Up to the time Morse showed his invention to the public in 1837, no one had helped him on it. Being anxious to perfect it, and if possible to get money from Congress to carry out an experiment on a large scale, he now took into partnership Professor Gale, of New York University, who was to work on the electric batteries; and also Alfred Vail, who was to furnish the money needed, and help with the instruments.

During the fall of 1838, the clumsy telegraphic dictionary and code numbers on which Morse had spent many a day was done away with, and a system of dots and dashes for each of the letters of the alphabet and different numbers was planned. This telegraphic code is like the codes of Gauss and Weber, and of Steinheil. It is known the world over as the Morse code:

The clumsy way of recording the telegraphic signal by dashes and V-shaped figures was also done away with. The recording instrument was made over, so that it now wrote the dots and dashes which stood for the letters and numbers. In the meantime Professor Gale had so improved the batteries that an electric current could be sent through ten miles of copper wire.

Morse exhibited the improved instrument to his New York friends in January, 1838. "Seeing is believing," but what they saw, they could at first scarcely believe. Message after message, at the rate of ten words a minute, was sent over the ten miles of wire, until the admiration of the company was unbounded. They cheered the inventor and congratulated him on his great invention. Morse received this letter from his brother Sidney: "Your invention, measuring it by the power it will give man to carry out his plans, is not only the greatest invention of this age, but the greatest invention of any age. I see . . . that the surface of the earth will be networked with wire, and every wire will be a nerve, carrying to every part intelligence of what is doing in every other part. . . No limit can be set to the value of the invention!"

Morse now took his invention to Washington and asked Congress to give him thirty thousand dollars to build a telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore. This seemed a large sum of money to spend on an untried enterprise. It was also hard for men to understand how useful the telegraph would be. Congress refused to vote the money.

Morse knew that both England and France were spending large sums on their signal-telegraph systems. If they could only see his invention, they would adopt it at once. But he had no money for a trip to Europe. To get it, he took a third partner. The invention was exhibited in London and Paris. Statesmen and scientists came to see it, and Morse was declared a great genius, and was highly honored. Indeed, at one time it seemed as if both France and Russia would adopt his system, but in the end nothing was done. Returning to America in the spring of 1839, he wrote: "I return without a penny in my pocket, and have to borrow even for my meals."

The next four years were the darkest in Morse's life. His partners had spent all their money, and at times lost interest. Congress continued to refuse to vote the thirty thousand dollars. Morse had neglected his art so long that it was hard for him to get pupils to teach, or portraits to paint. Many a morning when he rose, he scarcely knew where the food for the day was to come from.

Once, when a pupil was late in paying for his lessons, he nearly starved.

"Well, my boy," asked Morse, "how are we off for money?"

"Why, professor," replied the student, "I am very sorry to say I have been disappointed; but I expect money next week."

"Next week, I shall be dead by that time."

"Dead, sir?"

"Yes, dead of starvation."

"Would ten dollars be of any service?"

"Ten dollars would save my life; that is all it would do."

The student paid the money, and the two dined together. After the meal was over Morse said, "This is my first meal for twenty-four hours."

These years of delay, though hard to bear, were not lost. With the help of Professor Gale and the advice of Professor Henry, of Princeton, the batteries were improved. So when Congress at last voted the money for the line between Washington and Baltimore, an electric current could be sent through the wires for the entire forty miles. With the help of Mr. Vail, the metal types and the clumsy machine for sending the signals were done away with. A simple finger key was invented to send the dots and dashes. When the metal types were used, only ten words a minute could be sent. With the finger key, an operator could easily send twenty to thirty words a minute. Without these improvements, Morse's electric telegraph would have been a failure when put to the test in 1844.

Morse was tempted many a time to give up. But the thought that his invention marked a new era in history, and would improve the condition of millions of people, kept him from it. In the winter of 1843, he went once more to Washington, seeking the aid of Congress. Columbus himself was scarcely more persevering under discouragement. On the day his bill passed the House of Representatives, Morse wrote to Mr. Vail: "For two years I have labored all my time, and at my own expense, without assistance from the other proprietors, to forward our enterprise. My means to defray my expenses, to meet which every cent I owned in the world was collected, are nearly all gone. If the bill should fail in the Senate, I shall return to New York with the fraction of a dollar in my pocket." "Had the passage of the bill failed," he wrote to a friend, "there would have been little prospect of another attempt on my part to introduce to the world my new invention."

On the evening of the last day of the session, Morse sat waiting in the gallery of the Senate. He was told by friendly Senators that there was no chance for his bill to pass, so he finally went to his room. "Knowing from experience whence my help must come in any difficulty," wrote Morse, "I soon disposed of my cares, and slept as quietly as a child."

On coming down to breakfast the next morning, he was met by the daughter of a friend.

"Why this early call?" asked Morse.

"I have come to congratulate you."

"Indeed, for what?"

"On the passage of your bill."

"Oh, no, my young friend, you are mistaken."

"It is you that are mistaken. The bill was passed at midnight."

The news was so unexpected, that Morse for the moment could not speak. Finally he said, "You are the first to tell me, and the first message on the completed line between Washington and Baltimore shall be yours."

In constructing the new line, Morse planned to put the telegraph wires in a lead pipe and then bury the pipe in the ground. After ten miles of lead pipe had been laid, it was discovered that the electric current would not pass through a single mile of it. Twenty thousand of the thirty thousand dollars voted by Congress had been spent. What was to be done? It was decided to place the wires on poles with short crossarms just as you see them to-day. Thinking it was necessary to insulate them, the wires were wrapped in cotton cloth soaked in tar and beeswax, and fastened on door knobs to the crossarms. From now on, the work progressed rapidly. The whole line was finished and opened in May, 1844. Morse remembered his promise, and the young lady selected these noble words: "What hath God wrought!" Of this message Morse said, "It baptized the American telegraph with the name of its Author."

It was a favorite idea with Morse that the government should own the telegraph. After it was shown to be a success, he offered to sell it for one hundred thousand dollars. Fortunately for Morse, the government refused the offer, for few inventions have been more quickly and widely adopted. A line was completed, in 1846, between Baltimore and New York. Within the next ten years, telegraph companies sprang up in every section of our country. Most of these combined, and formed, in 1857, a single company, the Western Union. His system was adopted in Canada, then in Europe, and before he died, in 1872, was used in every civilized country of the world. Morse lived, therefore, to see the whole world bound together by the telegraph; each part able to know what was going on in every other part; each part able to communicate and to do business with every other part. Thus, by means of the electric telegraph, the world has been made one in knowledge and one in action.