The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-12-21

egrapn ONCE OF Denver and wrote out the
cable never thinking it would be sent. It
was sent, however. and he had to pay the
bill. The story was told me by Mr.. Rose
water, the editor of the Omaha Bee, who in
1866 was the manager of the Western Union
lines at Omaha. He said:
1.-The first Atlantic cable was completed
IN 1888, and 1t was alleged that dispatch
was received by President Buchanan
from Queen Victoria over it. This dis
patch, however, vas about all that ever
came over it, There was skepticism
throughout the United States as to whether
the dispatch ever got through, and it was
eight years after this before any cable bus
mess was done. The successful cable was
the new line completed on August 3, 1866.
AT this time no one seemed to think the
cable would work The Western Union
had sent a corps of operators and eX-
plorers to Alaska to build a line across
Behring Straits to Russia, and when it was
announced that the new cable was done
and that any one wishing to send dispatches
to Europe for ten dollars word could do
so, the whole world laughed and the tele
graph operators looked upon it as gigan-
tic Joke. 1t was at this time that | received
dispatch from Denver, Colorado, signed
by the governor of the territory to be for
warded on to New York and addressed to
Paris. The dispatch had to be sent from
New York to Newfoundland by steamer
and was there cabied. This dispatch read ::
Denver Colorado. August 4 1866. To Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor. Tuilleries,
Paris France.
Please leave Bohemia alone. No interference
VIII be tolerated By this territory.
(olgned) JOHN GILPIN, Governor.
"When I received the message" CON
tinued Mr.. Rosewater, Il looked upon it as
an expensive joke of Mr.. GiIpin's and I
forwarded it on to New York. The mes
sage came TO me about two O'clock, and
about four, l received a message from New
York stating that the price of the
cable was 81 in gold. I sent this message
on TO Denver but the operator there re
fused to believe that the message had been
sent TO Newfoundland and telegraphed, and
though l have never heard that Napoleon
Third answered it, I have no doubt that he
received 1t. About six months later the
treasurer Of the company, MIR. o. II. Pal
mer, wrote me telling me he thought
ought 10 divide the expense of the message
with &. (. Woodward, the manager of the
Denver Office, and that inasmuch as each
Of US NAG had our little joke, we should
each pay our little bills. I stated the case
as have given it to you, and the Denver
Office had TO pay the whole. Whether Gov
erncc Gilpin paid-it or not do not know.
asked him about il one time but he seemed
bored and was very TeticenJ. My idea is
that he came into the Office and upon being
told there that the cable was completed had
dashed off this message and handed it over,
never supPcs.ug shat it would be sent.
The probability is that when he found it
was sent, he paid the bill"
Editor RoseWater was one of the most re
markable telegraph operators in the coun-
try. He was in the south at the time the
war broke out, and was afterwards en-
ployed here at the war department under
General Tom Eckert. While in the south
hereported one Of Jefferson Davis speeches
which he delivered at Stephenson, Ala
bama while he was on his way to be in
augurated as President of the Southern
Confederacy. In this speech Davis set the
country on fire by saying that he intended
to carry the war into the north. Davis
afterwards accused Rosewater of being a
northern spy in referring to it. He also re
ported a speech of Howell Cobb's which
was made the night after President LIN
coin was inaugurated, in which Cobb said,
"If our wives and daughters cannot whil
the Yankees with broom sticks, | want this
generation discontinued at the time
that the war was over, Mr.. Rosewater
made an offer to the Brazilian government
to erect telegraph lines and a system OF
cables for their empire. Baron Lisboa, who
was then the minister of Brazil at Wash
lnSlOh, submitted MS prOpOSluon, DuG the
reply was that there were only five miles
of railway in Brazil and these ran from the
city of Rio Janiero to Dom Pedro's palace
and the country had no use for telegraphs
Two years after that time, Brazil had {
war with Paraguay, and it had to import
cable and Geographic material from Europe
at an immense expense, and to construct
! lines under the greatest of disadvantages
/ There are now about 1000 miles of tele-
/ graph lines in Brazil and there are nearly
+ two hundred telegraph offices. 1t cost the
country more than million dollars to buill
J these lines, and the government might have
saved fortune if it had taken Rosewater':
/ offer which was to build the lines aud over
see the whole for salary of s., 800 veal
/ in gold.