Psycho-Phone Messages

“The formidable imbecility of the Senate,” Thomas B. Reed declares, before turning his wit on Woodrow Wilson and the peace table at Versailles. The startling part: Reed is speaking through Francis Grierson’s new “psycho-phone.”

Recorded in the unsettled years after the First World War, these messages bring America’s political crises into a curious séance room. Grierson presents communications attributed to figures including Reed, U. S. Grant and Thomas Jefferson, who dissect the peace settlement, warn of threats abroad and find old political habits alive in new administrations. Their voices mingle blunt predictions with barbed jokes—and insist that the country stands at a dangerous crossroads. Are these echoes of history, or warnings from minds that see the present more clearly than its own leaders?

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