Morse offered the invention to the Government for 100,000 dollars,
but the Postmaster-General declined it on the plea that its working 'had
not satisfied him that under any rate of postage that could be adopted
its revenues could be made equal to its expenditures.' Thus through the
narrow views and purblindness of its official the nation lost an
excellent opportunity of keeping the telegraph system in its own hands.
Morse was disappointed at this refusal, but it proved a blessing in
disguise. He and his agent, the Hon. Amos Kendall, determined to rely on
private enterprise.
A line between New York and Philadelphia was projected, and the
apparatus was exhibited in Broadway at a charge of twenty-five cents a
head. But the door-money did not pay the expenses. There was an air of
poverty about the show. One of the exhibitors slept on a couple of
chairs, and the princely founder of Cornell University was grateful to
Providence for a shilling picked up on the side-walk, which enabled him
to enjoy a hearty breakfast. Sleek men of capital, looking with
suspicion on the meagre furniture and miserable apparatus, withheld
their patronage; but humbler citizens invested their hard-won earnings,
the Magnetic Telegraph Company was incorporated, and the line was built.
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