Part of Mihajlo Pupin's speech from 1932. The reason is receiving the John Fritz Medal:
"In one of the pictures, I see the triumphant conquest of space by automotive and aeronautical science. I see miracles of energy distribution that increase man's comfort and creative power a hundredfold, and I am thrilled by electric waves gliding over wires, or roaming the universe bringing speech and melody across continents and oceans to every corner and corner of this globe. These are some of the wonders of our time in which the driving energies of heat and electricity have shown the magic of their divine origin. They made the physical part of human life even more magnificent than the life of the gods of Olympus. This achievement of the age of energy is a great glory.
But the spiritual side of human life, presented in the second picture, is far from this ... In this second picture we see the devastation on every side in the awakening of the deadliest war the world has ever seen. The world appears here as if on the brink of economic collapse, and yet strong armies and navies are quickly destroying the poor remnants of the wealth of nations, while millions of unemployed are starving. The most hateful figures in this horrible picture are fear and hatred, which, like two ugly demons, are nervously waiting on each side of the border lines between the neighboring nations.
Drive these demons out of the human heart and there will be no need for strong armies and navies to protect our security from hostile neighbors. There will be no hostile neighbors and wars will only become a dying memory of the previous barbaric era. But the divine servants of our civilization, the driving force of heat and electricity, did not expel them. Science recognizes that the magic of these two primordial forces cannot without purification purify the human soul and eliminate the poisons that have corrupted its spiritual life. We need another driving force, which can penetrate deeper than the driving forces even infinitely minutes of electrons, into the depths of the human heart. This need was recognized almost 2000 years ago when our Savior discovered the greatest driving force in the spirit world and commanded us to love the Lord our God, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
This was the message of the coming age of energy in the spirit world. But this age has not yet arrived. Humanity has not yet reached the greatest driving force in the spiritual world, and without its presence, the driving force of heat and electricity cannot give its full contribution to the development of human spiritual life.
The love of eternal truth and their work to discover this truth for the benefit of mankind has led scientists and engineers to their great successes. These triumphs of love will convince the willless world that the triumphant triumph of the driving force of love revealed by Christ will be the greatest triumph of the age of energy. "
