Congress, it is true, aided the introduction of the Telegraph by an
appropriation of thirty thousand dollars for a public experiment and
test of its capacity. But it may well be questioned whether this
appropriation was not, after all, an injury rather than a benefit, both
to the inventor and the people. It left no property to enrich its
possessors, and no models to guide them in erecting new structures,
while it was obtained by sacrifices which have cost the inventor
infinite sorrow, and clouded a score of years with litigation. The time
occupied by Congress in the consideration of the offer of the invention
to government for one hundred thousand dollars (which was rejected)
consumed nearly two years of the patent, and exposed the inventor to the
endurance of a most annoying uncertainty.
Government, however, most effectually insured its successful extension,
when, contrary to the practice of European powers, it declined to assume
the control of the Telegraph, and referred its inventor, after the
thorough investigation of the Postmaster-General, to the people as the
proper recipients of his discovery. It was the healthy act of a
government which recognized its duty to protect, instead of absorbing,
the enterprises of its citizens. That duty is as clear to-day as it was
then.
When government rejected the control and ownership of the Telegraph,
although offered for so paltry a sum by the inventor, it was accepted by
the people as a legitimate enterprise, and they have given to it all the
capital, skill, and labor required for the fullest development of its
usefulness.
Although many years elapsed after the introduction of the Telegraph in
this country during which it maintained but a feeble existence through
numerous weak and limited organizations, that rendered the business
expensive and precarious, it now begins to crystallize into strength and
harmony; and the projectors and promoters of the enterprise feel that
they have a right to expect the fruit of their labors, in the proper and
legitimate return which the humblest citizen receives for his work, and
which government was, in part at least, organized to secure. We
therefore pronounce the Washburne bill an unwarranted and unjust
measure, which, while proposing an ostensible public good, essays to
provide it by the destruction of vast private interests for which it
proposes no compensation.