Scouting, Volume 4, Number 8, August 15, 1916 Page: 3
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SCOUTING
CLEVELAND COMMISSIONER
WRITES FOR MAGAZINE
In the June issue of Dependable High-
ways appears an article entitled "Training
Citizens by Boy Scout Activities," by De
Lo E. Mook, Scout C ommissioner in Cleve-
land, Ohio. Mr. Mook very interestingly
describes the progress made by the scouts
of his city, and gives some striking' ex-
amples of the effectiveness of scout train-
ing of which the following is an excellent
example:
As a preliminary to a spring clean-up, 3,000
school children were paraded, assembled in an
armory, led wish tiox lunclieb, and addressed by
the mayor an i others on the virtue of neat sur-
roundings. S d 10 relate, the lunches were us d
as missiles bv the more mischievous. There was
a painful disr-gard for the theme of the meeting
in llie conduc. oi the auditors.
The boy scouts, who had acted as ushers, took
brooms which marchers had carried, and put them
to actual use. Com ng up the armory floor fifty
abreast, they soon r stored the original state of
order. "That act was worth all of the speeches"
was the comment of the mayor.
HERE'S A WAY TO MAKE MORSE
INSTRUCTION SIMPLE FOR THE BOY
By Stephen Chalmers
Assistant Scoutmaster, Saranac, N. Y.
c
>
Government Maps for Hikers
National Headquarters is in receipt of
information from Dr. George Otis Smith,
director of the United States Geographical
Survey, to the effect that 'he is sending
to every scout official in the country a
map of his particular state showing sec-
tions for which topographical maps are
available. Realizing the advantage of get-
ting the maps into the hands of as many
of the troops as live in areas which have
been covered by topographical mapping, Dr.
Smith will fill orders from scoutmasters at
reduced rates.
While tue cost of a single map cannot
be reduced, there will be a special price on
quantities of twenty-five or more so that
whole troops can be equipped with maps
and can learn just how to use them. The
government price on these maps does not
pay for their making, only for the paper
and printing.
With the fall hiking season so close at
hand it is expected that scout officials will
avail themselves of this opportunity to se-
cure standard topographical maps of their
individual communities. Hikers have al-
ways appreciated the value of these maps
and for the last few years, scoutmasters
have made more and more frequent re-
quests of the United States Geographical
Survey to supply them with maps of the
section in which thev reside.
I find that Boys' Life is a great source
of help to me and to my troop.—Scoutmas-
ter William B. Bamet, Wash.
TELEGRAPHIC CODE FREE
Special to Scout Officials:
By arrangement with the Western
Union Telegraph Company there
will be furnished to boy scout or-
ganizations, on application, cards
shoeing the Morse telegraph code,
which is used on the land telegraph
lines in the United States and
Canada, and the Continental tele-
graph code, which is used in cable-
grsms, wireless messages and foreign
ccuntries. The codes are printed
side by side on cards of handy size
and are quite complete, showing
the telegraphic signals for the let-
ters of the alphabet, the numerals
and the punctuation marks.
These cards will prove very useful
to scouts preparing to qualify for
the telegraphers' test.
I READ with interest Scoutmaster
Condle's short article recently on "A
rlan tor Learning Morse." This is very
interesting and 1 intend to use it, but more
as a test of instruction previously given.
Having been in the British Government ser-
vice, which uses exclusively the internation-
al Code (which is really universal excep' in
the United States), 1 would like to draw
the attention of brother scoutmasters to a
system which I have found effective in
helping the scouts to a quick understanding
of the principles upon which the code is
built. These principles are easily memor-
ized.
The code being made up of dots and
dashes, without spacing or breaking of let-
ters, the whole alphabet is easily acquired in
a short time, thus:
What is one dot? It is "E," the most
used vowel in the English language. What
is two dots? It is "1." Three? "S."
Four? "H."
Thus in the matter of the dots, it is easy
to memorize "E-l-S-H" as one, two, three,
four dots.
Now we take dashes. One dash — "T."
Two dashes—"M." Three dashes—"O."
Thus we make another phrase easy to mem-
orize—"T-M-O."
There is no letter with four dashes, and
this may be used, in consequence, as a
private signal.
We come now to the amalgamation of
dots and dashes, and here again, is where
the scout student's difficulties begin. Sim-
plicity is the rule and the rule simplicity.
Thus—memorize as before in phrases
A—dot-dash, reversed, is N. A-N.
