THE VOICE OF MARS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1938, Page 26

THE VOICE OF MARS

Europe's War-cries, Heard on the Air,

Bring Drama

to the Whole World

'AMERICANS at their radios have

"been listening" to Europe turn a page in history, wrote Orrin E. Dunlop, jun., in the "New York Times" oh September 18. Would it click into place like the rustle of a sheet in a radioscript or would it drop violently to be amplified as the signal of "an explosion on the Continent?"

Those vetei-an listeners, v/ho tuned in in on the long waves of wireless that swept across the seas in 1914, wondered if again "the lights are going out all over Europe."

Twenty-four years ago the ether was more secretive and placid despite the sudden explosion at Sarajevo. The voices of war lords were unknown to the general public. There Was no long

string of -preliminary broadcasts in the form of;a verbal fuse leading up to the powder keg. But in this • day of i globe-trotting short-waves all "Europe : seems to be on the air trumpeting propaganda; spraying war -talk, fear, and ■: defiance- amid pleas for peace and ' warnings to the populace not to lose its head. Science Jias given all .nations < far-reaching tongues since the bugles ; called twenty-seven nations to battle j in the day's of Woodrow Wilson. : At that time the prophet ■ was con- ] sidered bold who predicted the radio- i phone would' some day hurl the human voice across the seas as clearly as the : wireless dicP the dots and dashes that 1 echoed the European explosion follow- ] ing*the assassination of the Archduke ■, of Austria. Probably more important, however, is the;1 fact, which few envisagect iri 1914, that the civilised < World would be equipped with radio : sets designed' to eavesdrop on; broad- ; casts from any. country. ..... , ■''■ Kaiser Wilh'felxii's voice was never ": heard simultaneously throughout Ger- : many; there is no.record that.any one :i dreamed of him talking to an interna- '

tional'audience, as does Hitler, shout-

ing on the wings of electric waves that explosively spray his defiant voice in a world-wide blasts It was scientific achievement enough in 1914 that wireless waves could flash from the lofty towers of Station POZ at. Nauen, Germany, and reach put beyond the Irish coast to warn the Kronprinzessin Cecile, with £2,000,000 in gold on board, to rush for a neutral port.

The peaceful ether did not pulse with bombasts and tension in the early months of 1914 as it has done for the past month or more. Kings and Emperors did not take to the air; in fact, they had no microphone, as do the Presidents, dictators, and Prime Ministers of 1938.

Radio, proclaimed at the advent of broadcasting as a powerful instrumentality for peace because it promised

to..bring' nations closer together Jn music and speech, also becomes an instrumentality of war. In Europe this has been shown. A nation's leader, through" his own voice, can reach all his subjects in the twinkle of an eye. The people are listening. Preparations for war are speeded because orders fly to every nook and corner of a country or an empire. The masses | are in much closer touch with what is happening to threaten war or to preserve peace than were the people in 1914. . Europe's war fever is not localised. It spreads by short waves to redden the face of the world as diplomats rush; into consultations to avert tragedy.. Across the Atlantic, Americans listen to the hectic > activity while. unscheduled broadcasts upset the regular radio show just at the time in autumn when, bands and orchestras, comedians arid singers are back from vacation ready,to add cheer to the day. Instead they hear an announcer nonchalantly say, "We now take you to Prague." Or it may be to London' to

hear a commentator report on a par-

ley of envoys; of formal British warnings and the intense activity at 10 Downing Street where Cabinet Ministers have gathered for an all-day session to discuss "dangerous potentialities of a crisis."

From Prague, all America on a sunny September afternoon hears a commentator describe the darkening shadows cast by threatening war clouds across the map. It sounds more like an episode in a radio drama than an actual happening. But it must be true, for Eduard Benes, President of Czechoslovakia, comes on. the air with his well-modulated radio voice in a plea for peace, and to express Czechs' desire for friendship with the neighbouring Reich, the borders of which are festooned with fortifications and troops.

