The Siphon Recorder for Receiving Cable Messages—Office of the Commercial Cable Company, 1 Broad Street, New York.
Perhaps the most painful chapter of Morse's life is the history of the lawsuits in which he was involved in defence of his rights. His reputation as well as his property were assailed. Exceedingly sensitive to these attacks, the suits that followed the success of the telegraph cost him inexpressible distress. It is some satisfaction to be able to record that after years of bitter controversy the final decision was favorable to the inventor. Honors began to pour in upon him from even the uttermost parts of the earth. The Sultan of Turkey was the first monarch to acknowledge Morse as a public benefactor. This was in 1848. The kings of Prussia and Wurtemburg and the Emperor of Austria each gave him a gold medal, that of the first named being set in a massive gold snuff-box. In 1856 the Emperor of the French made him a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Orders from Denmark, Spain, Italy, Portugal soon followed. In 1858 a special congress was called by the Emperor of the French to devise a suitable testimonial of the nation to Professor Morse. Representatives from ten sovereignties convened at Paris and by a unanimous vote gave, in the aggregate, $80,000 as an honorary gratuity to Professor Morse. The states participating in this testimonial were France, Austria, Russia, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Piedmont, the Holy See, Tuscany, and Turkey.
Professor Morse was one of the first to suggest and the first to carry out the use of a marine cable. During the summer of 1842 he had been making elaborate preparations for an experiment destined to give wonderful development to his invention. This was no less than a submarine wire, to demonstrate the fact that the current of electricity could be conducted as well under water as through the air. Of this he had entertained no doubt. "If I can make it work ten miles, I can make it go around the globe," was a favorite expression of his in the infancy of his enterprise. But he wished to prove it. He insulated his wire as well as he could with hempen strands well covered with pitch, tar, and india-rubber. In the course of the autumn he was prepared to put the question to the test of actual experiment. The wire was only the twelfth of an inch in diameter. About two miles of this, wound on a reel, was placed in a small row-boat, and with one man at the oars and Professor Morse at the stern, the work of paying out the cable was begun. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and those who had prolonged their evening rambles on the Battery must have wondered, as they watched the proceedings in the boat, what kind of fishing the two men could be engaged in that required so long a line. In somewhat less than two hours, on that eventful evening of October 18, 1842, the first cable was laid. Professor Morse returned to his lodgings and waited with some anxiety the time when he should be able to test the experiment fully and fairly. The next morning the New York Herald contained the following editorial announcement:
"Morse's Electro-Magnetic Telegraph.
"This important invention is to be exhibited in operation at Castle Garden between the hours of twelve and one o'clock to-day. One telegraph will be erected on Governor's Island and one at the Castle, and messages will be interchanged and orders transmitted during the day. Many have been incredulous as to the powers of this wonderful triumph of science and art. All such may now have an opportunity of fairly testing it. It is destined to work a complete revolution in the mode of transmitting intelligence throughout the civilized world."
At daybreak the professor was on the Battery, and had just demonstrated his success by the transmission of three or four characters between the termini of the line, when the communication was suddenly interrupted, and it was found impossible to send any messages through the conductor. The cause of this was evident when he observed no less than seven vessels lying along the line of the submerged cable, one of which, in getting under way, had raised it on her anchor. The sailors, unable to divine its meaning, hauled in about two hundred feet of it on deck, and finding no end, cut off that portion and carried it away with them. Thus ended the first attempt at submarine telegraphing. The crowd that had assembled on the Battery dispersed with jeers, most of them believing they had been made the victims of a hoax.
In a letter to John C. Spencer, then Secretary of the Treasury, in August, 1843, concerning electro-magnetism and its powers, he wrote:
"The practical inference from this law is that a telegraphic communication on the electro-magnetic plan may with certainty be established across the Atlantic Ocean. Startling as this may now seem, I am confident the time will come when this project will be realized."
In 1871 a statue of Professor Morse was erected in Central Park, New York, at the expense of the telegraph operators of the country. It was unveiled on June 10th with imposing ceremonies. There were delegates from every State in the Union, and from the British provinces. In the evening a public reception was given to the venerable inventor at the Academy of Music, at which William Orton, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, presided, assisted by scores of the leading public men of the country as vice-presidents. The last scene was an impressive one. It was announced that the telegraphic instrument before the audience was then in connection with every other one of the ten thousand instruments in America. Then Miss Cornell, a young telegraphic operator, sent this message from the key: "Greeting and thanks to the telegraph fraternity throughout the world. Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will to men." The venerable inventor, the personification of simplicity, dignity, and kindliness, was then conducted to the instrument, and touching the key, sent out: "S.F.B. Morse." A storm of enthusiasm swept through the house as the audience rose, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs and the men cheering.
Professor Morse last appeared in public on February 22, 1872, when he unveiled the statue of Franklin, erected in Printing-house Square in New York. He died, after a short illness, on April 2, 1872, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery. On the day of the funeral, April 5th, every telegraph office in the country was draped in mourning.