Does The Government Have To Act As A Radio Traffic Cop?
The advertising of certain wares has today become the means of supporting a whole mass-communications industry—an industry that provides entertainment, rapid news service, political forums, symphony orchestra and grand opera programs, and a nation-wide audience for government messages and announcements. This peculiar form of enterprise has evolved gradually. It was not clearly seen as the inevitable use for the new invention in the early days of radio. Although the underlying discoveries in the radio field go back to the 1880’s, not until 1907, when Dr. Lee De Forest invented the “grid” tube, did broadcasting of the human voice become feasible. One night Dr. De Forest, trusting to luck, invited a Swedish concert singer who was visiting his laboratory to sing into the complicated machinery he had built. A wireless operator in the Brooklyn Navy Yard happened to hear her voice and America had a new toy and weapon. At first the Bell Telephone Company took the trouble to control many radio