[Sidenote: =Morse ruined if bill does not pass=] Morse stood leaning against the railing which separated the outsiders from the members. He was greatly excited, and turning to a friend, said: "I have spent seven years and all that I have in making this instrument perfect. If it succeeds, I am a made man; if it fails, I am ruined. I have a large family, and not money enough to pay my board bill when I leave the city." [Sidenote: =Telegraph line to Baltimore built=] [Sidenote: =The first message=] It was ten o'clock, March 3, 1843, the last night of that Congress. Morse gave up and went to his hotel. In the morning a friend met and congratulated him on the action of Congress in granting thirty thousand dollars for his telegraph line--the last thing Congress did that night. Morse was surprised. The telegraph line to Baltimore was built and the first dispatch was ready to send. Morse called the young woman who had been the first to congratulate him, to send this first message: "What hath God wrought." [Sidenote: =Honors heaped on the inventor=] The success of Morse was slow at first, but he lived to see the day when his instrument was used in Europe. He visited Europe again, was given gold medals, and received other rewards and honors from many of the rulers of the different European countries. [Sidenote: =Morse dies, 1872=] He died in 1872 at the good old age of eighty-one. Congress and state legislatures paid tribute to his memory. [Illustration: THE TELEPHONE] [Sidenote: =The telephone=] =135. A Wider Use for Electricity.= Samuel Morse was hardly in his grave before a wonderful invention was made which called electricity into far wider use in carrying news. This new invention was the telephone, and two men, Bell and Gray, applied for patents on it at almost the same time. The instruments are wonderful conductors of sound, carrying, as they do, the actual words and tones of the voice. [Sidenote: =Marconi beats them all=] But Marconi has gone beyond them all in his invention. He sends the electric wave forth without the aid of a wire, thus giving rise to wireless telegraphy. CYRUS WEST FIELD, WHO LAID THE ATLANTIC CABLE BETWEEN AMERICA AND EUROPE [Sidenote: =Cyrus W. Field, 1819=] [Sidenote: =In business for himself=] =136. The Atlantic Cable.= Cyrus W. Field was born in Massachusetts in 1819. His grandfather was a Revolutionary soldier. Cyrus went to school in his native town of Stockbridge, and at fifteen was given a place in a New York store at fifty dollars a year. Before he was twenty-one he went into business for himself. At the end of a dozen years he was the head of a prosperous firm. In 1853 he retired from active business. [Sidenote: =Why not span the Atlantic?=]