high it is almost
Invisible TO the naked eye, thus IL necessltates
the use of high power guns to bring 1t to the
ground. And any man who ever makes such a
shot can well call 1t a miracle.
The king of England and the emperor Of Ger
many, as we'll as other rulers Of European nations,
have their own flying kits, and in time of peace
they enter their birds in races with birds belong
Ing to their subjects. The crowned heads deem
this royal sport.
A bird equipped for flying with a message is
encased in a bottlelike tube, the shape of its
body.
A spy puts his message in his pocket, proceeds
on his mission, quickly writes his discoveries on
small bits of paper and places them in a tube