“Your generosity defies space, as these wonderful gifts have been flashed to us from all parts of the earth. We are lifted from our desolation. The arm of the civilized world is thrown around us. Heaven bless you for this needed help and for the language of encouragement and deep love which it speaks to an afflicted people.”
“Our people, lifted from despair by this regal aid, are to-day in the work of restoration, full of hope. We read in these gifts the determination of the universal world that we shall go forward.”
Mr. Field received an official invitation from the Italian government, and he was also the representative of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company, to attend the Triennial Telegraphic Convention of representatives from the various governments and telegraph companies of the world appointed to meet in Rome in December, 1871.
On the 4th of that month Professor Morse wrote:
“I have wished for a few calm moments to put on paper some thoughts respecting the doings of the great telegraphic convention to which you are a delegate.
“The telegraph has now assumed such a marvellous position in human affairs throughout the world, its influences are so great and important in all the varied concerns of nations, that its efficient protection from injury has become a necessity. It is a powerful advocate for universal peace. Not that, of itself, it can command a ‘Peace, be still’ to the angry waves of human passions, but that, by its rapid interchange of thought and opinion, it gives the opportunity of explanations to acts and to laws which, in their ordinary wording, often create doubt and suspicion.
“Were there no means of quick explanation it is readily seen that doubt and suspicion, working on the susceptibilities of the public mind, would engender misconception, hatred, and strife. How important, then, that in the intercourse of nations there should be the ready means at hand for prompt correction and explanation!
“Could there not be passed in the great international convention some resolution to the effect that, in whatever condition, whether of peace or war between nations, the telegraph should be deemed a sacred thing, to be by common consent effectually protected both on the land and beneath the waters?
“In the interest of human happiness, of the ‘Peace on earth’ which, in announcing the advent of the Saviour, the angels proclaimed with ‘good will to men,’ I hope that the convention will not adjourn without adopting a resolution asking of the nations their united, effective protection to this great agent of civilization.”
This telegram was sent from Rome on December 28th: