April 25, 2025 • 14 mins
A historical series that narrates the significant events and figures that shaped the nation's past, offering educational and engaging stories. The episodes highlight the spirit of exploration and perseverance.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
The American Trail, The American Trail blazed in blood, defended
in Blood. Chapter seven, The Magic Wire, Washington, d c.
(00:39):
The night of March second, eighteen forty four.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
The shabby figure moves away from the shadows of the
Senate Building. It doesn't matter much who he is. Some
crackpot that would be invented. You see all kinds in Washington.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Can't you want you want to chair?
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Mister? Thank you? No?
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
What want to date the professor? You're not sociable, professor, say,
is it right? You want the Congress to give you
thirty thousand dollars to approve your invention works.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Don't tell me they're not going.
Speaker 6 (01:10):
To give you the money.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Take headed off a man to be laughed at. He's
a big joke around Washington. Morse, Professor Samuel Finley Breese
Morse invented something he calls the telegraph, and nobody seems
to care.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Senators Congress when twelve years of talking to them, they
know my telegraph works.
Speaker 6 (01:34):
They've seen it work from one room to another. Why
won't they believe it'll work over a long distance? Why
won't they let me have the money to prove it?
It's for the country's benefit.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, that he didn't get the money appropriated tonight, he
may as well give up.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Congress adjourns tonight.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
So the man's come home, or what he's called home
for several months. A big white colonial type house belongs
to a government official.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
Who went to school with.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Morris, Commissioner of Patents, Ellsworth Morris has been a house
guest for several months. The big square foyer, the winding staircase,
rich carpet, good paintings. The professor walks upstairs. His room
(02:30):
is on the second floor. Well, it's a.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Room, four walls.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Wash stand, writing desk, everything in very good taste. Besides,
a man has to live somewhere, a cheap lodging house,
a park bench, or the hospitality of a friend. Call
it charity. Professor takes off his coat, sits down on
(03:03):
the edge of the bed.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Fifty three years old and a failure, a lifetime of failure.
Speaker 6 (03:18):
Yes it's me, professor, Oh just a moment.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Let me put a jacket on.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Annie Elseworth, daughter of the Commissioner, young, beautiful.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Sorry, I kept you.
Speaker 6 (03:35):
Waiting, I waited up.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
I heard you come in, did Congress? Oh Samuel, you
you haven't had any food have you. There's a tray
of sandwiches in the parlor.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
You must eat.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
The parlor is cozy enough, my spire burning silver coffee pot,
chicken sandwiches. But the man just sits there, brooding, staring
into the fire. The girl watches him.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
I I was thinking of thirty years ago, long long
before you were born. I was just out of Yale.
I was going to become immortal as an artist. I
went to London to study. I know I did well.
I I won a gold medal. I had a future
(04:43):
once what happened to it?
Speaker 5 (04:48):
The telegraph is your future, it must be. You mustn't
give it.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Up, Bernie.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Any life is so unreal. Just now.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
I've been married, I lost my wife, I have grown
up children. My oldest daughter is your age? Unreal?
Speaker 5 (05:12):
All of it.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Unreal.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
The girl says good night. The man was along, restless,
the long years of work, gone from nothing a dream,
an ambition, solved into futility. Well, it's no use thinking
of sleep. May as well go out out into the
cold hostel Washington.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Night and just walk. It doesn't matter how far raining now,
cold and raw.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
The man shivered, but doesn't care. Cobblestone Street a few
years ago. They've been only muddy lane, A light in
one window of a house gone. Now only darkness, darkness
and the icy rain, something ahead, pale, misty against the knight,
(06:11):
a little.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
White colonial children, the soft gloom, so resting. One is
able to sit there and think.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
You know why I quit mad? Why I gave so
much time? No, I adventured.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You know what it could have.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Meant to me?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Money as simple as that, A lot of money, and
then to all financial worry. He could have gone back
to his painting, A rich man able to paint at leisure.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
But now what.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
He hasn't a penny in the world, and he has
a family of children to support.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I don't know what to do.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
We're a where to turn. He must have dozed off.
He's awake.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Now, I feel better, much better. He walks home again,
bitterness gone, resentment, despair all gone, his mind relaxed, peaceful.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Why hadn't he come to this before? Yes, are you up, Annie?
Good morning? I beg father to let me tell me, Damuel,
you're getting the money.
Speaker 7 (08:03):
The very last thing they did, the last bill they
passed before adjourney last night.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Samuel, they voted you the money thirty thousand dollars right
after you.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
Left it must I must let alfre It know.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Alfred Dale, former art student at New York University, where Professor.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Morris once taught Dale, who had encouraged and helped more
finish the invention. Dale, who must now hasten to Washington.
Speaker 6 (08:28):
Halt.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
We must get to work.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
A shallow trench to be dug from Washington to Valdemar.
A converted plow to dig it. Then the laying of
the wire.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
Testing, testing, testing.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
As each length of cable is buried in the trench,
the signal must be tested.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
How far does it carry?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The signal was not getting through.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
There's something wrong, dread of failure. This man, who has
known little else.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
All his life.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Has mister Vale come here?
