In article , "Dee D. Flint"
writes:

Without the ARRL, US amateur radio would have remained permanently closed
after World War I. The other countries did not have enough amateurs to
justify keeping the frequencies and it is highly probably that they would
have all gone to commercial interests. Everyone wanted the shortwave
frequencies at that time and without the US, the foreign amateurs would not
have had enough leverage to have held on to the spectrum.

You were THERE then? :-)

Nooooo Mama Dee, U.S. radio amateurs got tossed off of MF because
they were interfering with broadcasters. That's the REAL radio history.

You need to get an Internet visa and visit some of the Yurp ham
websites to learn their side of things. Those places don't have the
league SPIN operating to selectively edit out things the league
doesn't want you to hear.

Commercial radio did NOT "want all the shortwave frequencies" in
1919, but rather the opposite. Once the commercial radio services
found out about HF "skip" propagaation, they studied it, grabbed it up
some years later through the CCITT, and ran with it for carrier service
in communications. They did right well with it until about 1960, too.

LHA / WMD