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July 9, 1935
GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL WAXES FACETIOUS OVER TELEVISION
It isn’t often that a humorous note is allowed to creep into a Government report but there was a good laugh in the intro¬ duction of the account Andrew W. Cruse, of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, gave of his European television investiga¬ tion to the National Association of Broadcasters' Convention at Colorado Springs yesterday (Monday).
"It was early in 1925 that Baird in England and Jenkins in this country succeeded in demonstrating the practicability of television and almost hourly since then we have read that 'Television in the home is just around the corner.''", Mr. Cruse said. "For some unaccountable reason this mirage of visual transmissions which has been dangled before the eyes of the public has failed to lose its novelty despite this repetition and any writer has always been sure of attracting a large number of readers through the simple expedient of developing a new angle on the 'Television Story.1 In this respect the 'Television Story' has always reminded me of an old wooden theatrical property horse which was constantly being relegated to the limbo of the dusty old cellar and just as constantly being dragged out, dusted off and paraded around before an ever-enthusiastic public whenever there has been a dearth of news. I think that I can say without fear of contradiction serious or otherwise that from a news viewpoint television has been the most successful scientific development of all time*
"On the 14th of May 1934, a new note crept into this Ravel's Bolero of the 'Television Story', when the British House of Commons announced the appointment of a Committee
"’To consider the development of television and to advise the Postmaster General on the relative merits of the several systems and on the conditions under which any public service of television should be provided. ’
"This theme was built up to a terrific crescendo when, on January 14th of this year the British Television Committee rendered its report. The corner had been turned, the wooden horse had blinked his eye, the public cheered, the bearings of the typewriters ran hot, television stocks boomed in short, a scientific sensation was created which would have dwarfed the story of catching the Loch Ness monster on a bent pin.'
"But in the background of the cheers in the United States could be heard the ' Wallawallawalla' of those incredulous persons who were and for that matter still are demanding the answers to their questions 'What are we going to
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