JUNE 20, 1840—AUGUST 12, 1842
First patent issued.—Proposal of Cooke and Wheatstone to join forces rejected.—Letter to Rev. E.S. Salisbury.—Money advanced by brother artists repaid.—Poverty.—Reminiscences of General Strother, "Porte Crayon."—Other reminiscences.—Inaction in Congress.—Flattering letter of F.O.J. Smith.—Letter to Smith urging action.—Gonon and Wheatstone.— Temptation to abandon enterprise.—Partners all financially crippled.— Morse alone doing any work.—Encouraging letter from Professor Henry.— Renewed enthusiasm.—Letter to Hon. W.W. Boardman urging appropriation of $3500 by Congress.—Not even considered.—Despair of inventor.
It is only necessary to remember that the year 1840, and the years immediately preceding and following it, were seasons of great financial depression, and that in 1840 the political unrest, which always precedes a presidential election, was greatly intensified, to realize why but little encouragement was given to an enterprise so fantastic as that of an electric telegraph. Capitalists were disinclined to embark on new and untried ventures, and the members of Congress were too much absorbed in the political game to give heed to the pleadings of a mad inventor. The election of Harrison, followed by his untimely death only a month after his inauguration and the elevation of Tyler to the Presidency, prolonged the period of political uncertainty, so that Morse and his telegraph received but scant attention on Capitol Hill.
However, the year 1840 marked some progress, for on the 20th of June the first patent was issued to Morse. It may be remembered that, while his caveat and petition were filed in 1837, he had requested that action on them be deferred until after his return from Europe. He had also during the year been gradually perfecting his invention as time and means permitted.
It was during the year 1840, too, that Messrs. Wheatstone and Cooke proposed to join forces with the Morse patentees in America, but this proposition was rejected, although Morse seems to have been almost tempted, for in a letter to Smith he says:—
"I send you copies of two letters just received from England. What shall I say in answer? Can we make any arrangements with them? Need we do it? Does not our patent secure us against foreign interference, or are we to be defeated, not only in England but in our own country, by the subsequent inventions of Wheatstone?
"I feel my hands tied; I know not what to say. Do advise immediately so that I can send by the British Queen, which sails on the first prox."
Fortunately Smith advised against a combination, and the matter was dropped.
It will not be necessary to dwell at length on the events of the year 1841. The situation and aims of the inventor are best summed up in a beautiful and characteristic letter, written on February 14 of that year, to his cousin, the Reverend Edward S. Salisbury:—
"Your letter containing a draft for three hundred dollars I have received, for which accept my sincere thanks. I have hesitated about receiving it because I had begun to despair of ever being able to touch the pencil again. The blow I received from Congress, when the decision was made concerning the pictures for the Rotunda, has seriously and vitally affected my enthusiasm in my art. When that event was announced to me I was tempted to yield up all in despair, but I roused myself to resist the temptation, and, determining still to fix my mind upon the work, cast about for the means of accomplishing it in such ways as my Heavenly Father should make plain. My telegraphic enterprise was one of those means. Induced to prosecute it by the Secretary of the Treasury, and encouraged by success in every part of its progress, urged forward to complete it by the advice of the most judicious friends, I have carried the invention on my part to perfection. That is to say, so far as the invention itself is concerned. I have done my part. It is approved in the highest quarters—in England, France, and at home—by scientific societies and by governments, and waits only the action of the latter, or of capitalists, to carry it into operation.
"Thus after several years' expenditure of time and money in the expectation (of my friends, never of my own except as I yielded my own judgment to theirs) of so much at least as to leave me free to pursue my art again, I am left, humanly speaking, farther from my object than ever. I am reminded, too, that my prime is past; the snows are on my temples, the half-century of years will this year be marked against me; my eyes begin to fail, and what can I now expect to do with declining powers and habits in my art broken up by repeated disappointments?
"That prize which, through the best part of my life, animated me to sacrifice all that most men consider precious—prospects of wealth, domestic enjoyments, and, not least, the enjoyment of country—was snatched from me at the moment when it appeared to be mine beyond a doubt.
