"The decision of the Supreme Court was unanimous on all the points involving the right of Professor Morse to the claim of being the original inventor of the Electro-Magnetic Recording Telegraph. A minority of the court went still further, and gave him the right to the motive power of magnetism as a means of operating machinery to imprint signals or to produce sounds for telegraphic purposes. The testimony of experts in science and art is not introduced because it was thoroughly weighed and sifted by intelligent and impartial men, whose judgment must be accepted as final and sufficient. The justice of the decision has never been impugned. Each succeeding year has confirmed it with accumulating evidence.
"One point was decided against the Morse patent, and it is worthy of being noticed that this decision, which denied to Morse the exclusive use of electromagnetism for recording telegraphs, has never been of injury to his instrument, because no other inventor has devised an instrument to supersede his.
"The court decided that the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph was the sole and exclusive invention of Samuel F.B. Morse. If others could make better instruments for the same purpose, they were at liberty to use electromagnetism. Twenty years have elapsed since this decision was rendered; the Morse patent has expired by limitation of time, but it is still without a rival in any part of the world."
This was written in 1873, but I think that I am safe in saying that the same is true now after the lapse of forty more years. While, of course, there have been both elaboration and simplification, the basic principle of the universal telegraph of to-day is embodied in the drawings of the sketch-book of 1832, and it was the invention of Morse, and was entirely different from any form of telegraph devised by others.
I shall make but one quotation from the long opinion handed down by the
Supreme Court and delivered by Chief Justice Taney:—
"Neither can the inquiries he made, nor the information or advice he received from men of science, in the course of his researches, impair his right to the character of an inventor. No invention can possibly be made, consisting of a combination of different elements of power, without a thorough knowledge of the properties of each of them, and the mode in which they operate on each other. And it can make no difference in this respect whether he derives his information from books, or from men skilled in the science. If it were otherwise, no patent in which a combination of different elements is used could ever be obtained. For no man ever made such an invention without having first obtained this information, unless it was discovered by some fortunate accident. And it is evident that such an invention as the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph could never have been brought into action without it. For a very high degree of scientific knowledge, and the nicest skill in the mechanic arts, are combined in it, and were both necessary to bring it into successful operation. And the fact that Morse sought and, obtained the necessary information and counsel from the best sources, and acted upon it, neither impairs his rights as an inventor, nor detracts from his merits."
The italics are mine, for it has over and over been claimed for everybody who had a part in the early history of the telegraph, either by hint, help, or discovery, that more credit should be given to him than to Morse himself—to Henry, to Gale, to Vail, to Doctor Page, and even to F.O.J. Smith. In fact Morse used often to say that some people thought he had no right to claim his invention because he had not discovered electricity, nor the copper from which his wires were made, nor the brass of his instruments, nor the glass of his insulators.
I shall make one other quotation from the opinion of Judge Kane and Judge
Grier at one of the earlier trials, in Philadelphia, in 1851:—
"That he, Mr. Morse, was the first to devise and practise the art of recording language, at telegraphic distances, by the dynamic force of the electro-magnet, or, indeed, by any agency whatever, is, to our minds, plain upon all the evidence. It is unnecessary to review the testimony for the purpose of showing this. His application for a patent, in April, 1838, was preceded by a series of experiments, results, illustrations and proofs of final success, which leave no doubt whatever but that his great invention was consummated before the early spring of 1837. There is no one person, whose invention has been spoken of by any witness, or referred to in any book as involving the principle of Mr. Morse's discovery, but must yield precedence of date to this. Neither Steinheil, nor Cooke and Wheatstone, nor Davy, nor Dyar, nor Henry, had at this time made a recording telegraph of any sort. The devices then known were merely semaphores, that spoke to the eye for a moment—bearing about the same relation to the great discovery before us as the Abbé Sicard's invention of a visual alphabet for the purposes of conversation bore to the art of printing with movable types. Mr. Dyar's had no recording apparatus, as he expressly tells us, and Professor Henry had contented himself with the abundant honors of his laboratory and lecture-rooms."
One case was decided against him, but this decision was afterwards overruled by the Supreme Court, so that it caused no lasting injury to his claims.