"Various forms of telegraphic intercourse had been devised before; electro-magnetism had been studied by _savants_ for many years; Franklin even had experimented with the transmission of electricity through great lengths of wire. It was reserved for Morse to combine the results of many fragmentary and unsuccessful attempts, and put them, after many years of trial, to a practical use; and though his claims to the invention have been many times attacked in the press and in the courts, they have been triumphantly vindicated alike by the law and the verdict of the people, both at home and abroad. The Chief Justice of the United States in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court in one of the Morse cases, said: 'It can make no difference whether the inventor derived his information from books or from conversation with men skilled in the science; and the fact that Morse sought and obtained the necessary information and counsel from the best sources and acted upon it, neither impairs his right as an inventor, nor detracts from his merits.'" It will be remembered that soon after his first successful experiment, Morse was harassed by protracted litigation, and that many attempts were made to deprive him of the just rewards of his great invention. True, he had been preceded along the same lines by great discoveries. This fact no man recognized more unreservedly than himself. He was the inventor, his work, that of gathering up and applying the marvellous discoveries of others to the practical purposes of human life. As stated by Mr. Garfield: "His to interpret to the world that subtle and mysterious element with which the thinkers of the human race had so long been occupied. As Franklin had exhibited the relation between lightning and the electric fluid, so Oersted exhibited the relation between magnetism and electricity. From 1820 to 1825, his discovery was further developed by Davy and Sturgeon of England, and Arago and Ampere of France. The electro-magnetic telegraph is the embodiment, I might say the incarnation, of many centuries of thought, of many generations of effort to elicit from Nature one of her deepest mysteries. No one man, no one century, could have achieved it. It is the child of the human race, the heir of all ages. How wonderful are the steps that led to its creation! The very name of this telegraphic instrument bears record of its history--Electric, Magnetic.