Daily national Democrat., 1858-10-09
IIo,r sc,encs is Encournged.

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completion of that mighty wonder of the
age. the laying of the Atlantic Submarine
Cable, we cannot help but be struck with
the contrast between the energy and enter
prise of the individual American mind, in
accomplishing the grand feats of science, and
the niggardly, slow and reluctant encourage
ment given to such exertions by our Govern
ment. 1t will hardly be believed in the next
century, that, when Professor Morse, rich in
the resources of great mind but compare.
lively poor in this worlds goods, applied to
the Congress of the United States, some sin
teen or eighteen years ago for assistance in
establishing an experimentalline of telegraph
between Washington and Beltimore, dis
tance of only 40 miles, he was made butt
Of ridicule by the intelligent Representatives
of the American people in the halls of the
National Legislature, and pronounced poor,
miserable monomaniac! The silent, patient
thinker, in whose brain slumbered a world of
deep and grand conceptions, too vast in their
character to be even remotely cOmprehendcd
by the set of fippant babblers who thought
it smart to ridicue him, was treated as driv
cling fool who was dreaming of miraculous
and impossible things Oh sapient spouters
of bombastic egotisml Self-suflic;ent deal
ers in stale defamation and fluent common.
place How infinitely are ye belittled by
one great trought that is born within the
mind Of genius, bodied forth though it may
be, in the plain and simple garb with which
the phraseology of Science is wont to clothe
its mightlest conceptions
Finally, a bill, granting to Mr.. Morse $780,
600 to enable him to construct a telegraph
! between Baltimore and Washington, was
considered in the Committee of Ways and
Means in the House of Representatives, and
passed there by one vote. Afterwards, under
a storm of rdicule, it was managed to be
worried through Congress. Had that one
yote been wanting in the Committee of Ways
and Means, there is no telling when the Gov
ernment would again have been induced to
pay any attention to the "madman's" piston
ary schemes, at they were sapiently denomi-
rated.
In the same manner that Morse's idea of
the magnetic telegraph was ridiculed by the
American Congress- was the celebrated
George Stevensyn's idea of steam wagon,
or railcar. ridiculed by the English Parlia-
ment. 1t was long time before he could
even get, from that body, the grant of a right
of way between Liverpool and Manchester,
the points between which he desired to con.
struct his railway. Finally, when they did
grant it, and the poor machinist had gone to
work and set his cars to running, at the then
wonderful speed of fifteen or twenty miles an
hour the learned NJ. P.'s were nearly petri
fed with wonder and amazement The "poor
fool" was greater man than all of them, put
together
But England, as general thing, has been
much more liberal in her encouragement Of
experimental science than our own Govern
ment, humiliating as it may he to us to make
the confession. She gave far more encour.
agement to the Atlantic Telegraph enter.
the United States. The individual enterprise
of Americans took the lead of the world in
the grand undertaking, but the great AmeIi-
can projectors of the work received much
more ready assistance from the Colonial Gov
ernments and the Home Government of Eng
land Than they ever did from ours David
Dudley Field, in his oratorical narration at
he New York celebration of the laying of
the cable, passed over this humiliating fact |
as briefly as possible, but the few words |
that he did say on that point are sufficiently
significant. Said he;
Too much praise cannot be awarded to the
English Government and people for the zeal
with which they came forward to answer to
the call made upon them. Money swas OBJ
tanned from individuals as freely as it was
wanted, and the Government out ran even
the people.
Returning then to America, Mr.. Field, |
(Cyrus W. with his American associates,
made application to the Government of the |
United States for aid similar to that given |
by the English Government and he applied |
to individuals for a participation wit him |
in the stock he had taken Congress voted |
the aid requested after vehement opposition,
against which the measure was carried in the |
Senate by majority Of one.
A majority of one A beautiful comment
upon the liberality and enlightenment of
great Government like ours Her own sons |
originating the movement, but meeting with |
their readiest aid from a foreign power. We
trust that, in future experiments of science
by the great minds of America, our Govern
ment will make haste to redeem its charac-
ter, in the respect alluded to, before the
world.
In this connection we remember that our
Government was as despicably besotted in
regard to the first efforts of American genius
towards demonstrating the praetcablitv of
using steam as an agent of navigation and
general locomotion. Poor John Fitch, when
he applied to Congress, about theIyear 1889,
for a small appropriation to enable him to
construct boat which he said he could make |
go by steam," was laughed at as a crazy
man, and his application actually hooted out
of the Halls of Legislation. grand specta. |
Gle it wasl A man Of genius, Offering to his |
eourtry's Representatives the benefits of
great and wonderful discovery, and actually
turned off, like beggar from the door, with
Kisses and jeers Fitch made his boat and
ran it, without the aid of Congress, but his
machinery was not as perfect as he desired it
and he was too poor to bear the expense nee