A Future Arrived (20 page)

The potential grasped … the vision seen. The artful manipulation of a cat's whisker across a lump of crystal brought sound out of the nothingness of air. A human voice speaking into a microphone in New York City emerging in an instant in the most remote cabin in North Dakota. It would take money and it would take time, but there would be millions to be made in the sales of radio sets and in the selling of air time to advertisers. Not everyone shared his vision of the future and few rushed to buy stock in his Consolidated Broadcasters Company at 3
³
⁄
₈
a share when it went on the market in the autumn of 1921. He formed a small financial syndicate composed of himself, Paul Rilke, and three other financiers. Together they put five million dollars into building radio transmitting stations and a radio manufacturing-and-research company with the grand name of Meradion Neutrodyne. The sale of radio sets, of which Meradion Neutrodyne captured the lion's share, reached the astonishing figure of sixty million dollars in 1922. Two years later that sum had rocketed to three hundred fifty-eight million. Radio was becoming an industry and Scott Kingsford had it by the throat.

By January 1929, the annual sale of radio sets in the United States had touched the seven-hundred-million-dollar mark, and was rising. More radios meant more listeners, and more listeners meant higher advertising rates for air time. Anyone owning a radio station couldn't help getting rich, and anyone owning a great many radio stations would get a damn sight richer. Scott Kingsford owned a great many stations.

After its modest beginnings Consolidated Broadcasters Company had grown into the largest radio network in the country. More people tuned into CBC than into all the other networks combined. This popularity was reflected in the value of its stock. All stocks were rising on a flamboyantly optimistic bull market, but CBC's rise was spectacular, touching the three-hundred-dollar mark after several years of stable growth with its stock in the fifty- to sixty-dollar range. Stock-market analysts sagely predicted that CBC would go to the blue sky within a year and investors eager to get in on this gold mine flocked to their brokerage houses, cash in hand. CBC stock lunged ever upward.

Scott Kingsford took this as a sign that gave credence to his vision. It was not enough to be big, he had to be overpoweringly dominant. It was possible to control the radio market, coast to coast and border to border, to drive his competitors into insignificance. To do this required nothing more than buying every independent radio station he could get his hands on, and building newer, more powerful stations in key areas. The sums required would be enormous, but Wall Street would finance. They knew a good opportunity when they saw one and his CBC holdings were gilt edged and sound as the dollar.

Stock pledged for cash. Cash spent for stations. Pledge and buy and pledge some more. And day after day the value of CBC rising on the Big Board.

There were men in congress who worried over the ethics, if not the legality, of Scott Kingsford's grab for control of the radio-broadcasting industry. There should be regulations of some sort, or did it already fall under the provisions and restraints of the Sherman Antitrust Act? No one could say for sure. And outside of a few, no one really cared. At the level of Rotary and Junior Chamber of Commerce there was outright approval. If Ford could manage to beat Chalmers out of the marketplace … well, where was the harm in that? Business was business. It made the world go around. It was, in the words of Bruce Barton, a holy thing that, like any solid and respected religion, should not be tampered with by government interference.

There had been warnings and danger signs, and some people had heeded them. “What goes up must come down,” was heard in more than one corporate board room. But they were the doom criers, or the bears. “Be a bull on America,” was more widely expressed. A delicious fever began to sweep the country, an “itch to get rich”—as easily and as quickly as possible. “Why, everybody ought to be rich,” said John J. Raskob, and proceeded to tell people how to achieve this enviable state in the
Ladies' Home Journal
. The secret was in buying good common stocks. But then everybody knew that—and just about everybody knew a broker.

It was this national craze to invest that had so worried Paul Rilke. He had studied Wall Street for half a century and knew a thing or two about stock prices and earning ratios. The market was shaky, it fell with alarming suddenness, only to rise again a few days or a few weeks later as bullish as ever. It had a life, yes, but it was like some overgrown monster kept from expiring by constant infusions of blood from millions of Frankensteins. When housewives began to pool their bridge earnings to buy four shares of Continental Can on margin, he knew it was time to start getting out of the market—and so advised his friends and relatives.

