The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-12-24
By Associated Press

By Associated Press
 New York, December 23.-President Harding, who set record for long distance oratory on Armistice Day by addressing simultaneously three great throngs of more than 100000 persons. gathered at Arlington Ma tional cemetery. San Francisco and New York, may easily find himself talking to an audience running high into the millions and scattered through every state in the union, be- fore he leaves the White House.
 Indeed, says R. W. King, one of the American Telephone and Tele- graph company engineers. whose work on the loud speaking device made possible the ushering in of a new epoch in space annihilation at the ceremonies over the bier of Amer ica's unknown soldier. 1t is we'll within the range of possibility that President Harding may see the day when a President can sit at ease in the White House and talk at once u CNCIS tiASf lON II dilh hdilltI III tue United States that is tapped by tele- phone wires.
 An audience of 5o.oOo, 900, perhaps; or 100. 000,0
 They don't even blink at figures like that-these telephone company engineers. For ability to look, un- abashed, into the faces of a column of ciphers. marching in threes across great open white spaces, is one of the prerequisites even to thinking about that marvellous contrivance, the cleo trical amplifier, of which the loud speaking device is only one in long list of practical applications.
 Slightly Multiplied
 For instance, the electrical current that carried President Harding's fu- neral oration to the crowds at Ar lington. San Francisco and New York was multiplied a large number of times before it rolled out, converted into great sonorous sound waves, over the heads of three audiences
 It took 5000, 100000, 100000 ann plifications to convey the oration and the other ceremonies to San Fran cisco so that they could have been heard through an ordinary telephone receiver. Then they had to be amA plified million million times by the loud speaking device.
 A mere ten million billions-10, ,000,- 900, 900. 900, 900 - of amplfications were necessary to bring the ceremo- nies out clear and strong in New York. Ten thousand were used to bring the ceremonies here, and a mill lion million to raise them to audibil- ity for the New York audience.
 The other million million amplifi- cations were used to carry the Pres f1aY. .rf,. 4. A,.lf T
 By providing a few more scores of thousands of miles of wire, some thousands of loud speaking devices and a few foolscap sheets filled with tiny ciphers indicating more amplica- tions, the entire country might hear future public ceremonies, MT. King said.
 A Simple Matter
 It would be relatively simple, he declared, to set up equipment in the capitals of the AS states through total of 7,200, 0,000-could hear a cere- mony in Washington or elsewhere as distinctly as if they were seated within a few yards of the speaker.
 Canned" music. too. faces a po- tential rival in the loud speaker. It would be as simple to connect the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House up with the nation at large as to connect a President, once the equipment was set up.
 Telephone engineers say the Armi- stice Day experiment proved that music could be reproduced over the wire circuits at least as purely as it is reproduced on the best phono- graph records. and that it will be matter of but a few years when the O nf lliC ring will hA eliminated.
 MT. King believes it will be but short time, too. until all the prln- cipal public halls and large univer- sity auditoriums are equipped at least with local loud speakers. These he pointed out could easily be switched in on long distance circuits carrying public addresses and similar events from other cities.
 AmpIifer Not New
 While the loud speaking device is a development of the last two years the amplifier, which made it possible. i has been in widespread use. piling up ciphers unseen on every long dis tance telephone line in the country, since the transcontinental circuits were opened in 1915. A long distance call from New York to San Francis co involves 400. 1000, 900. 100000 ampli- fications. The number of amplifca- tions necessary between any two points depends not only upon the distance but upon the nature of the circuit.
 But the principle of the amplifier l is not limited to telephonic use. It is a fundamental of radio and wire telegraphy; of radio telephon- irg; of all long distance electrical signaling. It was the amplifer that picked up during the war water vibrations caused by enemy submarines and ] translated them into sounds by