Vail became interested in the machine and offered to furnish money
and enter into partnership with the inventor. In 1840 a patent was
secured. Morse tried to get an appropriation from Congress for testing
his machine, but it was delayed so long that he despaired of success.
One morning in March, 1843, a young friend, Miss Ellsworth, brought him
news that an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars had been made
by Congress for “constructing a line of electric-magnetic telegraph.”
Morse promised that she might send the first message by telegraph
between Baltimore and Washington. The line of wires put up on poles,
was finished May 24, 1844. The first message sent was the text selected
by Miss Ellsworth, “What hath God wrought.”
The Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore about the
time that the line was completed and the names of the nominees were
telegraphed to Washington. People refused to believe the message was
really sent till the news was confirmed by later tidings.
In 1842 Morse made experiments to prove that messages could be carried
under water. As water is a good conductor of electricity, it was
necessary to insulate the wire, which Morse did by wrapping it with
hemp covered with pitch, tar, and rubber. This under-water wire worked
well, and a plan was formed to put across the Atlantic a cable resting
on the plateau between Newfoundland and Ireland.
This scheme was undertaken by Mr. Cyrus W. Field. The first cable made
of insulated wire protected by twisted wire rope was broken in the
attempt to lay it in 1857. The second cable was laid and it worked a
few days. The first message sent by the cable which united Europe and
America was “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will
towards men.” The third cable failed also, but the fourth, laid in
1866, gave good service. For thirteen years Cyrus Field had worked for
the cable and at last out of failure had come success. Since the fourth
cable was laid, there has been constant communication between Europe
and America.
The latest great step forward in telegraphy was made by Marconi, an
Italian scientist, who invented a system of telegraphing without the
use of wires.
The telephone has one advantage over the telegraph; it enables a person
not only to send messages but to carry on a conversation with persons
at a distance. The electric telephone was invented in 1875 by Alexander
Graham Bell. His father was a Scotch educator and scientist who
invented a method called “Bell’s visible speech” to teach deaf-mutes to
speak. Telephones now connect places hundreds of miles apart.
As great advances have been made within the last century in methods
of lighting houses as in modes of travel and of communication. At
the beginning of the nineteenth century, people still used candles
and crude lamps, similar to those which had been in use for hundreds
of years. The principle of the candle and the lamp is the same; oil
or grease, liquid or solid, is burned by means of a wick. During our
great-grandfather’s days, well-to-do people used chiefly wax candles
and poor people used candles made of tallow. In many families the only
light was furnished by pine knots, called lightwood because the pitch
burned making a bright light. It was by such a light that Abraham
Lincoln studied.
About the beginning of the nineteenth century an Englishman invented
practical gas-light and carried gas made from coal through his house
in pipes. In 1821 illuminating gas was made and used in Baltimore for
the first time in this country. About a half-century later, another
stride forward was made in the lighting of houses. Edison invented the
electric light, the brightest, cleanest, and safest light, and the one
requiring least care of any yet devised. There are two kinds of the
electric light, both widely used. The incandescent, or “glow lamp”
as it is called in England, is most common. The arc light is used for
lighting large buildings and city streets.
Thomas Edison is an American scientist who has made it his life-work
to make practical use of the great force of electricity. He was born
in 1847 and is still living and still working. He was the son of a
hard-working laborer. His mother had been a school teacher and she gave
her son as good an education as she could. When only twelve years old,
he started out to earn his own living as a news-boy on the Grand Trunk
Railroad.
He was a business-like, enterprising youngster. When there was exciting
news in his papers, he telegraphed the fact to stations in advance and
bought extra supplies of papers which he disposed of at a good price.
He decided that he would like to print a paper of his own, so he got
some old type and fitted up part of a freight-car as an office. Here
he published a weekly paper, “The Grand Trunk Herald,” which became
popular with railroad people. He undertook a second paper called the
“Paul Pry” but for some personal remarks in it he was severely punished
and he soon after gave up journalism.
