Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-26

The article in this column the other
day on the true function of the radio
set as we see it--or would it be. better
to say hear it?-stirred up the fans
to response, heated and otherwise.
We were pleased to discover that the
set owners, almost to a man, agreed
with our main contention that "a
modern radio set is, after all, musical
instrument. Before ALL" we had con-
tinued. lit is musical instrument. Its
distance-getting abilities help make it
the wonder it is, but they are not es-
sential to its complete enjoyment as a
musical instrument. The basis of
popular radio is and must continue to
be music"
One of the most interesting of the
letters received was from one whose
words have been read in print many
times and whose voice has been heard
over radio He said:
Dear Author of This and That:
so you appreciate music. but see no
reason why a radio listener should seek
distance? Unless, forsooth. to sustain
the impression that whatever he pur-
chaSeS must be at the peak of its re-
spective class
And you a newspaper man, also,
with enough imagination to humanize
your cat by the column! I mean no
reflection on the cat.
when The Evening Star ceases to
print date line, when its news range
is bounded by the Potomac River and
the three District lines. when human
beings stop wondering what is beyond
the horizon-then, only then, will dial
twisters be satisfied with an effective
range of so miles
Eyes, your radio instrument is a
musical instrument for local stations
only Also it is something else. 1t is
a sort of magic wing which will set you
down in Texas where plaintiVe PLAN
tation hand sings about Forty Cent
Cotton and Ninety Cent Meat which
is not music, but tells the story of what
the farmer thinks about better than any
of the press agents in Washington
that have heard
And did you not, the other evening.
get aboard the special train for ride
through Cascade Tunnel, hear that en-
gines weird blast as it emerged and
went crunching away on a new route
where travelling statesmen will play
bridge and f1apperS will read in the OBJ
servation car unconscious that they are
benefciarieS of higher mathematics
anu ohhAs ASSt hAiN" SAAAt
came over local, but don't bubble.
Come, now, take a whirl some eve
ming around by the Cuba station, with
the music that reminds you of a quaint
old Spanish costume; swing over to
Minneapolis where it becomes plain
that a fractional point in the wheat
quotations means bread and butter to
thousands of farmers: listen to Denver,
with a Jazz orchestra pounding on the
welkin of the aloof Rockies; come
hcmeward by way of Toronto, with
some French Canadian schoolboy chorus
singing 'Allouette,' the most stirring
folk song on this continent.
Think, then, a moment; it is all
there in your room. These genii of
the ether, these constant tides of cleo
trical notes tyou will note that am
not being technicaD waiting to Zoom
upon your tympani at a twist of your
wrist. They are always there. Other
things than stations are broadcasting /;
thousands of power houses, thousands
of street cars; hundreds of the phe-
nomena of civilization which, while we
are in front of that radio, we curiously
classify as disturbances and when
old Nature herself takes a hand, then
we call it static.
And out of that messy jargon of
the ether, which is as hypothetical as
DR.. Austin Clark's new theory of Gre
alton, we yank, by means of a queer
tube which, as the Scotchman said,
doesn't throw off enough light to read
a newspaper by, touch of old New
Orleans, a queer dialect from a neigh
Dor island. a snatch of a foreign Ian
guage from an exotic people, a frag-
ment OF loving message sent by some