Dunderhead

Roy J. Wensley, Westinghouse electric engineer, had an invitation to entertain the National Masonic League Level Club in Manhattan last week with his televox system, wherein tones of certain pitch affect electrified diaphragms, which cause electromagnets to go this way & that, which make machinery go & stop.

He rigged up a blocky mannikin with swiveled arms and wired innards. Then he, others also, at the Level Club blew whistles of those assorted tones to which the dunderhead had been attuned. It pulled a rope that raised a flag that covered the painted face of George Washington; it raised a telephone receiver; it set a vacuum cleaner and electric fan going and the Masonic audience applauding.

Electrician Wensley was prompted to forecast: "I can envision the day when possibly a race of 500,000 of these men will be at the beck & call of humanity. . . . We have already got an order from a gentleman who has a country estate. He wants a robot." `