He now became interested in chemistry. He bought cheap apparatus
and some chemicals and in his freight-car office devoted himself to
experiments. Unfortunately, an over-turned bottle of phosphorus set the
floor on fire; the conductor put the young editor and scientist, with
his printing press and chemical outfit, off the car.
When Edison was about fifteen, he saved the life of a two-year-old
child, dragging it from in front of the engine at risk of his own
life. The grateful father was a station agent and he offered to teach
Edison telegraphy. The boy became a rapid operator, but was too fond
of experimenting to devote himself to work and he drifted from one
place to another. Finally he went to New York City. For his inventions
of stock-printing and other telegraph appliances, he received forty
thousand dollars and this enabled him to establish a laboratory to work
out his ideas.
For many years Edison was laughed at because he believed that a
telegraph wire can be made to carry two messages at once; by his duplex
system he made it do so, and later by his quadruplex system he made it
carry four messages.
He added some improvements to the telephone invented by Bell, invented
a phonograph to record and repeat the sound of the human voice, and a
megaphone to carry the sound to a distance, and the kinetoscope.
His greatest work, however, was in connection with the electric light.
He worked on it a long time before he succeeded. The chief trouble was
in securing a good non-conducting filament. He sent men to search in
China, Japan, South America, and Ceylon for bamboo and other plants
which would answer his purpose. Out of three thousand specimens of
vegetable fiber, he found three or four which would do. In 1880 the
light which is now used all over the world was perfected and exhibited.
Edison has made few, if any real scientific discoveries, but he has
made many ingenious inventions, and has applied scientific principles
to practical purposes so as to increase the comfort and economy of
living.
Andrew Jackson
The Man of the People
While Washington, the aristocrat, was using his sword and Jefferson,
the scholarly gentleman, was using his pen, to form in America a
government of the people, there was growing up in a border settlement a
youth who was to be a “man of the people” and bear rule over it.
Andrew Jackson was the son of a poor Irish emigrant, who spent the
years after his coming to America in a brave fight for bread for
his wife and children. Worn out by the struggle, he died, and the
children were left to their mother’s care. Andrew was born at the
Waxhaw settlement which is partly in North Carolina and partly in South
Carolina, both of which states have been claimed as Jackson’s native
place. In childhood he attended an “old field school” where he gained
the rudiments of an education and at work and play held his own among
his comrades.
“I could throw him three times out of four,” said an old schoolmate,
in later days “but he never would _stay throwed_. He was dead game and
never would give up.”
Neither then nor in later life was he handsome, with his pale,
sharp-featured face, his sandy red hair, and his keen steel blue eyes.
Andrew’s elder brothers, mere lads at the time of the Revolution,
served in the patriot forces and Andrew joined them when he was only
thirteen. He was taken prisoner by the British and it was then that a
well-known incident occurred.
A British officer ordered Andrew to black his boots and the lad refused.
“I am a prisoner of war,” he said, “and demand to be treated as such.”
The angry officer drew his sword to chastise the young rebel; Andrew,
raising his arm to parry the blow, received a wound, the scar from
which he carried to his grave. One of his brothers died from neglected
wounds. Andrew and Robert were confined with about three hundred other
American prisoners in a stockade at Camden. Andrew, through a hole in
the fence, watched the battle of Hobkirk’s Hill and the last hope of
release departed when brave General Greene was forced to retreat. Not
long after, however, the two brothers were released, probably in an
exchange of prisoners. With their mother they made their way home.
Robert died of smallpox caught while in prison and Mrs. Jackson died
soon after of fever contracted while nursing American prisoners. Thus
Andrew was left alone in the world,--with a bitter feeling that his
mother and brothers had been sacrificed to British injustice.
