Chapter VI: Part 6

Imagine the excitement of the first ride. The train consisted of 6 cars loaded with coal and other freight; then a short passenger coach filled with directors and friends; then 21 open cars or wagons fitted for excursionists; lastly came 6 more cars loaded with coal--making 38 cars in all!

Mr. Stephenson was proud to be on the locomotive and to run it himself. It seemed to spectators incredible that the locomotive could start such a load, but it did start it, and it drew it 8-3/4 miles in 65 minutes, the speed at times reaching 12 miles per hour! More cars were added at Darlington, and then the train drew on to Stockton, all cars being crowded with passengers.

The success was complete, and all doubts seemed to vanish. From that day the traffic over the road continued without interruption. To the surprise of all, the passenger business became a very important item, and better cars were quickly in demand.

The road is in use to-day, and I had the pleasure last year of riding over a part of it. Of course it now looks in all respects like a modern English road, but I was deeply moved by the thought that it was there that George Stephenson built his first public railway and achieved his first public triumph.

Stephenson was not unmindful of the importance of that step. He said, on that occasion, to some young men, "Now, lads, I will tell you that I think you will live to see the day (though I may not live so long), when railways will come to supersede almost all other methods of conveyance--when mail coaches will go by railway. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working-man to ride than to go on foot." He lived to see all that himself, and far more.

It is difficult for us to appreciate the popular surprise and delight at that first railway excursion. We are so accustomed to splendid engines, luxurious cars, and high speed, that we think nothing of them; but when all were new--when coaches and carts on highways were the sole reliance for passengers and freight--it was astonishing indeed to see a "travelling engine," in charge of two men, draw a train of forty cars and six hundred people!

Many men would have been satisfied with the result, but Stephenson was not. He said there was no limit to the speed but the strength of the machinery and the supply of steam. He saw there was no limit to the load but the strength and weight of the locomotive, and no limit to the weight but the strength of the rails and the character of the road-bed; thus he early saw how progress was to be made.

But Stephenson's greatest triumph was yet to come. The Darlington road was chiefly for coals, between small towns in a rough northern county. The vast majority of English people heard nothing, and knew nothing about it. Consequently when it was proposed to connect the great commercial city of Liverpool with the great manufacturing city of Manchester, forty miles away, by a railway, it was taken for granted that the cars were to be drawn by horses. Nevertheless a tram-road was opposed, first, by the Duke of Bridgewater, who had a canal between the two cities; and, secondly, by those who owned the coaches and the inns. Though proposed in 1821, the opposition was so great that it was laid over for several years. In 1824 a committee of interested parties went to Darlington and Killingworth to see Stephenson's road and locomotives. The Darlington line was not yet in operation, but the old locomotives were at work at Killingworth. The committee decided that they must have a double track for cars, whatever might be the motive power.

Accordingly Stephenson was invited to make surveys and estimates, as he was said to be a man of great energy and the only man in England with the necessary experience.

The surveys were made in 1825 with the greatest difficulty, on account of the opposition of landowners. The surveyors were ordered off the grounds, threatened with arrest and violence. Stephenson testified before a Parliamentary Committee that the duke's manager threatened to have him thrown into the mill-pond if he trespassed. Stephenson kept on as good terms as he could with the hostiles, and surveyed their grounds by stealth.

The chief points of difficulty were a tunnel at Liverpool, and a vast and treacherous morass known as "Chat Moss."

Early in 1825, before the Darlington road was opened, Parliament was considering the railway bill and Stephenson was called before the committee as a most important witness. All the opposition was out in force and every means was used to ridicule the undertaking and defeat the bill.

The spectacle presented by plain, blunt, unlettered George Stephenson before the lawyers and members of the House of Commons was strange and interesting, and no wonder it has become historical.

In the cross-examination, every effort was made to confuse and discredit the witness, but he bore himself remarkably well. He had built or superintended half a dozen short railways, and had constructed sixteen locomotives, and he could speak on the details of his plans with certainty and confidence. Two things embarrassed him; the consciousness of awkwardness of manner and speech among men some of whom were inclined to sneer at his northern dialect and lack of polish; secondly, the necessity of restraining himself in stating what his locomotives could do. He fully believed they could draw long trains at the speed of twenty miles, but he was told by the friends of the bill that if he made that claim before the committee, he would be called a madman, and the bill would be killed; accordingly he promised to hold himself down to ten miles per hour.