Speaker 6 (09:02):
Stop work. This trench is no good to us.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
We can't bury the wire. It won't work.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So the telegraph wire has to be left in the open,
strung up on poles all the way from Washington to Baltimore.
The wire must be carried overhead again, testing, testing, testing.
The telegraph instrument is in a tent beside the roll.
Morse has become nervous these days. About a mile along
(09:35):
the road, Alfred Vale should be receiving a signal.
Speaker 6 (09:39):
Answer, answer, The signal's not getting through.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
If he fails, the man will be a laughing stock
every day a crisis, the certainty of failure, night and day,
without rest, without mercy to himself or those about him.
A problem is met overcome. Another takes its place.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Mile upon mile of wire.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Stretching from Washington Todd Baltimore. The big days come a
role in the Supreme Court building. Government officials, friends, Commissioner Ellsworth,
his daughter Annie, all there to see the telegraph tested
over a distance of thirty miles.
Speaker 6 (10:28):
This is it, Samuel, don't worry.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Can anything go wrong? No, no, nothing can go wrong.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Nothing.
Speaker 7 (10:39):
Yes, gentlemen, gentlemen, please, Alfred Vale is in Baltimore waiting
to receive the message.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I'm going to send it.
Speaker 7 (10:57):
Having received it, he will send us same message back
to this room.
Speaker 6 (11:03):
Your attention, please.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Moore starting to tap out the message.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
At this very moment.
Speaker 7 (11:12):
Alfred Vail is receiving the message.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
In a matter of seconds now.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
He will send it back to us.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Well, mister Morris, they're waiting looking at you.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
Patience in Heaven's name, a moment of patience there is, gentlemen, gentlemen,
this this instrum it is is now recording in code
(12:04):
the message that Albert Vale is sending from balmart.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Oh. It's working. Hasn't Morse been saying it does for
twelve long years?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
The government officials, familiar with the code, translates the message
as it comes in.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
He seems unable to realize the normality of the moment.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Annie Ellsworth takes the slipper paper from his hands.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
Here it is.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
The message.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
What yah.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
God wrought? What has God wrought?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
A message soon to be heard around the entire world.
As a new era of rapid communications began, the world
grew small continents a few seconds apart. No longer was
(13:20):
it necessary for a nurgent message to take uncertain weeks
by vote or stagecoach. Men built a telegraph cable across
the American continent, across the Atlantic, around the globe, a
magic wire that linked the world. This has been the
(13:55):
seventh chapter in the Story of the American Nation, brought
to you by the Ladies Auxiliary to the veterans of
Foreign Wars. Next week, another story to make you proud
(14:18):
of this great country of ours. As we follow the
American trail
The American Trail, The American Trail blazed in blood, defended
in Blood. Chapter seven, The Magic Wire, Washington, d c.
(00:39):
The night of March second, eighteen forty four.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
The shabby figure moves away from the shadows of the
Senate Building. It doesn't matter much who he is. Some
crackpot that would be invented. You see all kinds in Washington.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Can't you want you want to chair?
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Mister? Thank you? No?
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
What want to date the professor? You're not sociable, professor, say,
is it right? You want the Congress to give you
thirty thousand dollars to approve your invention works.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Don't tell me they're not going.
Speaker 6 (01:10):
To give you the money.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Take headed off a man to be laughed at. He's
a big joke around Washington. Morse, Professor Samuel Finley Breese
Morse invented something he calls the telegraph, and nobody seems
to care.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Senators Congress when twelve years of talking to them, they
know my telegraph works.
Speaker 6 (01:34):
They've seen it work from one room to another. Why
won't they believe it'll work over a long distance? Why
won't they let me have the money to prove it?
It's for the country's benefit.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Well, that he didn't get the money appropriated tonight, he
may as well give up.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Congress adjourns tonight.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
So the man's come home, or what he's called home
for several months. A big white colonial type house belongs
to a government official.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
Who went to school with.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Morris, Commissioner of Patents, Ellsworth Morris has been a house
guest for several months. The big square foyer, the winding staircase,
rich carpet, good paintings. The professor walks upstairs. His room
(02:30):
is on the second floor. Well, it's a.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Room, four walls.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Wash stand, writing desk, everything in very good taste. Besides,
a man has to live somewhere, a cheap lodging house,
a park bench, or the hospitality of a friend. Call
it charity. Professor takes off his coat, sits down on
(03:03):
the edge of the bed.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Fifty three years old and a failure, a lifetime of failure.
Speaker 6 (03:18):
Yes it's me, professor, Oh just a moment.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Let me put a jacket on.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Annie Elseworth, daughter of the Commissioner, young, beautiful.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Sorry, I kept you.
Speaker 6 (03:35):
Waiting, I waited up.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
I heard you come in, did Congress? Oh Samuel, you
you haven't had any food have you. There's a tray
of sandwiches in the parlor.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
You must eat.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
The parlor is cozy enough, my spire burning silver coffee pot,
chicken sandwiches. But the man just sits there, brooding, staring
into the fire. The girl watches him.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
I I was thinking of thirty years ago, long long
before you were born. I was just out of Yale.
