"It is not because I have not thought of you and your excellent family that I have not long since written to you to know your personal welfare. I hear of you often, it is true, through the papers. They praise you, as usual, for it is praise to have the abuse of such as abuse you. In all your libel suits against these degraded wretches I sympathize entirely with you, and there are thousands who now thank you in their hearts for the moral courage you display in bringing these licentious scamps to a knowledge of their duty. Be assured the good sense, the intelligence, the right feeling of the community at large are with you. The licentiousness of the press needed the rebuke which you have given it, and it feels it too despite its awkward attempts to brave it out.
"I will say nothing of your 'Home as Found.' I will use the frankness to say that I wish you had not written it…. When in Paris last I several times passed 59 Rue St. Dominique. The gate stood invitingly open and I looked in, but did not see my old friends although everything else was present. I felt as one might suppose another to feel on rising from his grave after a lapse of a century."
An attack from another and an old quarter is referred to in a letter to his brother Sidney of July 10, also another instance of the unfairness of the press:—
"Dr. Jackson had the audacity to appear at Louisville by affidavit against me. My counter-affidavit, with his original letters, contradicting in toto his statement, put him hors de combat. Mr. Kendall says he was 'completely used up.' … I have got a copy of Jackson's affidavit which I should like to show you. There never was a more finished specimen of wholesale lying than is contained in it. He is certainly a monomaniac; no other conclusion could save him from an indictment for perjury.
"By the Frankfort paper sent you last week, and the extract I now send you, you can give a very effective shot to the 'Tribune.' It is, perhaps, worthy of remark that, while all the papers in New York were so forward in publishing a false account of O'Reilly's success in the Frankfort case, not one that I have seen has noticed the decision just given at Louisville against him in every particular. This shows the animus of the press towards me. Nor have they taken any pains to correct the false account given of the previous decision."
Although no longer President of the National Academy of Design, having refused reëlection in 1845 in order to devote his whole time to the telegraph, Morse still took a deep interest in its welfare, and his counsel was sought by its active members. On October 13, 1849, Mr. Charles C. Ingham sent him a long letter detailing the trials and triumphs of the institution, from which I shall quote a few sentences: "'Lang syne,' when you fought the good fight for the cause of Art, your prospects in life were not brighter than they are now, and in bodily and mental vigor you are just the same, therefore do not, at this most critical moment, desert the cause. It is the same and our enemies are the same old insolent quacks and impostors, who wish to make a footstool of the profession on which to stand and show themselves to the public…. Now, with this prospect before you, rouse up a little of your old enthusiasm, put your shoulder to the wheel, and place the only school of Art on all this side of the world on a firm foundation."
Unfortunately the answer to this letter is not in my possession, but we may be sure that it came from the heart, while it must have expressed the writer's deep regret that the multiplicity of his other cares would prevent him from undertaking what would have been to him a labor of love.
Although Alfred Vail had severed his active connection with the telegraph, he and his brother George still owned stock in the various lines, and Morse did all in his power to safeguard and further their interests. They, on their part, were always zealous in championing the rights of the inventor, as the following letter from George Vail, dated December 19, 1849, will show:—
"Enclosed I hand you a paragraph cut from the 'Newark Daily' of 17th inst. It was evidently drawn out by a letter which I addressed to the editor some months ago, stating that I could not see what consistency there was in his course; that, while he was assuming the championship of American manufactures, ingenuity, enterprise, etc., etc., he was at the same time holding up an English inventor to praise, while he held all the better claims of Morse in the dark,—alluding to his bespattering Mr. Bain and O'Reilly with compliments at our expense, etc.
"I would now suggest that, if you are willing, we give Mr. Daily a temperate article on the rise and progress of telegraphs, asserting claims for yourself, and, as I must father the article, give the Vails and New Jersey all the 'sodder' they are entitled to, and a little more, if you can spare it.