More Romance Shattered

Nikola Tesla takes issue with Edison and declares that we will soon be talking clear around the world. "If there exist today no facilities for telegraphic and telephonic communication between the distant countries," Tesla says, "it is merely because a series of misfortunes and obstacles have delayed the consummation of my labors, which might have been completed three years ago."

Tesla may well be believed. Anything seems possible in this age of magic. Wireless communication around the world would crown the most remarkable series of inventions ever given by a single generation to the world. The wireless telegraph is an invention of the last 10 years. Marconi, its inventor, is still in his thirties. The death of John Pratt, inventor of the typewriter, impressed the newness of that necessary fixture in every business office in the world. The idea was born in 1862: Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, is still living. Edison, whose incandescent light has turned night into day, has not reached his 60th year. Serpollet began his experiments with self-propelling road vehicles in 1894. Within 11 years thousands of automobiles have sprung into existence. Architecture, the oldest art known to man, has been revolutionized in our day by the elevator.

A few years ago the world was laughing at an Australian scientist who claimed that he could look through the human body by means of the Roentgen ray. Today the fact has become commonplace. It is an age of magic. It is a generation that seems bewitched. The veil of nature's mysteries has been lifted, revealing wonders of which our fathers dared not even dream. When Tesla declares that we shall soon be talking clear around the world, why should we doubt?