[Speech of David Dudley Field at the dinner given in honor of Samuel F.
B. Morse, New York City, December 27, 1863.]
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--In the early days of the electric
telegraph, a proposition was made that it should be called the
Morseograph. I cannot but think that that would have been a distinctive
and appropriate designation; thus, in all future time, when the thing
should be mentioned, recalling the history of its origin. But the name
of the inventor is no secret; and the world will ratify the judgment we
pronounce to-night that, as benefactor and discoverer, his name will be
immortal.
If we were to measure the future of the telegraph by what it has already
accomplished, we should predict for it an indefinite extension. Less
than twenty years ago, the first line was built in the United States.
Though it extended only from Washington to Baltimore, it was begun in
doubt and completed with difficulty. Thence it stretched itself out
first to Philadelphia and New York, then to other principal cities, and
afterward along the great thoroughfares. On the other side of the sea it
advanced from city to city, and from one market to another.
At first laid with hesitation underneath the rivers, it was next carried
beneath narrow seas, and at last plunged into the ocean and passed from
continent to continent. Compare its feeble beginning with its
achievement of to-day. Think of the uncertainty with which, after weary
months upon dusty Maryland roads, the last link of that first line was
closed, and then think of the exultation with which great ships in
mid-ocean brought up from the bottom of the sea a cable lost two miles
down, and the problem was forever solved, not only that an
ocean-telegraph cable was possible, but that it could not be so lost as
that it might not be found.
Standing in the presence of the great inventor, I am constrained to
congratulate him upon the fulness of his triumph as he remembers the
early effort, and contrasts it with the marvels of this night in this
hall. That little instrument, no larger than the clock upon the chamber
mantel, and making as little noise, is yet speaking to both America and
Europe; and what it says will be printed before the dawn, and laid at
morning under the eyes of millions of readers. Did I say before the
dawn? It will meet the dawn in its circuit before it reaches the
confines of eastern Europe. In the opposite quarter, we know that the
message which has just left us for the West will outstrip the day. Even
while I have been speaking, the message has crossed the Mississippi,
passed the workmen laying the farthest rail of the Pacific road, bounded
over the Sierra Nevada, and dashed into the plains of California, as the
last ray of to-day's sun is fading from the shore, and the twilight is
falling upon the Pacific Sea.
It is, however, not alone its history which justifies us in predicting
for the telegraph indefinite extension. Its essential character must
sooner or later carry it to every part of the habitable globe. Of all
the agencies yet vouchsafed to man, it is the most accessible and the
most potent. While the machinery itself is simple and cheap, the element
from which it is fed is abundant and all-pervading. It is in the heaven
above, in the earth beneath, and in the water under the earth. You take
a little cup and pass into it a slender wire, when lo! there comes to it
a spark from air and water, from the cloud and the solid earth, which
the highest mountains cannot stop, nor the deepest seas drown, as it
dashes on its fiery way, indifferent whether its errand be to the next
village or to the antipodes. No other voice can speak to the far and
near at the same time. No other hand can write a message which may be
delivered within the same hour at Quebec and at Moscow. By no other
means may you converse at once with the farmer of Illinois and the
merchant of Amsterdam, with the German on the Danube and the Arab under
his palm.
To the use of such an instrument there can be no limit but the desire of
man to converse with man. If from this populous and opulent capital you
would speak with any inhabitant of either hemisphere, you have here an
agent which may be brought to do your bidding. If any, however distant,
desire to speak with us, they have these means at their command. How
great will be the effect of all this upon the civilization of the human
race, I do not pretend to foresee. But this I foresee, as all men may,
that the necessities of governments, the thirst for knowledge, and the
restless activity of commerce will make the telegraph girdle the earth
and bind it in a network of electric wire.
The Atlantic, the most dangerous and difficult of all the seas, has been
crossed. In the Pacific you may pass easily from island to island, till
you reach the shores of Eastern Asia. There an American company will
take it up and extend it from side to side of the central Flowery Land.
And an English company is about to cross the straits which divide
Australia from the elder continent. Indeed, I think that I declare not
only what is possible but what will come to pass within the next decade,
that there will be a telegraph-office wherever there is now a
post-office, and that messages by the telegraph will pass almost as
frequently as messages by the mail.
Then the different races and nations of men will stand, as it were in
the presence of one another. They will know one another better. They
will act and react upon one another. They may be moved by common
sympathies and swayed by common interests. Thus the electric spark is
the true Promethean fire, which is to kindle human hearts. Then will men
learn that they are brethren, and that it is not less their interest
than their duty to cultivate good-will and peace throughout all the
earth.
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