A bronze statue of him on a granite pedestal was erected in the Central Park, New York, and was unveiled on June 10th, 1871, in the presence of a vast multitude, by the Governor of Massachusetts, the State in which the venerable inventor was born eighty years previously.
In the course of a long and eloquent address, Mr. Cullen Bryant observed that it might be said that “the civilised world is already full of memorials which speak the merit of our friend and the grandeur and utility of his invention. Every telegraphic station is such a memorial; every message sent from one of these stations to another may be counted among the honours paid to his name. Every telegraphic wire, strung from post to post, as it hums in the wind murmurs his eulogy. But we are so constituted that we insist upon seeing the form of that brow beneath which an active, restless, creative brain devised the mechanism that was to subdue the most wayward of the elements to the service of man, and make it his obedient messenger. We require to see the eye that glittered with a thousand lofty hopes when the great discovery was made, and the lips that curled with a smile of triumph when it became certain that the lightning of the clouds would become tractable to the most delicate touch. We demand to see the hand which first strung the wire by whose means the slender currents of the electric fluid were taught the alphabet of every living language—the hand which pointed them to the spot where they were to inscribe and leave their messages. All this we have in the statue which has this day been unveiled to the eager gaze of the public, and in which the artist has so skilfully and faithfully fulfilled his task as to satisfy those who are the hardest to please—the most intimate friends of the original. On behalf of the telegraphic workers of the Continent, who have so nobly and affectionately provided it, I do now present it to the authorities of the city of New York for perpetual and loving care.” In accepting it, Mayor Hall said:—“Our Middle State city loves to remember how her citizen Franklin modestly passed the portals of the temple of electrical science; a southern city how her citizen Whitney developed a cotton empire; a western city how her citizen McCormick presented to agriculture its greatest boon; adjacent eastern cities gratefully recall how their citizens Morton and Jackson blessed humanity, and how Elias Howe lightened the toil of the poor. The genius of these Americans changed the atmosphere of social life, which now is not in any aspect the same as it was to the elder generation of this Union. Their genius blessed food, raiment, and locomotion. But New York cherishes more proudly and gratefully the thought that the genius of her citizen Morse put all these inventions into world-wide service, and is fast bringing together all the peoples who were dispersed at the Tower of Babel.”
The venerable Professor also delivered a lengthy speech, during which he said that the subscribers had “chosen to impersonate in my humble effigy an invention which, cradled upon the ocean, had its birth in an American ship. It was nursed and cherished not so much from personal as from patriotic pride. Forecasting its future, even at its birth, my most powerful stimulus to perseverance through all the perils and trials of its early days—and they were neither few nor insignificant—was the thought that it must inevitably be world-wide in its application, and, moreover, that it would everywhere be hailed as a grateful American gift to the nations. It is in this aspect of the present occasion that I look upon your proceeding as intended, not so much as homage to an individual as to the invention ‘whose lines,’ from America, ‘have gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.’... It is but a few days since, that our veritable antipodes became telegraphically united to us. We can speak to and receive an answer in a few seconds of time from Hong Kong in China, where 10 o’clock to-night here is 10 o’clock in the day there, and it is perhaps a debatable question whether their 10 o’clock is 10 to-day or 10 to-morrow. China and New York are in interlocutory communication. We know the fact, but can imagination realise it?”
At a public meeting held in the evening in the Academy of Music a unique incident occurred. At 9 o’clock all the telegraph wires in America, then measuring over 180,000 miles, with 6,000 stations, were so connected together as to be in communication with a single Morse instrument which stood on a table visible to the large audience present. By means of this instrument the following message was transmitted to all the stations:—“Greeting and thanks to the telegraph fraternity throughout the land. Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will to men.” These words were transmitted by an expert lady operator, and then Professor Morse stepped forward to the instrument, and moved the handle so as to transmit the letters S. F. B. Morse, a proceeding which evoked enthusiastic applause. Mr. W. Orton, who presided, said: “Thus the Father of the Telegraph bids farewell to his children.” The Professor afterwards delivered a long address, recounting the chief events in the early history of his invention.
