1922

Bruce Bliven, "The Ether Will Now Oblige," in The New Republic.

There will be only one orchestra left on earth, giving nightly worldwide concerts; when all universities will be combined into one super-institution, conducting courses by radio for students in Zanzibar, Kamchatka and Oskaloose; when, instead of newspapers, trained orators will dictate the news of the world day and night, and the bedtime story will be told every evening from Paris to the sleepy children of a weary world; when every person will be instantly accessible day or night to all the bores he knows, and will know them all: when the last vestiges of privacy, solitude and contemplation will have vanished into limbo.

1923

J. M. McKibben, "New Way to Make Americans."

Today this nation of ours is slowly but surely being conquered, not by a single enemy in open warfare, but by a dozen insidious (though often unconscious) enemies in peace. Millions of foreigners were received into the country, with little or no thought given to their assimilation. But now the crisis is upon us; and we must face it without a great leader. Perhaps no man could mold the 120 million people in a harmonious whole, bound together by a strong national consciousness: but in the place of a superhuman individual, the genius of the last decade has provided a force - and that force is radio.

1924

Waldemar Kaempffert, "The Social Destiny of Radio."

It so happens that the United States and Great Britain have taken the lead in broadcasting. If that lead is maintained it follows that English must become the dominant tongue. Compared with our efforts at mass entertainment and mass education, European competition is pathetic. All ears may eventually be cocked to hear what the United States and Great Britain have to say. Europe will find it desirable, even necessary, to learn English.

1928

The New York Times on how radio might affect voters.

It is believed that brief pithy statements as to the positions of the parties and candidates, which reach the emotions through the minds of millions of radio listeners, will play an important part in the race to the White House.

1930

Martin Codel, "Radio and Its Future."

That anything man can imagine he can do in the ethereal realm of radio will probably be an actual accomplishment some day. Perhaps radio, or something akin to radio, will one day give us mortals telepathic or occult senses!

FILM

1895

A journalist in Paris after viewing the premiere of Louis LumiÃ ̈re's films.

Photography has ceased to record immobility. It perpetuates the image of movement. When these gadgets are in the hands of the public, when anyone can photograph the ones who are dear to them, not just in their immobile form, but with movement, action, familiar gestures and the words out of their mouths, then death will no longer be absolute, final.

1896

The projectionist of the first LumiÃ ̈re screening in New York.

You had to have lived these moments of collective exaltation, have attended these thrilling screenings in order to understand just how far the excitement of the crowd could go. With the flick of a switch, I plunge several thousand spectators into darkness. Each scene passes, accompanied by tempestuous applause; after the sixth scene, I return the hall to light. The audience is shaking. Cries ring out.

Maxim Gorky, on seeing the LumiÃ ̈re CinÃ©matographe in Nizhny Novgorod.

Last evening, I was in the Kingdom of the Shadows. If one could only convey the strangeness of this world. A world without color and sound. Everything here- the earth, water, and air, the trees, the people-everything is mad of a monotone gray. Gray rays of sunlight in a gray sky, gray eyes in a gray face, leaves as gray as cider. Not life, but the shadow of life. Not life's movement, but a sort of mute specter.

Their movements are full of vital energy and so rapid that you scarcely see them, but their smiles have nothing of life in them. You see their facial muscles contract but their laugh cannot be heard. A life is born before you, a life deprived of sound and the specter of color - a gray and noiseless life - a wan and cut-rate life.