The orphaned and penniless lad set to work, first at a trade, then as
a school teacher; finally he studied law. When he began to practice
his profession, he crossed the mountains and went west to the region
now forming the state of Tennessee. In that rough border country, as
it then was, his strong will, courage, and common sense were even more
valuable than his small store of legal knowledge. People soon came to
respect and depend on him. When offenses against the law were reported
to the governor, he said, “Just inform Mr. Jackson; he will be sure to
do his duty and the offenders will be punished.”
Mr. Jackson soon became Judge Jackson. We are told that on one occasion
he ordered the sheriff to arrest a desperate criminal; the officer
returned and reported that he was unable to do so, the man resisted
his authority. Judge Jackson descended from the bench, went out and
arrested the man, marched him into court, resumed his seat, tried the
case, and sentenced the offender. It was a characteristic incident.
In 1791 Jackson married and between him and his wife there existed
a simple-hearted devotion which was never broken. Some one who saw
her years later when the beauty of youth was gone, described her as a
“coarse-looking, stout little old woman,” but she remained beautiful to
his eyes.
After Tennessee was admitted to statehood, Jackson was sent to
Congress, first as representative, then as senator. From Washington he
returned to the mountains which he loved, and busied himself as store
keeper, cotton-planter, and stock-raiser,--recognized in his community
as a man of undoubted integrity, a staunch friend, and a relentless
foe. He took part in two duels, in one of which he was severely wounded
and killed his opponent.
Jackson offered his services as soon as the war of 1812 broke out. He
was ordered to lead the militia to New Orleans, which it was thought
would be attacked. When he had gone about five hundred miles he was
ordered to disband his troops.
Soon after, he led a force against the Creek Indians who took advantage
of the war in progress to attack outlying settlements and kill white
settlers. The troops failed to receive needed supplies and Jackson gave
up his private stores to the sick and wounded and set his soldiers an
example of cheerful endurance of hardship. At one time, it is said, he
invited some officers to share his breakfast and they found--a bowl of
acorns and a pitcher of water.
At last Jackson agreed that if provisions did not come in two days
the troops might return home. Soon after they turned back, they met
supplies; they refreshed themselves and then started to continue the
homeward march. Jackson galloped to the front, raised his rifle and
furiously swore that he would kill the first man who made a step
homeward. The troops, driven back to the path of duty, defeated the
Indians in several battles. After one battle Jackson found an Indian
baby in the arms of its dead mother. The Indian women refused to care
for it and Jackson took it to his own tent, fed it with brown sugar and
water and finally sent it to his home, the Hermitage, where the young
Indian was cared for and reared.
Jackson’s military merit was now recognized and he was made
major-general.
At New Orleans which was attacked by British forces about the close of
the war, he won the one important land victory of the war. The British,
secure in their superior numbers and discipline, were confident of
success.
“I shall eat my Christmas dinner in New Orleans,” said one of the
British officers.
“Perhaps so,” said General Jackson to whom this remark was repeated,
“but I shall have the honor of presiding at that dinner.”
With wonderful skill and energy, he put the place in condition for
defence and made ready for the British attack which took place January
8, 1815. Fortune as well as good generalship favored the Americans.
The British were defeated with a loss of about three thousand men,
including their commander. The Americans lost only eight men killed and
thirteen wounded. A treaty of peace had been signed two weeks before,
but there was then no ocean-cable to convey the tidings, and the news
did not reach America until after the battle had been fought and the
repulsed British had sailed away.
In 1818 Jackson led troops to put down the Seminoles in Florida who
were making war on the border settlements and had massacred the people
at Fort Mimms.
In 1824 Jackson was one of four candidates for the presidency. The
People’s Party founded by Jefferson was divided and put forward two
candidates both from the west,--Jackson and Clay, who were bitter
enemies. Adams was elected, but four years later Jackson was the
successful candidate. The poor son of the Irish emigrant had fought his
way upward,--saddler, lawyer, judge, general, he now held the highest
office of the country. He thought and said that his will was the will
of the people and he ruled with autocratic power, never hesitating
to oppose Congress. If he thought that a bill was not for the best
interests of the country, he vetoed it. He never forgot a friend and
seldom forgave a foe. He accepted the view of one of his followers who
said “to the victors belong the spoils of the vanquished.” He removed
office-holders to bestow offices on his friends--a bad example followed
and carried to great excesses by all parties from that day to this. In
1832 he was re-elected; the people recognized that with all his faults
he was honest and loyal to their interests.
