JOINT MEETING OF ENGINEERS 163 



to hold this joint meeting — the first of its kind. It is with feelings of 

 deep appreciation and respect that we think of the men who have 

 exemplified the ideals of your organization — Faraday, Maxwell, 

 Kelvin — and of the many others, past and present, who have con- 

 tributed to Electrical Engineering and to the scientific foundations 

 upon which it rests. These developments have been notable and have 

 contributed in the greatest degree to the welfare of mankind. One of 

 these developments is the art of electrical communication — the 

 electric telegraph, and the telephone. These have made communi- 

 cation independent of transportation and no longer subject to all of its 

 difficulties and delays. By the telephone, distance has not only been 

 annihilated, but communication by means of the spoken word has 

 become possible. Starting in 1876 with instruments and lines which, 

 with difficulty, permitted communication over distances limited to a 

 few miles, the telephone art has been improved year by year until 

 continents have been spanned and, at last, even the limitations of the 

 Atlantic Ocean have been overcome, and today telephone conversation 

 between the two great capitals of the English-speaking world is a 

 reality. We are gratified that transatlantic communication has made 

 this meeting possible ; it has added one more to the many ties existing 

 between our two institutions and has added still another opportunity 

 for friendly communication between us. 



Chairman Page: Mr. Gherardi and gentlemen: Please regard me 

 for the time being, not as chairman but rather as representing the 

 thirteen thousand members of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. 

 My first desire is to thank you, sir, for your most kind message of 

 good will to us all. In turn we hail the President and members of the 

 American Institute of Electrical Engineers with feelings of the utmost 

 warmth and of everything included in the term good comradeship. 

 The telephone must rank as one of the greatest inventions of the 

 nineteenth century and it has transformed the daily life of all civilized 

 people. Our indebtedness to Graham Bell for the boon he has con- 

 ferred upon us increases with the years, and his memory, along with 

 that of Franklin and Henry, will be cherished as becomes such bene- 

 factors of mankind. It would indeed be a gigantic task to attempt to 

 exhaust the list of those of your society who have contributed so 

 largely to the progress of electrical science and I must content myself 

 by paying tribute to a great institution which has given proof time and 

 again that engineering is truly international. It cannot be questioned 

 that we are living in a period of extraordinary change due to scientific 

 discovery, and in no field has the advance been more marked than in 

 that of communication engineering. The commercial radio services 



