The Battle in the Air Lanes (1922)

Within this article there are a couple of references to radio transmisions being "broadcasted". However, these 1917 and 1918 broadcasts were much more limited in scope than the broadcasting of later years. In this case, the tranmissions were in the dots-and-dashes of Morse code, and were only received by operators at a small number of locations. (During World War One, civilians were not permitted to listen to radio transmissions). In later years broadcasting was expanded to the general population, and the propoganda broadcasts of World War Two would be broadly directed toward individuals.

Popular Radio, September, 1922, pages 3-10:

The Battle in the Air Lanes
A HERETOFORE UNWRITTEN CHAPTER OF AMERICAN HISTORY

This article gives an intimate glimpse behind the scenes of the greatest war in all history. One of the most dramatic and vital phases of that war was the fight for the Public Opinion of the allied, the neutral and the enemy nations--a fight which developed in a colossal struggle that reached to the farthermost ends of the earth, and much of which is here revealed for the first time. And in this struggle the commanding and the decisive rôle was played by the radio.-- EDITOR

By GEORGE CREEL

From a photograph made for POPULAR RADIO

A POST THAT LISTENS IN ON EUROPE

On this giant loop--a part of the aerial system atop the offices of the New York Times.--are received daily about 5,000 words of news items from the radio stations at Bordeaux, France (LY, 23,200 meters), Hanover, Germany (OUI, 14,500 meters), Nauen, Germany (POZ, 12,600 meters), and Leafields, England (GBL, 12,300 and 8,750 meters).

NOTHING is more amusing than to watch science make fools of politicians. Even today, while certain Senators are jealously guarding America's "detached and distant situation," and thinking of the United States in terms of Chinese walls, the radio has made Europe and the Orient our next door neighbors--almost to the extent of gossiping over the back fence.
    Fast steamships marked the end of national isolation; cables pushed the good work still further along. But it has remained for radio to smash the superstition until there is not enough of it left to take up with blotting paper. Right now our communication with every foreign government is easy and direct, and with the thousand and one advances that are constantly being made, it will eventually be as simple to communicate with a country half way around the globe as to telephone from one country farm to another.
    It is impossible to overstate the changes that radio is going to work in the whole scheme of international relationship. World trade, of course, will be revolutionized by the instancy and cheapness of wireless. But even this obvious gain is infinitely less important than other gains too great to be measured in money. Before science has finished with radio it will have wiped out boundary lines as far as the thought and friendship and understanding of peoples are concerned.
    Today, while their governments bicker at "conferences," the radio amateurs of Europe are talking one to the other, establishing contacts that will grow and grow until there is an end to these petty social hates that are bred and fostered in misinformation and misunderstanding. "How could I hate him if I knew him?" is as true now as when Sidney Smith uttered the words.
    Already there are signs of the coming revolution. Study your newspaper these days and you will notice a vast increase in the amount of foreign news. If you were to see a European or Oriental daily, you would, in turn, observe an amazing improvement in the number and length of news items about the United States. Radio is almost entirely responsible for the change. The high cost of cable tolls is no longer a barrier against the exchange of news, and the lower rates of radio are commencing to infuse the great press associations with new energy and ambition.
    Never doubt that this is not going to exert a powerful influence on international relations. When the citizens themselves know day by day what the citizens of another country are doing and thinking and saying, politicians will have a sad time attempting to play on ignorances and outworn hates. News--not propaganda, but real news--is about the best binder that the human family has ever developed. We proved it during the war and we proved it by radio.
    Much of the war work of radio is well known. Its varied and important employment by the military and naval establishments has been completely disclosed, and the miracle of it all is now commonplace. An even larger use of wireless, however, is little understood. In the fight for "the verdict of mankind"--propaganda, to use the hackneyed word--America put her chief dependence on radio, finally reaching a peak of operation that used the air lanes of the whole world, reaching every country on the globe with the American message. Germany's collapse was moral as well as physical, and in this disintegration of enemy morale, radio was the principal and the determining factor.

