NPC in History: The Menace of Radio

Some of the greatest composers in America during the 1920s converged on the National Press Club on April 14, 1924. As each of them signed the Club’s guest book, some wrote short scores of their famous works.

These signatures were reproduced across two pages of the Club’s 1928 yearbook with a group photo on the next page with the caption, “Famous Song Writers, Club Guests, on ‘Authors and Composers Night.”

Look closely at the signature and you can see names of some composers whose works are still played today: Victor Herbert, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, John Philip Sousa. Some of the names you might not recognize but their songs you may have heard your parents sing, such as Con Conrad’s “Barney Google.”

But what is interesting historically is why these composers were all in Washington on this date. A search of the Washington Evening Star archives revealed that the next day some of them would testify before a Senate committee about “the menace” of an upstart new medium: radio.

At issue was how composers would be compensated when their music was played on the radio. Radio companies insisted they provided free advertising for the composers. But composers said they feared radio would replace the sales of records, sheet music and even movie attendance, which paid royalties.

“This bill takes away initiative – the reward for it at least,” testified Gene Buck, president of the National Association of Authors, Composer and Publishers. “If enacted, it will result in the elimination of American song writers.”

Victor Herbert complained that one song he wrote was broadcast “eight or 10 times a day.”

“No one will buy a copy of that song now that it has been jammed down their ears ad nauseum,” he said.

This is another in a series provided by Club historian Gil Klein. Dig down anywhere in the Club’s 111-year history, and you will find some kind of significant event in the history of the world, the nation, Washington, journalism and the Club itself. Many of these events were caught in illustrations that tell the stories.