NPC in History: What’s that thing on the lectern?

Here’s a photo of First Lady Rosalynn Carter speaking to the National Press Club in 1978. President Frank Aukofer of the Milwaukee Journal is presiding. But what is attached to the side of the lectern? It pops up in other luncheon photos, notably one with President Dwight Eisenhower in 1959.

With the advent of radio and the teletype, the job of Morse telegraph operator disappeared from newsrooms. According to "Shrdlu," the Club’s 1958 history book, the Club wanted a way to honor that disappearing technological era. When a new lectern was constructed for the ballroom in 1958, a telegraph instrument was installed on one side. It was known by the parlance of the day as a “bug and sounder.”

The “bug,” or telegraph key, was historic. Owned by United Press, it is the same bug that flashed news of the nomination of Woodrow Wilson for the presidency from the Baltimore Democratic Convention in 1912. Five years later, it clicked out the first draft number of World War I.

The “sounder” is the instrument that gives the distinctive buzzing for dots and dashes. A Prince Albert smoking tobacco can was fitted on the telegraph sound box. Why?

Lyle Wilson, a former Club secretary, chief of the Washington bureau and vice president of United Press International, explained it this way when he presented it to the Club with the new lectern:

“At events where competing circuits were wired into crowded working press areas, each telegrapher personalized his call by wedging a tobacco tin into his sounder. He bent it at an angle that gave it a distinctive pitch to his own dot and dash code. He could read it through the clatter of all of the surrounding keys.”

While the Prince Albert tin was real, it was gold plated when the instrument was presented to the Club.

The bug and sounder replaced a gavel at the podium. As the Club president pounded on the key, the noise brought the room to order as a signal that the speech was about to begin.

When he spoke at the Club on June 28, 1961, David Sarnoff, chairman of the board of RCA, who began his career as a Marconi wireless telegraph operator, tapped out a message on the Club’s key: “Greetings from the National Press Club to all the people of the world – and anyone who may be tuned in from outer space.” He went on to speak about the future of space communication.

If you want to hear what it sounded like, you can listen to the first few seconds of this audio recording of a speech civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph gave at the Club on Aug. 26, 1963. The sound itself was probably louder than it seems on this recording because the telegraph was not near the microphone on the lectern. And you may want to listen to Randolph’s speech itself because it was given just two days before the famed March on Washington.

What happened to the Club’s bug and sounder?

When the Club and Press Building were rebuilt in the early 1980s, the refurbished ballroom was outfitted with a much larger lectern that could be automatically raised and lowered to fit the speaker’s height. The telegraph was not attached to it when the ballroom reopened in 1984. Club presidents have pounded the luncheons to order with a gavel since then.

The famed instrument is not to be found in the Club today. It is possible that it was sold with other Club furnishings during the renovation. Or perhaps somehow it walked out the door. If anyone has information about it, please let me know.

This is another in a series provided by Club historian Gil Klein. Dig down anywhere in the Club’s 110-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.