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Mail Tribune 100, Nov. 21, 1922 By Alissa Corman Nov 21, 2022 12:00 AM A A News from 100 years ago The following news items were drawn from the archives of the Mail Tribune 100 years ago Nov. 21, 1922 MAY SOON CABLE MEDFORD-LONDON IN 5 MINUTES That within the near future the Western Union Telegraph company will be able to transmit cablegrams from Medford to London and other European business capitals in five minutes time is the prediction made by James Lister, United States cable manager of the company, according to Manager Osborne of the local Western Union office. Mr. Osborne returned yesterday from a three days’ conference at Portland which was attended by company heads from New York and San Francisco and forty or more representatives from the northwest. This was explained by Lister, who is visiting the Pacific coast, as a development which is expected to result from recent discoveries by the Western Union’s able engineers in conjunction with the completion of the program of enlargements and improvements in telegraph facilities throughout the United States making possible the uniform speeding up of the time of transmission of telegrams between all centers. The operation of the company’s cast telegraph and cable systems as one unified service instead of through the usual separate organizations is held to be a principal factor. “The transmission of a cablegram from Portland to London, for example, will soon be merely a matter of one direct transmission over our straight wire to New York and then another transmission from New York through to London without the usual relay at intermediate cable stations in Nova Scotia or the Azores,” said Mr. Osborn. There are brokerage firms in New York which now exchange several hundred cablegrams daily with London and frequently receive the answers within two or three minutes, while only the other day a Pacific Coast firm was astounded to receive an answer from London 33 minutes after its original inquiry was filed. The same kind of service could be given to Paris if the French government, which hold telegraph service as a government monopoly, would permit the Western Union to operate its own offices there as we do in Amsterdam, London, Liverpool, Manchester and several other European cities.” The opening of the new South American cable service recently announced by the Western Union was also discussed. Communication with South American centers is now said be as readily and rapidly accomplished as the sending of a message from Medford to Detroit. A substantial reduction of rates is also reported. — Alissa Corman; [email protected]