The evidence brought in against the bill was remarkable, and to-day it sounds strange enough. It was urged that the rails would bend under the locomotive at high speed; that the engine would run off the track on curves; that if the engine got round the curves the cars would go off; that the driving-wheels would "spin," if they went fast, without drawing the train; that the noise and sight of the train would frighten horses and cattle; that hens would not lay and cows would cease to give milk along by the road; that the smoke would poison the air and blast the fields and parks; that the coach lines would be ruined, horses would no longer be of value, and coach-makers, harness-makers, inn-keepers and others along the great roads would have nothing to do, etc., etc. In the face of ignorance, ridicule, contempt, and self-interest, Stephenson firmly maintained the safety of a good road, the stability of his engines and cars, the harmlessness of smoke and noise, and the facility with which animals became indifferent to trains. He said that at Killingworth cattle would not stop feeding as the trains went by. As to the effect of speed, he boldly asserted that at twelve miles per hour the load on a rail would be no more than at six, and in support of his position he appealed to skaters who go swiftly over thin ice. As to the "spinning" of the wheels, he was positive that no such thing ever had happened or could happen. The enemies of the bill caught at his suggestion of twelve miles per hour, and so pressed and led him on that he declared his honest conviction that his trains could run on such a road as he could make twelve miles per hour. This rashness alarmed his friends, and they tried in vain to smooth it over by declaring such speed to be purely "hypothetical."

In spite of all that could be said in its favor, in spite of the pressing need of better transportation for coal, cotton, merchandise, and passengers, the bill failed. Such was the blindness, and ignorance, and prejudice of the House of Commons! Think of calling George Stephenson "an ignoramus, a fool, a maniac," in Parliament, yet such was done.

The friends of the bill were not discouraged; they determined to apply again the next year; but poor Stephenson was discredited, Mr. George Rennie, the great bridge engineer, was employed to make a new survey, and Mr. Stephenson was not called before the committee. Meanwhile, the Darlington line was opened, and reports of its success had reached London. It seemed to be admitted that the _road_ was a good thing, but there was great scepticism in regard to the locomotive. However, the bill passed in the spring of 1826, and the directors were not long in deciding that the only competent man to build the road was George Stephenson, and he was elected principal engineer at a salary of $5,000.

The building of the road seemed to be, and was at the time, a tremendous undertaking. Bridges, viaducts, tunnels, and above all, Chat Moss, a yielding bog four miles across and of unknown depth, all taxed the engineer and the company to the utmost. The road was finished in 1830. With the exception of bridges and rails it was very much as it exists to-day.

For a long time the directors were undecided as to the method of propelling the cars. Nearly every engineer except Stephenson was opposed to the locomotive, or travelling engine.

It seems incredible that Telford and the two Rennies, road-makers and bridge-builders, lacked faith in the locomotive, and preferred stationary engines and long cables. Their main objection to the locomotive appears to have been based on the fact that the steam capacity was small, and that it was impracticable to build a locomotive large enough to furnish all the steam that was needed. Stephenson insisted that already his locomotives were better than stationary engines, and yet they could be greatly improved. He said, "Offer a generous prize for the best locomotive, and inventors and builders will greatly improve their machines, and we will have a far better locomotive than now." He said he felt sure he could make a much better one himself. By that time Stephenson was part owner in new locomotive works at Newcastle, and Robert was in general charge there.

The puzzled directors decided to adopt Stephenson's suggestion, and offered $2,500 as a prize for the best locomotive. The specifications required:

