Transatlantic telegraphy

“ The first attack upon the young telephone business was made by the Western Union Telegraph Company. It came charging full tilt upon Bell, driving three inventors abreast—Edison, Gray, and Dolbear. It expected an easy victory; in fact, the disparity between the two opponents was so evident, that there seemed little chance of a contest of any kind. "The Western Union will swallow up the telephone people," said public opinion, "just as it has already swallowed up all improvements in telegraphy." ”

“ Professor Thomson’s reflecting galvanometer, which had worked so well during the voyage, was then used again with ordinary Daniell cells.
Messages.—In this way communication was resumed, the first clear message being received from Newfoundland on August 13, 1858, and—after considerable delay in getting the American receiving-apparatus ready—on the 16th the following was got through from the directors in England to those in United States:
Europe and America are united by telegraphy. Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will toward men! ”

“ Fire stations in New York City have been equipped with wireless telegraph sets, and they have proved so useful in spreading alarms and transmitting news of fires that they seem destined to come into universal use.
The outbreak of the world war gave a tremendous impetus to the development of wireless telegraphy. The German cable to the United States was cut in the early days of the conflict. The sending power of wireless stations had been sufficiently increased, however, so that the great German stations could communicate with those in the United States. ”

“ This confession of weakness, this serious drawback of the nineteenth century, which added to the terrors of those “who go down into the great deep,” was fortunately not shared by the advanced sciences and arts of the twentieth century. Wireless telegraphy contributed almost as much to the comfort of ocean and ærial navigation as electricity. Telegraph poles that rendered hideous some of our most beautiful avenues and the antiquated ocean cables were entirely relegated into oblivion. ”

“ Long before 1999 wireless telegraphy was employed on all vessels on ocean, river and lake. Instant communication was at all times maintained between ship and shore. It Opened a New Era. War vessels at foreign stations made their daily reports in 1999 to the Navy Department in the State of Mexico. All other navies of the [153] world enjoyed the same facilities. Relatives telegraphed to their families and friends from vessels in mid-ocean. It was quite common to receive a brief message from an Atlantic liner two thousand miles east of Sandy Hook, as follows ”

“ If it did it would probably not be through the immediate initiative of the Admiral commanding in the North Sea, but through the supreme control of all the naval forces of the belligerent affected, exercised through the General Staff of the Navy at the seat of Government. It may here be remarked in passing that the development of wireless telegraphy will probably be found in war to strengthen this supreme control and to weaken to that extent the independent and isolated initiative of individual Commanders-in-Chief. ”

“ Submarine signalling has never received that public notice which wireless telegraphy has, for the reason that it does not appeal so readily to the popular mind. That it is an absolute necessity to every ship carrying passengers—or carrying anything, for that matter—is beyond question. It is an additional safeguard that no ship can afford to be without. ”

“ The influence of the cable upon commerce has been so great as to revolutionize the methods of international trade that prevailed a century ago; indeed, ocean telegraphy has made it no more difficult to effect international sales and purchases than it is to make domestic exchanges. With thirteen cables in successful operation between the United States and Europe, we have had no difficulty in building up an immense trade across the Atlantic; but, with no trans-Pacific line, we are experiencing much difficulty in securing a large place in the trade of the Orient. ”

“ To secure radio-telegraphic communication between such ships at sea as possess installations for wireless telegraphy, an Additional Convention [589] to that mentioned above in § 287a was signed on November 3, 1906, by all the Powers who signed the forementioned Convention except by Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Persia, and Portugal. According to this additional Convention all ships at sea which possess radio-telegraphic installations are compelled to exchange radio-telegrams reciprocally at all times without regard to the particular system of radio-telegraphy adopted. ”

“ At present wireless telegraphy has not superseded the ordinary methods of communicating over land, but there can be no doubt that wireless telegraphy, if free from Government restrictions, would in certain circumstances very quickly supersede land-line telegraphy, while it has proved a formidable commercial competitor to the cable as a means of connecting this country with America. ”

“ The answer is this: so long as the Government bestows licences upon private individuals to dabble in wireless telegraphy experiments it is a simple matter to keep in touch with events ashore. My principal agent lives in Highgate. He is a skilled operator, but he has contrived to keep his capabilities masked under the role of a harmless amateur. By advancing or retarding the spark of the powerful coil of his instrument he can 'tap' any messages, whether from British or foreign warships, within seven hundred miles, while on occasions he has accurately read messages from Cape Race. ”

“ Subject to international obligations arising out of a state of war, owners of landed property shall always be at liberty to establish and use for their own purposes wireless telegraphy installations, which shall be free to communicate on private business with fixed or moving wireless stations, including those on board ships and aircraft. ”

“ Underground long-distance lines now join or are joining Boston and New York, Philadelphia and New York, Milwaukee and Chicago. England and France are connected by a loaded submarine cable. There is no theoretical reason why Europe and America should not speak to each other. ”

“ Wonderful as all this is, it is now eclipsed by wireless telegraphy—now passed beyond its experimental stages, and rapidly coming into the practical commerce of the nations. Man is no longer dependent upon a network of wires and cables for means of communication. The atmosphere enveloping the world affords sufficient means for conducting vibrations made intelligible by the instrument of man's invention; and today, even across the surface of the broad Atlantic, messages are transmitted by this means as easily as by means of the cable lines. ”

