[A.] 

 COMMUNICATION 



• FROM 



PEOf. JOSEPH HENRY, SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



EELATIVE TO A 



PUBLICATION BY S. F. B. MORSE. 



Presented to the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, March 16, 1357. 



Gentlemen : In the discharge of the important and responsible duties 

 which devolve upon me as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, I 

 have found myself exposed, like other men in public positions, to unpro- 

 voked attack and injurious misrepresentation. Many instances of this, it 

 may be remembered, occurred about two years ago, during the discussions 

 relative to the organic policy of the Institution; but, though very unjust, 

 they were suffered to pass unnoticed, and generally made, I presume, no 

 lasting impression on the public mind. 



During the same controversy, however, there was one attack made upon 

 me of such a nature, so elaborately prepared and widely circulated, by 

 my opponents, that, though I have not yet publicly noticed it, I have, 

 from the first, thought it my duty not to allow it to go unanswered. I 

 allude to an article in a periodical entitled " Shaffner's Telegraph Com- 

 panion," from the pen of Prof. S. F. B. Morse, the celebrated inventor 

 of the American electro-magnetic telegraph. In this, not my scientific 

 reputation merely, but my moral character Avas pointedly assailed ; in- 

 deed, nothing less was attempted than to prove that in the testimony 

 which I had given in a case where I was at most but a reluctant witness, 

 I had consciously and wilfully deviated from the truth, and this, too, 

 from unworthy and dishonorable motives. 



Such a charge, coming from such a quarter, appeared to me then, as it 

 appears now, of too grave a character and too serious a consequence to be 

 withheld from the notice of the Board of Regents. I, therefore, presented 

 the matter unofficially to the Chancellor of the Institution, Chief Justice 

 Taney, and was advised by him to allow the matter to rest until the then 

 existing excitement with respect to the organization of the Institution 