"I do not state these things to you, my dear cousin, in the spirit of complaint of the dealings of God's Providence, for I am perfectly satisfied that, mysterious as it may seem to me, it has all been ordered in its minutest particulars in infinite wisdom, so satisfied that I can truly say I rejoice in the midst of all these trials, and in view of my Heavenly Father's hand guiding all, I have a joy of spirit which I can only express by the word 'singing.' It is not in man to direct his steps. I know I am so short-sighted that I dare not trust myself in the very next step; how then could I presume to plan for my whole life, and expect that my own wisdom had guided me into that way best for me and the universe of God's creatures?
"I have not painted a picture since that decision in Congress, and I presume that the mechanical skill I once possessed in the art has suffered by the unavoidable neglect. I may possibly recover this skill, and if anything will tend to this end, if anything can tune again an instrument so long unstrung, it is the kindness and liberality of my Cousin Edward. I would wish, therefore, the matter put on this ground that my mind may be at ease. I am at present engaged in taking portraits by the Daguerreotype. I have been at considerable expense in perfecting apparatus and the necessary fixtures, and am just reaping a little profit from it. My ultimate aim is the application of the Daguerreotype to accumulate for my studio models for my canvas. Its first application will be to the study of your picture. Yet if any accident, any unforeseen circumstances should prevent, I have made arrangements with my brother Sidney to hold the sum you have advanced subject to your order. On these conditions I accept it, and will yet indulge the hope of giving you a picture acceptable to you."
The picture was never painted, for the discouraged artist found neither time nor inclination ever to pick up his brush again; but we may be sure that the money, so generously advanced by his cousin, was repaid.
It was in the year 1841 also that, in spite of the difficulty he found in earning enough to keep him from actual starvation, he began to pay back the sums which had been advanced to him by his friends for the painting of a historical picture, which should, in a measure, atone to him for the undeserved slight of Congress. In a circular addressed to each of the subscribers he gives the history of the matter and explains why he had hoped that the telegraph would supply him with the means to paint the picture, and then he adds:—
"I have, as yet, not realized one cent, and thus I find myself farther from my object than ever. Upon deliberately considering the matter the last winter and spring, I came to the determination, in the first place, to free myself from the pecuniary obligation under which I had so long lain to my friends of the Association, and I commenced a system of economy and retrenchment by which I hoped gradually to amass the necessary sum for that purpose, which sum, it will be seen, amounts in the aggregate to $510. Three hundred dollars of this sum I had already laid aside, when an article in the New York 'Mirror,' of the 16th October, determined me at once to commence the refunding of the sums received."
What the substance of the article in the "Mirror" was, I do not know, but it was probably one of those scurrilous and defamatory attacks, from many of which he suffered in common with other persons of prominence, and which was called forth, perhaps, by his activity in the politics of the day.
That I have not exaggerated in saying that he was almost on the verge of starvation during these dark years is evidenced by the following word picture from the pen of General Strother, of Virginia, known in the world of literature under the pen name of "Porte Crayon":—
"I engaged to become Morse's pupil, and subsequently went to New York and found him in a room in University Place. He had three other pupils, and I soon found that our professor had very little patronage. I paid my fifty dollars that settled for one quarter's instruction. Morse was a faithful teacher, and took as much interest in our progress—more indeed than—we did ourselves. But he was very poor. I remember that when my second quarter's pay was due my remittance from home did not come as expected, and one day the professor came in and said, courteously:—
"'Well, Strother my boy, how are we off for money?'
"'Why, Professor,' I answered, 'I am sorry to say I have been disappointed; but I expect a remittance next week.'
"'Next week!' he repeated sadly. 'I shall be dead by that time.'
"'Dead, Sir?'
"'Yes, dead by starvation.'
"I was distressed and astonished. I said hurriedly:—
"'Would ten dollars be of any service?'
"'Ten dollars would save my life; that is all it would do.'
"I paid the money, all that I had, and we dined together. It was a modest meal but good, and, after he had finished, he said:—
"'This is my first meal for twenty-four hours. Strother, don't be an artist. It means beggary. Your life depends upon people who know nothing of your art and care nothing for you. A house-dog lives better, and the very sensitiveness that stimulates an artist to work keeps him alive to suffering.'"