Martin had been chief of the CBC news department since 1924 and had gone on the air every Saturday at 6
P.M.
Eastern Standard Time as a news “commentator.” His opening remark … “Hello, America, this is Martin Rilke speaking to you from New York City …” became something of a catch phrase, as familiar to the radio listener as Graham McNamee's fervid cry of
“And he did it! Yes, sir, he did it!”
at every Babe Ruth home run or Notre Dame touchdown.

It had not been his Uncle Paul's warnings or any personal qualms over the great bull market that had induced Martin to sell his CBC shares. It had been a dispute with Scott over sponsor interference with his news broadcast. He had sold his stock at 305½ the day he resigned from the company.

Scott had thought him a damn fool. Not for quitting, because he had anticipated that, but for selling the shares at such a low price. “It's going to hit a thousand, Marty.”

But not in this world.

T
HE BARMAN PLACED
a glass containing a pale yellow fluid on the counter. “Here you are, Mr. Kingsford. The classic martini cocktail. Two parts gin to one part vermouth … stir gently, serve with a twist of lemon peel.”

Scott's expression was bleak. “
One third
vermouth? That will not be a
dry
martini, George.”

Martin ordered a whisky and soda. “Not exactly like Gilboy's.”

The big, gray-haired man sighed and took a small sip of his drink as though it were medicine. “Ah, Gilboy's. A pitcher full of ice … pour in vermouth, pour out vermouth … fill with gin. Now
that's
classic in my book. They raided Gilboy's a week after you left New York. Sloshed all that good hooch down Third Avenue.”

“That must have been a sad day.”

“Not as sad a day for me as the day you went off the air. Old ‘Hello America' heard for the last time.”

“I don't imagine Goldfield shed any tears.”

“Hell, you just waded into politics. Gordon Benn of United Tobacco was angling for an ambassadorship. Some of your comments irked Hoover. So, tough. You had a right to your opinion, it's still a free country. The trouble was, old friend, there's a disease in radio known as please-the-sponsor, and I caught it bad. I should have backed you to the hilt and told Goldfield to go puff on their smokes.”

“That's water over the dam.”

“Sure. But it still hurts. I may not have stabbed you, Marty, but I twisted the blade.”

“Don't go gray over it.”

Scott chuckled softly and tore absently at a box of matches with the hotel's crest embossed on the lid. “Just a clash between my hubris and your integrity. But virtue is always rewarded in the end. I'm glad you cashed in your chips when you did. How does it feel to be one of the rich Rilkes for a change?”

“Pretty damn good.”

“I understand you've built a very comfortable ivory tower with your money. I haven't read any of your books, by the way. I don't share your faith in the innate goodness of the human soul.” He tossed off his martini and made a wry face. “I better stick to Scotch. Even this booze jockey can't screw that up.”

Martin rolled his glass between his palms. “Why did you want to see me, Scott?”

“I'm sure you can guess. It's a new CBC. Not
my
CBC, you understand. That's long gone. The banks, brokers, and a million lawyers saw to that. They carved it up like a boardinghouse chicken. But they let me run it … what there is left of it.”

“You still have some good shows.”

“Oh, sure … Mick and Mary and a new group of loonies called the Happytime Boys … Saturday night, coast-to-coast hookup. Folks appreciate a chuckle these days. Nothing funny in guys selling apples. Ad revenues are way down, but I got hope.” He reduced the matches to sawdust between his powerful fingers. “I lost a bundle in the debacle, Marty, but I'm far from busted and damn far from through. Give me five or six years and I'll make the network the only one worth tuning in.”

“I'm sure you will.”

“Innovation. Capture the imagination of the listener. Take the news … on all networks … most of it out of date, stale … yesterday's headlines. One or two good commentators, and with you gone … well, you left a big void.”

