Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-06

Strain and shocks of lights and noises
the American people are now subject
to will result in future race Of blind
and deaf persons with the balancing
mechanisms in the ears unable to func-
ton. according to New York scievtist.
Man will live by the sense of touch
in those days. II is dismal picture,
but somehow one feels that it is greatly
exaggerated Our city noises, our fash
airport beacons, will continue to annoy,
hut they scarcely will produce the re-
suits tie New Yorker fears.
1t is reassuring TO read such Calamity
jane predictions, flor evecy one knows
instinctively that they are merely
pretty pictures OF a possible, but not
probable, eventuaHty.
What such predictions do, in great
measure, is to call sharp attention to
are a part of the age. There is no
getting away from them. for the av-
erage person, especially II he lives in
the city.
He may console himself with the fact
that both are portions of life, and that
the more life he meets the greater
will be the noise and the more IL
lunination he will encounter III the
process. :,
II ne Is lTkeQ 10y Tie OIlc dAiA NAo-
tressed by the other he may say. 10
himself that annoyance is better than
stagnation, and that distress Is to be
preferred to q quietude which would
place him in the category Of the silent
oyster.
At the same time that he is telling
himself these pretty lies he will know
that something wholesome has gone out
Of American life. as the so-called land
perhaps not badly called machine age
gets in its work.
Quiet and darkness used to be the
nightly portions of humanity. Farms
and small country towns were the
scenes of the sharpest quiet and the
most intense darkness, but even the
larger cities had their fair share OF
both. since there were neitaec motor
cars, radios nor street lights of any
particular brilliancy.
With their characteristic tendency
to overdo everything which THEY do,
the American people have gone in 1or
every type of feasible noisemaker, on
a grand and glorious scale, so that
future generations probably vii. come
to label this age as the Age of the
noisemakers."
That this is a worldwide condition is
apparent from dispatches which come
from Berlin speaking of the incessant
noise of automobile horns which greets
the ears of the inhabitants of that city
1t is said that thu din is competitive
and not the result. of necessity.
The United States, however, no doubt
can show the entire world something
when it comes to noise far-reaching anc
widespread.
We make more. noise than all the
other nations of tie world, and we keer
it up longer. Our radios fairly blast the
hills, and word recently came from tbs
convention of radio manufacturers al
Atlantic City of a new type. of louc
speaker which, destined to revolution
lie the business, produces an output Of
sound positively not to be told from
the real band, orchestra, singer. Now
amt that sumpin', as Amos n Andy
say.
Just SO long is any product will
"revolutionize" arr art, an industry, 9
business, it makes no. difference to us
whether it will cause millions to &C
sleepless. We are, las race, in the grip
Of our fancy, as embodied in our in
ventions.
The dream of the mighty loud speaker
was written in the tinny sounding
horns of six years ago. Every step for
ward was hailed with delight, although
the sensitive fairlf writhed at the i'm
plications.
Quiet, Loving persons may
shudder at the prospect of the skies
filled with air fisvvers, the air with
fools Indifferent whether they drop or
housetops, but Progress must be served
and will be, though the heavens fall
The heavens had letter watch out, that
iS oil