About 140 years ago, two entrepreneurs petitioned the US Congress with a vision of an information superrailroad – a transcontinental telegraph line bridging the coasts of North America. This during an era when there were few highways at all and no transnational railway. Hiram O. Alden and James Eddy lobbied in the Senate, requesting authorization "for a right of way through the public lands of the United States, for the construction of a subterranean line of telegraph." The two gentlemen (called memorialists in this petition) offered their testimony in 1853, after which Mr. Ephraim Farley, a Whig from Maine, on behalf of the House of Representatives Committee on Territories, issued a report on this grand and very wired proposal. We excerpt remarks from the Committee's December 1854 report to the 33rd Congress for the edification of today's backers of the digital I-way.
The benefits which will follow the execution of this enterprise cannot be partial or sectional; they must necessarily be of incalculable national importance, and the moral influences resulting therefrom will be coextensive with the world of civilization and commerce.
That the Atlantic and Pacific telegraph would be the source of infinite satisfaction to thousands of our hardy western pioneers who, through it, would be enabled to communicate with their wives and children, friends and relatives at home, need scarcely be mentioned. Many a heart would be gladdened, many an expense saved, and many a comfort added to scanty means, by early tidings of the emigrant's new favorable location and success. In whatever light the subject may be considered, whether in reference to the interests of the government, the prosperity of our merchants and navigators, or the happiness and comfort of the citizens at large, the enterprise is eminently calculated to promote the power, wealth and general prosperity of the country.
Connect the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts by telegraph communication, and the impulse which it will give to business, and that great tide of emigration setting towards California, will add up to the necessity for railroad communication. In this instance, the telegraph should precede the railway. In the line proposed, the telegraph spans a continent in an instant of time, and leaves the traveler, in the present facilities of conveyance, a month behind.
But it is in its social bearing that the advantages of a telegraph to the Pacific will be most strikingly seen. Every hamlet, it might almost be said every home, in the thirty States of the Union, has its representative on the Pacific shore. By the aid of the telegraph, they would be in immediate communication with each other. Every message, whether of joy or sorrow, could be instantly transmitted either way; and sons and fathers, wives and mothers, whose relations are now a thousand miles asunder, would be, for the purposes of the interchange of intelligence, as it were, under the same roof.
It may be contended that the precise point for the location of the line, at its eastern terminus, should be fixed in the bill. This is not important.... The fact that from the point selected for an eastern terminus, wherever it may be, diverging lines running in any direction may and will be made to connect with it, is a sufficient answer to fixing it into the bill....
The line is to be constructed in the most permanent manner, with two independent conductors, placed under ground control, where they will be exempt from all the causes which operate to prevent the efficiency and reliability of lines constructed in the ordinary way. The wires are to be so completely protected by the insulating material, itself imperishable, that they will not corrode; and, being securely placed in the earth, no accidental breaking can occur.... The bill provides for two lines of wire, which will insure the transaction of a larger amount of business, and a degree of certainty and reliability to the government and the citizen in the transmission of despatches which might, for obvious reasons, be sometimes interrupted if the dependence was upon but one line of wire.
Our California gold fleets might require convoys, and the commanders of our men-of-war in the Pacific fresh instructions from the government, which could not be conveyed in season except by telegraph. Troops may be ordered to march, or be conveyed from one point on the coast to another, reinforcements may be demanded or announced – in short, the action of the government invoked in a thousand ways, when success may depend on promptness of execution. In all these cases the telegraph would be an instrument of power, either for offensive or defensive measures.
As regards the feasibility of the enterprise, the experience of the memorialists, tested by successful undertakings of a similar nature in other parts of the country, as well as the fact that they ask no aid from the government till their line is completed and in working order, furnish the strongest presumptive evidence in its favor. The wires, which they propose to lay down under the ground, to protect them against storms, wild animals or Indians, are covered by an imperishable insulating substance, impervious to moisture, and unaffected by any other decomposing influences of the earth. They propose to lay them deep enough to prevent their being disturbed; and they have discovered a process of carrying them across the beds of rivers, and through masses of rocks. Experiments of the same kind have been made in Europe and proved successful.... Their confidence in their plan of construction, and the entire success of its execution, is so great that they propose to complete the line within two years from the passage of this bill, or to forfeit all the rights and privileges acquired under it. Such confidence can only be imparted by science, which subjects matter to the immutable laws of nature, and predicts with unerring certainty the result of their application.
A subterranean line of two wires, such as the bill provides for, is estimated to cost eleven hundred and fifty dollars per mile. Calling the distance twenty-four hundred miles, the entire cost of the line, including the buildings necessary at the working stations, together with incidental expenses to be incurred in its construction, such as explorations and engineering, land transportation of materials, cost of supplies, and erection of forts to protect way stations, would be not less than two million seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars. The annual cost of operating the line is estimated at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
It may be inquired why the government is asked to aid in this enterprise? The answer is clear, and, we think, satisfactory. Telegraphic lines are of recent origin, and the profits of their business uncertain.... This project does not hold out sufficient grounds for success as a profitable investment, to induce subscriptions, without government encouragement. Without that assistance, it is not to be expected that a telegraph line, as an independent measure, can, for years to come, be carried through with reasonable hopes of remuneration for the outlay of capital which would be required....
All the memorialists ask, after the line is completed and in working order, is a donation of two millions of acres of land along the line, or in some other territories of the United States not interfering with grants that may have been made, or may hereafter be made, for railroad purposes. This is a small donation, compared with the liberal grants which have been made for railroads and other improvements of a less general character, and less likely to affect the wealth and progress of the whole country. Neither is it asked that the lands granted shall be in a continuous line, only benefiting the grantees. The improvements on the line will enhance the value of the adjacent lands, cause their settlement, and thus bring them, at an early period, into market. The telegraph will be the forerunner of civilization and power, and increase the revenue of the government from diverse sources.
But there is yet another important consideration. The memorialists do not ask that the government shall grant them lands without receiving an equivalent. They bind themselves, in perpetuity, to transmit monthly, free of charge, and prior to all other business, eight thousand words for the sole use of the government, and agree to work the line, day and night, without interruption. This the committee consider the most valuable feature on the whole proposition.
