"We wouldn't know how to do without radio in the Navy," remarked Benton. "Every ship is equipped with it now, and the captain on his bridge can talk as easily with the Department in Washington as though he were seated at a desk in the Secretary's room. Of course most of the work is done by the radio telegraph, but before long we'll be able to use the radio telephone just as well. I tell you it's a wonderful thing. No worrying your heart out now in a fog and mist and storm. You don't need to have the sun in order to get your bearings. You don't even need the lighthouses at night. Just get busy on your loop aerial and get in touch with shore stations and they'll tell you to a dot just what your latitude and longitude is. A blind man could navigate a ship nowadays. No one can figure how many vessels and how many lives have been saved by this blessed old radio."
"Right you are," agreed Phil. "I know that one time it saved mine. It's the youngest of all the sciences and yet it's made greater strides than any other in the history of the world. Every day something new develops, and it fairly makes you dizzy trying to keep up with it. It's revolutionized peace and it will revolutionize war."
"As a matter of fact," replied Benton, "it's going to make war practically impossible, because it would make it too terrible. A fleet of airplanes without a single man in them could fly over the cities of the enemy and drop high explosives that would destroy them all. The airplanes could be directed by radio many miles away. The same is true of battleships. Torpedoes could be sent out from land and guided by radio directly against any ship it was desired to destroy. And all this without risk on the part of the attacking party.
"My ship was off the Virginia Capes last year," he went on, "when they were having that duel between airplanes and battleships, to test out which was the more effective. The old Iowa was picked out to be the victim of the plane attack. There wasn't a soul on board, and I tell you it seemed something uncanny to see how that big ship sailed along, turned, wheeled, zigzagged just as perfectly as if it had had its whole crew aboard. All the controls, rudder, propeller and steering devices were regulated by radio."