Can't Fill Demand For Wireless Men.

New York Times 100 years ago today, June 1, 1913:
Y.M.C.A. School Has Difficulty in Keeping Students Long Enough to Finish Course.
A GOOD TRAINING FOR BOYS
Service as Operators on Ships Gives Them a Chance to See the World and to Study.
    Marconi operators are in such great demand this year that the East Side Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association, at 153 East Eighty-sixth Street, has established a summer course for its wireless telegraph school. The Marconi Company has called on W. E. Bristol, the Secretary in charge of the school, for wireless operators in large numbers, the last request being for a group of forty. Although the school has a large attendance throughout the regular terms, it has been unable to supply the demand from among the graduates of its Winter classes.
    Wireless telegraphy has provided not only a new, but also a big field of activity for young men. The pay is fair — quite large enough, in fact, for any youngster — and the work gives an opportunity to see the world greater even than that to be found in the navy. For, while the naval recruit must reckon on a certain proportion of shore duty and also on the chance of being kept for a long time on a single station, even when theoretically at sea, the wireless operator in his first few years is likely to be a pretty lively globe-trotter. By keeping his eyes open for chances to exchange, he can see almost all parts of the world.
    Many of the manipulators of the crackling spark are recruited from city youths who earn only a few dollars a week at office or shop work. Others come from the farms, where they have not been overburdened with pocket money. To a youngster of either class, it is profitable as well as pleasant to earn his living at wireless telegraphy and circle the earth while he is doing it, at a salary of $30 a month and expenses. For the expenses include his board and lodging and transportation, so that his salary has only to cover his clothes and spending money. And the $30 a month is not all he draws, for if he is on a passenger ship he gets 10 per cent. of the tolls on all messages. Even on a freight vessel his commissions are likely to reach a moderate sum in a cruise of normal length.
    Thirty dollars is the monthly salary on the Atlantic Coast. In Pacific waters the pay is a third higher. The Marconi Company recently sent operators to the Pacific Coast at $40 a month and expenses. It is believed that as wireless telegraphy expands the pay of the operators will be increased substantially.

Chances for Advancement.
    But it is not necessary for ambitious wireless operators to wait for that time to get higher pay. Plums are in their reach now, and the more progressive among the young men are stretching out their hands for them. A wireless inspector in the employ of the Bureau of Navigation of the department of Commerce starts at $1,800 a year. It is his own fault if he fails to go higher in a short time. There is said to be little doubt that the Government will increase largely the number of such inspectorships, and it is believed the pay will be increased to meet the larger demand which that expansion will create.
    Wireless operating aboard ship is far from drudgery. Under the new law of last July every vessel equipped with wireless is compelled to carry two operators. The operators on most ships are permitted to divide their work to suit themselves. All that is required of them is that one of the two shall be on duty all the time and ready for work. Sometimes the men arrange their hours on a basis of six hours on and eight off, taking turns on the short and long tricks. Others prefer twelve on and eight off. Others again like eight hours on and twelve off.
    Few, if any, ships now carry three operators. Some did so for a time after the Titanic disaster, but it has been decided that two men meet all the requirements of safety. The Lusitania and Mauretania, each of which had three Marconi men until lately, have reduced their forces to the two required by law.
    The young man who makes his way around the world as an operator has abundant leisure. One youth, for example, whose ship plies between Atlantic and Mexican waters, has fourteen days off in Mexico on each voyage, the same number in New York, and seven days in Philadelphia..
    Although the ages of Marconi operators range from 16 to 55 years, the average age at which men enter the service is 20. The students are drawn from grammar school, high school, and college, as well as from youths already in business. Most of them are Americans. Among the recruits are messengers, office boys, clerks, electricians' helpers, and even ribbon salesmen. Among so many Americans many are found ambitious enough to take correspondence courses in electrical engineering and other lines. Wireless work gives a boy a fine start for almost any employment calling for technical knowledge.
    There is another advantage in putting in a few years as a wireless operator. Not only have the manufacturers of the United States gained at least a small part of the South American trade, but they are reaching out for more with increasing eagerness as the years of this progressive century roll by. It is safe to say that the youth who serves for a couple of years in South American waters, learning Spanish and Portuguese and acquiring intimate knowledge of the commercial customs of the peoples, will find a good place awaiting him in an export house when he is ready to settle down in New York. Export agents and manufacturers are always on the lookout for men familiar with conditions in the Latin-American republics, particularly if those men are Americans.

Navy Trains Its Own Men.
    The United States Navy trains its own wireless men, but that does not mean that an operator cannot get into that branch of the service. A naval wireless man ranks as a radio engineer. There are four grades, ending with the place of radio chief at $77 a month and all living expenses.
    So keen is the demand for operators that students often are snatched away from the Y.M.C.A. school before they have finished the last two weeks of their course. They are expected to take eight months' training in the school of the East Side Branch, but the standard there is so high that a pupil frequently gets his license as an operator from the Government before he earns his Y.M.C.A. diploma. Secretary Bristol accounts himself lucky if he can hold a youngster for the full course before letting him go to sea. The wireless students meet five times a week throughout the regular term. Mr. Bristol believes in thoroughness. So do the wireless instructors on his staff — Elmer E. Butcher, John William Jarvis, Lewis Vanderbilt, and Arthur B. Cole. Mr. Butcher is the instructing engineer of the Marconi Company.
    A 1912 graduate of the east side school is H. O. Benson, who in 1910 saved 199 lives by his quick work as a wireless operator. Yet, even after that achievement, he was not satisfied with his technical knowledge, so he took a full course in the Young Men's Christian Association school to acquire complete command of wireless engineering. In contrast to such an advanced student are the grammar school graduates who, from the age of 14 to 16, take a preparatory course, from which they pass to engineering work.
    The wireless engineering course consists of a study of the early methods, waves and wave motion, magnetism and its actions through space, static electricity, care and maintenance of batteries, current and voltage, electromagnets, magnetic blowout, construction and operation of dynamos and motors, inductance, fixed and variable condensers, electric oscillators, spark gaps, production of electric, waves, general theory, details of construction, care and maintenance of wireless apparatus, and standard methods for the wiring of all wireless apparatus. All that is taught through lectures and laboratory work. In addition to the various courses of the east side branch there is a post-graduate course in the Marconi school and factory. The student receives the foregoing instruction in connection with his membership in the association and a nominal tuition charge.
    Secretary Bristol has many anecdotes illustrating the pluck of his wireless students. There were Stanley Young and Joseph Rodriguez, for instance. Both were employed at salaries so small that they could not get the money to take the wireless course together, which they wished to do, as they were good friends. So Young walked from his Brooklyn home to his place of employment in Manhattan and back every day, and when he had saved enough carfare he lent the money to Rodriguez to make up the tuition fee. Rodriguez studied so hard that in less than the usual time he had a job as an operator at much higher pay than he had been drawing. Then he refunded the loan to his friend and lent him an additional amount, whereupon Young went through the Y.M.C.A. school and got a place as an operator. Now the two are among the most valued men in the Marconi service. Young wrote from Vera Cruz recently that he was delighted with his new work.
    Letters come from all quarters of the globe from Y.M.C.A. graduates telling of their experiences as wireless operators. They all breathe the spirit of adventure that promises to play so important a part in the development of youthful Now Yorkers of the present generation.