In article , "Dee D. Flint"
writes:

We are not saying that the ARRL was the only thing that made this happen.

Yes you are. The evidence is the constant evangelical beliefs in the
ARRL doing it all for hams in the USA.

Simply that they were a significant player in the US and that the US was a
significant player in the world.

ARRL was a relative late-comer in national amateur radio organizations
in the USA. They were incorporated in 1914. The very first, and still
existing radio club in the USA is the Radio Club of America, organized
in 1909.

Without the ARRL, US amateurs would have had a much tougher time.

You are proposing a "what if" situation in an alternate universe. You
have absolutely no verification of what you said above. It is your
personal opinion and nothing more.

If the US amateur community had been seriously
weakened, it would have affect to some degree the amateur community in the
rest of the world.

Probably so but do not elevate the ARRL to some kind of divine order of
things. Remember that other organizations were already around before
the ARRL and were remarking to the U.S. federal government concerning
amateur radio. Many, many more citizens of the USA were involved in
this new "radio" between 1909 and 1914 and that ALL, amateurs
included, had very little technological knowledge or operational experience
with "radio." You cannot believably "predict" these alternate universe
conditions of then anymore than you can "predict" or even "know what
will happen" due to regulation changes.

LHA / WMD