Your committee invite special attention to that part of Professor Morse’s letter which details the plan of a revenue which may be derived from his telegraphic system, when established to an extent sufficient for the purposes of commercial and general intelligence. From these calculations, made upon safe data, it is probable that an income would be derived from its use by merchants and citizens more than sufficient to defray the interest of the capital expended in its establishment. So inviting, indeed, are the prospects of profit to individual enterprise, that it is a matter of serious consideration, whether the Government should not, on this account alone, seize the present opportunity of securing to itself the regulation of a system which, if monopolized by a private company, might be used to the serious injury of the Post Office Department, and which could not be prevented without such an interference with the rights of the inventor and of the stockholders as could not be sustained by justice or public opinion.
After the ordeal to which the electro magnetic telegraph system has been subjected, both in Europe and in America, and the voice of the scientific world in its favor, it is scarcely necessary for your committee to say that they have the fullest confidence in Professor Morse’s plan, and they earnestly recommend the adoption of it by the Government of the United States. They deem it most fortunate that no definite system of telegraphs should hitherto have been adopted by the Government, since it enables them to establish this improved system, which, in the opinion of your committee, is decidedly superior to any other now in use, possessing an advantage over telegraphs depending on vision, inasmuch as it may be used both by night and day, in all weathers, and in all seasons of the year, with equal convenience; and, also, possessing an advantage over electric telegraphs heretofore in use, inasmuch as it records, in permanent legible characters on paper, any communication which may be made by it, without the aid of any agent at the place of recording, except the apparatus which is put in motion at the point of communication. Thus, the recording apparatus, called the register, may be left in a closed chamber, where it will give notice of its commencing to write, by a bell, and the communication may be found, on opening the apartment. Possessing these great advantages, and the means of communication not being liable to interruption by the ordinary contingencies which may impede or prevent the successful action of other telegraphs, the advantages to be derived from it will soon be apparent to the community, and it will become the successful rival of the Post Office, when celerity of communication is desired, and create a revenue from which this system of telegraphs may be extended and ramified through all parts of the country, without imposing any burden upon the people or draughts on the treasury, beyond the outlay for its first establishment.
As a first step towards the adoption of this system of telegraphs by the Government, your committee recommend the appropriation of thirty thousand dollars to be expended under the direction of the Postmaster General, in constructing a line of electro magnetic telegraphs, under the superintendence of Professor Sam’l F. B. Morse, of such length and between such points as shall fully test its practicability and utility; and for this purpose they respectfully submit the following bill:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, That the sum of thirty thousand dollars be, and is hereby, appropriated, out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, for testing the capacity and usefulness of the system of electro magnetic telegraphs invented by Samuel F. B. Morse, of New York, for the use of the Government of the United States, by constructing a line of said electro magnetic telegraphs, under the superintendence of Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, of such length and between such points as shall fully test its practicability and utility; and that the same shall be expended under the direction of the Postmaster General, upon the application of said Morse.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the Postmaster General be, and he is hereby, authorized to pay, out of the aforesaid thirty thousand dollars, to the said Samuel F. B. Morse, and the persons employed under him, such sums of money as he may deem to be a fair compensation for the services of the said Samuel F. B. Morse and the persons employed under him, in constructing and in superintending the construction of the said line of telegraphs authorized by this bill.
[No. 11.]
Letter from Professor Henry to Professor Morse.
Princeton College, 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 that 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 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.