A historically significant death occurred this winter without anyone shedding tears. On January 27, the last telegram was sent. Western Union has announced the demise of this technology, once such a significant part of American life. The telegraph machine has tapped its last.
Invented by Bostonian Samuel F. B. Morse, the telegraph replaced the Pony Express as a means of coast-to-coast communication. On May 24, 1844 Morse sent the first public message from Washington, D.C. to his assistant in Baltimore, “WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?” From that memorable moment on, the device took its place as a basic institution in American life.
145 years ago this month, Jefferson Davis received a telegram informing him that he had been chosen president of the Confederacy of southern states that had broken with the federal government. On reading the message, the reluctant official turned ashen with fear for the future.
A telegram from Orville Wright to his father carried news of the first airplane flight in 1903. In December 1941, a telegram from the commander of the Pacific Fleet read: AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NO DRILL.
Telegrams were not always terse; in February 1946, George Kennan, a diplomat based at the American embassy in Moscow, sent his classic “Long Telegram” to the State Department, providing a scholarly and wise analysis of the threats that the Soviet Union then posed.
Movies of my growing-up years often featured dramatic scenes of people receiving the characteristic yellow envelope with news, sometimes joyful, often devastating. In the latter category, were ranked the telegrams delivered by military personnel and the received by families of WWII casualties: WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU. . .
Unlike many of my age peers, I remember receiving a telegram only once. Mine came to me in 1971 from a staff person in the office of the governor of Massachusetts. I was in Paris with a delegation of anti-war Americans who were meeting with Vietnamese officials. The terse message simply said: “PLEASE PROCEED.” That meant I could continue trying to sound out the North Vietnamese on a plan that would dramatize opposition to the Vietnam War.
The then governor of the commonwealth, Frank Sargent, was open to this plan whereby North Vietnam would agree to release Massachusetts prisoners of war in return for the governor’s promise not to allow residents of the state to be sent to fight in Vietnam. I considered it a brilliant anti-war move in part because it would pit a Republican governor against the Republican President Nixon.
Ultimately nothing came of the plan, but the telegram still occupies a place in my files. I suppose it might have been entered in evidence against me if the federal government had brought charges against our delegation, as a lawyer friend suggested it could have done.
As an institution, the telegram has now fallen victim to other devices, faster and more direct. Morse’s invention was always only half a technology, anyway, since it depended on human legs to deliver the message to its intended recipient. By contrast with email, for example, it did not come directly to you unless you were operating a machine to receive it.
Like email, the telegram gave rise to a special language, one feature of which was the word “STOP.” Senders used this word often because, unlike punctuation marks, it did not cost money.
The rapid pace at which technologies come and go in contemporary America continues to astound me and my age peers. New communication devices, in particular, enter the market in bewildering profusion. I feel at a loss to evaluate what is worth purchasing among the gizmos that promise to take photos, show you movies, and play your favorite music, all at the touch of a button.
Which current technologies will follow telegrams to the grave? That could be the subject of a parlor game, if we still had parlors. One that has surprised me in its recent decline is the FAX machine. After only a few decades of common use, it seems to have been supplanted in large part by various computerized devices.
These devices encourage an abbreviated language that often echoes that of telegrams. Baltimore Sun reporter Stephen Kiehl recently noted the use of telegraphese by text messaging teenagers and Blackberry-equipped executives. (In the jargon of the day, Blackberry is described as “a wireless email solution for mobile professionals.)
But in a hundred years or so, when our current technologies have expired, will journalists write articles about famous text messages, or the Blackberry that changed history? Will our instant communications have a place in our family files, or in the archives of our great institutions?
The telegram─which must have seemed impersonal and ephemeral to the contemporaries of Samuel Morse─proved itself to be an extraordinary source of private and public drama. We are still waiting for similar possibilities in our current technologies.
Richard Griffin