B—dash and three dots, reversed, is V.
B-V.
C—dash-dot-dash-dot—has no partner.
You must acquire C.
D—dash-dot-dot, reversed, is U. D-U.
E—Well, how about that dot rule? E-I-S-
H. And it may help if you recall that its
opposite in dashes is one dash T. E-T.
F—dot-dot-dash-dot, reversed, is L. F-L.
G—dash-dash-dot, reversed, is W. G-W.
H—Remember that dot rule, E-I-S-H.
One, two, three, four—dots.
1—ditto.
J—one dot and three dashes. A bachelor
'etter like C.; never married.
K.—dash-dot-dash. Turn it inside out
ind it becomes dot-dash-dot—R. K-R
There are several letters to be turned inside
• >ut. Watch them.
L—See F and reverse it. L-F.
M—two dashes. Remember the rule
bout dashes—T-M-O. One, two, three—
lashes. Two dots? I. M-l.
N—dash-dot. The reverse of A. N-A.
O—Just remember the dash rule again,
't's like falling off a telegraph pole. Three
lots? S. OS.
P—dot-dash-dash-dot. Turn it outside in
nd it becomes X—dash-dot-dot-dash. In
che same way turn X inside out and it be-
omes P. So easy it's a shame to mention
t. P-X.
Q—dash-dash-dot-dash. Reverse it and
t becomes Y—dash-dot-dash-dash. Q-Y.
R—dot-dash-dot. Look back and see
hat I said about K. It's an inside-out
'etter. Collect 'em all for yourself. R-K.
S—three dots. How about that dot rule.
E-I-S-H ?
T—dash. See dash rule. You ought to
be catching on by now !
U—dot-dot-dash. What's the reverse?
D. Of course! Told you before.
V—three dots and a dash. Reverse?
Look back at B. It works both ways. V-B.
W—dot and two dashes. Reverse? Why
G, of course. W-G. Write out all the com-
binations and you'll be surprised at how
long it takes you to be a ready signaler.
X—dash-dot-dot-dash. Another inside-
out letter that works with P. Look back
and see for yourself. Just change the
dashes to dots and the dots to dashes* X-P.
Y—dasli-dot-dash-dash. Reverse of Q.
Y-Q. Boys, 1 hate to do it. It's so easy.
Z—dash-dash-dot-dot—a real old bachelor
letter, like C and J.
Now, as I have hinted, the best way to
memorize these combinations or rules, is to
write them all down, each in its separate
class. Write down your letters composed
of one, two, three and four dots. Then
your letters composed of one, two and three
dashes, keeping in mind that there is no
letter of four dashes, which you might use,
say, as a signal meaning personal, or pri-
vate, or "for the scoutmaster only." Then
put down your inside-out an outside-in let-
ters, after which you will find you have but
two or three letters that are" "bachelors"
and are therefore easily remembered, just
because of their singularity.
About numerals. If you have a lot of
figures to send, which you don't often have,
you can send the signal NN, meaning "num-
bers" and cut down your numeral signals
to the first figure of each. Thusinstead
of one dot and four dashes for one—one
dot is the numeral one, the receiver under-
standing that you are sending NN until vou
send "period NN" and resume text. Thus
you will send one, two, three, four and five
dots for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and for 6, 7, 8, 9, Cl-
one dash, two, three, four and five dashes.
Period NN. Resume text.
About punctuation and code signals—all
that you have in your scout book are good.
You will observe that your interrogation is
U-D run together. This is considered short
for "understand" or "Do you get me,
Steve? If the sender cracks a joke on
you, or somebody else, and yon really feel
like laughing, send M's very rapidlv. M-
M-M-M-M-M-M. Sounds as if somebody
was am-m-m-mused, doesn't it?
. And when you meet a scout, even if he
is a rnile avvay on the top of another lone
hill, don t forget to be polite. If before
noon, say, GM—good morning; or G-\
good afternoon. Or if in the evening GN
—good night.
RD—finished.
Scouts in the Movies
Troop 4, Glen Cove, N. Y„ posed for a
moving picture, showing some of the re-
quirements of the program of the Boy
Scout Movement. The film was made by
the Gaumont Company and is to appear as
the mam feature of their weeklv film
Reel Life," which will be released August
Z7, under the program of the Mutual Film
Corporation.
Safety First—In Your Camp
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 4, Number 8, August 15, 1916, periodical, August 15, 1916; New York, New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth282826/m1/3/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.