U. S. Navy, Official.

THE NAVAL RADIO STATION THAT LED AMERICA'S FORCES OF PUBLICITY INTO CHINA

From San Diego was sent America's war message to the Orient--by way of Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. The military value of radio in disseminating news of America's war activities was "worth more that a million soldiers."

    It was in recognition of Public Opinion as a major force that the Great War differed most essentially from all previous conflicts. The trial of strength was not only between massed bodies of armed men but between opposed ideals; moral verdicts took on all the value of military decisions. Other wars went no deeper than the physical aspects, but German Kultur raised issues that had to be fought out in the hearts and minds of people as well as on the actual firing-line. This was the fight that the Committee on Public Information was called upon to make.
    The domestic task was simple compared with the undertaking that faced the Committee when it turned from the United States to wage the battle for world opinion It was not only that the people of the Allied Powers had to be strengthened with a message of encouragement, but there was the moral verdict of the neutral nations to be won and the stubborn problem of reaching the deluded soldiers and civilians of the Central Powers with the truths of the war.
    It was a task that looked almost hopeless. The United States alone of the great nations of the world had never engaged in propaganda. For years preceding the war Germany had been secretly building a vast publicity machine in every corner of the earth, designed to overwhelm all foreign peoples with pictures of Germany's vast power, her overwhelming pre-eminence in industry, commerce and the arts. German agents, carefully selected from among her journalists and authors, neglected no opportunities for presenting Germany's case to readers of every language, and her commercial firms linked a propaganda of liberal credits with this newspaper campaign throughout the world.

Brown Bros.

HE DIRECTED AMERICA'S FIGHT IN THE ETHER FOR "THE VERDICT OF MANKIND"

To a remarkable degree George Creel was in a position to see--and did see--the urgent need of presenting America's purposes in the war to the peoples of the world and of counteracting Germany's intensive and ruthless propaganda. In this article he reveals for the first time to what an amazing extent we relied upon, as our chief weapon in combating these forces, the most far-reaching and powerful of agencies--the radio.

Great Britain, through Reuter's news agency, likewise conducted a governmental propaganda. France had official connection with the Havas Agency. Both England and France, through ownership or liberal subsidy of certain great cable arteries, had long been able to direct currents of public opinion in channels favorable to themselves. Other nations had publicity machines of varying types.
America controlled no cables, manipulated no press associations, operated no propaganda machinery of any kind. We were and always had been dependent upon foreign press agencies for intercourse with the world. The volume of information that went from our shores was comparatively small; after it had been filtered in London or Paris it grew smaller and smaller until it amounted to mere "flashes" when it reached a far country. Strangely enough, we were at once the best-known and the least-known people in the world. There was no corner of the globe in which America was not a familiar word, but as to our aims, our ideals, our social and industrial progress, our struggles and our achievements, there were the most absolute and disheartening misunderstandings and misconceptions. For instance, when some "gun-men" were executed in New York, papers in South America actually printed accounts that told of an admission fee being charged, with Governor Whitman taking tickets at the door!

Brown Bros.

WHERE THE FIRST GUN WAS FIRED

In America's fight for public opinion the propaganda to be sent out by radio was broadcasted from the station at Tuckerton, New Jersey. It was relayed via Lyons to Paris.

