The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

CHAPTER VII.

SEEKING AID FROM CONGRESS

When Mr. Field reached home from abroad, he hoped for a brief respite. He had had a pretty hard campaign during the summer and autumn in England, and needed at least a few weeks of rest; but that was denied him. He landed in New York on Christmas Day, and was not allowed even to spend the New Year with his family. There were interests of the Company in Newfoundland which required immediate attention, and it was important that one of the Directors should go there without delay. As usual, it devolved upon him. He left at once for Boston, where he took the steamer to Halifax, and thence to St. John's. Such a voyage may be very agreeable in summer, but in mid-winter it is not a pleasant thing to face the storms of those northern latitudes. The passage was unusually tempestuous. At St. John's he broke down, and was put under the care of a physician. But he did not stop to think of himself. The work for which he came was done; and though the physician warned him that it was a great risk to leave his bed, he took the steamer on her return, and was again in New York after a month's absence – a month of hardship, of exposure, and of suffering, such as he had long occasion to remember.

The mention of this voyage came up a year afterward at a meeting of the Atlantic Telegraph Company in London, when a resolution was offered, tendering Mr. Field a vote of thanks for "the great services he had rendered to the Company by his untiring zeal, energy, and devotion." Mr. Brooking, the Vice-Chairman, had spent a large part of his life in Newfoundland, and knew the dangers of that inhospitable coast, and in seconding the resolution he said:

"It is now about a year and a half ago since I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of my friend Mr. Field. It was he who initiated me into this Company, and induced me to take an interest in it from its earliest stage. From that period to the present I have observed in Mr. Field the most determined perseverance, and the exercise of great talent, extraordinary assiduity and diligence, coupled with an amount of fortitude which has seldom been equalled. I have known him cross the Atlantic in the depth of winter, and, within twenty-four hours after his arrival in New York, having ascertained that his presence was necessary in a distant British colony, he has not hesitated at once to direct his course thitherward. That colony is one with which I am intimately acquainted, having resided in it for upward of twenty years, and am enabled to speak of the hazards and danger which attend a voyage to it in winter. Mr. Field no sooner arrived at New York, in the latter part of December, than he got aboard a steamer for Halifax, and proceeded to St. John's, Newfoundland. In three weeks he accomplished there a very great object for this Company. He procured the passage of an Act of the Legislature which has given to our Company the right of establishing a footing on those shores. [The rights before conferred, it would seem, applied only to the Newfoundland Company.] That is only one of the acts which he has performed with a desire to promote the interests of this great enterprise."

The very next day after his return from Newfoundland, Mr. Field was called to Washington, to seek the aid of his own Government to the Atlantic Telegraph. The English Government had proffered the most generous aid, both in ships to lay the cable, and in an annual subsidy of £14,000. It was on every account desirable that this should be met by corresponding liberality on the part of the American Government. Before he left England, he had sent home the letter received from the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury; and thereupon the Directors of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company had inclosed a copy to the President, with a letter asking for the same aid in ships, and in an annual sum of $70,000, [equivalent to £14,000,] to be paid for the government messages, the latter to be conditioned on the success of the telegraph, and to be continued only so long as it was in full operation. They urged with reason that the English Government had acted with great liberality – not only toward the enterprise, but toward our own Government. Although both ends of the line were in the British possessions, it had claimed no exclusive privileges, but had stipulated for perfect equality between the United States and Great Britain. The agreement expressly provided "that the British Government shall have a priority in the conveyance of their messages over all others, subject to the exception only of the Government of the United States, in the event of their entering into an arrangement with the Telegraph Company similar in principle to that of the British Government, in which case the messages of the two governments shall have priority in the order in which they arrive at the stations."

The letter to the President called attention to this generous offer – an offer which it was manifestly to the advantage of our Government to accept – and added: "The Company will enter into a contract with the Government of the United States on the same terms and conditions as it has made with the British Government." They asked only for the same recognition and aid which they had received in England. This surely was not a very bold request. It was natural that American citizens should think that in a work begun by Americans, and of which, if successful, their country would reap largely the honor and the advantage, they might expect the aid from their own Government which they had already received from a foreign power. It was, therefore, not without a mixture of surprise and mortification that they learned that the proposal in Congress had provoked a violent opposition, and that the bill was likely to be defeated. Such was the attitude of affairs when Mr. Field returned from Newfoundland, and which led him to hasten to Washington.

He now found that it was much easier to deal with the English than with the American Government. Whatever may be said of the respective methods of administration, it must be confessed that the forms of English procedure furnish greater facility in the despatch of business. A contract can be made by the Lords of the Treasury without waiting the action of Parliament. The proposal is referred to two or three intelligent officers of the Government – perhaps even to a single individual – on whose report it takes action without further delay. Thus it is probable that the action of the British Government was decided wholly by the recommendation of Mr. Wilson, formed after the visit of Mr. Field.

