create doubt and
suspicion. Were there no means of quick explanation it is readily seen
that doubt and suspicion, working on the susceptibilities of the public
mind, would engender misconception, hatred and strife. How important then
that, in the intercourse of nations, there should be the ready means at
hand for prompt correction and explanation.

"Could there not be passed in the great International Convention some
resolution to the effect that, in whatever condition, whether of Peace or
War between the nations, the Telegraph should be deemed a sacred thing,
to be by common consent effectually protected both on the land and
beneath the waters?

"In the interest of human happiness, of that 'Peace on Earth' which, in
announcing the advent of the Saviour, the angels proclaimed with 'good
will to men,' I hope that the convention will not adjourn without
adopting a resolution asking of the nations their united, effective
protection to this great agent of civilization."

Richly as he deserved that his sun should set in an unclouded sky, this
was not to be. Sorrows of a most intimate nature crowded upon him. He was
also made the victim of a conscienceless swindler who fleeced him of many
thousand dollars, and, to crown all, his old and indefatigable enemy,
F.O.J. Smith, administered a cowardly thrust in the back when his
weakening powers prevented him from defending himself with his oldtime
vigor. From a very long letter written by Smith on December 11, 1871, to
Henry J. Rogers in Washington, I shall quote only the first sentences:--

Dear Sir,--In my absence your letter of the 11th ult. was received here,
with the printed circular of the National Monumental Society, in reply to
which I feel constrained to say if that highly laudable association
resolves "to erect at the national capital of the United States a
memorial monument" to symbolize in statuary of colossal proportions the
"history of the electromagnetic telegraph," before that history has been
authentically written, it is my conviction: that the statue most worthy
to stand upon the pedestal of such monument would be that of the man of
true science, who explored the laws of nature ahead of all other men, and
was "the first to wrest electron-magnetism from Nature's embrace and make
it a missionary to, the cause of human progress," and that man is
Professor Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution.

Professor Morse and his early coadjutors would more appropria