Breathlessly; the -world waited for Hitler's closing speech at the Nazi Socialist Congress. Would he attempt a Czech coup as he did in Austria? Americans had heard former Austrian Chancellor Dr. Kurt Schuschnigg's final broadcast declaration of independence for Austria; now they wondered if history was to re Peat —nad the Benes plea been a valedictory? They recalled how events happened quickly after Schuschnigg stepped back from the microphone, and how within no time, so it seemed, Hitler was on the air from Vienna. Americans heard all that; they heard the bands play, the Storm Troopers sing, and the thunderous roar of "Sieg Heil!" as German fingers flipped a page of history. For the veteran wireless operator there could not help but be a chill in it all. Years ago he had heard the declarations of war in Europe as one country after another fell into line. He had eavesdropped on submarines and frantic SOS pleas of torpedoed and helpless ships, some mere fishing smacks under machine-gun fire. He had sat for long hours as the war rolled on, copying endless casualty lists and the names of wounded Yanks.

It was a tedious job—the routine of a wireless man assigned to, the iransAtlantic wave lengths. Names were just names on the casualty lists th-it streamed across the ocean from France and England. The wireless man jotted them down, but he knew that behind each name was an impending story of sorrow for some American home.

The young wireless men, who copied the heroic lists of dead and wounded, are fully aware, in this day of peace under the Stars and Stripes, what it means for families in Europe if the warnings of "frightful responsibility of life and death' over millions of their-' countrymen" go unheeded by the powers behind the European guns.

The radio man, who heard the holocaust unfold in space two decades ago, asks along with countless others, "Can Anferica stay out?" He ponders the future as he picks up such etheroftl headlines as "Tension Grows ia Europe." He remembers the Kaiser's defiance of the world.

Could it all be bluff, with belligerent words so openly spoken on the air? There were no such outspoken utterances in 1914. Now Field-Marshal Hermann Goering in a two-hour unrestrained broadcast, described as "truculent," warns of Germany's might. The Reichsfuhrer shouts into the microphone that Germany will "capitulate to no one." On other alien wave lengths dispatches tell of French diplomatic manoeuvres; the bracing of bomb shelters, distribution of gas masks, and the pouring of soldiers into the Maginot and Siegfri eld Lines.

For modern radio "all the world's a stage." The headline act in the drama within the past month has been supiplied .by Europe. The spotlight has been on Hitler. He came up to the microphone at Nuremberg while the ;bands played the strains of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger."

What, will he do? asked the international audience as it anxiously watched

across the wave-lengthed footlights for a climax. For an hour and twenty minutes the Fuhrer talked as the radio sped another "momentous address" off into the emptiness of space. When the sun went down that night talk of war was still in the air from the lips of commentators broadcasting lVfrom Prague, Berlin, Paris, London, . and New York. They called September 12 1938, "the tensest day since 1914."

Hopes for peace soared and simmered within minutes during the past week as the fleet radio voicesifrom overseas attempted to describe the movements of the gigantic war. machine while the thud of the mailed fist pounded on the microphone stands. The Czechs were warned by the Henleinists that if they did not rbroadcast acceptance of the ultimatum demanding that martial law be revoked within-six hours,

the leadership of the Sudeten German Party "refuses all responsibility for further disorders." That radio flash was a blow on the face of the earth that stunned listeners everywhere.

The most dramatic broadcasts of the week have not been listed in the programmes. Events happened so quickly that they could not be time-tabled. With the Old World on the brink of war, Prime Minister Chamberlain flew to Germany to talk face to face with Hitler in a dramatic bid for peace. All over the earth listeners followed the flight as the- plane was sighted over various cities. , Americans were at breakfast when they heard the flash that Chamberlain had landed at Munich; then at Berchtesgaden for three hours of "comprehensive and frank exchange of opinion," and back to London to consult his Cabinet.