It has been made plain, I think, that Morse was essentially a leader in every movement in which he took an interest, whether it was artistic, scientific, religious, or political.  This is emphasized by the number of requests made to him to assume the presidency of all sorts of organizations, and these requests multiplied as he advanced in years.  Most of them he felt compelled to decline, for, as he says in a letter of March 13, 1866, declining the presidency of the Geographical and Statistical Society:  “I am at an age when I find it necessary rather to be relieved from the cares and responsibilities already resting upon me, than to take upon me additional ones.”

In many other cases he allowed his name to be used as vice-president or member, when he considered the object of the organization a worthy one, and his benefactions were only limited by his means.

He did, however, accept the presidency of one association just at this time, the American Asiatic Society, in which were interested such men as Gorham Abbott, Dr. Forsyth, E.H.  Champlin, Thomas Harrison, and Morse’s brother-in-law, William M. Goodrich.  The aims of this society were rather vast, including an International Congress to be called by the Emperor Napoleon III, for the purpose of opening up and controlling the great highways from the East to the West through the Isthmus of Suez and that of Panama; also the colonization of Palestine by the Jews, and other commercial and philanthropic schemes.  I cannot find that anything of lasting importance was accomplished by this society, so I shall make no further mention of it, although there is much correspondence about it.

The following, from a letter to Mr. Kendall of March 19, 1866, explains itself:  “If I understand the position of our Telegraph interests, they are now very much as you and I wished them to be in the outset, not cut up in O’Reilly fashion into irresponsible parts, but making one grand whole like the Post-Office system.  It is becoming, doubtless, a monopoly, but no more so than the Post-Office system, and its unity is in reality a public advantage if properly and uprightly managed, and this, of course, will depend on the character of the managers.  Confidence must be reposed somewhere, and why not in upright and responsible men who are impelled as well by their own interest to have their matters conducted with fairness and with liberality.”

As a curious commentary on his misplaced faith in the integrity of others, I shall quote from a letter of January 4, 1867, to E.S.  Sanford, Esq., which also shows his abhorrence of anything like crooked dealing in financial matters:—­

“I wish when you again write me you would give me, in confidence, the names of those in the Board of the Western Union who are acting in so dishonorable and tricky a manner.  I think I ought to know them in order to avoid them, and resist them in the public interest.  It is a shame that an enterprise which, honestly conducted, is more than usually profitable, should be conducted on the principles of sharpers and tricksters.