Many other inventors were fairly treated by Congress. Fulton, for example, was presented with a bonus of $76,300. Willmoth, who improved the turret of a battleship, received $50,000. Professor Page, for making an electric engine, was given $20,000. Morse was awarded $38,000. The patents of Goodyear, Kelly, Howe, Morse, Hyatt, Woodworth, and Blanchard were extended. The protection of inventors had been a national policy—an American tradition. In the phrasing of Daniel Webster: "The right of an inventor to his invention is a natural right, which existed before the Constitution was written and which is above the Constitution."
The benefit of the Reaper to the nation, and the fact that McCormick was its inventor, were admitted freely enough. Senator Johnson, of Maryland, estimated in 1858 that the Reaper was then worth to the United States $55,000,000 a year. D. P. Holloway, the Commissioner of Patents, sang an anthem of eloquent praise to McCormick in 1861. "He is an inventor whose fame, while he is yet living, has spread through the world," he said. "His genius has done honor to his own country, and has been the admiration of foreign nations. He will live in the grateful recollection of mankind as long as the reaping-machine is employed in gathering the harvest." Then, in an abrupt postscript to so fine a eulogy, this extraordinary Commissioner adds: "But the Reaper is of too great value to the public to be controlled by any individual, and the extension of his patent is refused."
MEN OF PROGRESS
PAINTING BY C. SCHUSSELE, PHILADELPHIA, 1861
ENGRAVED ON STEEL BY JOHN SARTAIN, PHILADELPHIA, 1862
Standing, Left To Right: 1, Dr. W. T. G. Morton, first man to administer ether to a patient; 2, J. Bogardus, invented ring spinner (for cotton spinning), an engraving machine, and dry gas meter; 3, S. Colt, revolver; 4, Cyrus Hall McCormick, reaper; 5, Joseph Saxton, locomotive differential pulley and deep sea thermometer; 6, Peter Cooper, founder of Cooper Union and inventor machine for mortising hubs for carriage wheels; 7, Prof. J. Henry, inventor of communication by electricity; 8, E. B. Bigelow, power loom for spinning jenny.
Sitting, Left To Right: 1, C. Goodyear, vulcanizer of rubber; 2, J. L. Mott, iron manufacturer and inventor; 3. Dr. E. Nott, base burner for stoves: 4, F. E. Sickles, inventor of cut-off of steam in engine; 5, S. F. B. Morse, telegraph; 6, H. Burden, cultivator, and machine for making horseshoes; 7, R. M. Hoe, printing press; 8, I. Jennings; 9, T. Blanchard, machine for cutting and heading tacks, and lathe for turning irregular forms: 10, E. Howe, sewing machine.
The truth seems to be that McCormick was too strong, too aggressive, to receive fair play at the hands of any legislative body. The note of sympathy could never be struck in his favor. He personally directed his own cases. He dominated his own lawyers. And he fought always in an old-fashioned, straight-from-the-shoulder way that put him at a great disadvantage in a legal conflict. Also, he was supposed to be much richer than in reality he was. He had made money by the rise in Chicago real estate. By 1866 he had become a millionaire. And his entire fortune was assumed by opposing lawyers to be the product of the Reaper business.
It is to be said, to the lasting honor of South Carolina, that she gave a grant of money to Whitney, out of the public treasury, as a token of gratitude for the invention of the cotton gin. But no wheat State ever gave, or proposed to give, any grant or vote of thanks to Cyrus McCormick for the invention of the Reaper. The business that he established was never at any time favored by a tariff, or franchise, or patent extension, or tax exemption, or land grant, or monopoly. Single-handed he built it up, and single-handed he held it against all comers. If, as Emerson has said, an institution is no more than "the lengthened shadow of one man," we may fairly say that the immense McCormick Company of to-day is no more than the lengthened shadow of this farm-bred Virginian.