Evening star., 1932-05-13
RITES TOMORROW
TO HONOR MORSE.
President Hoover to Open
Ceremonies Marking Ami
versary of Telegraph.

The room at the Capitol from which
Samuel F. B. Morse sent the first tele-
graph message will be the scene to-
morrow of exercises commemorating
the Tooth anniversary of the conception
of the electric telegraph.
President Hoover will open the
program, which is to be broadcast inter-
nationally, with a message relayed at
1870 o'clock when he throws a switch
at the White House, setting modern
electric typewriter in motion.
The Presidential message will be re-
peated over a National Broadcasting
Co. network and relayed to Europe,
where Marconi will be listening in at
London and Ambassador Edge and Mrs.
Leila Morse Rummel, 80-year-old
daughter of the inventor, at Paris.
VIII Repeat Message.
Following the message from the
President, the words sent in the fist
telegram. What hath God v-c-snt?"
will be broadcast in the Morse code
with Morse key and sounder by the
dean of Washington telegraphers, Capt.
w. A. King Of the War Department
Message Center.
The principal address at the local
exercises, to which members of the
cabinet diplomats and high Govern
ment officials have been invited, will
be delivered by granddaughter of the
inventor, Leila Livingston Morse.
Those assembled at the observance
here and a national radio audience then
will listen to addresses broadcast from
Europe by Marconi, Ambassador Edge
and Mrs. Rummel. The program will
last about an hour.
Now Law Library.
The scene of the exercises is the
present law library of Congress and the
Supreme Court and was used as q
chamber of the Supreme Court when
Morse transmitted the first message,
May "a, 1874.
The idea of the telegraph was con-
ceived in the mind of Morse in the
Spring of 1882 while he was in Paris
attending an exhibition of his paint
angs. One Of the first telegraph in
struments Morse constructed from parts
of frame for one of his canvasses,
and this has come to symbolic his
transition from to inventor.
The IL years which followed Morse
kpent in perfecting his invention and
pleading with Congress to appropriate
enough money to enable him to develop
and demonstrate the new device. These
efforts were successful In 1874, when an
experimental wire was strung to
Baltimore.
Appropriated $4,000.
Morse sent the first message to an
assistant in the Maryland city, Alfred
Vail, with equipment for the purchase
of which Congress had appropriated
$50 0,O00
The instrument used in the first
transmission will be brought from the
National Museum to form an exhibit at
the local exercises.
A national committee, of which
President Hoover is honorary chairman,
has been appointed to sponsor COM
memorative exercises throughout the
country. Local members include
Charles Greeley Abbot, secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution: Secretary OF
the Navy Adams, George Kimball Bur-
CESS, director of the Bureau Of Stand
ards; william r. Castle, jr, Under
secretary of State; Maj Gen. Irving j.
Carr, chief signal officer of the War
Department; william John Cooper,
United States Commissioner Of Edu-
cation; Secretary of WaEuagI I511Rfays
Robert Underwood Johnson, direttQr nf |
the Hall of Fame; Secretary Of Com |
merce Lamont, Frederick Fl. Payne,
Assistant Secretary OF War: Thomas
Day Thacher, Solicitor General Of the
United States, and Secretary Of the
Interior Wilbur.