Politics & Power Quote by Howard K. Smith

A telegram, in Howard K. Smith's telling, isn’t just a message; it’s authority made physical. The line hinges on a shrewd observation about how technology amplifies power: for an Italian peasant, the telegram’s very form carries prestige, distance, and institutional heft. It arrives like a decree. Smith is less interested in the literal contents than in the psychological payload - the way modern communication turns absence into command.

“Wondrous thing” signals more than wonder. It marks a gap in literacy, access, and social standing that makes certain people especially vulnerable to the aura of the official. Then comes the kicker: “the terrestrial paradise of America.” That phrase drips with the mythology of postwar migration and American soft power - the immigrant dream exported back across the Atlantic as a kind of secular heaven. Smith’s tone isn’t starry-eyed; it’s lightly sardonic. He’s pointing at how “America” functions as a brand, so potent that a cable from there can override local judgment, custom, even skepticism.

The subtext is about persuasion by provenance. A message from “anywhere” is magic; from America it’s near-sacred, “not lightly to be disregarded.” Smith is capturing a specific historical moment when transatlantic ties, remittances, and sponsorship shaped village life, and when mass media and telecom were rewriting who gets listened to. The sentence works because it shows manipulation without announcing it: awe does the coercion, and distance supplies the legitimacy.