A hundred years ago this month, the March 1918 issue of Boys’ Life magazine included this article by F.A. Collins (probably Archie Frederick Collins) about the state of radio, especially as it related to war.  He starts by explaining that “the thing that was impossible yesterday, today is indispensable in commerce and war, wireless telegraphy.”

And he makes clear that the radio section of the Signal Corps was something especially within the grasp of scouts:

Probably no country in the world can recruit men for this exciting service in such numbers as the United States. There are already tens of thousands of boys throughout the country who have had valuable training as amateurs. It has been estimated that this army of amateurs exceeded over 100,000 boys and girls. Thousands of Boy Scouts, for example, have an excellent working knowledge of wireless and have learned to transmit at a rate of twenty words a minute or faster. The Government does not accept operators under eighteen years of age and many of these boys are practical wireless operators by the time they reach this age ready to enlist in this interesting branch of service.