1. The engine (without tender) must not weigh more than six tons.

2. The ordinary steam pressure must not exceed 50 pounds above that of the atmosphere.

3. It must be well supplied with safety-valves and pressure-gauges.

4. It must not exceed fifteen feet in height.

5. It must rest on springs.

6. It must be able (if weighing six tons) to draw twenty tons continuously ten miles per hour.

7. It must not cost more than $2,750.

8. The boiler must stand a pressure, when tested, of 150 pounds per square inch.

9. It must be ready for trial October 1, 1829.

The publication of these conditions and the offer of the prize excited great interest, and caused no small amount of comment.[11] The Stephensons at once began the construction of "The Rocket," without doubt the most famous locomotive ever built. The improved feature it was to have was increased heating surface, so that without increased weight it could generate more steam. This was effected by putting fire-tubes through the water in the boiler. Boiler-tubes had already been used by different people, and some of Stephenson's locomotives which he had sent to France had been fitted with tubes. At the suggestion of Mr. James Booth, Stephenson decided to use a large number of tubes. Modern boilers have smaller tubes and more of them, but "The Rocket" was the first to typify the modern multitubular boiler. In other respects "The Rocket" was like Stephenson's other locomotives built ten or twelve years earlier.

[Footnote 11: It is said that a prominent man of Liverpool
declared that "only a parcel of charlatans would ever have
issued such a set of conditions; that it had been _proved_ to
be impossible to make a locomotive go ten miles per hour." He
added that, "if it ever was done, he would eat a stewed
engine-wheel for breakfast."]

A brief description of "The Rocket" will not be out of place: The boiler was 6 feet long, 3 feet 4 inches in diameter, and was furnished with 25 copper tubes 3 inches in diameter. The fire-box was at the rear end of the boiler, 2 feet wide and 3 feet high, surrounded by water. The cylinders were high on the sides, pointing down to the forward wheels, which were the only drivers. Stephenson had used coupling rods between two sets of "drivers," but "The Rocket" was made for speed chiefly. Its weight when furnished with water was only _four and a half tons_! On trial at Killingworth "The Rocket" worked finely and its capacity for steam was marvellous. It was sent by wagon to Carlisle and by boat to Liverpool.

On the day set for the trial there were four engines on hand: 1. The "Novelty," built by young Ericsson, who afterward in New York built the famous "Monitor." 2. The "Sanspareil," by Timothy Hackworth. 3. The "Perseverance," by a Mr. Burstall. 4. "The Rocket," by Stephenson and Booth.

The programme of test fixed by the judges was to run over a level piece of the road at Rainhill, two miles long, forty times during a day, at a rate not less than ten miles per hour. The train was to weigh three and one-third times as much as the locomotive. Each engine was to have a day for trial.

The "Perseverance" proved slow; its best speed was not more than six miles per hour; so it was quickly withdrawn.

The "Sanspareil" was made by one of Stephenson's own foremen, and differed little from the Killingworth style of locomotive. It was rather over weight, but it ran at times as fast as fourteen miles per hour. Its machinery was defective, however, and it was ruled out by the judges.

The "Novelty" ran at times in good style, but its bellows, for making a fire-blast, were defective and repeatedly gave out, causing delay. It failed to make the required speed with a full load; by itself it is said to have run at the rate of twenty-eight miles per hour. Ericsson claimed that he had not had time to properly construct his locomotive, and the claim was probably just. As it was, the time was extended six days.

The day assigned for "The Rocket" was the third day, but when on the second day all other engines failed, it was brought out to entertain the spectators. Attaching it to a coach full of passengers, Stephenson ran over the line at a rate reaching _thirty miles per hour_, to the amazement of all.

The next morning "The Rocket" was subjected to the regular test. Its assigned load was thirteen and a half tons which it drew back and forth over the two-mile track the full stent of forty times, making a spurt at times as high as twenty-nine miles, about three times what had been declared possible by the judges! Finally, to show how fast the engine could go and still keep the track, Mr. Stephenson ran it alone at the astonishing rate of thirty-five miles per hour.

Thus did "The Rocket" surpass all records and all expectations. The enthusiasm of every one was unbounded. All doubts were removed and Stephenson's opponents in the company became his ardent friends. His judgment seemed infallible, and his word was law.

This victory at Rainhill completed the triumph of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The road was opened the following year, 1830, with most imposing ceremonies. Members of Parliament, lords and ladies, and even the great Duke of Wellington, honored the occasion by their presence, and rode on the excursion trains.

The story of George Stephenson's great work is told. His railroad and his locomotive had come together, and to stay. All opposition was crushed, and no sooner was one road in successful operation than another, sometimes several, were on foot. George and Robert Stephenson were in demand everywhere and their locomotive works were full of orders. In twenty years England had nearly ten thousand miles of railways.

