THE VOICES IN SPACE

Over the wires of the telephone, day and night, go the voices of men and women speaking their lines in the drama of life. An ever-changing theme it is. The stage reaches from ocean to ocean. The players are constantly changing; the scenes are different, but the action never stops.

Now a flash of comedy — quietly, and mile-a-second laughter leaps over unreckoned space. Now a curt command, and across a continent the wheels of commerce move. Again the scene shifts — grim tragedy stalks the boards a cry for law and justice vibrates into the

night.

So runs the endless drama of the wires.

COMMUNICATION

In 1789, George Washington required several days to ride on horseback from Mt. Vernon to his inauguration as President in New York, then the national capital. Thirty years later, when Andrew Jackson was elected President, fourteen days passed before word of that honor reached him at his home in Tennessee. The news of Abraham Lincoln's nomination for the presidency did not reach San Francisco until eight days after the convention in Chicago. In 1830, a stage-coach journey from Washington to Indianapolis required twenty days, while a trip from New York to San Francisco by public conveyance was an impossibility. Even as late as 1840 the cost of sending one ounce of mail by coach and pony express across the continent was ten dollars, and the time needed was thirty days.

To-day a railway journey from Washington to Indianapolis takes only fourteen hours, and a trip across the continent may be made in four days. In great emergencies, thousand-mile journeys may be made by air transport in ten hours. A New York merchant may easily converse over the telephone with a San Francisco customer; a message can be sent around the world in one-seventh of one second. President Calvin Coolidge recently addressed thirty millions of his countrymen over the radio; his voice was carried instantly to New Orleans and to San Francisco. Ships at sea are in constant and almost instant communication with land a thousand miles away. From the remotest parts of the civilized world the news of yesterday is published in the morning newspapers. Ten million pieces of mail, each carried at a very small cost, pass through the postal service of New York City every twenty-four hours; the total daily movement of mail in the United States approaches 1,000,000,000 pieces.

Thus, within the short life of our nation, man's powers of communicating and travelling have multiplied many

times.

1. The First Railroad Across the Continent. . Howard Copeland Hill 410

CHOOSE A BOOK

1. Brigham, Albert Perry, From Trail to Railway Through the Appalachians. Ginn.

Stories of the development of ways of travel from trails, through roads, waterways, and railroads.

2. Brooks, Noah, First Across the Continent. Scribner.

Story of the adventures of Lewis and Clark in 1802-1804, when they crossed the continent to explore the Oregon country.

3. Collins, Francis Arnold, The Wireless Man. Century.

Tales of the service and sacrifice of wireless operators and of stirring rescues made through wireless.

4. Earle, Alice Morse, Stage-Coach and Tavern Days. Macmillan. Stories of travel when America was young, in the days of rough taverns and queer landlords, of terrible roads and uncomfortable stage-coaches, when tavern ghosts added to the joys of travel.

5. Franck, Lena M. (Editor), Working My Way Around the World. Century.

Story of a man who, without money, weapons, or baggage, made a fifteenmonth trip around the world; his adventures in many strange lands, including Egypt, India, Siam, and Japan.

6. Kipling, Rudyard, With the Night Mail. Doubleday.

A boy: "The story is especially interesting just now because the book was written before any one thought that airplanes would be used to any great extent."

7. Kipling, Rudyard, Captains Courageous. Doubleday.

A rich man's son is lost overboard from a vessel, is rescued by fishermen, and spends exciting months on a strange ship. The brine of the sea is in this story. 8. Lummis, Charles Fletcher, A Tramp Across the Continent. Scribner. The author, who travelled from Ohio to California on foot many years ago, tells of his experiences in the Rockies, in the land of the adobe; adventures with the nomads in the Great American Desert.

9. McPhee, Inez Nellie, Robert Fulton. Barse & Hopkins.

Story of the man who drove the first steamboat, the little Clermont, up the Hudson River.

10. Meeker, Ezra, Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail. World Book. A personal narrative of happenings on the famous trail which was travelled by our pioneers who settled the West.

11. Parkman, Francis, The Oregon Trail. Little, Brown.

The story of actual wanderings in 1846 upon the plains west of the Mississippi, with buffalo hunts and adventures of travel on the trails in the early days.