TRANSATLANTIC TALK

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 42, 4 May 1928, Page 3

TRANSATLANTIC TALK

a5 NEW YORK. AND AMSTERDAM. Radio telephone service between New York, the ‘‘Nieum Amsterdam’’ of Peter Minuit and the Dutch patroons, and old Amsterdam was opened last month, with William Westerman, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Am-} sterdam, putting through the call. He spoke with Willis H. Booth, president of the New York Netherlands Chamber of Commerce, and vice-president of the Guarauty Trust Company. Mr. Booth, picking up the receiver at 32 Broadway, exchanged with Mr. Westerman the formal hopes for the prosperity of the new seryice and for goodwill between Ameriea and Folland. Wwen the first greetings were over, 78 doltars 50 cents (£15) for the first three minutes, Mr. Westertnan’s son stepped to the mouthpiece. "Vader, hoe maakt U het? En hoe gaat het met moeder en Cor?"’ He was, he explained later, asking after the health of his father and mother and corrie, his wife. He said he just happened to be passing through New York on his way to Curacao, Dutch West Indies ,and that he had not-+ex-pected to talk with his father for many weeks. A little later, the rate after the first {lree minutes liad continued at 26 dol- lars Y5 cents. (£5 5s.), for each minute, and the toll was mounting perceptibly upward, G. H. Ravelli, a member of the board of directors of the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce, got his wife, Mrs. Alida Ravelli, on the telephone. He asked for the children. "Vitstekende gezonheid,’? came the voice from $8200 miles over the ocean. Which, said Mr. Ravelli, meant that his family was in "the pink of condition." And so it went. One cosmopolitan conyersation was to this effect QV. P. Montyn, Dutch Consul General in New York, was speaking to C. L. Hoover, | American Consul General in A:nsterdam: "Wow have vou been since I saw vou in Batavia ?’’ "Oh, fine,’ the reply came clearly, i wanted to see you in New York, but I barely had time to catch my boat." "Well, Ill see you next summer in Amsterdam." The telephonic conncetion between new atid old Amsterdam was made via London, Ten days previously telephone service was onened between New York and Belgian cities via the same route. ce