At this late day, when the mists which enveloped the questions have rolled away, it seems but simple justice to admit that the wonderful discoveries of Henry were essential to the successful working over long distances of Morse’s discoveries and inventions; just as the discoveries and inventions of earlier and contemporary scientists were essential to Henry’s improvements.  But it is also just to place emphasis on the fact that Henry’s experiments were purely scientific.  He never attempted to put them in concrete form for the use of mankind in general; they led up to the telegraph; they were not a practical telegraph in themselves.  It was Morse who added the final link in the long chain, and, by combining the discoveries of others with those which he had himself made, gave to the world this wonderful new agent.

A recent writer in the “Scientific American” gave utterance to the following sentiment, which, it seems to me, most aptly describes this difference:  “We need physical discoveries and revere those who seek truth for its own sake.  But mankind with keen instinct saves its warmest acclaim for those who also make discoveries of some avail in adding to the length of life, its joys, its possibilities, its conveniences.”

We must also remember that, while the baby telegraph had, in 1837, been recognized as a promising infant by a very few scientists and personal friends of the inventor, it was still regarded with suspicion, if not with scorn, by the general public and even by many men of scholarly attainments, and a long and heart-breaking struggle for existence was ahead of it before it should reach maturity and develop into the lusty giant of the present day.  Here again Morse proved that he was the one man of his generation most eminently fitted to fight for the child of his brain, to endure and to persevere until the victor’s crown was grasped.

It is always idle to speculate on what might have happened if certain events had not taken place; if certain men had not met certain other men.  A telegraph would undoubtedly have been invented if Morse had never been born; or he might have perfected his invention without the aid and advice of others, or with the assistance of different men from those who appeared at the psychological moment.  But we are dealing with facts and not with suppositions, and the facts are that through Professor Gale he was made acquainted with the discoveries of Joseph Henry, which had been published to the world several years before, and could have been used by others if they had had the wit or genius to grasp their significance and hit upon the right means to make them of practical utility.