On appearing for the first time before this Association, which, as I am
informed, comprises the faculty and the entire body of students of the
Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering and the Mechanic Arts, a
reminiscence of the founder of this College suggests itself to me, in
the relation of which I beg first to be indulged.
In the years 1847-8-9 I lived in Rochester, N.Y., and formed a slight
acquaintance with Mr. Sibley, whose home was then, as it has ever since
been, in that city. Nearly twelve years afterward, in the summer of
1861, which will be remembered as the first year of our civil war, I met
Mr. Sibley again. We happened to occupy a seat together in a car from
New York to Albany. He recollected me, and we had a conversation which
made a lasting impression on my memory. I said we had a conversation.
That reminds me of a story told by my dear friend, of precious memory,
Alexander L. Holley. One summer Mr. Holley accompanied a party of
artists on an excursion to Mt. Katahdin, which, as you know, rises in
almost solitary grandeur amid the forests and lakes of Maine. He wrote,
in his inimitably happy style, an account of this excursion, which
appeared some time after in _Scribner's Monthly_, elegantly illustrated
with views of the scenery. Among other things, Mr. Holley related how he
and Mr. Church painted the sketches for a grand picture of Mt. Katahdin.
"That is," he explained, "Mr. Church painted, and I held the umbrella."
This describes the conversation which Mr. Sibley and I had. Mr. Sibley
talked, and I listened. He was a good talker, and I flatter myself that
I rather excel as a listener. On that occasion I did my best, for I knew
whom I was listening to. I was listening to the man who combined bold
and comprehensive grasp of thought, unerring foresight and sagacity, and
energy of action and power of accomplishment, in a degree not surpassed,
if it was equaled, among men.
Some years before, Mr. Sibley had created the Western Union Telegraph
Company. At that time telegraphy was in a very depressed state. The
country was to a considerable extent occupied by local lines, chartered
under various State laws, and operated without concert. Four rival
companies, organized under the Morse, the Bain, the House, and the
Hughes patents, competed for the business. Telegraph stock was nearly
valueless. Hiram Sibley, a man of the people, a resident of an inland
city, of only moderate fortune, alone grasped the situation. He saw that
the nature of the business, and the demands of the country, alike
required that a single organization, in which all interests should be
combined, should cover the entire land with its network, by means of
which every center and every outlying point, distant as well as near,
could communicate with each other directly, and that such an
organization must be financially successful. He saw all this vividly,
and realized it with the most intense earnestness of conviction. With
Mr. Sibley, to be convinced was to act; and so he set about the task of
carrying this vast scheme into execution. The result is well known. By
his immense energy, the magnetic power with which he infused his own
convictions into other minds, the direct, practical way in which he set
about the work, and his indomitable perseverance, Mr. Sibley attained at
last a phenomenal success.
But he was not then telling me anything about this. He was telling me of
the construction of the telegraph line to the Pacific Coast. Here again
Mr. Sibley had seen that which was hidden from others. This case
differed from the former one in two important respects. Then Mr. Sibley
had been dependent on the aid and co-operation of many persons; and this
he had been able to secure. Now, he could not obtain help from a human
being; but he had become able to act independently of any assistance.
He had made a careful study of the subject, in his thoroughly practical
way, and had become convinced that such a line was feasible, and would
be remunerative. At his instance a convention of telegraph men met in
the city of New York, to consider the project. The feeling in this
convention was extremely unfavorable to it. A committee reported against
it unanimously, on three grounds--the country was destitute of timber,
the line would be destroyed by the Indians, and if constructed and
maintained, it would not pay expenses. Mr. Sibley found himself alone.
An earnest appeal which he made from the report of the committee was
received with derisive laughter. The idea of running a telegraph line
through what was then a wilderness, roamed over for between one and two
thousand miles of its breadth by bands of savages, who of course would
destroy the line as soon as it was put up, and where repairs would be
difficult and useless, even if the other objections to it were out of
the way, struck the members of the convention as so exquisitely
ludicrous that it seemed as if they would never be done laughing about
it. If Mr. Sibley had advocated a line to the moon, they would hardly
have seen in it greater evidence of lunacy. When he could be heard, he
rose again and said: "Gentlemen, you may laugh, but if I was not so old,
I would build the line myself." Upon this, of course, they laughed
louder than ever. As they laughed, he grew mad, and shouted: "Gentlemen,
I will bar the years, and do it." And he did it. Without help from any
one, for every man who claimed a right to express an opinion upon it
scouted the project as chimerical, and no capitalist would put a dollar
in it, Hiram Sibley built the line of telegraph to San Francisco,
risking in it all he had in the world. He set about the work with his
customary energy, all obstacles vanished, and the line was completed in
an incredibly short time. And from the day it was opened, it has proved
probably the most profitable line of telegraph that has ever been
constructed. There was the practicability, and there was the demand and
the business to be done, and yet no living man could see it, or could be
made to see it, except Hiram Sibley. "And to-day," he said, with honest
pride, "to-day in New York, men to whom I went almost on my knees for
help in building this line, and who would not give me a dollar, have
solicited me to be allowed to buy stock in it at the rate of five
dollars for one."
"But how about the Indians?" I asked. "Why," he replied, "we never had
any trouble from the Indians. I knew we wouldn't have. Men who supposed
I was such a fool as to go about this undertaking before that was all
settled didn't know me. No Indian ever harmed that line. The Indians are
the best friends we have got. You see, we taught the Indians the Great
Spirit was in that line; and what was more, we proved it to them. It
was, by all odds, the greatest medicine they ever saw. They fairly
worshiped it. No Indian ever dared to do it harm."
"But," he added, "there was one thing I didn't count on. The border
ruffians in Missouri are as bad as anybody ever feared the Indians might
be. They have given us so much trouble that we are now building a line
around that State, through Iowa and Nebraska. We are obliged to do it."
This opened another phase of the subject. The telegraph line to the
Pacific had a value beyond that which could be expressed in money. It
was perhaps the strongest of all the ties which bound California so
securely to the Union, in the dark days of its struggle for existence.
The secession element in Missouri recognized the importance of the line
in this respect, and were persistent in their efforts to destroy it. We
have seen by what means their purpose was thwarted.
I have always felt that, among the countless evidences of the ordering
of Providence by which the war for the preservation of the Union was
signalized, not the least striking was the raising up of this remarkable
man, to accomplish alone, and in the very nick of time, a work which at
once became of such national importance.
This is the man who has crowned his useful career, and shown again his
eminently practical character and wise foresight, by the endowment of
this College, which cannot fail to be a perennial source of benefit to
the country whose interests he has done so much to promote, and which
his remarkable sagacity and energy contributed so much to preserve.
We have an excellent rule, followed by all successful designers of
machinery, which is, to make provision for the extreme case, for the
most severe test to which, under normal conditions, and so far as
practicable under abnormal conditions also, the machinery can be
subjected. Then, of course, any demands upon it which are less than the
extreme demand are not likely to give trouble. I shall apply this
principle in addressing you to-day. In what I have to say, I shall speak
directly to the youngest and least advanced minds among my auditors. If
I am successful in making an exposition of my subject which shall be
plain to them, then it is evident that I need not concern myself about
being understood by the higher class men and the professors.