VOICE VOYAGES BY THE NATIONAL 

 GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 



A Tribute to the Geographical Achievements of the 



Telephone 



PERHAPS never before in the his- 

 tory of civilization has there been 

 such an impressive illustration of 

 the development and power of human 

 mind over mundane matter as was dem- 

 onstrated at the annual dinner of the 

 National Geographic Society, at the New 

 Willard Hotel, in Washington, on the 

 •evening of March 7, the fortieth anni- 

 versary of the award of the patent for 

 the invention of the telephone to Alex- 

 ander Graham Bell. 



The occasion was in itself inspiring. 

 Science, art, diplomacy, statecraft, and 

 business had sent their most distin- 

 guished representatives to join with the 

 Society in honoring those whose services 

 to civilization had been so far-reaching 

 and which were to be so dramatically 

 demonstrated during the evening. From 

 the four corners of the country had come 

 a nation's elite to join with the Society 

 in crowning with the laurels of their af- 

 fection and admiration the brilliant men 

 whose achievements had made possible 

 the miracles of science that were to be 

 witnessed. 



And if the occasion was impressive 

 and its setting inspiring, the events of 

 the evening were dramatic beyond meas- 

 ure, for it seemed indeed that at last fact 

 had outrun fancy, and that imagination 

 had acknowledged the supremacy of 

 actuality. 



LATTER-DAY MIRACLES 



Small wonder was it that at the even- 

 ing's close the men who help guide the 

 destinies of the nation had in subdued 

 emotion declared that they felt "hum- 

 b>led and meek and overwhelmed !" What 

 wonder that they in amazement ex- 

 claimed to one another, that in view of 

 the things their eyes had seen and their 



ears had heard, "110 man can say that 

 anything is impossible !" 



What wonder, indeed, was it that men 

 declared that it might yet be possible to 

 talk to Mars if it were inhabited; what 

 wonder that they had come again to be- 

 lieve in fairies — only that these fairies 

 were no longer creatures of the unseen 

 world — but men with super-minds like 

 Marconi, Vail, Carty, and Graham Bell; 

 what wonder that men pronounced what 

 they beheld as latter-day miracles, or that 

 many men and women present felt that 

 they were dining amid scenes closely bor- 

 dering the supernatural ! 



For had they not heard the living 

 voice across a continent ! Had they not 

 had brought home to them the fact that 

 in the twinkling of the eye their voice 

 had swept from sea to sea, across high 

 mountains, low plains, prairies, and pla- 

 teaus ! 



Had they not heard the Pacific's surf 

 beat upon its rockbound coast, while they 

 themselves were on the very threshhold 

 of the Atlantic ! 



Had they not, indeed, heard and added 

 their own voices to the strains of the 

 Star Spangled Banner played by a pho- 

 nograph at Arlington, Virginia, and car- 

 ried to New York by wireless and back 

 to Washington by wire, in all its sweet- 

 ness, with all its inspiration, and breath- 

 ing patriotic faith — carried there at a 

 speed that made the "wings of the wind" 

 a misfit metaphor ! 



Think of a diner in that banquet hall 

 hearing the strains of that music, after 

 they had traveled four hundred miles, 

 half way by wire and the other half by 

 wireless, before they could reach the ear 

 of a person at the very foot of the tower 

 whence they started ! 



The dinner was given in honor of the 

 achievements in the art of telephony 



296 