Another artist describes the conditions in 1841 in the following words:—
"In the spring of 18411 was searching for a studio in which to set up my easel. My 'house-hunting' ended at the New York University, where I found what I wanted in one of the turrets of that stately edifice. When I had fixed my choice, the janitor, who accompanied me in my examination of the rooms, threw open a door on the opposite side of the hall and invited me to enter. I found myself in what was evidently an artist's studio, but every object in it bore indubitable signs of unthrift and neglect. The statuettes, busts, and models of various kinds were covered with dust and cobwebs; dusty canvases were faced to the wall, and stumps of brushes and scraps of paper littered the floor. The only signs of industry consisted of a few masterly crayon drawings, and little luscious studies of color pinned to the wall.
"'You will have an artist for a neighbor,' said the janitor, 'though he is not here much of late; he seems to be getting rather shiftless; he is wasting his time over some silly invention, a machine by which he expects to send messages from one place to another. He is a very good painter, and might do well if he would only stick to his business; but, Lord!' he added with a sneer of contempt, 'the idea of telling by a little streak of lightning what a body is saying at the other end of it.'
"Judge of my astonishment when he informed me that the 'shiftless individual' whose foolish waste of time so much excited his commiseration, was none other than the President of the National Academy of Design—the most exalted position, in my youthful artistic fancy, it was possible for mortal to attain—S.F.B. Morse, since better known as the inventor of the Electric Telegraph. But a little while after this his fame was flashing through the world, and the unbelievers who voted him insane were forced to confess that there was, at least, 'method in his madness.'"
The spring and summer of 1841 wore away and nothing was accomplished. On
August 16 Morse writes to Smith:—
"Our Telegraph matters are in a situation to do none of us any good, unless some understanding can be entered into among the proprietors. I have recently received a letter from Mr. Isaac N. Coffin, from Washington, with a commendatory letter from Hon. R. McClellan, of the House. Mr. Coffin proposes to take upon himself the labor of urging through the two houses the bill relating to my Telegraph, which you know has long been before Congress. He will press it and let his compensation depend on his success."
This Mr. Coffin wrote many long letters telling, in vivid language, of the great difficulties which beset the passage of a bill through both houses of Congress, and of how skilled he was in all the diplomatic moves necessary to success, and finally, after a long delay, occasioned by the difficulty of getting powers of attorney from all the proprietors, he was authorized to go ahead. The sanguine inventor hoped much from this unsolicited offer of assistance, but he was again doomed to disappointment, for Mr. Coffin's glowing promises amounted to nothing at all, and the session of 1841-42 ended with no action taken on the bill.
In view of the fact, alluded to in a former chapter, that Francis O.J. Smith later became a bitter enemy of Morse's, and was responsible for many of the virulent attacks upon him, going so far as to say that most, if not all, of the essentials of the telegraph had been invented by others, it may be well to quote the following sentences from a letter of August 21, 1841, in reply to Morse's of August 16:—
"I shall be in Washington more next winter, and will lend all aid in my power, of course, to any agent we may have there. My expenditures in the affair, as you know, have been large and liberal, and have somewhat embarrassed me. Hence I cannot incur more outlay. I am, however, extremely solicitous for the double purpose of having you witness with your own eyes and in your own lifetime the consummation in actual, practical, national utility [of] this beautiful and wonderful offspring of your mechanical and philosophical genius, and know that you have not overestimated the service you have been ambitious of rendering to your country and the world."
On December 8, 1841, Morse again urges Smith to action:—
"Indeed, my dear sir, something ought to be done to carry forward this enterprise that we may all receive what I think we all deserve. The whole labor and expense of moving at all devolve on me, and I have nothing in the world. Completely crippled in means I have scarcely (indeed, I have not at all) the means even to pay the postage of letters on the subject. I feel it most tantalizing to find that there is a movement in Washington on the subject; to know that telegraphs will be before Congress this session, and from the means possessed by Gonon and Wheatstone!! (yes, Wheatstone who successfully headed us off in England), one or the other of their two plans will probably be adopted. Wheatstone, I suppose you know, has a patent here, and has expended $1000 to get everything prepared for a campaign to carry his project into operation, and more than that, his patent is dated before mine!