    The Germans projected themselves into this situation with vigor and decision. From the first, Berlin had an exact appreciation of the military value of public opinion, and poured out millions in its endeavor to win or else to corrupt it. It is impossible even to estimate the amount of money spent on propaganda by the Germans. Russians competent to judge assured us that the agents of Berlin spent $500,000,000 in that country alone, and their expenditures in Spain were estimated at $60,000,000. Close to $5,000,000 went to Bob Pasha for the corruption of the Paris press, and the sums spent in Mexico ran high into the millions. I knew that they owned or subsidized dailies in most of the important cities of Spain, South America, the Orient, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Holland; that their publications, issued in every language, ran from costly brochures to the most expensive books and albums; that they thought nothing of paying $25,000 for a hole-in-the-wall picture house, and that in every large city in every country their blackmailers and bribe-givers swarmed like carrion crows.
    Their propaganda, while playing upon different points of prejudice in various countries, was much the same in all countries. As an initial proposition America's military strength was derided. By no possibility could the United States raise or train an army, and if, by some miracle this did happen, the army could not be transported. America was a fat, loblolly nation, lacking courage, equipment, and ships. Working away from this pleasing premise, Americans were described as a nation of dollar-grabbers, devoid of ideals, and inordinate in their ambitions.
    Our war with Mexico was played up as a cold-blooded, evil conquest and our struggle with Spain was painted as an effort of our financial masters to enter upon dreams of world imperialism. Cuba, the Philippines and Porto Rico were pitied as "America's slave nations ;" Pershing's expedition to Mexico was declared to be the start of a war of conquest that we were later forced to relinquish because our "cowardice" shrank before the "dauntless" courage of Carranza. The Colorado coal strike, the Lawrence strike and the Paterson strikes were all treated in the utmost detail to prove America's "system of wage-slavery ;" pictures were drawn of tremendous wealth on the one hand and peonage on the other; lynchings were exaggerated until it was made to appear that almost every tree in America was used for purposes of execution, and we were charged in every conceivable form and fashion with being the secret partner of one or the other of the Allies in commercial plans to control the trade of the world.
    Where there was French sentiment, America was set down as "the secret partner of England." Where English sentiment prevailed, we were the "secret partner of France ;" and where Italian sentiment obtained, America, England and France were assumed to be in a plot to destroy Italy.
    In Spain every effort was made to revive the prejudices and passions of 1898, and the pro-German press ran daily lies in proof of "Yankee contempt for the Spaniard." One falsehood was that a favorite American recruiting slogan was: "Enlist for the War! Remember the Maine and Spain."
    When we first set about the creation of a news machinery to carry American facts to the world a natural reliance was placed upon cables--the one established medium for international communication.
    The cables, however, were virtually all foreign owned. The cable rates were prohibitive ; what was even more conclusive, all of them were so overburdened as to endanger vital war business by their delays. Forced to look in some other direction, our eyes fell upon the wireless, taken over by the navy some time before and lying idle for a good part of the time. Without more ado, we put our problem before the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Josephus Daniels, who straightway placed the wireless stations of the United States at our disposal, likewise the expert navy personnel under Captain David Todd.

Brown Bros.

A REMOTE LINK IN UNCLE SAM'S RADIO CHAIN AROUND THE EARTH

Even in such far away outposts as this, at Koko Head in the Hawaiian Islands, the radio operators were able to serve their country by carrying on her valiant fight for "the verdict of mankind."

    Offices were taken in New York, a news force was gathered and in September, 1917, the "Compub" (as its code address soon advertised it to the world) commenced business.
    The first radio service was from Tuckerton to the French wireless station at Lyons. From Lyons by arrangement with the French government it went to our office in Paris, and after translation and distribution to the press of France, it was relayed to our offices in Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
    The next step in the world dissemination of news came through arrangements heartily entered into by the British eminent. The same wireless report to Lyons was intercepted by navy operators at the American naval base and relayed to London, where the representatives of the Committee received it distributed it to the English press.
    The London office, in turn, relayed the service to the Committee's representative in The Hague for the Dutch press--a highly important operation in the machinery, as many Dutch papers managed to get past the German censorship. A further relay was to our offices in Copenhagen and Stockholm for translation and distribution to the newspapers of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and here again, particularly in the case of Copenhagen, we had a chance to beat the German censors. In Switzerland, too, we scored heavily against the Germans in the same fashion. The service also went from London to Saloniki and other Greek points, for not only was Greece to be considered, but it was good ground from which to shoot into the Balkans.
    Our first effort to serve Russia was by wireless, and after much experimentation under the direction of Captain Todd we were actually able to reach the Russian station at Moscow. This service, put into Russia for the press, for the billboards and even on the movie screen, was relayed town by town all the way from Petrograd to Siberia. When the Bolsheviki overthrew Kerensky, however, one of their first actions was to grab the wireless stations. The one at Moscow, either intentionally or through ignorance, they put out of operation. The wireless station at Cracow, in Poland, was inefficient at first, but towards the last managed to receive, although sending continued to prove a failure.