But in our country we do things differently. Here it would be considered a stretch of power for any administration to enter into a contract with a private company – a contract binding the Government for a period of twenty-five years, and involving an annual appropriation of money – without the action of Congress. This is a safeguard against reckless and extravagant expenditure, but, as one of the penalties we pay for our more popular form of government, in which every thing has to be referred to the people, it involves delay, and sometimes the defeat of wise and important public measures.

Besides – shall we confess it to our shame – another secret influence often appears in American legislation, which has defeated many an act demanded by the public good – the influence of the Lobby! This now began to show itself in opposition. It had been whispered in Washington that the gentlemen in New York who were at the head of this enterprise were very rich; and a measure coming from such a source surely ought to be made to pay tribute before it was allowed to pass. This was a new experience. Those few weeks in Washington were worse than being among the icebergs off the coast of Newfoundland. The Atlantic Cable has had many a kink since, but never did it seem to be entangled in such a hopeless twist as when it got among the politicians.

But it would be very unjust to suppose that there were no better influences in our Halls of Congress. There were then – as there have always been in our history – some men of large wisdom and of a noble patriotic pride, who in such a measure thought only of the good of their country and of the triumph of science and of civilization.

Two years after – in August, 1858 – when the Atlantic Telegraph proved at last a reality, and the New World was full of its fame, Mr. Seward, in a speech at Auburn, thus referred to the ordeal it had to pass through in Congress:

"The two great countries of which I have spoken, [England and America,] are now ringing with the praises of Cyrus W. Field, who chiefly has brought this great enterprise to its glorious and beneficent consummation. You have never heard his story; let me give you a few points in it, as a lesson that there is no condition of life in which a man, endowed with native genius, a benevolent spirit, and a courageous patience, may not become a benefactor of nations and of mankind."

After speaking of the efforts by which this New York merchant "brought into being an association of Americans and Englishmen, which contributed from surplus wealth the capital necessary as a basis for the enterprise"; he adds:

"It remained to engage the consent and the activity of the Governments of Great Britain and the United States. That was all that remained. Such consent and activity on the part of some one great nation of Europe was all that remained needful for Columbus when he stood ready to bring a new continent forward as a theatre of the world's civilization. But in each case that effort was the most difficult of all. Cyrus W. Field, by assiduity and patience, first secured consent and conditional engagement on the part of Great Britain, and then, less than two years ago, he repaired to Washington. The President and Secretary of State individually favored his proposition; but the jealousies of parties and sections in Congress forbade them to lend it their official sanction and patronage. He appealed to me. I drew the necessary bill. With the generous aid of others, Northern Representatives, and the indispensable aid of the late Thomas J. Rusk, a Senator from Texas, that bill, after a severe contest and long delay, was carried through the Senate of the United States by the majority, if I remember rightly, of one vote, and escaped defeat in the House of Representatives with equal difficulty. I have said the aid of Mr. Rusk was indispensable. If any one has wondered why I, an extreme Northern man, loved and lamented Thomas J. Rusk, an equally extreme Southern man, he has here an explanation. There was no good thing which, as it seemed to me, I could not do in Congress with his aid. When he died, it seemed to me that no good thing could be done by any one. Such was the position of Cyrus W. Field at that stage of the great enterprise. But, thus at last fortified with capital derived from New York and London, and with the navies of Great Britain and the United States at his command, he has, after trials that would have discouraged any other than a true discoverer, brought the great work to a felicitous consummation. And now the Queen of Great Britain and the President of the United States stand waiting his permission to speak, and ready to speak at his bidding; and the people of these two great countries await only the signal from him to rush into a fraternal embrace which will prove the oblivion of ages of suspicion, of jealousies and of anger."

Mr. Seward might well refer with pride to the part he took in sustaining this enterprise. He was from the beginning its firmest supporter. The bill was introduced into the Senate by him, and was carried through mainly by his influence, seconded by Mr. Rusk, Mr. Douglas, and one or two others. It was introduced on the ninth of January, and came up for consideration on the twenty-first. Its friends had hoped that it might pass with entire unanimity. But such was the opposition, that the discussion lasted two days. The report shows that it was a subject of animated and almost angry debate, which brought out the secret of the opposition to aid being given by the Government.

Probably no measure was ever introduced in Congress for the help of any commercial enterprise, that some member, imagining that it was to benefit a particular section, did not object that it was "unconstitutional"! This objection was well answered in this case by Mr. Benjamin, of Louisiana, who asked:

"If we have a right to hire a warehouse at Port Mahon, in the Mediterranean, for storing naval stores, have we not a right to hire a company to carry our messages? I should as soon think of questioning the constitutional power of the Government to pay freight to a vessel for carrying its mail-bags across the ocean, as to pay a telegraph company a certain sum per annum for conveying its messages by the use of the electric telegraph."

