Professor Morse deserves all the credit he has received as one of the greatest of inventors. He studied painting when young and became an artist of considerable skill. As early as 1832 he conceived the idea of an electro-magnetic telegraph and began his experiments. The project absorbed all his energies until he became what is called in these days a "crank," which is often the name of one who gives all his thoughts and efforts to the development of a single project. He drifted away from his relatives, who looked upon him as a visionary dreamer, and when his ragged clothes and craving stomach demanded attention, he gave instruction in drawing to a few students who clung to him. Light gradually dawned upon Morse, and he continued his labors under discouragements that would have overcome almost any other man. He secured help from Alfred Vail, of Morristown, N.J., who invented the alphabetical characters and many essential features of the system, besides furnishing Morse with funds, without which his labors would have come to a standstill. There was not enough capital at command to construct a line of telegraph, and Morse and his few friends haunted Congress with their plea for an appropriation. Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University, gave assistance, and, finally, in the very closing days of the session of Congress in 1844, an appropriation of $30,000 was made to defray the expenses of a line between Baltimore and Washington. [Illustration: THE SPEEDWELL IRON WORKS, MORRISTOWN, N.J. Here was forged the shaft for the Savannah, the first steamship which crossed the Atlantic. Here was manufactured the tires, axles and cranks of the first American locomotive. Shop in which Vail and Baxter constructed the first telegraph apparatus, invented by Morse, for exhibition before Congress.] The invention, like most others of an important nature, was subjected to merciless ridicule. A wag hung a pair of muddy boots out of a window in Washington, with a placard announcing that they belonged to a man who had just arrived by telegraph; another placed a package on the wires, and called to his friends to see it whisked away by lightning; while many opposed the apparent experimenting with the electric fluid, which they believed would work all sorts of mischief. Nevertheless, the patient toilers kept at work, often stopped by accident, and in the face of all manner of opposition. The first line was laid underground, and, as has been shown, carried the news of Polk's nomination for the presidency to Washington.