U. S. Navy, Official.

ONE OF OUR "PORTABLE RADIO SETS"

The "Brooklyn" (shown above), was stationed at Vladivostok to relay radio messages to Russia. Captain David Todd (at right), was in direct charge of that part of the warfare that included to use of naval radio equipment and personnel.

    Continued pressure upon the Italian government finally resulted in wireless improvements to such a degree that the station in Rome was able to receive directly from Tuckerton. This did away with the necessity of relay from Paris and enabled the New York office to pour a daily stream of news straight into Italy, an immediate contact to which the Italian press responded enthusiastically.
    With Europe accounted for, attention was next given to South and Central America. Virtually every South and Central American country had a wireless station and each government agreed instantly to take our news service out of the air and hand it to the Committee's representatives for translation and distribution. It was not even the case that dependence had to be placed on the one wireless leap from Tuckerton, for there was our high-power station on the Isthmus of Panama to act as a relay. Mr. John Collins, "borrowed" from the Panama Canal Board, handled Central America from Darien, broadcasting it for interception by the wireless stations of the United Fruit Company.
    The next link in the world chain was the Orient. "Compub" opened a branch office in San Francisco and commenced the preparation of a daily service of particular interest to China, Japan, the Philippines, and Hawaii. The navy wireless station at San Diego flashed this to Pearl Harbor for distribution to the Hawaiian press, and from Pearl Harbor it was flashed to the Philippines. Our original theory was that the Chinese and Japanese stations would receive from Manila, but owing to many mechanical difficulties it became necessary for our own station at Guam to take the service out of the air and put it on the cables to Shanghai and Tokio. In China the service was distributed through a specially organized chain of newspapers, and in Japan we worked through the Kokusai and Nippon Dempo, the two principal news associations. From Shanghai the service was relayed to Vladivostok, where our office gave it Siberian circulation. Distant Australia picked the service out of the air and used it.
    The installation of "Compub" at Vladivostok, Harbin, Irkutsk, and Omsk in Siberia enabled us to send a direct Russian service from the wireless station at San Francisco.

Keystone View Co.

RADIO LOOK-OUTS AGAINST ENEMY SUBMARINES

Day and night these vigilant sentinels listened in at Lands End, England, for communications between German and Austrian naval vessels. Only the records of the government will reveal the invaluable service they rendered.

    Immediately upon the signing of the armistice, orders were given to close every division of the Committee on Public Information with the exception of the wireless. This exception was due to the dilemma in which the press of America found itself. The four transatlantic cables, already overburdened, became hopelessly jammed when an army of newspaper men commenced to file daily despatches in Paris for quick transmission.
    To meet the situation, Mr. Walter S. Rogers, director of the Committee's Foreign Wireless and Cable Service, was placed unreservedly at the disposal of the correspondents, and directed to find a "way out." As a first measure to lighten the cable load, the committee agreed to radio to the United States all formal statements, speeches of the President, and other like matter requiring textual sending, and to make simultaneous delivery in New York to the press associations.
    A second step was in the direction of aid to individual correspondents. The Navy, in charge of the wireless, was forbidden by law to charge tolls, nor could it even receive private messages; but in view of the importance of giving the American public all possible news of the peace deliberations, it was agreed that the Committee on Public Information might undertake the delivery of the matter to the American press.
    After many negotiations the French government and the United States navy entered into an arrangement through which the Committee was able to offer thirty-five hundred words daily on the wireless, absolutely free of charge, to the American correspondents in Paris.
    Such, then, was radio's war record in the fight for the "verdict of mankind," in which, as a well-known statesman expressed it, "it was worth more than a million soldiers." The Allies were given new courage and hope, Central and South America were brought into the war on America's side, the neutrality of other countries changed from suspicion to friendship, and the German morale was steadily sapped and eventually destroyed.

United States Early Radio History > Radio During World War One > Civilian Activities