This touched the precise ground on which the appropriation was asked. In their memorial to the President, the Company had said: "Such a contract will, we suppose, fall within the provisions of the Constitution in regard to postal arrangements, of which this is only a new and improved form."

Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, explained in the same terms the nature of the proposed agreement:

"It is a mail operation. It is a Post-Office arrangement. It is for the transmission of intelligence, and that is what I understood to be the function of the Post-Office Department. I hold it, therefore, to be as legitimately within the proper powers of the Government, as the employing of a stage-coach, or a steam-car, or a ship, to transport the mails, either to foreign countries, or to different portions of our own country."

Of course, as in all appropriations of money, the question of expense had to be considered, and here there were not wanting some to cry out against the extravagance of paying seventy thousand dollars a year! We had not then got used to the colossal expenditures of war, when we grew familiar with paying three millions a day! Seventy thousand dollars seemed a great sum; but Mr. Bayard in reply reminded them that England then paid nine hundred thousand dollars a year for the transportation of the mails between the United States and England; and argued that it was a very small amount for the great service rendered. He said:

"We have sent out ships to make explorations and observations in the Red Sea and in South America; we sent one or two expensive expeditions to Japan, and published at great cost some elegant books narrating their exploits. The expense even in ships alone, in that instance, was at the rate of twenty to one here, but no cry of economy was then raised." "I look upon this proposition solely as a business measure; in that point of view I believe the Government will obtain more service for the amount of money, than by any other contract that we have ever made, or now can make, for the transmission of intelligence."

As to the expense of furnishing a ship of war to assist in laying the cable, Mr. Douglas asked:

"Will it cost anything to furnish the use of one of our steamships? They are idle. We have no practical use for them at present. They are in commission. They have their coal on board, and their full armament. They will be rendering no service to us if they are not engaged in this work. If there was nothing more than a question of national pride involved, I would gladly furnish the use of an American ship for that purpose. England tenders one of her national vessels, and why should we not tender one also? It costs England nothing, and it costs us nothing."

Mr. Rusk made the same point, in arguing that ships might be sent to assist in laying the cable, giving this homely but sufficient reason: "I think that is better than to keep them rotting at the navy-yards, with the officers frollicking on shore."

Mr. Douglas urged still further:

"American citizens have commenced this enterprise. The honor and the glory of the achievement, if successful, will be due to American genius and American daring. Why should the American Government be so penurious – I do not know that that is the proper word, for it costs nothing – why should we be actuated by so illiberal a spirit as to refuse the use of one of our steamships to convey the wire when it does not cost one farthing to the Treasury of the United States?"

But behind all these objections of expense and of want of constitutional power, was one greater than all, and that was England! The real animus of the opposition was a fear of giving some advantage to Great Britain. This has always been sufficient to excite the hostility of a certain class of politicians. No matter what the subject of the proposed coöperation, if it were purely a scientific expedition, they were sure England was going to profit by it to our injury. So now there were those who felt that in this submarine cable England was literally crawling under the sea to get some advantage of the United States!

This jealousy and hostility spoke loudest from the mouths of Southerners. It is noteworthy that men who, in less than five years after, were figuring abroad, courting foreign influence against their own country, were then fiercest in denunciation of England. Mason and Slidell voted together against the bill. Butler, of South Carolina, was very bitter in his opposition – saying, with a sneer, that "this was simply a mail service under the surveillance of Great Britain" – and so was Hunter, of Virginia; while Jones, of Tennessee, bursting with patriotism, found a sufficient reason for his opposition, in that "he did not want anything to do with England or Englishmen!"

But it should be said in justice, that to this general hostility of the South there were some exceptions. Benjamin, of Louisiana, gave the bill an earnest support; so did Mallory, of Florida, Chairman of the Naval Committee; and especially that noble Southerner, Rusk, of Texas, "with whose aid," as Mr. Seward said, "it seemed that there was no good thing which he could not do in Congress." Mr. Rusk declared that he regarded it as "the great enterprise of the age," and expressed his surprise at the very moderate subsidy asked for, only seventy thousand dollars a year, saying that, "with a reasonable prospect of success in an enterprise, calculated to produce such beneficial results, he should be willing to vote two hundred thousand dollars."

But with the majority of Southern Senators, there was a repugnance to acting in concert with England, which could not be overcome. They argued that this was not truly a line between England and the United States, but between England and her own colonies – a line of which she alone was to reap the benefit. Both its termini were in the British possessions. In the event of war this would give a tremendous advantage to the power holding both ends of the line. All the speakers harped on this string; and it may be worth a page or two to see how this was met and answered. When Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, asked, "What security are we to have that in time of war we shall have the use of the telegraph as well as the British Government?" Mr. Seward answered:

"It appears not to have been contemplated by the British Government that there would ever be any interruption of the amicable relations between the two countries. Therefore nothing was proposed in their contract for the contingency of war.