"My dear sir, to speak as I feel, I am sick at heart to perceive how easily others, foreigners, can manage our Congress, and can contrive to cheat our country out of the honor of a discovery of which the country boasts, and our countrymen out of the profits which are our due; to perceive how easily they can find men and means to help them in their plans, and how difficult, nay, impossible, for us to find either. Is it really so, or am I deceived? What can be done? Do write immediately and propose something. Will you not be in Washington this winter? Will you not call on me as you pass through New York, if you do go?
"Gonon has his telegraph on the Capitol, and a committee of the Senate reported in favor of trying his for a short distance, and will pass a bill this session if we are not doing something. Some means, somehow, must be raised. I have been compelled to stop my machine just at the moment of completion. I cannot move a step without running in debt, and that I cannot do.
"As to the company that was thought of to carry the Telegraph into operation here, it is another of those ignes fatui that have just led me on to waste a little more time, money, and patience, and then vanished. The gentleman who proposed the matter was, doubtless, friendly disposed, but he lacks judgment and perseverance in a matter of this sort.
"If Congress would but pass the bill of $30,000 before them, there would be no difficulty. There is no difficulty in the scientific or mechanical part of the matter; that is a problem solved. The only difficulty that remains is obtaining funds, which Congress can furnish, to carry it into execution. I have a great deal to say, but must stop for want of time to write more."
But he does not stop. He is so full of his subject that he continues at some length:—
"Everything done by me in regard to the Telegraph is at arm's length. I can do nothing without consultation, and when I wish to consult on the most trivial thing I have three letters to write, and a week or ten days to wait before I can receive an answer.
"I feel at times almost ready to cast the whole matter to the winds, and turn my attention forever from the subject. Indeed, I feel almost inclined, at tunes, to destroy the evidences of priority of invention in my possession and let Wheatstone and England take the credit of it. For it is tantalizing in the highest degree to find the papers and the lecturers boasting of the invention as one of the greatest of the age, and as an honor to America, and yet to have the nation by its representatives leave the inventor without the means either to put his invention fairly before his countrymen, or to defend himself against foreign attack.
"If I had the means in any way of support in Washington this winter, I would go on in the middle of January and push the matter, but I cannot run the risk. I would write a detailed history of the invention, which would be an interesting document to have printed in the Congressional documents, and establish beyond contradiction both priority and superiority of my invention. Has not the Postmaster-General, or Secretary of War or Treasury, the power to pay a few hundred dollars from a contingent fund for such purposes?
"Whatever becomes of the invention through the neglect of those who could but would not lend a helping hand, you, my dear sir, will have the reflection that you did all in your power to aid me, and I am deterred from giving up the matter as desperate most of all for the consideration that those who kindly lent their aid when the invention was in its infancy would suffer, and that, therefore, I should not be dealing right by them. If this is a little blue, forgive it."
It appears from this letter that Morse bore no ill-will towards his partners for not coming to his assistance at this critical stage of the enterprise, so that it behooves us not to be too harsh in our judgment. Perhaps I have not sufficiently emphasized the fact that, owing to the great financial depression which prevailed at that time, Mr. Smith and the Vails were seriously crippled in their means, and were not able to advance any more money, and Professor Gale had never been called upon to contribute money. This does not alter my main contention, however, for it still remains true that, if it had not been for Morse's dogged persistence during these dark years, the enterprise would, in all probability, have failed. With the others it was merely an incident, with him it had become his whole life.
The same refrain runs through all the letters of 1841 and 1842; discouragement at the slow progress which is being made, and yet a sincere conviction that eventually the cause will triumph. On December 13, 1841, he says in a letter to Vail:—
"We are all somewhat crippled, and I most of all, being obliged to superintend the getting up of a set of machinery complete, and to make the greater part myself, and without a cent of money…. All the burden now rests on my shoulders after years of time devoted to the enterprise, and I am willing, as far as I am able, to bear my share if the other proprietors will lend a helping hand, and give me facilities to act and a reasonable recompense for my services in case of success."
