Honor to Cyrus W. Field

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HONOR TO CYRUS W. FIELD.

Now that no more doubt can be entertained of the absolute success of the Atlantic cable; now that both ends are landed and made fast; now that signals are being kept up through its whole extent, and it is likely that the cable will be open for business in a few weeks, or perhaps days—it is well to pause for a moment to render due honor to those brave-hearted and persevering men to whom, under Providence, the world is indebted for this mightly triumph.

Let us understand the case. When the first expedition sailed, it was followed by the sanguine hopes of millions, and its failure produced a sentiment of revulsion and disapointment that was felt by the people throughout the country. On the sailing of the last expedition all depended. No great confidence was felt in the result; wiseacres shook their heads; journalists gave little hope of success, and men of science wrote letters to the papers demonstrating in the same dogmatic manner as the priests in the time of Gallileo¹ or the savans in the days of Columbus², that the thing could not be accomplished. Well, the first news we had from the telegraphic fleet confirmed the disbelievers in their disbelief, and shook the faith even of those who up to that moment had still retained some embers of hope. The cable parted, the vessels returned to Ireland; the matter seemed definitely settled, and men made up their minds that perhaps with the progress of science and the march of mechanical improvement, it was not utterly impossible that the great enterprise might be accomplished some time or other—perhaps in hundred years or so.

Then came intelligence that a last attempt was to be made with a diminished quantity of cable and under auspices much less encouraging than before. It was looked upon with very little interest, and was considered by all as a wild speculation—the last desperate venture of the visionary Field.³ Then, when people had almost ceased to feel any interest in the matter and hardly cared to look at the despatches, there came upon us like a clap of thunder the unlooked for, the astounding, the glorious intelligence that this enthusiast—this visionary speculator, CYRUS W. FIELD—this man who didn't know when he was beaten, and who had stricken from his vocabulary any such word as "fail"—had succeeded in laying the cable, had thrown the electric chain from the New World to the Old, and had won for himself imperishable fame as the foremost man of the Nineteenth Century!

There is something sublime in the spectacle of this man hoping against hope, battling against chance and fate, persevering in the face of every odds, proceeding straight to his goal, utterly unmoved either by covert sneers or chilly neglect, feeling only one thing—that the cable could be laid and must be laid, and that he was going to do it. Now that it is done, his name is a household word; he has awakened and found himself famous; through the length and breadth of the land the mention of his name fills every heart with enthusiasm. This is well. All honor to him! Let his arrival in New York be the signal for an ovation worthy of the occasion and the man—let his progress through the country be a triumphal one.

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