“I'm not coming back.”

“Oh, hell, I know that. I'm not asking you to come back. I'd like you to stay here … be CBC's man on this side of the pond. No network has a regular overseas news broadcast. Too many technical problems involved. But we can solve those problems with new transmitting and receiving equipment … and a wire recording device that has a clarity you wouldn't believe. Your German relatives make the stuff. Rilkefunken in Hanover.”

Martin swallowed some of his whisky and looked toward the tall windows at the far end of the room. The rain had stopped, the leaves of Green Park glistening like polished jade in the sun.

“Does Paul fit into this some place?”

Scott snorted and toyed with his little pile of crushed matches. “Of course. He's become a major stockholder in the new CBC. Your uncle's a carpetbagger at heart. But that's okay, he can be chairman of the board for all I care. I get along with the old bastard. And I'll say one thing for him, he's smart … he looks down the road. We both agree that in ten, fifteen years, radio will knock newspapers right out of the ring. No one will buy a goddamn paper except to read the Macy and Gimbel ads.”

“Was it Paul's idea to hire me?”

“Hell, no.” He swept the matchbox residue away. “I don't need him to tell me who's the best in the business. Martin Rilke … why, that's a twenty-four-carat name, on a by-line or a broadcast. Why, you're a drawing power, Marty. You make people tune in—and they'll sure as heck tune in this show, believe me. It has novelty … and excitement … like talking pictures. Good folk who have never been fifty miles from Tulsa or Pocatello in their entire lives can sit back every Sunday night and have Martin Rilke speak to them from London … Paris … Moscow … Berlin. The world in their front parlor. And with these new wire machines you can prerecord things days before the broadcast. Not just interviews with famous people, but the
sounds
of the city you're broadcasting from. The changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, say, or Bastille Day in Paris with a million people along the Champs-Élysées singing the Marseillaise while fireworks pop all over the goddamn sky!”

Martin laughed. “Don't get carried away.”

“Hell, I am carried away. I tell you, Marty, those Kraut engineers know what they're doing. I've been to the factory in Hanover and seen all the prototypes demonstrated. They're going to make what we have in the States look like crystal sets. The technocracy is here and we have it, bo. We should start getting delivery from Rilkefunken in six or seven months. But there's a hell of a lot to be done in the meantime. CBC News, Europe, is just something on paper at the moment. It has to be fleshed out with people. You'll need correspondents, legmen, reliable stringers. You can get some of your top people from INA—Wolf von Dix, Carlos Medina … guys like that. I know that Eddie Miles is an old pal of yours, but I hear he's back on the sauce and—”

“Now just hold it a minute, Scott. You're talking as though I've taken the job.”

“That's right, bo.” A huge grin split his craggy face. “You may not know it yet, but you've signed on. Oh, hell, yes … you've joined the crew!”

T
HE CONTRACT HAD
been a handshake and a toast to success, the handshake more bonding to Scott Kingsford than a fifty-page document hammered out by a Philadelphia lawyer. Martin thought over the terms as he took a taxi home. They gave him carte blanche in all matters—staff, content of the broadcasts. Sponsor be damned.
His
show. But he would be as objective as possible, having been a journalist too long not to be able to look at all sides of a question. And he would avoid the trap, common to some radio commentators, of being blatantly opinionated. The whole idea increased its appeal the more he thought about it. The wire recorders, if they worked as well as Scott claimed, would open up limitless possibilities.

Rilkefunken, GmbH, was part of the sprawling industrial empire of the German Rilkes. The collapse of Germany and the devastating inflation after the war had nearly ruined them and they had been forced to sell patents and foreign manufacturing rights to many of their varied products to their cousin, Paul Rilke of Chicago, for solid American dollars. It had been Paul's greatest financial coup, leading one of his many critics to say that it was the biggest robbery every committed without the use of a pistol.