“ Wireless telegraphy cannot, however, be used when the submarine is under water, for water absorbs the electric waves in exactly the same way that it absorbs light waves. But taken all in all, wireless is by far the most important of all the signaling systems yet invented, and it is the only one by which messages can be sent and received by either day or night, over long distances and in any kind of weather. ”

“ Wireless telephony, like wireless telegraphy, but to an even greater extent, is peculiarly suited for the conveyance of marine intelligence. Wireless telephony occupies a unique position in this regard-no operator is required. The additional expense of an operator is an objection to the wireless telegraph in many cases, and forbids its installation. Anybody can operate the wireless telephone. It is also much quicker-words can be spoken more rapidly than they can be put into Morse signals and translated. ”

“ They further bind themselves to make the observance of these provisions obligatory upon private enterprises authorized either to establish or work coastal stations for wireless telegraphy open to the service of public correspondence between the coast and vessels at sea, or to establish or work wireless telegraph stations, whether open to general public service or not, on board of vessels flying their flag. ”

“ In the sphere of telegraphy the progress has not been less marked. Unlike Canada and the United States, but as in the mother country and most other countries, the telegraphs are under the control of the government, and administered by the postmaster general. Until 1901, this was not the case. By a concession granted by the legislature in 1854, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company obtained the exclusive privilege of communicating abroad by telegraphy, and of erecting and operating lines within the colony. ”

“ There has been in recent years a considerable shift of international telegraph traffic from cable to radio, a shift strongly accentuated in some countries, including Portugal and The Netherlands, where the overseas correspondent of American companies is a government-controlled monopoly which strongly advocates radio transmission. ”

“ Every effort of German propaganda was followed and promptly countered in the same language as that in which it had been written. Perhaps the quickest exchange and counter-exchange took place through a cable and wireless service. All the messages issued by the enemy by cables or wireless telegraphy were intercepted and transmitted at once to the War Office. They were followed by a special staff, and the replies to them often reached their destinations a few hours after the originals, more often than not in time for the same editions of foreign newspapers. ”

“ Telegraphy plays a very important part in warfare. The commander of even a small unit cannot see all that his men are doing or suffering, but is kept posted by telegraph or telephone, while communication between units depends very largely indeed upon such means. Wireless telegraphy, in land warfare, is largely devoted to communication between aircraft and the artillery batteries with which they are working, and to avoid interference with that important work telegraphy by wire is employed for most other purposes. ”

“ For naval purposes, wireless telegraphy has assumed an importance which can hardly be overestimated, as the whole efficiency of a fine fleet may depend upon a single message flashed through space. All navies are fitting instruments, the British Admiralty being well to the fore. Even in manoeuvres and during the execution of tactical formations the apparatus is constantly at work. ”

“ Stress must be laid on the fact that newspaper correspondents making use of wireless telegraphy from on board neutral merchantmen for the purpose of sending news to their papers, [705] may not be treated as spies, and the merchantmen concerned may not be confiscated, although belligerents need by no means allow the presence of such vessels at the seat of war. Thus, during the Russo-Japanese War, the Haimun, a vessel fitted with a wireless telegraphy apparatus for the service of the Times, was ordered away by the Japanese. ”

“ The nerves of every war vessel and fort are the wires of the telephones, telegraphs, telautographs, dynamos, storage batteries etc., that transmit orders by speech or in writing, find the range, fire the guns, explode the mines and seek out the enemy with a powerful searchlight.
Every battle-ship, cruiser, etc., of the United States Navy is now equipped and with the completion of the new ultrapowerful station at Washington the War Department will be enabled to issue instructions to a ship no matter where it may be on the ocean or in what harbor it may lie. ”

“ That of all the many mishaps connected with the Atlantic telegraph, this was the worst and most disheartening, since it proved that after all that human skill and science can effect to lay the wire down with safety has been accomplished, there may be some fatal obstacles to success at the bottom of the ocean which can never be guarded against, for even the nature of the peril must always remain as secret and unknown as the depths in which it is to be encountered. ”

“ I consider it very important that the government should have the most reliable telegraph communication with its principal forts on the Atlantic coast.
“If there is any information that I possess that would be of service to you in carrying out the wishes of the government in regard to telegraph matters it will afford me pleasure to give it.
“I presume you are aware that there are very few persons in this country who have had any experience in the manufacture, working, or laying of submarine cables of any great importance. ”

“ The next step in the development of communication must be the connecting of Europe with America by a telegraph wire.
The year before the passage of the act by which Congress provided Professor Morse with the means for completing the first telegraph line, he had stretched a wire under the water from Castle Garden, New York City, to Governor's Island in the harbor. He had thus proved that telegraph messages [Pg 279] could be sent under water. Ten years later a "submarine telegraph" was constructed, connecting England with the continent of Europe. ”

“ Possibly, in that far future of peace and goodwill among nations, when each country does for all the others what it can do best, the United States may be generally recognized as the source of skill and authority on telephony. It may be called in to rebuild or operate the telephone systems of other countries, in the same way that it is now supplying oil and steel rails and farm machinery. ”

“ Even if there had been any duty on the part of the Telegraph Company to confine the transmission to North Carolina, it did not do so. The transmission of a message through two states is interstate commerce as a matter of fact. ”