I was going to become immortal as an artist. I
went to London to study. I know I did well.
I I won a gold medal. I had a future
(04:43):
once what happened to it?
Speaker 5 (04:48):
The telegraph is your future, it must be. You mustn't
give it.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Up, Bernie.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Any life is so unreal. Just now.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
I've been married, I lost my wife, I have grown
up children. My oldest daughter is your age? Unreal?
Speaker 5 (05:12):
All of it.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Unreal.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
The girl says good night. The man was along, restless,
the long years of work, gone from nothing a dream,
an ambition, solved into futility. Well, it's no use thinking
of sleep. May as well go out out into the
cold hostel Washington.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Night and just walk. It doesn't matter how far raining now,
cold and raw.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
The man shivered, but doesn't care. Cobblestone Street a few
years ago. They've been only muddy lane, A light in
one window of a house gone. Now only darkness, darkness
and the icy rain, something ahead, pale, misty against the knight,
(06:11):
a little.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
White colonial children, the soft gloom, so resting. One is
able to sit there and think.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
You know why I quit mad? Why I gave so
much time? No, I adventured.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You know what it could have.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Meant to me?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Money as simple as that, A lot of money, and
then to all financial worry. He could have gone back
to his painting, A rich man able to paint at leisure.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
But now what.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
He hasn't a penny in the world, and he has
a family of children to support.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I don't know what to do.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
We're a where to turn. He must have dozed off.
He's awake.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Now, I feel better, much better. He walks home again,
bitterness gone, resentment, despair all gone, his mind relaxed, peaceful.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Why hadn't he come to this before? Yes, are you up, Annie?
Good morning? I beg father to let me tell me, Damuel,
you're getting the money.
Speaker 7 (08:03):
The very last thing they did, the last bill they
passed before adjourney last night.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Samuel, they voted you the money thirty thousand dollars right
after you.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
Left it must I must let alfre It know.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Alfred Dale, former art student at New York University, where Professor.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Morris once taught Dale, who had encouraged and helped more
finish the invention. Dale, who must now hasten to Washington.
Speaker 6 (08:28):
Halt.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
We must get to work.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
A shallow trench to be dug from Washington to Valdemar.
A converted plow to dig it. Then the laying of
the wire.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
Testing, testing, testing.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
As each length of cable is buried in the trench,
the signal must be tested.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
How far does it carry?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The signal was not getting through.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
There's something wrong, dread of failure. This man, who has
known little else.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
All his life.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Has mister Vale come here?
Speaker 6 (09:02):
Stop work. This trench is no good to us.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
We can't bury the wire. It won't work.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So the telegraph wire has to be left in the open,
strung up on poles all the way from Washington to Baltimore.
The wire must be carried overhead again, testing, testing, testing.
The telegraph instrument is in a tent beside the roll.
Morse has become nervous these days. About a mile along
(09:35):
the road, Alfred Vale should be receiving a signal.
Speaker 6 (09:39):
Answer, answer, The signal's not getting through.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
If he fails, the man will be a laughing stock
every day a crisis, the certainty of failure, night and day,
without rest, without mercy to himself or those about him.
A problem is met overcome. Another takes its place.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Mile upon mile of wire.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Stretching from Washington Todd Baltimore. The big days come a
role in the Supreme Court building. Government officials, friends, Commissioner Ellsworth,
his daughter Annie, all there to see the telegraph tested
over a distance of thirty miles.
Speaker 6 (10:28):
This is it, Samuel, don't worry.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Can anything go wrong? No, no, nothing can go wrong.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Nothing.
Speaker 7 (10:39):
Yes, gentlemen, gentlemen, please, Alfred Vale is in Baltimore waiting
to receive the message.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I'm going to send it.
Speaker 7 (10:57):
Having received it, he will send us same message back
to this room.
Speaker 6 (11:03):
Your attention, please.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Moore starting to tap out the message.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
At this very moment.
Speaker 7 (11:12):
Alfred Vail is receiving the message.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
In a matter of seconds now.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
He will send it back to us.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Well, mister Morris, they're waiting looking at you.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
Patience in Heaven's name, a moment of patience there is, gentlemen, gentlemen,
this this instrum it is is now recording in code
(12:04):
the message that Albert Vale is sending from balmart.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Oh. It's working. Hasn't Morse been saying it does for
twelve long years?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
The government officials, familiar with the code, translates the message
as it comes in.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
He seems unable to realize the normality of the moment.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Annie Ellsworth takes the slipper paper from his hands.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
Here it is.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
The message.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
What yah.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
God wrought? What has God wrought?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
A message soon to be heard around the entire world.
As a new era of rapid communications began, the world
grew small continents a few seconds apart. No longer was
(13:20):
it necessary for a nurgent message to take uncertain weeks
by vote or stagecoach. Men built a telegraph cable across
the American continent, across the Atlantic, around the globe, a
magic wire that linked the world. This has been the
(13:55):
seventh chapter in the Story of the American Nation, brought
to you by the Ladies Auxiliary to the veterans of
Foreign Wars. Next week, another story to make you proud
(14:18):
of this great country of ours. As we follow the
American trail
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