Western Union publications

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DOTS AND DASHES

   I was looking through Western Union publications for "chad."  DOT AND DASHES is a Western Union publication of "interesting stories of progress in the telegraph industry."  However, it's all fluff.

May 1929, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 3:
   "May your LINES fall in pleasant places, your CIRCUIT abound in loyal friends; your CURRENT continue without BREAK, CROSS or JAR until '30' is called and you receive the glad message, 'Well done thou good and faithful servant.'"

January 1930, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 1:
   ...Wall Street, and who date everything "Before Crash" or "After Decline" these tidings should bring great joy.

July 1931, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 2:
   "(Cyrus--ed.) Field knew no such word as fail," Captain Napper declares, in times "when people thought he was a crank."

July 1932, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 2, col. 2:
   There are no "ifs," "ands" or "buts" about it...

January 1935, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 1:
_When You Want to Know Ask Western Union_
(Arthur Miller's play ALL MY SONS has "When you want to know, ask Joe"--ed.)

March-April 1938, DOTS AND DASHES, pg. 1, col. 1:
_"If You Want a Boy--Call Western Union"_
   "IF you want a boy," say the funsters, "call Western Union."
   This, one of the vintage telegraph jokes, the hardy perennial in the garden of gags, older than the hoariest stories about the defunct Tin Lizzie and as ancient as the wheezes about post office pens, has not only outlived them all but is now going stronger than ever before.

1942, DOTS AND DASHES, vol. XVIII, no. 4, pg. 1, col. 1:
"Does our Jean Gabin...have what it takes?"

1943, DOTS AND DASHES, vol. XIX, no. 2, pg. 1, col. 1:
_Womanpower Speeds War Messages._

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INSIDE WESTERN UNION
by M. J. (Mike) Rivise
Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., New York, 1950

Pg. 86:
   "73" meant "greetings, hello, best regards, good wishes."
   "20" meant "kiss."
   "84" meant "kiss my--hand."
   "30" meant "farewell."  It also meant "death."  It was the telegraph operators' own mystic symbol of conclusion, later adopted by newspaper reporters who had worked closely with the operators.