Looking Ahead to Television

finally reached Sand Point—a still undisturbed place in the wilderness, a railroad station where “WK.” had sent so many messages by Morse Code along the new railway line to the west.

My father presided at the broadcaster’s annual meeting at Jasper Park Lodge, the keynote speaker giving a rousing address to private broadcasters from all over Canada. The subject was one of my Dad’s favourite themes, “Free Speech and Free Enterprise.”

Keith Rogers was for free enterprise of course, but it was free enter— prise that recognized its social responsibilities. He was convinced of the necessity for vocational training and adult education as there were none of these programs available on the Island at that time.

When Dr. John T. Croteau was teaching at St. Dunstan’s University he, with other enthusiasts, organized Credit Unions and Co-operatives among the fishermen along the North Shore. The Credit Union was the first form of credit unrelated to the local merchant and from that, the Co—operatives developed. CFCY offered free, many hours of broadcast time to promote these forums where fishermen and farmers could talk about their problems. Keith Morrow helped to organize this series of programs. He also had one of the earliest regular agricultural programs. Before that talks would be given by experts on the subject but Keith did a noon market report for the farmers and added short features on agriculture. He was working at the Experimental Farm at the time and it was a tight squeeze to get into town on his lunch hour and do the broadcast. This was in the summer; in the winter he attended the Agricultural College in Guelph. One day the Superintendent of the Experimental Farm, who knew that Keith was doing these broadcasts, decided to keep him right up to the last moment and he arrived at the studio totally unprepared. He solved the problem by describing what he had done all morning. Having cleaned out the poultry shed, he told everyone about the virtues of hen manure and at one point used the more common expression for that product. He could hear peals of laughter from the office outside as studios in those days were not completely sound-proof. The staff were in stitches.

“Do you know what you said on the air?

You said hen shit three or four times!”

Either we had no listeners that day or hen shit is the accepted term on Prince Edward Island, whichever way it was, there were no complaints.

Our first regular agricultural commentator was Ches Cooper. He

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