New-York tribune., 1921-10-23

ksX 7Es. Lowell, that's pretty fair
n Joke-now that you've explained
~ 1t to me-" admitted the editor Of
a we'll known humorous magazine,
"but don't believe many Of our readers
: would get it. Do you know anybody who has
!. any of those things in his homer"
Anybody who owns phonograph? Why,
certainly have one myself, and SO have
number of my friends
"You don't say! Well, have never had
one nor felt any desire for one. And |
can't remember seeing or hearing any of
the squawkers in the houses visit. No,
Lowell, that Joke strikes me as being too
special, too technical, for the general public
II would hardly do for our magazine
Incredible as 1t sounds to-day, this CONVEX
saton took place less than ten years ago. At
the present writing no editor-certainly not
keen one, like the late j. A. Mitchell
would turn down good joke about talking
machine on the ground that monographs and
records are things outside the ordinary per-
sons experience. In this decade a phe-
nomenal change has occurred. Music in
ready-to-play form has become part Of Ameri-
can life
But though this Transformation is so as
founding that virtually everybody has felt it's
influence not many people realize quite how
enormous fact the talking machine art in
dustry has grown to be. It is almost startling
. to learn, for example, that during the year
1920 between 100000 and 1000 900 phono
graphs were made and sold, and that the
combined output Of the various record press
ing plants averaged at least 100000 records
day---in certain rush times running close
30 100000, The annual statistics for needles
run well into the billions
And the public absorbed this vast output
despite the fact that when the year started
there we're already millions of monographs
N American homes.
That the taste Of the entire world would
oe profoundly affected and that the United
states would become a nation Of music fans
Was never dreamed of by the early inventors.
"A.
spoke the momentous words "Mary had q
little lamb into the horn of his machine
and the crude tinfoil record gave back those
words in squawky answer the possibilities Of
MS discovery were too great for even him to
grasp. Ills thought then was to develop an
Instrument which would record and reproduce
IN human speaking voice-something for use
as substitute for shorthand in business Of
fees and courtrooms. He pictured q trial
scene in the future when the testimony of
witnesses would be taken not in mere code
writing but in actual sound, reproducing the
speakers tone Of voice and hesitancy or
rwardness-indications of fear or
other emotions That in itself was a big
vision which may yet be realized.
While to Edison belongs full credit for the
invention OF the first phonograph and for
various subsequent improvements. other ex
perimenters, working Independently, evolved
devices and processes which have made his
tory. One of these pioneers was brother of
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor Of the tele-
phone. He and his partner, John Painter. in
vented method Of engraving sound records
in waxlike material and also a method of
making duplicates by means Of metaa mods
Later came Emil Berlner. John W. Jones
and Eldridge r. Johnson, each with impor-
AN. innovations. AS all these men and Others
were working toward one goal--the ideal rec
"a, ideally made and played on the ideal
,nachinc---it was inevitable that controversies
should occur Companies such as the old
Zonophcne Company, which many people still
remember, have arisen and collapsed; but so
far IS the general public is concerned only
one thing matters: This great art industry has