Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

396 Radio Broadcast In the tropics the company provides living quarters for the operators, and for their families in localities where it is possible for an operator to have his family. The salaries paid to chief operators in the tropics range from $150 to $250 per month, depending upon the length of service and assignment. At Swan Island the company also maintains the mess and furnishes a cook and mess attendant. Operators in the tropics are given an opportunity to learn the banana business from the ground up. One of the Company's former operators is now a banana farm superintendent in Honduras; one is the president of a well known radio manufacturing company; another is secretary of a steamship company and others have been promoted to other responsible positions on shore and to pursers and engineers on shipboard. It is no exaggeration to say that today the United Fruit Company is organized around its ability to communicate quickly by means of its own communication system, without which the conduct of its shipping, but more especially the banana business, would be seriously interfered with, since it enables the management to keep in close touch with its outlying divisions and thus to advise them instantly on the conditioning, cutting and shipping of bananas. Through the use of radio the cutting and moving of bananas to seaboard in the tropics can be timed to coincide with the arrival of steamships at the loading ports, and thus the losses which would result from cutting this perishable fruit too soon are reduced to a negligible sum. The conception and carrying out of its radio policy was a big thing not only for the United Fruit Company but for the commercial interests of both the United States and Central America, and great credit is due Mr. Preston, Mr. Keith and the Board of Directors for their foresight and courage which enabled the Company to complete, in the face of tremendous discouragements and adversity, a construction and operating programme of such far-reaching importance. It is characteristic of the true American spirit of initiative, and indicates what can be accomplished by American enterprise abroad. It also demonstrates the mutually beneficial results which can be secured through the development of a great public utility by private initiative under wise government regulation rather than under government ownership and operation. Since 191 1 the radio activities of the United Fruit Company in all its branches have been under the immediate direction of Mr. George S. Davis, who is General Manager of their Radio Telegraph Department. He is also President of the Wireless Specialty Apparatus Company, General Manager of the Tropical Radio Telegraph Company and a Director of the Radio Corporation of America. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Radio Engineers and a member of various other scientific organizations. While in the United States Navy, Mr. Davis became interested in electric propulsion for steamships, and, largely as a result of his initiative, the United Fruit Company decided to give electric ship propulsion a trial. Their newest steamship, the San Benito, was accordingly equipped with electric drive by the General Electric Company, and has proven so satisfactory that additional ship tonnage when built will probably be propelled by electric machinery. Assisting Mr. Davis in the Company's radio engineering and construction work is Mr. William E. Beakes, Chief Engineer of the Radio Telegraph Department and of the Tropical Radio Telegraph Company. Mr. Beakes was with Professor Fessenden's company from 1904 until 1912 and participated in the early work at both the Brant Rock, Massachusetts, and Machrihanish, Scotland, stations. He represented the Fessenden Company in the installation of the United Fruit Company stations at Cape San Antonio, Cuba, and New Orleans, entering the service of that company in 1912. Colonel W. P. Rothrock, formerly Chief Designing Engineer of the Fort Pitt Bridge Works and well known among structural steel builders as having supervised the third tracking of a large section of the New York Elevated system, and the construction of some of the largest war material plants, is superintendent of tower and building construction for the Radio Department of the Fruit Company. He erected the new 35o-foot towers at Almirante, and is now in Honduras, erecting the 42O-foot towers at Tegucigalpa. This article would hardly be complete without a few words concerning the United Fruit Company's activities — what it is and does. It was incorporated on May 30, 1899, and is engaged primarily in the production and transportation of tropical products, principally