Vail, replying to this letter on December 15, says: "I have recently given considerable thought to the subject of the Telegraph, and was intending to get permission of you, if there is anything to the contrary in our articles of agreement, to build for myself and my private use a Telegraph upon your plan."
In answering this letter, on December 18, Morse again urges Vail to give him a power of attorney, and adds:—
"You can see in a moment that, if I have to write to all the scattered proprietors of the Telegraph every time any movement is made, what a burden falls upon me both of expense of time and money which I cannot afford. In acting for my own interest in this matter I, of course, act for the interest of all. If we can get that thirty thousand dollars bill through Congress, the experiment (if it can any longer be called such) can then be tried on such a scale as to insure its success.
"You ask permission to make a Telegraph for your own use. I have no objection, but, before you commence one, you had better see me and the improvements which I have made, and I can suggest a few more, rather of an ornamental character, and some economical arrangements which may be of use to you.
"I thank you for your kind invitation, and, when I come to Philadelphia, shall A. Vail myself of your politeness. I suppose by this time you have a brood of chickens around you. Well, go on and prosper. As for me, I am not well; am much depressed at times, and have many cares, anxieties, and disappointments, in which I am aware I am not alone. But all will work for the best if we only look through the cloud and see a kind Parent directing all. This reflection alone cheers me and gives me renewed strength."
Conditions remained practically unchanged during the early part of the year 1842. If it had not been for occasional bits of encouragement from different quarters the inventor would probably have yielded to the temptation to abandon all and depend on his brush again for a living. Perhaps the ray of greatest encouragement which lightened the gloom of this depressing period was the following letter from Professor Henry, dated February 24, 1842:—
MY DEAR SIR—I am pleased to learn that you have again petitioned Congress in reference to your telegraph, and I most sincerely hope you will succeed in convincing our representatives of the importance of the invention. In this you may, perhaps, find some difficulty, since, in the minds of many, the electro-magnetic telegraph is associated with the various chimerical projects constantly presented to the public, and particularly with the schemes so popular a year or two ago for the application of electricity as a moving power in the arts. I have asserted, from the first, that all attempts of this kind are premature and made without a proper knowledge of scientific principles. The case is, however, entirely different in regard to the electro-magnetic telegraph. Science is now fully ripe for this application, and I have not the least doubt, if proper means be afforded, of the perfect success of the invention.
The idea of transmitting intelligence to a distance by means of electrical action, has been suggested by various persons, from the time of Franklin to the present; but, until the last few years, or since the principal discoveries in electro-magnetism, all attempts to reduce it to practice were, necessarily, unsuccessful. The mere suggestion however, of a scheme of this kind is a matter for which little credit can be claimed, since it is one which would naturally arise in the mind of almost any person familiar with the phenomena of electricity; but the bringing it forward at the proper moment, when the developments of science are able to furnish the means of certain success, and the devising a plan for carrying it into practical operation, are the grounds of a just claim to scientific reputation, as well as to public patronage.
About the same time with yourself Professor Wheatstone, of London, and Dr. Steinheil, of Germany, proposed plans of the electro-magnetic telegraph, but these differ as much from yours as the nature of the common principle would well permit; and, unless some essential improvements have lately been made in these European plans, I should 'prefer the one invented by yourself.
With my best wishes for your success I remain, with much esteem
Yours truly
JOSEPH HENRY.
I consider this one of the most important bits of contemporary evidence that has come down to us. Professor Henry, perfectly conversant with, all the minutiae of science and invention, practically gives to Morse all the credit which the inventor himself at any time claimed. He dismisses the claims of those who merely suggested a telegraph, or even made unsuccessful attempts to reduce one to practice, unsuccessful because the time was not yet ripe; and he awards Morse scientific as well as popular reputation. Furthermore Professor Henry, with the clear vision of a trained mind, points out that advances in discovery and invention are necessarily slow and dependent upon the labors of many in the same field. His cordial endorsement of the invention, in this letter and later, so pleased and encouraged Morse that he refers to it several times in his correspondence. To Mr. Smith, on July 16, 1842, he writes:—
"Professor Henry visited me a day or two ago; he knew the principles of the Telegraph, but had never before seen it. He told a gentleman, who mentioned it again to me, that without exception it was the most beautiful and ingenious instrument he had ever seen. He says mine is the only truly practicable plan. He has been experimenting and making discoveries on celestial electricity, and he says that Wheatstone's and Steinheil's telegraphs must be so influenced in a highly electrical state of the atmosphere as at times to be useless, they using the deflection of the needle, while mine, from the use of the magnet, is not subject to this disturbing influence. I believe, if the truth were known, some such cause is operating to prevent our hearing more of these telegraphs."