The spectacle of these two men, father and son, working together as equals was one often admired. Both became wealthy and full of honor. Titled men were proud to pay their respects to George Stephenson, and when he died, in 1848, at the age of sixty-seven, the whole nation rose up to do him honor.

Though probably Stephenson had never heard of Emerson, Emerson had heard of Stephenson, and he called upon him on his visit to England. Afterward Emerson said that "it was worth crossing the Atlantic to have seen Stephenson alone; he had such native force of character and vigor of intellect."

What a contrast that meeting offers! There face to face stood two men, two great philosophers, both of whom have broadly and deeply influenced mankind--one by deeds, the other by words. One wielded the pen, giving us noble, beautiful and inspiring thoughts, profoundly analyzing life and character; the other wielded those cunning tools with which man subdues nature and harnesses its forces to do his will. He wrote not for the pages of a book, but on lines of steel with a stylus that conquered time and space, bringing distant cities into companionship. I look up to each with an equal reverence. Each achieved the conquest of mind over matter, and each exhibited the exceeding manliness of a noble life and character.

There is no space with which to speak of Stephenson's safety-lamp, nor of the influence his life and character have had on the brain and brawn of working England. If my reader is interested to know him more and better, let him consult the nearest library.

One word about "The Rocket" and this brief sketch is done. For some years "The Rocket" did service on the Liverpool and Manchester road, but it soon proved too light for the heavy traffic, and was sold to a coal company in the North, where for years it faithfully hauled coal-cars from the mines. But even there it was superseded, and in contempt consigned to the back-yard. It was still fleet, but not strong. In that dreary back-yard among useless lumber, the once peerless "Rocket" spent a season or two in rain and snow and sunny weather, when George Stephenson bought it back and put it in his cabinet at the Newcastle works. After Stephenson's death the precious relic was placed in the British Museum in London.

"The Rocket" itself was exhibited a few years ago at the Railway Exposition in Chicago, and an exact copy of it was shown at the recent World's Fair.

[Signature: C. M. Woodward.]

SAMUEL F. B. MORSE

(1791-1872)

Samuel Finley Breese Morse, artist and inventor, was born at the foot of Breed's Hill, Charlestown, Mass., on April 27, 1791. His father was the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., the author of Morse's "Geography." At the age of fourteen Samuel Morse entered Yale College; under the instruction of Professors Day and Silliman he received the first impulse toward those electrical studies with which his name is mainly identified.

In 1811 Morse, whose tastes during his early years led him more strongly toward art than toward science, became the pupil of Washington Allston, then the greatest of American artists, and accompanied his master to England, where he remained four years. His success at this period was considerable; but on his return to America, in 1815, he failed to obtain commissions for historical paintings, and after working on portraits for two years at Charleston, S.C., he removed first to Washington and afterward to Albany, finally settling in New York. In 1825 he laid the foundations of the National Academy of Design, and was elected its first president, an office which he filled until 1845. The year 1827 marks the revival of Morse's interest in electricity. It was at this time that he learned from Professor J. F. Dana, of Columbia College, the elementary facts of electro-magnetism. As yet, however, he was devoted to his art, and in 1829 he again went to Europe to study the old masters.

The year of his return, 1832, may be said to close the period of his artistic, and to open that of his scientific, life. On board the packet-ship Sully, which sailed from Havre, October 1, 1832, while discussing one day with his fellow-passengers the properties of the electro-magnet, he was led to remark: "If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted by electricity."

It was not a novel proposition, but the process of formulating it started in his mind a train of new and momentous ideas. The current of electricity, he knew, would pass instantaneously any distance along a wire; and if it were interrupted a spark would appear. It now occurred to him that the spark might represent a part of speech, either a letter or a number; the absence of the spark, another part; and the duration of its absence, or of the spark itself, a third; so that an alphabet might be easily formed, and words indicated. In a few days he had completed rough drafts of the necessary apparatus, which he displayed to his fellow-passengers. Five years later, the captain of the ship identified under oath Morse's completed instrument with that which Morse had explained on board the Sully, in 1832.