The most important acts of his administration were his attitude towards
the Nullification Act of South Carolina and his leadership in the “bank
war.” A dramatic incident, at a dinner in honor of Jefferson’s birthday
in April, 1830, showed clearly the president’s attitude towards those
who were beginning to be dissatisfied with the general government.
Jackson was called on for the first toast. He raised his glass, saying,
“Our federal union! it must and shall be preserved.” Calhoun, the great
South Carolina leader rose and offered the next toast, “The union,
next to our liberty the most dear.” After a pause, he added, “May we
all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of
the states and by distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the
union.”
South Carolina considered herself aggrieved by certain tariff
regulations, and proclaimed that these duties should not be paid after
a certain day and that if the United States attempted to enforce
payment the state would secede. Jackson issued a proclamation stating
ably his views as to the binding force of the union. He sent to
Charleston a naval force, one of the officers of which was Farragut,
and he ordered General Scott to have troops ready to march at once to
South Carolina. Through the influence of Clay, a compromise tariff bill
was passed and the conflict was postponed thirty years.
Jackson acted with equal energy in the bank matter; thinking national
banks are unconstitutional, he vetoed a bill in their favor, even
though his friends believed it would cost him re-election. Feeling ran
so high on this subject that the Senate passed a resolution of censure
on the president; this resolution was afterwards removed from the
record. During Jackson’s administration the national debt was entirely
paid. He was probably the only president who went out of office more
popular than he went in.
He retired to his beloved home, the Hermitage, and there he died in
1845. His tomb bears this inscription:
“General
Andrew Jackson
Born on the fifteenth of March, 1767
Died on the eighth of June, 1845.”
Henry Clay
The Great Peacemaker
On April 12, 1777, Henry Clay, the son of a poor Baptist clergyman, was
born in Virginia in the country known as the “Slashes of Hanover.” His
earliest recollections were of the death of his father when he was
four years old and of Tarleton’s troops passing his home and carrying
off slaves, provisions, and even his mother’s clothing.
In boyhood Henry Clay worked hard to aid his widowed mother. He turned
his hand to such work as came up--plowing the fields around his home,
and, like many another country boy, going to the grist mill with his
bag of corn to be ground into meal. In later years he received, in
memory of his boyhood struggles, the nickname of “the Millboy of the
Slashes.”
He studied reading, writing, and arithmetic in an “old field school,”
worked a while as clerk in a store, and then studied law. In those days
there were no law schools in the country, and Clay, like other aspiring
young men, gained the necessary training from a few books, a little
instruction in a law office, and practice in the courts.
At twenty the new-fledged lawyer, went west to make his home in the
Blue Grass region of Kentucky which had been but a few years a state.
This adopted state was his home thenceforth and all his interests
were identified with it. He worked with indomitable energy. In order
to train and modulate his defective voice he went out in the barnyard
and argued his cases before the pigs and cows. He used to say that the
brutes of the farm were the best audiences he ever had.
Clay secured a good practice, married well and lived happily at
Ashland, a farm just outside Lexington, which he bought about the
time of his marriage. Remembering his own struggles and the kindness
extended him during those years, he was always interested in ambitious
young men and ready to help them with money, advice, and influence.
At the age of twenty-nine, Clay was appointed to represent Kentucky in
the United States Senate for an unexpired term. He early formulated his
“American system” declaring himself in favor of internal improvements,
building up home industries, and distributing surplus money from the
sale of public lands among the states, according to population. In 1811
he was in favor of war with Great Britain; as Speaker of the House,
“The War Hawk,” as he was called, did much to bring it about. He was
one of the men sent in 1814 to make terms of peace with England, and it
was largely through his labors that favorable terms were secured.
