When we last looked at Samuel Morse and his telegraph, he had failed to procure support from Congress and had decamped to Europe to sell his invention there. This failed, as well, and so he returned to the US. In the middle of 1842, the newspapers reported that he was back to demonstrating his invention, in this case in New York City, where he stretched a cable from Castle Garden on the southern tip of Manhattan to Governor’s Island, about a mile offshore. The New York Herald was ecstatic, if a bit incoherent:
Many have been incredulous as to this [sic] powers of this wonderful triumph of science and art. All such may now have an opportunity of fairly testing it. It is destined to work a complete revolution in the mode of transmitting intelligence throughout the civilized world.
With this test an apparent success, Morse returned to Congress, and the National Intelligencer reported (and the Herald reprinted) that
He has established his telegraph between two of the committee rooms at the Capitol, the House Committee of Commerce, and the Senate Committee of Naval Affairs, where its operation is shown to any who feel disposed to witness the facility with which two persons, however distant, may converse with each other. This invention has truly been placed among the greatest of this or any other age. The mind is scarcely prepared to pursue even in speculation the mighty results which are soon
While it sounded fairly impressive to have messages passing from one side of the Capitol to the other, really the two committee rooms mentioned are only about 100 feet distant from one another. Nonetheless, the demonstration was convincing, and a few weeks later, the Alexandria Gazette reported that the House Commerce Committee had recommended “an appropriation of $30,000 to be expended under the direction of the Postmaster General, in testing the practicability and utility of this novel mode of communication.”
The first attempt to discuss this bill in the full House did not go well. Representative Cave Johnson of Tennessee [who looks exactly like a guy named Cave should. See picture above] demanded that, since this Congress had “done much to encourage science, he did not wish to see the science of Mesmerism neglected and overlooked,” as the Congressional Globe reported. He thus introduced an amendment to the bill that would have ensured that “one-half of the appropriation be give to Mr. Fisk, to enable him to carry on experiments.”
Remarkably, 22 Representatives felt that a study of the healing properties of animal magnetism was indeed worthy of inquiry, and voted for the amendment. However, this was a sufficiently small number that the noes were not counted at all and the amendment failed. Two days later, the bill appropriating money for the telegraph passed by a vote of 89 to 83. It should be noted, however, that about 1/3 of all members refused to vote either way on it, as they were worried about spending money on a device they could not understand.
It would be another two years before Morse would return to the Capitol, this time, however, in triumph.