318 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



ested solicitations or personal influence of the parties concerned: on 

 the contrary it has in some instances resulted from the examination 

 of materials sold to the Government, that attempted fraud has been 

 exposed, and the baffled speculator received his due reward in con- 

 demnation and punishment. These facts it is thought will be 

 deemed a sufficient answer to those who have seemed disposed to 

 reproach the Institution with the want of a more popular demon- 

 stration but of a really far less useful or efficient aid .in the 

 support of the Government."* 



In the performance of these troublesome and often disagreeable 

 labors, conducted with the single aim necessitated by all his scien- 

 tific habits and instincts, it of course resulted that a great majority 

 of his judgments and recommendations were decidedly adverse to 

 the hopes and wishes of the aspirants to fame and fortune. Having 

 once satisfied himself of the frivolity or the chicanery of an article 

 or project, his decision was inflexible; and although importunate 

 appeals to the Department Secretary, abetted by a prostituted 

 political or other influence, in one or two instances succeeded in 

 fastening for a time upon the public Treasury a worthless or a 

 noxious leech, the vast number of such, excluded from experi- 

 mental imbibitions by Henry's critical supervision, must have been 

 a protection to the public interests quite beyond the reach of esti- 

 mation : while on the other hand, the supplies of honest contractors 

 awarded their just commendation, and the rare proposals of real 

 merit favorably reported upon, which from a hasty survey might 

 have been confounded and overlaid with the mass of untried 

 puerilities, no less served to strengthen and assist the Government 

 during its years of greatest trial, need, and exhaustion. 



From the outset of the unnatural sectional revolt, fully appre- 

 ciating the vastness of the interests, the sacrifices, and the dangers 

 involved, Henry contemplated the crisis not with despondency, 

 but with a profound sorrow and solicitude. While his sympathies 

 and his hopes were all for the preservation of the national integrity 

 of jurisdiction, he was little given to public exhibitions of his feel- 

 ings. Undemonstrative less from temperament than from the 

 deliberate and habitual subjection of emotional expression to reason, 



* Smithsonian Report for 1864, p. 15. 



