Lightning Man_ The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse - Kenneth Silverman [128]
Morse also weighed, and generally favored, selling his invention to the American government. The press took up the question of whether as a matter of public policy the new technological marvel should be nationalized. The Washington Union, for instance, argued that the government would distribute its benefits impartially, while in private hands it might become a “dangerous monopoly.” But the New York Evening Mirror and other papers condemned such thinking as patronizing and unrealistic; it regarded the people as “a set of knaves and swindlers, and the officials of the government as being alone worthy of holding any trust.” The Mirror foresaw congressmen misusing the wires for their private convenience, at public expense: “The Hon. Mr.
Hopkins will send word to his wife in Buffalo, that he had a comfortable night’s sleep.” To Morse the issue was neither economic nor political but essentially moral. Being “an engine of power, for good or for evil,” the telegraph would be safer under federal control. He hoped the government would buy his patent outright, expand and manage the system on its own, and keep him in place as superintendent.
With a half-dozen options before him, Morse was uncertain what to do. “Professor Morse is so constantly changing his plans,” Vail wrote, “that it is impossible to say what will be the next suggestion.” Morse’s attempts to confer with F. O. J. Smith, his partner, did nothing to relieve his indecision. As often in the past, Smith failed to answer letters and managed to be unavailable for consultation. Having come to despise Morse as narrowminded and sanctimonious, he cursed him as “the ‘puritan’ ” and ridiculed him for wanting to consult. Morse behaved, he said, as if he “could not start an inch until I came. It is provoking to witness such selfishness & effeminacy combined.”
Not that letters or meetings helped. In one exchange of views, Morse suggested that they sell the patent to the government, asking a quarter of a million dollars: “would you not be satisfied?” Smith was not satisfied. Nor could they agree on bargaining terms when discussing possible deals with private investors. Again and again Morse proposed divisions of profits, outlined responsibilities for bookkeeping, named prices for the sale of side lines. Again and again Smith rejected Morse’s terms and submitted counterproposals, all of which Morse found unsatisfactory and rejected in turn.
Their angriest clash arose over Morse’s hope of getting an additional appropriation from Congress. He wanted the money in order to extend the Washington-Baltimore line to New York City, with intermediate stations at Wilmington, Philadelphia, and Trenton—a distance of about two hundred miles. He planned to once more enlist Smith to write the contracts for the construction, while he once more superintended the work, which on completion would be offered to the government for purchase. But he seems to have understood that Smith had not forgiven his handling of the Bartlett contract—that Smith remained incensed over his refusal to ask full payment from the government for brother-in-law Bartlett’s never-completed trenching. Smith was “determined,” he suspected, “to defeat all application for an appropriation if I am to have the management of it.”
Since Smith at once dismissed any terms he proposed, Morse apparently invited him to name his own figure for the appropriation: $100,000, Smith said, to build a line of four wires. But Morse sensed and feared that Smith’s interest in the project was limited to using him as a respectable front for finagling a large grant. Then Smith would again subcontract work for less than the cost estimate to Congress and pocket the difference.
Morse may have been right. Smith became enraged when he visited the Committee on Commerce and learned that