Radio Broadcast - 1925, February - 113 Pages ... - VacuumTubeEra

yi6 Radio Broadcast
down underneath the chairs, it will be plenty
long enough!
So while the Chairman of the Convention
stood on the platform with his gavel up-raised,
ready to call the Convention to order, we were
frantically stretching that cord from the booth
to the platform, and one of us holding
it in
place while the other nailed it down.
Bang! went the last nail into place, and at
almost the same instant, bang! went the
Chairman's gavel and the Convention was on.
At the same instant Johnson was back into
his booth, "This is station WJAX, The Union
Trust Company, Cleveland, broadcasting. ."
.
The La Follette Convention was in the air!
Well, we went back to the studio and fell
flat on the carpet for a few minutes' rest.
TWO CONVENTIONS AT ONCE
THEN the Democrats began to get busy.
First came a lot of brass band music and
then the invocation and then the reading of
the Declaration of Independence address.
The thing got under our skins somehow, and
as hardened as we were to the radio game we
sat up and took notice.
There we were with two loud speakers in
the station. Through one was coming the
proceedings of the National Democratic
Convention in New York about to nominate
a candidate for President. Through the other
was coming the proceedings of the La Follette
party in Cleveland, preparing to nominate
La Follette for the presidency. Our radi6
audience was getting only the La Follette
Convention, but we were getting both at the
same time!
Down at the Public Hall in Cleveland a La
Follette orator was denouncing what he called
the "mad-house" at New York. At the same
instant we heard the "mad-house" at New
York going full blast.
We left the La Follette Convention in the
air until the Democrats had finished their
singing and the reading of the Declaration of
Independence, and the Chairman's gavel
sounded the call of the Convention to order.
Then the writer stepped to the microphone and
said, "Well, friends of the radio audience, we
are now going to switch you over from the
La Follette Convention at the Public Auditorium
in Cleveland to the National Democratic
Convention in Madison Square Garden
in New York City."
Click, went the switch in the operating room
and the radio audience jumped from Cleveland
to New York, from La
Follette to the Democrats,
and once more
were privileged to hear
the repetition of that
now world-famous
phrase, "Twenty four
for Underwood."
Then late in the afternoon,
when the Democrats
had finished their
daily round and adjourned,
once more we
switched our listeners
from Madison Square
Garden back again to
the Public Auditoriunr
in Cleveland, where
young Bob La Follette
was making an impassioned
plea on behalf of
his father's candidacy.
It was a wonderful,
THE TWO ANTENNA TOWERS
Atop the Union Trust Company building in Cleveland,owners of station WJAX
wonderful day, but I
can tell you that after
it was all over, the
most glorious thing of
all was to go home and
to bed for one good
long ten hour stretch.