Clay admired General Jackson’s military ability but he censured the
invasion of Spanish territory in Florida and the two men became bitter
and relentless enemies.
In 1820 began the career for which he is famous--that of the “Great
Pacificator,” trying to avert conflict between the north and the south,
the free and the slave states. It was largely through his influence
that the contest was so long postponed. Clay was not the author of
the Missouri Compromise--as the bill was called which provided that
Missouri should be admitted to statehood without restriction as to
slavery--but it was through his influence that it was passed. Although
he struggled to adjust differences and keep the peace, he stood
fearlessly by what he thought was right.
On one occasion Clay consulted a friend about the stand he was
preparing to take on a public question. The friend suggested that the
course he planned might injure his political prospects. His reply
was, “I did not send for you to ask what might be the effects of the
proposed movement on my prospects, but whether it is right. I would
rather be right than be president.”
His life-long ambition was to become president, and he was several
times a candidate and once seemed on the eve of victory only to be
defeated. The Great Peacemaker was too moderate for either side. The
north accused him of favoring slavery, the south of making war against
established institutions. He was not, however, in favor of freeing
slaves, except gradually, and then of colonizing them. His own slaves
were well-treated and loved him dearly.
Clay was one of what is called the Great Triumvirate, composed of the
three foremost leaders in Congress; Webster and Calhoun were the other
two. The three were in many ways rivals for power and popularity, but
they united in opposing Jackson--who, secure in the favor of the
people, held his own against all three.
In 1833 Clay, the “Great Compromiser,” carried his second great
compromise act, securing the passage of a tariff bill which caused
South Carolina to withdraw her Nullification Act.
“There is one man and only one man who can save the Union,” said
John Randolph of Roanoke just before his death. “That man is Henry
Clay. I know he has the power--I believe he will be found to have the
patriotism and firmness equal to the occasion.” His patriotism and
firmness were indeed equal to his power.
In 1850 the friction between the slave and free states became so great
that war seemed inevitable. In order to maintain peace, Clay, then an
old and feeble man of seventy-three, gave up private for public life
and returned to the senate. For the last time the Great Triumvirate
met in Congress. Clay was so feeble that he had to be helped up and
down the steps of the Capitol, but with unquenched energy and fire, he
appealed to the people’s patriotism and urged them to uphold the Union.
Through his influence, the compromise measures of 1850 were adopted and
peace was again restored for a time.
He could well say near the close of his life, “If any one desires
to know the leading and paramount object of my public life, the
preservation of the Union will furnish him the key.”
The great leader grew gradually weaker and passed away, June 29, 1852.
His body was carried back to Kentucky and laid to rest in the state he
so loved.
“I am a Whig,” he said once: “I am so because I believe the principles
of the Whig party are best adapted to promote the prosperity of the
country. I seek to change no man’s allegiance to his party, be it what
it may. A life of great length and experience has satisfied me that
all parties aim at the common good of the country. The great body of
the Democrats, as well as the Whigs, are so from a conviction that
their policy is patriotic. I take the hand of one as cordially as
that of another, for all are Americans. I place country far above all
parties. Look aside from that and parties are no longer worthy of being
cherished.”
“I know no south, no north, no east, no west,” he said, at another
time. It was such sentiments as these that made him Lincoln’s ideal of
a statesman. The conflict he had striven to avert was postponed--but
it came. His children and grandchildren fought, some on one side some
on the other. Two of his grandchildren who were brothers fought on
opposite sides and both fell in battle. Such was the War between the
States.
Daniel Webster
A Famous Orator
Daniel Webster was descended from one of the Puritans who came from Old
England to New England in the “great emigration.” His father, Ebenezer
Webster, was a sturdy pioneer who fought in the French and Indian War
and in the Revolution. “Captain Webster, I believe I can trust you,”
said General Washington, and this was the opinion of all who knew him.