During the twelve years that followed Morse was engaged in a painful struggle to perfect his invention and secure for it a proper presentation to the public. The refusal of the Government to commission him to paint one of the great historical pictures in the rotunda of the Capitol, seemed to destroy all his old artistic ambition. In poverty he pursued his new enterprise, making his own models, moulds, and castings, denying himself the common necessaries of life, and encountering embarrassments and delays of the most disheartening kind. It was not until 1836 that he completed any apparatus that would work, his original idea having been supplemented by his discovery, in 1835, of the "relay," by means of which the electric current might be reinforced or renewed where it became weak through distance from its source. Finally, on September 2, 1837, the instrument was exhibited to a few friends at his room in the University building, New York, where a circuit of 1,700 feet of copper wire had been set up, with such satisfactory results as to awaken the practical interest of the Messrs. Vail, iron and brass workers in New Jersey, who thenceforth became associated with Morse in his undertaking.

Morse's petition for a patent was dated September 28, 1837, and was soon followed by a petition to Congress for an appropriation to defray the expense of subjecting the telegraph to actual experiment over a length sufficient to establish its feasibility and demonstrate its value. The Committee on Commerce, to whom the petition was referred, reported favorably. Congress, however, adjourned without making the appropriation, and meanwhile Morse sailed for Europe to take out patents there. The trip was not a success. In England his application was refused, on the alleged ground that his invention had been already published; and while he obtained a patent in France, it was subsequently appropriated by the French Government without compensation to himself. His negotiations also with Russia proved futile, and after a year's absence he returned to New York.

On February 23, 1843, Congress passed the long-delayed appropriation of $30,000; and steps were at once taken to construct a telegraph from Baltimore to Washington. On May 24, 1844, it was used for the first time, Mr. Morse himself sending over the wires the first and ever-to-be-remembered message, "What hath God wrought."

Morse's parents were already secured to him and his associates, and companies were soon formed for the erection of telegraph lines all over the United States. In the year 1847 he was compelled to defend his invention in the courts, and successfully vindicated his claims to be called the original inventor of the electro-magnetic recording telegraph. Thenceforward Morse's life was spent in witnessing the growth of his enterprise, and in gathering the honors which an appreciative public bestowed upon him. As years went by he received from the various foreign governments their highest distinctions, while in 1858 the representatives of Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Piedmont, Russia, the Holy See, Sweden, Tuscany, and Turkey appropriated the sum of 400,000 francs in recognition of the use of his instruments in those countries.

The telegraph is not the only great success with which the name of Samuel Morse is honorably connected. Having made the acquaintance of Daguerre in Paris, he studied with him the infancy of photography, and was the first to take sun pictures, or daguerreotypes, in America. Also it was he who made the first submarine electric cable. This was laid in New York Harbor; and from it he was the first to conceive that stupendous idea of the transoceanic telegraph. In the preparations for laying the first Atlantic cable he took an active part, though the attempt of 1857, in which he personally engaged, was not successful. He died April 2, 1872, at New York, where his statue in bronze now stands in the Central Park.

PETER COOPER[12]

[Footnote 12: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By CLARENCE COOK

(1791-1883)

It may be said, without exaggeration, that few men in our time and country, not occupying official position, have been so widely and sincerely mourned as the late Peter Cooper. Other men have been as genuinely good as he, and have founded charitable institutions as worthy and as useful, in their way, as the one which is to be the lasting monument to his memory. But Peter Cooper held a place in the hearts of his fellow-citizens which belonged to him alone. A man, to outward seeming, in manners and conversation as plain and homespun as his name, he held unshaken from youth to old age--and to few men is it allotted to live in uninterrupted health and action to the age of ninety-two--the confidence, the respect and the affection of all sorts of people: the rich and the poor, the high and the low, the learned and the unlearned, people of all parties and of all religions. Character is the accumulation of little actions, and makes its deepest impression, of course, when these actions have been observed by great numbers of people during a long period of time. The whole of his ninety-two years, with the exception of a short time passed in his youth in its vicinity, were spent by Mr. Cooper in the city of New York. It was little more than a country town when he was born; it was already one of the great cities of the world when he died; and in all that time he had been associated with the business enterprises that had helped its growth, as one of the chief actors.