In this same letter he tells of the application of a certain Mr. John P. Manrow for permission to form a company, but, as nothing came of it, it will not be necessary to particularize. Mr. Manrow, however, was a successful contractor on the New York and Erie Railroad, and it was a most encouraging sign to have practical business men begin to take notice of the invention.
So cheered was the ever-hopeful inventor by the praise of Professor Henry, that he redoubled his efforts to get the matter properly before Congress; and in this he worked alone, for, in the letter to Smith just quoted from, he says: "I have not heard a word from Mr. Coffin at Washington since I saw you. I presume he has abandoned the idea of doing anything on the terms we proposed, and so has given it up. Well, so be it; I am content."
Taking advantage of the fact that he was personally acquainted with many members of Congress, he wrote to several of them on the subject. In some of the letters he treats exhaustively of the history and scientific principles of his telegraph, but I have selected the following, addressed to the Honorable W.W. Boardman, as containing the most essential facts in the most concise form:—
August 10, 1842.
My Dear Sir,—I enclose you a copy of the "Tribune" in which you will see a notice of my Telegraph. I have showed its operation to a few friends occasionally within a few weeks, among others to Professor Henry, of Princeton (a copy of whose letter to me on this subject I sent you some time since). He had never seen it in operation, but had only learned from description the principle on which it is founded. He is not of an enthusiastic temperament, but exceedingly cautious in giving an opinion on scientific inventions, yet in this case he expressed himself in the warmest terms, and told my friend Dr. Chilton (who informed me of it) that he had just been witnessing "the operation of the most beautiful and ingenious instrument he had ever seen."
Indeed, since I last wrote you, I have been wholly occupied in perfecting its details and making myself familiar with the whole system. There is not a shadow of a doubt as to its performing all that I have promised in regard to it, and, indeed, all that has been conceived of it. Few can understand the obstacles arising from want of pecuniary means that I have had to encounter the past winter. To avoid debt (which I will never incur) I have been compelled to make with my own hands a great part of my machinery, but at an expense of time of very serious consideration to me. I have executed in six months what a good machinist, if I had the means to employ him, would have performed in as many weeks, and performed much better.
I had hoped to be able to show my perfected instrument in Washington long before this, and was (until this morning) contemplating its transportation thither next week. The news, just arrived, of the proposed adjournment of Congress has stopped my preparations, and interposes, I fear, another year of anxious suspense.
Now, my dear sir, as your time is precious, I will state in few words what I desire. The Government will eventually, without doubt, become possessed of this invention, for it will be necessary from many considerations; not merely as a direct advantage to the Government and public at large if regulated by the Government, but as a preventive of the evil effects which must result if it be a monopoly of a company. To this latter mode of remunerating myself I shall be compelled to resort if the Government should not eventually act upon it.
You were so good as to call the attention of the House to the subject by a resolution of inquiry early in the session. I wrote you some time after requesting a stay of action on the part of the committee, in the hope that, long before this, I could show them the Telegraph in Washington; but, just as I am ready, I find that Congress will adjourn before I can reach Washington and put the instrument in order for their inspection.
Will it be possible, before Congress rises, to appropriate a small sum, say $3500, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, to put my Telegraph in operation for the inspection of Congress the next session? If Congress will grant this sum, I will engage to have a complete Telegraph on my Electro-Magnetic plan between the President's house, or one of the Departments, and the Capitol and the Navy Yard, so that instantaneous communication can be held between these three points at pleasure, at any time of day or night, at any season, in clear or rainy weather, and ready for their examination during the next session of Congress, so that the whole subject may be fairly understood.
