The Cable Laid!
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THE CALBE LAID!
It is useless for us to discuss any local or general topic that in ordinary circumstances would be of interest to the public; just now there is but one topic of conversation, and that is the unlooked for, but magnificent, success of the grand Atlantic Telegraph1 enterprise.
We, in common with the press throughout the country, anticipated no such good luck as has eventually attended this last attempt to lay the Cable. The news of its successful accomplishment, therefore, published in yesterday’s TIMES, was a still more joyful surprise to us and to the thousands who had begun to despond as to the ultimate triumph of the vast enterprise, at least in our day.
Yesterday, throughout the country, nothing else was talked of. This one great topic, like Aaron’s rod, swallowed up all lesser ones, and wherever the news extended,—from Maine to Georgia, the great heart of the people exulted and their enthusiasm found vent in cheers and in bonfires, in bell-ringing and illuminations. No event of the century has so stirred up the latent enthusiasm of the masses. Each man feels an accession of new power—each man who has the intelligence to comprehend the nature of this vast triumph of human intellect, feels like a new Prometheus who has stolen fire from Heaven to annihilate time and distance and to win for himself the fabled attributes of the immortals.
We cannot begin to estimate, as yet, the vast consequences of this great achievement to humanity and to the world. Should the wires work as is anticipated, and no new misfortune arise to damp our expectations, such momentous results will follow as cannot now be even faintly appreciated. Not only will the Atlantic Cable be a means of communicating intelligence as to the rise or downfall of stocks, not only will it be a material agent for the transmission of late news for the press, but it will have a vast moral effect;—it will be a civilizer and a peace maker—it will be like the dawn of a Millennium day to the troubled nations—it will usher in a Golden Age of peace on earth and good will to man.
It may be that we are too sanguine. It may be that the majority of people, who had given up all hopes of seeing the grand project carried out, and were over-despondent, are now too hopeful in their sudden joy and triumph. As yet we have no assurance that the Irish end of the cable has been landed as safely as that yesterday brought on shore at Newfoundland, and for some little time yet, we must wait before considering the great problem decisively solved. Perhaps a few hours may bring us the glorious intelligence which all await with so much anxiety. The first message, which will be transmitted from England to America by the representative head of the old country, Queen Vic.,2 to President Buchanan,3 will flash across the land from north to south and from east to west on lightning wings and with lightning effect. Let us await the result with hopeful anticipations, and if they are justified by the end, let us ever, hereafter, turn a deaf ear to the croakers, and boldly proclaim that there is no limit to the genius of the century, and to the persevering enterprise of its leading spirits.
P.S.—So far all is well. The Agamemnon has arrived at Valentia Bay, on the coast of Ireland, but in consequence of the absence of telegraphic apparatus for the transmission of anything beyond signals, no messages have yet been received. Nevertheless, it is a triumph as it is.
Notes:
1. The Transatlantic Telegraph was the first cable connection between the United States and Europe, built by Cyrus West Field and the Atlantic Telegraph Company. It sent its initial message—a note from the British Queen—in 1858 and, although the cable spanning from Canada's Trinity Bay to Ireland was only in operation for three weeks, had a major impact on transatlantic relations of the antebellum period. [back]
2. Queen Alexandrina Victoria (1819–1901) was the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837–1901. She had the second longest reign of any British monarch. Whitman had a somewhat positive view of Victoria. On the occasion of her seventy-first birthday, he had a congratulatory poem published in British newspapers, which credited the Queen with intervening against British recognition of the Confederacy during the Civil war. [back]
3. James Buchanan (1791–1868) was the fifteenth President of the United States (1857–1861). Late in life Whitman still considered Buchanan "perhaps the weakest of the President tribe—the very unablest" (With Walt Whitman in Camden, Monday, November 5, 1888). For more information on Whitman and his disdain for Buchanon, see also Bernard Hirschorn, ""To a President" (1860)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]