SPARKS.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15679, 4 October 1922, Page 2

SPARKS.

WIRELESS TELEPHONY. RADIO NO LONGER A TOY. (By P. A. Payne, in the Sydney Sun.) NEW YORK, July 26. Do you remember the first phonographs ?

If you do your know what happened when they appeared. For a while no home was complete without one. The air was made hideous while they coughed, wheezed, sputtered,. coughed, and sometimes emitted sounds remotely musical. Then they vanished. They went into pawnshops-, cellars, garrets, and barns.' History is repeating itself in the United States, with the radio occupying the place once held by the phonograph.

As a fad the radio is dying out. Hundreds of thousands of instruments are going the* way of the ancient phonographs. But like the phonograph of old the passing of the radio is only a temporary one. It is emerging from its kindergarten stage.. Nobody seems to know just how the radio craze started in this country, but for the past year almost every person seemed to have been iAfected by the virus. Thousands of stores in this city alone put the instruments on sale. Fraternal societies installed radios in their club rooms.' Almost every post of the American Legion (the war veterans of the United States) went radio

mad. 1 , EVERYBODY WANTS RADIOS. Small boys who used to save their pennies to buy baseballs and skates began to save for radios. Everybody had been badly bitten by the radio

bug. At this time there are at least a score of magazines devoted to radio. Several of them have circulations approaching the 200,000 mark. There are magazines for the •amateur and for the professional. But publishers of most of there periodicals feari that the end is near. The craze is passing, and it is a safe prediction that within the next six months the radio wll have passed out of the faddist stage.

For a time it was fun to have a radio in the home. It was nice to be able to 101 l back in an easy chair while listening to Jeritza, Farrar, or other stars of the opera. Great comedians such as 1 Leon Errol, Ed Wynn, A 1 Jolson, and other bghts of the stage enjoyed the novelty of 'being broadcasted. Newspapers took the radio up and devoted entire special sections to it.

Optimistic boosters of the radio predicted it woul dtake the place of the theatre and movies for amusement, and would even replace the newspaper as a- source of news.

■USEFUL TO POLITICIANS. Some theatrical owners were actually worried. They 'believed folks might stay away from theatres if they could get their entertainment wafted through the ether into their parlours. ' All of a sudden the tide began to turn. The operatic stars decided it was more profitable to sing for Victrolas. The comedians got tired of spreading their best jokes broadcast. In the meantime politicians had commenced to take advantage of the radio. When Mr and Mrs Anybody settled down for a comfortable evening listening to their favourite opera stars' and comedians, they were ..likely to have Senator Bamboozle or Congressnfan Bluster break in on the air with glowing accounts of their individual greatness and value to the State and nation at large.

. Most Americans feel it is bad enougb to have to listen to political speeches for six weeks before every election. But to have these speeches breezed in over the radio was too much of a good thing.

The misuse of the radio by politicians and other exploiters did as much as anything to make the .average householder heave his instruments into the cellar.

PEOPLE WHO MADE MILLIONS. With the radio craze came the usual crop of stock swindlers who seem to fatten in the United States hs in no other country. The get-rich-fjuick idea makes the States the happy hunting- ground of the glib - tongued stock salesman. ' Right on the heels of the radio came these gentry with newly incorporated companies selling shares of radio stock by the thousands. The price of such stock was low, and everybody was urged to get in on the ground floor before it was too late. Millions would be made, the stock salesmen said.

They were, but not by the buyers of stock.

Of course there were legitimate corporations formed to push the rad’o. But these concerns did not promise people five or six hundred per cent on their investments.

Hundreds of thousands of people are reported to have invested their savings in radio stock. Most of these fly-by-night corporations will f'alde away like thistledown in the wind.

Of course the money of the gullible ones will disappear, too. But then, as Barnuin, the old circus king, used to say:—< “The public loves to be fooled. There is a new sucker born every second.” The great amount of publicity given to the radio by reputable newspapers and magazines was turned to the advantage of the stock swindl-

against the radio, but in spite of everything no man or woman with vision will deny that the radio has a great future. The Government is making farmers realise the value of radio by sending out stock and weather reports daily. For the benefit of farmers in remote districts where daily newspapers are seldom seen, brief reports of the “high spots” in the news of a day "are transmitted. The radio as a fad and a toy is dying to be born anew; to be added to the telephone, the motor car, and other “necessities” of modern life in these United States of America.