Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-04
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.
A great inventor, great gentleman,
a great American has left us, in the
passing of Emile Berliner-scientiSt,
scholar, philanthropiSt and patriot. It
seems but yesterday that 1 saw him,
vigorously launched upon his seventy
ninth year, Enthusiastically full of
the joy of life and as invincibly deter
mined as ever to draw still further upon
his inexhaustible genius for the better
ment of mankind.
Wherever the telephone rings, where
ever the talking machine" makes
melody from its disc records, wherever
a radio set brings entertainment or in
struction through the air, wherever a
healthy babe-especially in>the District
of Columbia-croons a song OF we'll
being, there the name of Emile Berllner
deserves this day. and all days, to be
remembered and revered.
My interest in this self-taught, self
made American man of science ana
benevolence arose through my earliest
connection with broadcasting. Mutual
friends brought us together. I was TO
learn for the first time that but for
Emile Berliner's invention of the micro
phone, later more popularity known as
telephone ttansmitter, the modern
magic of the radio might never have
been achieved. Four years ago I be-
came his Boswell. The ensuing close
association acquainted me not only with
the important scientific attainments OF
Berliner in the realm of sound trans
mission. but with a character uncom-
monty enriched with the milk OF human
kindness.
Two Dominant Traits.
During the months of X-raying his
life-story for biographical purposes, l
constantly encountered two dominant
traits-his fondness of music and his
love of children. Throughout his in
ventive days, Berliner's pursuit OF his
mechanical detectives was carried on,
side by side, with his artistic and hu-
manitarian activities. He would have
been a great singer, violinist. or child
specialist had he not won fame as the
maker of the microphone and the de-
signer of the celluloid disc for rec
ords." This very Summer found Emile
Berliner hard at work on his very
latest invention -" acoustic tiles
which have already demonstrated their
capacity to increase many fold the
hearing facilities of auditoriumS, as
sembly halls, churches and theaterS.
Washington has a special interest
Of its own in Emile Berliner's carer.
Here it began-in a humble lodging
house on Sixth street. around the cor
Seventh street, where the young Ger
man immigrant, aged 10, earned his
first American living as a clerk. 1t
was in the Sixth street house that
Berliner, utterly unlettered in the
science of acoustics, tinkered with cleo
trical apparatus. He had visited the
centennial at Philadelphia and was
fired with enthusiasm over Alexander
Graham Bells telephone. Far into
the night Berliner experimental with
cellular batteries and wires, hoping IN
had accomplished, then eventually
by what he himself described as sheer
accident" stumbling across a develop
ment which was destined to lead to the
telephone transmitter.
Two years later Berliner's invention
was acquired by the Bell Telephone
Systematic great A. T. & T. of this
fabulous day-for $12,500, a sum de-
manded by the young clerk-scientist
and finally paid him, though 1t is de-
scribed in the original correspondence
as "exorbitant," because 1t represent
ed the amount of the Bell Co.'S entire
capital stock. Berliner's microphone-
transmitter supplied that exact fin
ishing touch to the Bell telephone
which 1t needed to become the perfect
and perfected thing.
Employed by Bell.
For several years after disposing of
his patents to the Bell organization,
Berliner was in its employ as chief
supervisor of its transmitter depart
ment AS youngster in the pie-belt
of Northern Indiana, recall distinctly
the stenciled trademark "Bell-Berliner"
on the wooden telephone transmitters
affixed to the wall in those early days
of the hello system.
After quitting the Bell telephone
Service-in the middle eightieS-With
what must have ranked as a comfort
able competence sor those times, Ber-
liner devoted himself to the invention
of a recording instrument, to be known
Variously as the talking machine, the
gramophone and the photograph. If
am not mistaken, scientific dictionaries
give Berliner credit not only for the
invention Of the Gramophone, but olso
for the coming of that word The
present vast Victor Talking Machine
Co. business at Camden, N. j., one OF
the prominent officials told me, could
be justly described as the creation OF
Emile Berliner. His discovery Of the
method of producing the now univer-
sally familiar and all-popular disc rec
ord, especially the method OF unlim-
tied production of it, is undoubtedly
the bedrock on which the Victor's pros
perity was built. Berliner was one OF
the heaviest individual stockholders in
the Victor corporation and in latter
years derived large income from his
interest in its various undertakings at
home and abroad The inventors pas
sion for beautiful music-a desire to
make it available to all mankind easily
and cheaply-was what led Emile Ber-
liner to toll ceaselessly toward the
gramophone and the disc record.
M and Mrs Berliner reared large
family of children. One of them,
daughter, Alice, was fragile in health
as baby Her life had been despaired
Of by physicians. Her father, as UNI
skilled in the arts of hygiene as he was
in the technique of electro magnetics
when he toyed with the telephone, an
nounced one day that he purposed TAX
ing Alice'S case in hand himself. He
prescribed her diet regulated her whole
mode Of living, experimental along a
dozen untrodden paths of child well
fare and within a year had his infant
daughter on the road to strength and
virile young womanhood, which she
personifieS to this day. r
Work Approved.
Out Of his experience with Alice,
Berliner evolved whole theory Of pro-
noting child health with pasteurized
milk as its fundamental. There were
years of duels with, and doubtings by,
the District of Columbia Medical Asso-
citation, but when the first national
conference on child care was called, the
hallmark of approval was stamped on
Berliner's work and 1t prospered syste-
maticallJ sfenceforward.
During the writing of his biography
asked him what was his chief emo
ton, on reaching New York, q practi-
cally penniless youth, knowing no Eng
lish, without relatives in this country