"That the two termini are both in the British dominions is true; but it is equally true that there is no other terminus on this continent where it is practicable to make that communication except in the British dominions. We have no dominions on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. There is no other route known on which the telegraphic wire could be drawn through the ocean so as to find a proper resting-place or anchorage except this. The distance on this route is seventeen hundred miles. It is not even known that the telegraphic wire will carry the fluid with sufficient strength to communicate across those seventeen hundred miles. That is yet a scientific experiment, and the Company are prepared to make it.

"In regard to war, all the danger is this: There is a hazard of war at some future time, and whatever arrangements we might make, war would break them up. No treaty would save us. My own hope is, that after the telegraphic wire is once laid, there will be no more war between the United States and Great Britain. I believe that whenever such a connection as this shall be made, we diminish the chances of war, and diminish them in such a degree, that it is not necessary to take them into consideration at the present moment.

"Let us see where we are. What shall we gain by refusing to enter into this agreement? If we do not make it, the British Government has only to add ten thousand pounds sterling more annually, and they have the whole monopoly of this wire, without any stipulation whatever – not only in war but in peace. If we make this contract with the Company, we at least secure the benefit of it in time of peace, and we postpone and delay the dangers of war. If there shall ever be war, it would abrogate all treaties that can be made in regard to this subject, unless it be true, as the honorable Senator from Virginia thinks, that treaties can be made which will be regarded as obligatory by nations in time of war. If so, we have all the advantages in time of peace, for the purpose of making such treaties hereafter, without the least reason to infer that there would be any reluctance on the part of the British Government to enter into that negotiation with us, if we should desire to do so. The British Government, if it had such a disposition as the honorable Senator supposes, would certainly have proposed to monopolize all this telegraphic line, instead of proposing to divide it."[12 - It is worthy of notice, that when the Bill granting a charter to the Atlantic Telegraph Company was offered in the British Parliament, at least one nobleman found fault with it on this very ground, that it gave away important advantages which properly belonged to England, and which she ought to reserve to herself:"In the House of Lords, on the twentieth of July, 1857, on the motion for the third reading of the Telegraph Company's bill,"Lord Redesdale called attention to the fact that, although the termini of the proposed telegraph were both in her Majesty's dominions, namely, in Ireland and Newfoundland, the American Government were to enjoy the same priority as the British Government with regard to the transmission of messages. It was said that this equal right was owing to the fact that a joint guarantee had been given by the two Governments. He thought, however, it would have been far better policy on the part of her Majesty's Government if they had either undertaken the whole guarantee themselves, and thus had obtained free and sole control over the connecting line of telegraph, or had invited our own colonies to participate in that guarantee, rather than have allowed a foreign government to join in making it. At the same time, if the clause in question had the sanction of her Majesty's ministry, it was not his intention to object to it."Earl Granville said this telegraph was intended to connect two great countries, and, as the two Governments had gone hand in hand with regard to the guarantee, it seemed only reasonable that both should have the same rights as to transmitting messages."The bill was then read a third time and passed."]

Mr. Hale spoke in the same strain:

"It seems to me that the war spirit and the contingencies of war are brought in a little too often upon matters of legislation which have no necessary connection with them. If we are to be governed by considerations of that sort, they would paralyze all improvements; they would stop the great appropriations for commerce; they would at once neutralize that policy which sets our ocean steamers afloat. Nobody pretends that the intercourse which is kept up between Great Britain and this country by our ocean steamers would be continued in time of war; nor the communication with France or other nations.

"If we are deterred for that reason, we shall be pursuing a policy that will paralyze improvements on those parts of the coast which lie contiguous to the lakes. The city of Detroit will have to be abandoned, beautiful and progressive as it is, because in time of war the mansions of her citizens there lie within the range of British guns.

"What will the suspension bridge at Niagara be good for in a time of war? If the British cut off their end of it, our end will not be worth much. I believe that among the things which will bind us together in peace, this telegraphic wire will be one of the most potent. It will bind the two countries together literally with cords of iron that will hold us in the bonds of peace. I repudiate entirely the policy which refuses to adopt it, because in time of war it may be interrupted. Such a policy as that would drive us back to a state of barbarism. It would destroy the spirit of progress; it would retard improvement; it would paralyze all the advances which are making us a more civilized, and a more informed and a better people than the one which preceded us."

Mr. Douglas cut the matter short by saying:

"I am willing to vote for this bill as a peace measure, as a commercial measure – but not as a war measure; and when war comes, let us rely on our power and ability to take this end of the wire, and keep it."

Mr. Benjamin said: