It failed to germinate abroad as it had at home. Men with
money acknowledged that the idea was a scientific success,
but could not believe that it might be made a business
success.
"What would people care for instantaneous news?" they said.
"Some might, it is true, but the great mass would be content
to wait for their news in the good old way. To lay miles of
wire in the earth is to bury a large treasure in money. We
cannot see our way clear to getting it back again out of the
pockets of the public. Your wires work, Mr. Morse, but, from
a business point of view, there's more cost than profit in
the idea."
It may be that these exact words were not spoken, but the
answer of Europe was near enough to this to send the
inventor home disappointed. He began again his weary waiting
on the slowly-revolving wheels of the congressional
machinery.
March 3, 1843, came. It was the last day of the session.
With the stroke of midnight on that day the existing
Congress would die, and a new one be born, with which the
weary work of the education of congressmen would have to be
gone over again. The inventor had been given half a loaf.
His bill had been passed, on February 23, in the House. All
day of March 3 he hung about the Senate chamber petitioning,
where possible, for the other half of his loaf, faintly
hoping that in the last will and testament of the expiring
Congress some small legacy might be left for him.
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