The fortune that he built up was both earned and expended here; the manner of its earning was known of all men, but the way in which it was expended was rather felt than known, for, like all great and generous benefactors, Mr. Cooper was without ostentation; but as he gave while he was alive and all the time that he was alive; and as he gave to the people among whom he lived, and not to outsiders, it naturally followed that his name, his person, his traits of character, became, as it were, a common possession to the people of New York; but few men upon whom such a glare of publicity had fallen for so many years would have been able to bear the scrutiny so well as Peter Cooper.

He was born on February 12, 1791, presumably in Little Dock Street, now Water Street, Coenties Slip, where his father, John Cooper, carried on the trade of a hatter. His shop was near the store of John Jacob Astor, from whom he bought the beaver-skins which he made up into hats. John Cooper had served in the war of the Revolution, and when it ended, he retired with the rank of lieutenant. He married Margaret, the daughter of John Campbell, who also had served in the Continental army, as quartermaster, and who now carried on the trade of potter and tile-maker on the spot where St. Paul's Chapel now stands.

To John and Margaret Cooper nine children were born, two daughters and seven sons, of whom Peter was the fifth, and was named after the apostle in the belief, as his father expressed it, that he would come to something. Following the fashion of the time, he was set to work at his father's trade as soon as he was old enough to work, as all his brothers had been before him: and in later years he described himself as a little boy, with his head just reaching the top of the table where he was set to pulling out the hairs from rabbit skins to use in making fur hats; and he was kept at the business until he was fifteen, when, as he used to tell, he had learned to make every part of a hat. So independent is business success of what is commonly called education, that it may be of interest to record that Peter Cooper never went to school for more than one year, and only in the half of each day of school: his parents were poor, and could not spare what his labor earned, and besides his health was delicate, and the confinement of school was thought more injurious to him than the work in the shop. In consequence of this restriction Peter Cooper grew to manhood with very little learning beyond reading, writing, and the rudiments of arithmetic, and while this was a source of regret to him all his life, it was in reality the spur that drove him to found an institution that should take away all excuses for ignorance from the coming generations of poor boys in his native city.

The elder Cooper would seem to have been a man of small practical capacity or staying power, for he moved about from place to place, changing his business in the hope of bettering his condition; now going to Peekskill to set up a brewery; thence to Catskill, where he added brick-making to making beer; then to Brooklyn to try hatting again; and finally to Newburgh, where he returned to brewing. In all these shiftings of home and business Peter remained with his father and gave him what help he could; he used in later life to recall his carrying about the beer-kegs to his father's customers; but at the age of seventeen, with his parents' consent, he came back to New York, and looked about for work on his own account. He had saved up from his small earnings, while with his father, the sum of ten dollars, and with this, he tells us, he bought a lottery ticket, which drew a blank. This seeming misfortune he turned to good account, for he then determined never to trust to luck again, but to be content to earn his bread in the appointed way: it was his first and last speculation. On reaching New York he had the usual difficulty in finding employment, but at length was accepted as an apprentice by a firm of carriage-makers, to whom, with his father's consent, he bound himself until he should come of age; his masters agreeing to pay him $25 a year and his board. His grandmother had a house on Broadway, in which she gave him the use of an upper room, and here in his spare hours he employed himself in wood-carving, in which he acquired some proficiency. In his business he worked so industriously, and made himself so valuable to his employers, that when his time expired they offered to lend him the money to go into business for himself; but he did not accept this generous offer, as he was determined never to be in debt. While with Messrs. Burtis and Woodward he had invented a machine for mortising wheel-hubs, thus giving the first evidence of an inventive faculty which, though never accomplishing great things, was often of considerable service both to himself and the community. On leaving the business of carriage-making Peter Cooper went to Hempstead, L. I., where he found work in a woollen factory. Here he invented and patented an improvement on the machine in use for shearing the nap of cloth; and as during the war of 1812 all commerce with England ceased, cloth-making in America flourished, and from the sale of his machines, which he could hardly make fast enough to supply the demand, young Cooper reaped a considerable profit. One of his first customers was the late Matthew Vassar, of Poughkeepsie, to whom he not only sold some of his machines, but also the right to dispose of them in Dutchess County. When he found that his earnings had enabled him to lay by the sum of $500, he thought himself justified in asking a young woman, Miss Sarah Bedel, whom he had met when in Hempstead, to become his wife; but before doing so, he determined to visit his parents in Newburgh, and inform them of his intention. He found them in great trouble, his father in debt and needing help; and without hesitation he placed his small savings at his disposal, paid the most pressing of the debts, and made arrangements for paying off the rest. His father was thus saved from bankruptcy by his son's devotion; but the action was characteristic of Peter Cooper, both in its unselfishness, and as indicative of his business integrity. He would never be in debt himself, and he was equally resolved to keep those belonging to him as free as himself. He took pride in the fact that neither he nor his father had ever failed in business; and this is the more remarkable, since in the course of his business life the country passed through no less than ten serious commercial panics.