His continued interest and faith in the telegraph was evinced by a characteristic letter, which he wrote on December 4th, 1871, to Mr. Cyrus Field, who was then attending a Telegraphic Convention in Rome. He said:—“The excitement occasioned by the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis has but just ceased, and I have been wholly engrossed by the various duties connected with his presence. 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 land and beneath the waters? In the interest of human happiness, of that ‘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 civilisation. The mode and terms of such resolution may be safely left to the intelligent members of the honourable and distinguished Convention.” The reading of this letter in the Convention was hailed with prolonged cheers for the writer of it, and the letter was ordered to be printed among the records of the Convention.
The death of his brother Sidney, a few days later, affected him very much, and it then became evident that his own life was ebbing away. While in this state he was asked to unveil a bronze statue of Franklin, which Captain Albert de Groot had presented to the printers of New York, and which was erected in front of the City Hall. Though confined to bed when asked to unveil this statue, the Professor said he would do it if he had to be lifted to the spot; and when he was introduced to the vast concourse of people present at the ceremony as “the distinguished inventor and pride of our country,” he stated that no one had more reason to venerate the name of Franklin than himself, and expressed a hope that Franklin’s illustrious example of devotion to the interest of universal humanity might be the seed of further fruit for the good of the world. Mr. Horace Greeley said that Professor Morse seemed to have been raised up by Providence to be the continuer of the great work of which Franklin was the beginner.
His exposure to the keen breeze blowing when he unveiled the Franklin statue aggravated the neuralgia in his head, from which he suffered intense pain. He gradually sank, and distracting pain was followed by stupor. The Rev. Dr. Adams, of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, New York, of which the Professor was a member, attended him in his illness, and afterwards gave the following account of his last days:—“A short time ago he was occupied with other fellow-citizens in acts of attention to a distinguished representative of the Royal House of Russia. At the Holy Communion of this church next ensuing, an occasion in which for domestic and personal reasons he felt an extraordinary interest, at the close of the service he approached me with more than usual warmth and pressure of the hand, and, with a beaming countenance, said: ‘Oh, this is something better and greater than standing before princes.’ His piety had the simplicity of childhood. When his brother Sidney died last Christmas, he began to die also. Through fear of exciting alarm and giving distress to his own household, he did not speak so much to them as to some others, of his expected departure, but he used to say familiarly to some with whom he was ready to converse upon this subject, ‘I love to be studying the Guide Book of the country to which I am going; I wish to know more and more about it.’ A few days before his decease, in the privacy of his chamber I spoke to him of the great goodness of God to him in his remarkable life. ‘Yes; so good, so good,’ was the quick response; ‘and the best part of all is yet to come.’ Though spared more than eighty years, he saw none of the infirmities of age, either of mind or body. His delicate taste, his love for the beautiful, his fondness for the fine arts, his sound judgment, his intellectual activities, his public spirit, his intense interest in all that concerned the welfare and the decoration of the city, his earnest advocacy of Christian liberty throughout the world—all continued unimpaired to the last. With perfect health and the full possession of every faculty, urbane and courteous to all who knew him, there was no infelicity of temper or manner such as sometimes befalls extreme age. Surrounded by a young family, he was their genial friend and companion as well as head, sympathising in all the simple and innocent pleasures that give the charms to home. In particular qualities he had many equals and superiors, but in that rare combination of qualities which, like the harmony of colours in the finished picture, made him what he was, he seems to have been unrivalled.”—On the 2nd of April, 1872,
“He passed from sunshine to the sunless land.”
His remains were interred in Greenwood Cemetery three days after his death. The funeral service was held in Madison Square Presbyterian Church, and the funeral was attended by representatives of the leading telegraph companies in New York, of the Academy of Design, of the Evangelical Alliance, the Chamber of Commerce, the Association for the Advancement of Science and Art, and other public bodies. In the House of Representatives a concurrent resolution was passed recording profound regret at the death of “Professor Morse, whose distinguished and varied abilities have contributed more than those of any other person to the development and progress of the practical arts,” and declaring that his purity of life, his loftiness of scientific aim, and his resolute faith in truth, rendered it highly proper that the Representatives and Senators should solemnly testify to his worth and greatness. Mr. Wood, of New York city, being the only member then in the House who voted in 1843 for the bill for the experimental telegraph line, gave a sketch of the measure which enabled Professor Morse to bring his invention to a practical test. Other admirers paid their tributes of respect in verses, such as the following:—
“Men of every faith and nation