48 



admissions of the failure of his machine, as is shown by this quotation 

 from a speech of Senator Jones, of Tennessee: % 



" If Mr. Hussey's was such an excellent machine as is now repre- 

 sented, why, in the name of God, did he not make some money out 

 of it in fourteen years? The patent was granted in 1833 twenty-three 

 years ago, and if it was this great machine which my friend says it 

 was, is it not a little strange, that he is now so poor as to be repre- 

 sented as worthy of the consideration of the Senate, on the grounds 

 that he has made nothing out of it? " 



It was shortly after his defeat in Congress that Hussey subsidized 

 the long list of patent lawyers heretofore spoken of. They took up his 

 patent of 1847 an d reissued it into a successful patent his first and 

 only success in his long experience with reapers. 



In 1859 McCormick made application to the Commissioner of 

 Patents for the extension of his patent of 1845; an< ^ in 1860 he made 

 application for an extension of his patent of 1847. These extensions 

 were opposed by every builder of reapers in America. Every local 

 reaper agent throughout the country had blanks sent him which he was 

 urged to present to the farmers for their signatures, protesting against 

 the extensions. The letter of Lee & Fisher shows the combination that 

 was arrayed against McCormick. So powerful was the political pull 

 possessed by these opponents that a bill was passed in the Congress 

 of the United States extending the protestants' time for the taking of 

 testimony sixy days, thus carrying the consideration of the extension 

 to a new Commissioner of Patents, who had been instructed by his own 

 state, Indiana, to refuse the extension. James Buchanan, as one of 

 his last official acts, signed this bill. The political pressure was so 

 great upon Commissioner Holloway that he refused the extension, but 

 stated that: 



" Cyrus Hall McCormick is an inventor whose fame, while he is 

 yet living, had spread around the world. His genius has done honor 

 to his own country, and has been the admiration of foreign nations, and 

 he will live in the grateful recollection of mankind as long as the reap- 

 ing machine is employed in gathering the harvest." 



Summarizing on the treatment of McCormick and Hussey by the 

 Government : 



(a) Both Hussey and McCormick applied to the Board for an ex- 

 tension of their patents of 1833 and 1834. Both were refused on techni- 

 calities. 



