The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-11-25

Mr.. Field was we'll entitled to all the
praise showered upon him. He had
been scoffed at, ridiculed, dubbed
crazy man, had sacrificed his business
and his own means. and had previously
made two attempts to lay the cables
only to be thwarted. But as John g.
SAKE put it in the jingle which APP
peared on Sept. II, 1858. in Harper's
Weekly:
Twice did his bravest efforts fail,
And yet his mind was stable;
He want the man to break his heart
Because he broke his cable.
Once more. my gallant boys!" he
cried;
Three times!-you know the ia
ble'-
CI'n make it thirty" muttered he,
But L will lay the cable!)
Unfortunately for All the cejoicings.
Tor some unknown reason. the cable
stopped working just at the time of the
great official celebration in Trinity
church, and of the dinner of the com
mon council to Mr.. Field. at which
there were served no less than eighteen
entrees in addition to five roasts, boilei
turkey and mutton and full thirty-nine
desserts-New York's city fathers were
generous in those days. Not until aft
er this gorgeous and barbaric function
did the sad news come that this was
but fleeing triumph
Doing the Work Over Again.
For Mr.. Field this meant doing the
work over again. The old company had
exhausted its means, which were gone
formed and fresh capital raised There
Were endless fn he Il 70 lA
other side, his business again had to
be neglected, and finally abandoned
Inc CIVIL war came next; but this
proved help rather than hindrance,
and Mr.. Fields alert Grain made the
most of IL. He suggested cables between
the Union posts in CharleStOWn harbor;
he pointed out how the existence of a
cable would have robbed the Mason
Slideil crises with England of much of
its danger and made of it an incident
OF days instead of months. without the
consequent ill-feeling and heavy ex-
penditure on the British side for war
preparations. Mr.. Field did yeoman's
work, too, in uphOlding the cause of the
north in England when it was highly
unpopular, and began a friendship with
Gladstone to put the case of the north
before him as strongly as poSsibles But
his main efforts We're devoted to the
laying OF q caDle that would work and
this he finally accomplished. by the aid
of the Great Eastern. on Sept s, 1866
after another failure in 1860
Wonders Follow Fast.
It is hard for the newspaper reader of
today, or the merchant, to realize what
ne owes to the cable, or TO gauge the
thrill that went through the whole
world just fifty years, ago. The Attain
tic crossing of the first ocean steam
ship was the only event to which. the
press of 1858 could liken the opening of
the cable. But in our time great inven-
tons have followed so closely on one
another's heels that the discovery of
wireless biography is but a week
wonder and evolkes no municipal din
ner or civic parade. Even the news of
the record-breaking flight of the Yep
pelin airship, which, despite it's tragic
ending, may figure in history as the
real beginning of mans conquest of the
air, is accepted, with the telephone and
hundred other conveniences, as mere
ly another and well-discounted triumph
of science. Time will show soon wheth-
er the cables and wires are to be dis
carded hereafter in telephoning and tel
egraphing- But whether they are still
to iinger or not, the world should never
forget its debt to the pioneers, like Cy-
rus w Field, the young man who saw
vision and made it come true-to the
lasting benefit of all mankind