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God Bless America
By Jerry L. Ginther
The landline telegraph was, in its day, the fastest and most dependable mode of communication available. Used by companies such as Western Union for sending messages known as telegrams over long distances, it became a large and profitable business especially for urgent matters. The newspapers also made use of this rapid method of disseminating their breaking news stories across the continent in a matter of minutes, where prior to its use news traveled very slowly, taking days to reach distant locations.
Telegraph offices were located mostly in railroad depots in every town along the tracks. At its inception, the railroads were the primary providers and users of this communication system, using it for their daily operation to know the location of each train on their lines. The station operator would telegraph the arrival and departure of the trains to a dispatcher, thereby providing him with the information needed to arrange meeting points between opposing trains.
With the advent of the landline telephone system, the telegraph became less and less used as a speedy method for transmitting messages for the public but was still relied upon heavily by newswire services, railroads and even for large operations occupying several floors in the same building, such as the stock exchanges. These businesses used a closed circuit telegraph system within the building they occupied.
Gradually, the system morphed into landline teletype, which did not require a person skilled in sending and receiving Morse code. The receiving teletype machines operated largely unmanned and provided printed copies of the information it received. In many uses the incoming information could be left on the machine until it was needed. However, the railroads continued to use all three methods to serve their various needs. As late as the 1960s, a few railroads were still using the landline telegraph for train dispatching using Morse telegraph operators. During my freshman year in high school, the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad (C&EI) still relied on the telegraph for train dispatching. It was there that I learned Morse code and the dying occupation of railroad telegrapher. From the first time I saw the agent at work sending and receiving telegraph messages, I was impressed with his proficiency. He was able to listen to the telegraph instrument, translate the code in his head, type the messages on a manual typewriter and carry on a conversation with me at the same time; being merely impressed doesn't seem to be quite adequate for a fitting description. But, later, I would learn that what I had seen the first time was common among most of the telegraph operators I would come to know.
With that skill learned, at a somewhat low level of accomplishment in the next few months, I knew that was the job for me. However, by the time I was old enough to get the job, telegraphy wasn't a requirement but still used by those who knew it.
When I came home from military service in the late 1960s, I returned to the job only to find telegraphy was taking its last gasp on the Illinois Central where I was employed. The telegraph lines were still up and operating but mostly used between operators on the same district for short communications, such as car reports or reporting the passing of a train to the next station on that district. Landline teletype machines occupied the yard offices and were then sending train manifests to other yards and terminals requiring that information. As the telegraph wires and power supplies began to fail they were not repaired and the instruments started to vanish from the depots.
The next form of telegraphy to bite the dust was radiotelegraphy. International Morse Code was used by the military and amateur radio because it was more dependable for getting through adverse weather conditions or deliberate jamming attempts. A weak CW (continuous wave) signal could be heard through static much better than a distorted voice signal. Now the military no longer teaches this mode of radio communication, and it is no longer required to obtain an Amateur Radio License. Passing a 20 word per minute proficiency test in receiving was required when I received my Extra Class License, but the Army required only proficiency at 18 wpm to graduate from their radio school in Ft. Dix, N.J.
These modes are not completely dead yet, but in another generation they will be. They stay alive now because those of us who still possess some degree of proficiency are living and using the codes in club settings and ham radio, but the skill is no longer taught and no longer required in any occupation. It seems doomed to be relegated to the scrap heap of antiquities to become an extinct form of communicating much like smoke signals.
Copyright © 2002 - 2016 Jerry Ginther, All rights reserved worldwide
