• U.S.

Business & Finance: Wire v. Wireless

3 minute read
TIME

Insistent has been the rumor of a merger between Radio Corp. of America and Western Union Telegraph Co. Presidents of both companies have admitted “conversations.” denied merger plans. Last week it became apparent that at least one current merger denial was supported by the facts. Abruptly, R.C.A. threw down the gage of battle to Western Union and announced the birth of R.C.A. Communications, Inc., to compete directly with U.S. telegraph companies.

As everyone knows, Western Union and Postal Telegraph (I.T.& T. subsidiary) are the two giants in the field. As President of the super-giant Western Union, Newcomb Carlton took up R.C.A.’s gage. Unimpressed by the wireless threat, he snapped: “The Radio Corporation has nothing we now wish to use, and if we ever need anything they have, we can get it from other sources. For the time being, at least, we will view the disposal of the Radio Corporation as an interesting scientific development.”

If war there is to be, the telegraph companies now appear to have the whip hand. R.C.A. radio circuits terminate at New York on the East Coast and San Francisco on the West Coast. Blank of its stations is the whole interior. Not only can it transmit no domestic messages, but all messages from the interior for radio transmission abroad must be relayed to the coast over Western Union wires. Tentative, temporary are R.C.A.’s “agree ments” with these companies. Therefore, to escape this bondage, R.C.A. Communications has applied to the Federal Radio Commission for 67 wave lengths to be used in domestic service. It will mean extending to 31 inland centres radio service by R.C.A. Communications.

Two radio rivals to the newborn company have already appeared. Earliest of all in the field was Universal Wireless Communications Co, of Buffalo, which obtained late last year (TIME, Jan. 7) from the Federal Radio Commission a generous helping of wave lengths. This is still a dark horse; no steps have been taken to establish its proposed radio network between no U.S. cities. Postal Telegraph itself is the other rival: it has also applied to the Commission for domestic wave lengths. If radiotelephonic hookups, now a possibility, become a reality, the remaining great communications company, American Telephone & Telegraph Co., will be drawn into the fight.

Apart from telegraphy, Newcomb Carlton has two hobbies. As the largest employer of boys in the world (15,000 youths in forest green deliver telegrams for Western Union), he is interested in boys. Ship models, his other hobby, overflow his summer home at Wood’s Hole, Mass. His only son, Winslow Carlton, is a Senior at Harvard. Since 1914 Mr. Carlton has been President of Western Union. Recently The Daily Princetonian pulled a publicity stunt. It telegraphed many a prominent man asking: If you had only 24 more hours to live, what would you do with the time? Prepaid, the telegraphic query came to Mr. Carlton. Immediately he wired back: “I would spend it in prayer for Princeton.”

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