The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-08-07
THE FIRST CABLE.
How It's Completion Was Celebrated in lndi-
annapolis Twenty Years Ago.

The report of the celebration, in London, of
the twenty seventh anniversary of the compile
ton of the first Atlantic cable, on the 9TH, by
Cyrus W. Field, its protector and chief pro-
moter, suggests to newspaper man of that day
that, though the anniversary was forgotten here,
the event itself was celebrated with as much
enthusiasm as the Fourth of July. There
were two celebrations, in fact-an imnromptu
illumination and miscellaneous Notification on
the night of the TIN of August, 1858, when the
news arrived and on the 18th formal and
ceremonious celebration, made up of fireworks
on the Circle g. the old Governors
house had then been torn down a
year or more and the park was open and clear
all overland of speech by Ex-Governor
Wallace. the latter being the feature of the
| occasion. Following this was reception at the
executive mansion by Governor Willard where
the festivities continued till nearly day
light
The speech of Governor Wallace recounted
some of the experiences of the friends of the
new Geographic system when first proposed by
Professor Morse. They were not as agreeable
as one might imagine fourteen years afterward,
when the electric telegraph had become as much
a public necessity the mails, and the little
Baltimore wire of forty miles had grown into
cable of 2, 600 miles that spanned the Atlantic
ocean. The appropriation by Congress to assist
Professor Morse's enterprise was ridiculed, espe
cially by the Southern members, who thought
the whole affair yankee trick" and said So
Cave johnson, of Tennessee who was soon
| after Folks Postmaster general-an ntolerant,
| bigoted ignoramus--wantedt to amend the appro-
priation SO as to apply part Of it to the investi
| cation of animal magnetism. He thought the
| whole affair humbug, and 80 many Of his
kidney and party agreed with him that the ap-
| preparation was passed only at the last moment
of the session of the Senate at midnight, on the
4th OF March, 1913. The recommendation of the
appropriation by the committee was carried only
| by one VOTE and that, the vote of Gov. Wallace,
whose name coming last on the roll gave him the
| opportunity of deciding a tie between the sup
| port and the opposition of the measure. For this
| partly, and partly by the general Revision
against the Wings in Indiana in l643, the Gov
ernor was beaten in his next candidacy for
Congress by VIM. j. Brown, who made the
stump vocal with Jun at the expense of what he
called the ''telle graph" acceEting the second
syllable strongly. Willard Fillmore was chairman
of the committee. and a friend of the measure
The few now living who were connected with
the city press at the time of the completion of
the first cable will recall with vivid revival Of
WEAKNESS the many days of expectation and dis
appointment that followed the exchange of con-
gratulatory messages between President Blu
chanan and Queen Victoria. They were the only
positive and undoubted messages that did
pass. But day after day came the meagre little
line, signed DE Sauty," at Hearts Content"
saying only that the cable working-never
working to any purpose-and at last this came
to an end, and the cable lay along the Atlantic
plateau dead the mud around it. The
feast bity of connecting the hemispheres by tel
egraph had been proved, however, and that
abated the general disappointment. In fact,
little of the enthusiasm excited by the landing
of the line in Trinity Bay was due to the unex-
pectedness of the achievement. Most people be-
| lieved the experiment would fall and the cable
break need to be cut before it could be carried
across.
The London papers never gave Cyrus W.
Field any considerable credit for his part of the
enterprise. They thought, as they made the
cable and operated it by the Wheatstone method,
that the work peculiarly their own and
when Congress passed a complimentary resolu-
ton to Mr.. Field Punch sneered at it and ridi-
culed our Yankee assurance in gobbling credit
that belonged to English inventors. Little brass
bound sections two three inches long of the
cabe-said to be, but probably imitations-were
sent and sold all over the land and the Journal
editorial room used one for paper weight
long time.