I believe that, did the great majority of Congress but consider seriously the results of this invention of the Electric Telegraph on all the interests of society; did they suffer themselves to dwell but for a moment on the vast consequences of the instantaneous communication of intelligence from one part to the other of the land in a commercial point of view, and as facilitating the defenses of the country, which my invention renders certain; they would not hesitate to pass all the acts necessary to secure its control to the Government. I ask not this until they have thoroughly examined its merits, but will they not assist me in placing the matter fairly before them? Surely so small a sum to the Government for so great an object cannot reasonably be denied.
I hardly know in what form this request of mine should be made. Should it be by petition to Congress, or will this letter handed in to the committee be sufficient? If a petition is required, for form's sake, to be referred to the committee to report, shall I ask the favor of you to make such petition in proper form?
You know, my dear sir, just what I wish, and I know, from the kind and friendly feeling you have shown toward my invention, I may count on your aid. If, on your return, you stop a day or two in New York, I shall be glad to show you the operation of the Telegraph as it is.
This modest request of the inventor was doomed, like so many of his hopes, to be shattered, as we learn from the courteous reply of Mr. Boardman, dated August 12:—
DEAR SIR,—Yours of the 10th is received. I had already seen the notice of your Telegraph in the "Tribune," and was prepared for such a report. This is not the time to commence any new project before Congress. We are, I trust, within ten days of adjournment. There is no prospect of a tariff at this session, and, as that matter appears settled, the sooner Congress adjourns the better. The subject of your Telegraph was some months ago, as you know, referred to the Committee on Commerce, and by that committee it was referred to Mr. Ferris, one of the members of that committee, from the city of New York, and who, by-the-way, is now at home in the city and will be glad to see you on the subject. I cannot give you his address, but you can easily find him.
The Treasury and the Government are both bankrupt, and that foolish Tyler has vetoed the tariff bill; the House is in bad humor and nothing of the kind you propose could be done. The only chance would be for the Committee on Commerce to report such a plan, but there would be little or no chance of getting such an appropriation through this session. I have much faith in your plan, and hope you will continue to push it toward Congress.
This was almost the last straw, and it is not strange that the long-suffering inventor should have been on the point of giving up in despair, nor that he should have given vent to his despondency in the following letter to Smith:—
"While, so far as the invention itself is concerned, everything is favorable, I find myself without sympathy or help from any who are associated with me, whose interest, one would think, would impel them at least to inquire if they could render some assistance. For two years past I have devoted all my time and scanty means, living on a mere pittance, denying myself all pleasures and even necessary food, that I might have a sum to put my Telegraph into such a position before Congress as to insure success to the common enterprise.
"I am, crushed for want of means, and means of so trivial a character, too, that they who know how to ask (which I do not) could obtain in a few hours. One more year has gone for want of these means. I have now ascertained that, however unpromising were the times last session, if I could but have gone to Washington, I could have got some aid to enable me to insure success at the next session."
The other projects for telegraphs must have been abandoned, for he goes on to say:—
"As it is, although everything is favorable, although I have no competition and no opposition—on the contrary, although every member of Congress, as far as I can learn, is favorable—yet I fear all will fail because I am too poor to risk the trifling expense which my journey and residence in Washington will occasion me. I will not run in debt if I lose the whole matter. So, unless I have the means from some source, I shall be compelled, however reluctantly, to leave it, and, if I get once engaged in my proper profession again, the Telegraph and its proprietors will urge me from it in vain.
"No one can tell the days and months of anxiety and labor I have had in perfecting my telegraphic apparatus. For want of means I have been compelled to make with my own hands (and to labor for weeks) a piece of mechanism which could be made much better, and in a tenth part of the time, by a good mechanician, thus wasting time—time which I cannot recall and which seems double-winged to me.
"'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.' It is true and I have known the full meaning of it. Nothing but the consciousness that I have an invention which is to mark an era in human civilization, and which is to contribute to the happiness of millions, would have sustained me through so many and such lengthened trials of patience in perfecting it."