344 HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH. 



At a meeting of the Directors of tLe ''Magnetic Telegraph Company" held at Phila- 

 delphia on the IGth of February, 1859, for the piu'pose of giving expression to their 

 feelings ou the recent death of Alfred Vail (a brother Director), Amos Kendall in 

 seconding and warmly supporting the offeretl resolutions of respect and grief, is thus 

 reported: "In the words of the distinguished associate and friend of both, the Hon. 

 Amos Kendall, 'If justice be done, the name of Alfred Vail will forever stand associated 

 with that of Samuel F. B. Morse, in the history of the invention and introduction into 

 public use, of the Electro-magnetic Telegraph. . . . Mr. Vail was one of the most 

 honest and scrupulously conscientious men with whom it has ever been my fortune to 

 meet.'"* 



Surely it is time that Alfred Vail should receive the tardy justice of some iiublic 

 acknowledgment of his very ingenious and meritorious inventions in telegraphy, and 

 of grateful remembrance i^articvrlarly for his valuable contribution to the "Morse 

 system" of its i)ractically most imi>ortant element. 



NOTE H. (From p. 317.) 



AN U^rWAEEAXTED AEEAIGXMEXT. 



Henry, elected December 3, 1846, to the j)Osition of " Secretary " and Director 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, was for ten years engaged in a difficult but resolute 

 struggle to imxiress upon its administration his own sagacious and far-sighted pol- 

 icy; at that time but little ai^iireciated by the vast majority of those who wielded 

 political or literary inlluence. It was during the latter portion of this critical period, 

 while still almost entirely abstracted from his favorite pursuits, that he was made the 

 subject of a most Avanton, unprovoked, and unlooked-for aspersion. In this ill-advised 

 attack — elaborately prepared either by or for Professor Morse, more than a year before 

 its wide-spread publication,! the pamphleteer not only boldly assailed the scien- 

 tific reputation of the great experimental jihysicist, but ventured (for the first 

 time in the latter's career) to impugn his truthfulness, in an important testimony 

 given in certain telegraiih suits, some half a dozen years pre%-iously, in reluctant 

 obedience to legal sunnnons. t This testimony thus exacted, of course failed to 

 sustain the complainant's exorbitant claims to all possible forms of the electro-magnetic 

 telegraph, and correspondingly failed to satisfy the cupidity of the actual prosecutors ; 

 and in this remarkable accusation, first published in 1855, could readily be discerned 

 the mercenary inspiration of interested capitalists and assignees — anxious only to 

 stretch the monopoly to its extremest grasp. To Professor Morse himself, in his early 

 efforts, Henry had generously rendered every encouragement and assistance ; and in 



a conversation of two hours, he several times said, ' The one thing I want to do now, is 

 justice to Mr. Vail.' . . . Just four weeks from that day, he passed from earth ; 

 and I have never heard that he left one word for it. Indeed, I did not expect that he 

 would." To this statement, Mr. Read adds, "Here we leave Professor Morse and his 

 relations to Alfred Vail. Our only purpose has been simply to bring the facts concern- 

 ing this wonderful invention, to the light of day. (Same page of the work : — p. 297.) 



* Same work : p. 296. 



t Professor Morse's signature upon the last page of the Impeachment (p. 96), is 

 dated December, 1853. The pamphlet was published January, 1855. 



t The Hon. S. P. Chase, while Governor of Ohio, (subsequently Chief Justice of the 

 Supreme Court of the United States,) in a letter to Henry, dated Columbus, November 

 26, 185G, after reciting his professional connection with the litigations of 1849, says : 

 " I remember very well that you were unwilling to be involved in the controversy 

 even as a Avituess, and that you onlj- submitted to be examined in compliance Avith 

 the requirements of law. Not one of your statements Avas a' olunteered ; they Avere 

 all called out by questions propounded either A^erbally or in writing. . . . You 

 could not have refused to respond to the questions propounded Avithont subjecting 

 yourself to judicial animadA'er.sion and constraint. Nothing in Avhat you testilied, or 

 your manner of testifying, suggested to me the idea that you Avere animated by any 

 desire to arrogate undue merit to yourself, or to detract from the just claims of Pro- 

 fessor Morso." 



