San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1924-03-30
RADIO MI TS'
TELL TROUBLES
TO INSPECTOR
Chicago Official Has a File
of radio Dementia"
Letters.
MOSTLY COMPLAINTS
One Woman Says Waves
Passing Through Her
Body Keep Her Awake.
NJ OSTLY COMPLAINTS
Hr j. j. NnDER.

Copyright by The San Antonio Light
Chicago. March 23.--rhe radio has
produced brand new genus nut of
the "pro bono publico." or letter writ
ing kind. Indeed, the class has be-
come 50 large that Director Bean. of
the local Department of Commerce.
radio inspectors office. today cstab-
lishcd special file for the letters
file" and is referred to as the
"drmentia radio" folder.
The letters. data and notes it con-
tains are signed by congressman. plain
folks, boarding house keepers and
religious fanatics. Several congress-
men actually have written asking.
rather peremptOrily, that the director
assign one of his expert radio adj
iuSters who incidentally do not exist
to call on so and SO. who is Il
constituent and help him set up and
adjust his receiving set
Radio Waves Through Body.
4 woman ut Omaha. Ill.,, has car
ried on quite a correspondence, in
Sisting that for two years she has
been so annoyed by radio broadcast
ings passing through her body en-
route from broadcasting station to
receiving sets that she can never
sleep until after the Elgin and Chi
cago stations have signed off around
midnight. The letters are lucid. and.
except for the peculiar mental slant
of the chief theme in them. appear
to have been written by an otherwise
perfectly sane person. One plant of
the writer was that her body. being
peculiarly receptive to radio waves.
they flashed into light sometimes AT
night in her home.
Some of the letters. of course.
plainly show the state OF mind of the
writer. but others are from men or
women who obviously are considered
perfectly sane by their neighbors and
friends. One such, from a man who
gives his address as the Army and
Navy Club of Minneapolis. complain
cd that at times he can hear that
odd whistlin" that comes over Il radio
which is imperfectly tuned in when
he is on the street at night. ana
that one car has been completely deaf
ened.
Lets Waves in Windows.
More than one boarding house
keeper has asked that this or that
paying guest" be stopped from manip-
ulating radio receiving set in his
rooms. because he keeps the windows
open for the waves to enter and lit
chills the whole house" Religious
fanatics generally demand that they
be permitted Ia broadcast prayers or
sermons. Hundreds of these requests
arrive daily at the various broadcast
inc stations around Chicago.
An interesting psychological phase
is the similarity of the so-callcd
dementia radio affliction. From the
most widely separated points have
| come letters that might have been
written by the same person. telling
infinitely and in perfect accord how
they suffer mortal pain through the
shooting of broadcasting waves
through their bodies a writer in
| Pittsburg and another in Kansas
wrote identical stories of how they
/ have suffered from disturbance of
| the ether by radio waves.
| And it is not only the letter writer
/ that piles troubles on Director Beam
| Several times daily apparently sane
! visitors get past his door boy and in
| the most normal manner pour into his
/ ear stories which are hard to believe
But he smiles placidly as he says
yes. there is lot vet tn learn about
the mystery of radio and it's all in the
days work.