Peter Cooper and Miss Bedel were married on December 22, 1813, when he was twenty-two and the lady twenty-one. Their married life, as it was exceptionally long, so it was exceptionally happy. It lasted fifty-six years; Mrs. Cooper died in 1869, and Mr. Cooper survived her fourteen years, dying in 1883. Their golden wedding was celebrated in 1863. They had six children, but only two lived to grow up; the Hon. Edward Cooper, once mayor of the city, and Sarah Amelia Cooper, the wife of the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt. Mr. James Parton says: "There never was a happier marriage than this. To old age Mr. Cooper never sat near his wife without holding her hand in his. He never spoke to her, nor of her, without some tender epithet. He attributed the great happiness of his life and most of his success to her admirable qualities. She seconded every good impulse of his benevolence, and made the fulfilment of his great scheme possible by her wise and resolute economy."

Mr. Cooper seems to have inherited something of his father's business restlessness, for in addition to the many pursuits in which we have seen him engage, he now bought a grocery stand, and in about a year gave that up and purchased a glue factory, selling his grocery business and buying a lease of the glue factory for twenty-one years, for $2,000, his whole savings. He differed from his father in this, that everything prospered with which he had to do. The grocery had done well, but the glue factory did better. "At that time nearly all the glue used in this country was imported from Ireland, and sold at a high price. Mr. Cooper studied the subject and experimented, until he was able to make better glue than the Irish and sell it at a lower price, and he soon had nearly the entire glue business of the country in his hands." But chance had nothing to do with Mr. Cooper's success: the secret of that success was unremitting industry and generous economy. He worked that he might earn, and he saved that he might use and give. For twenty years while he held the glue factory, he was his own bookkeeper, clerk, and salesman; going to the factory at daybreak to light the fires, and spending the evenings at home, posting his books, writing, and reading to his family.

In 1828, moved by the interest in business circles in the completion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Mr. Cooper, with two partners, bought a tract of three thousand acres within the city limits of Baltimore. By the failure of his associates to meet the payment of their shares, Mr. Cooper was obliged to shoulder the whole cost, amounting to $105,000. The road, too, owing to unexpected difficulties in construction, was dreading bankruptcy, from which it was saved by Mr. Cooper's ingenuity in devising a locomotive that enabled the company to overcome certain difficulties that had been thought insurmountable. Failing in the end to sell his land as he had hoped, Mr. Cooper decided to utilize the timber growing on it in the manufacture of charcoal iron. When he had, after many difficulties, established his works, he sold out to some Boston capitalists, who formed the Canton Iron Company. Mr. Cooper took a large part of the purchase in stock at $45 a share, which he finally sold out at $230 a share.

This was the beginning of his interest in the iron business, where the greater part of his fortune was made. The remainder came from his glue works and the industries connected with them. In 1873, the year of the great panic, in a letter to President Grant suggesting remedial legislation, Mr. Cooper said that not less than a thousand persons depended for their bread on the business carried on in the circle of his family. He had at that time two rolling-mills running, and two mills for the manufacture of wire and springs; and his glue, oil, and isinglass works gave employment to two hundred persons.

The story of Mr. Cooper's connection with the laying of the Atlantic cable has been so often told, that we do not repeat it here. It adds further testimony to his indomitable energy, his largeness of view, his financial ability, and the confidence that was felt in him by his fellow-men. The story of the difficulties, failures and final success of this grandest achievement of modern science and enterprise, is as romantic as any episode in social history.

But, in Peter Cooper's view, the most important event in his life--the one to which all his energies, his thoughts, his economics had been steadily directed since his youth--was the founding of the institution that bears his name, and that has made him a powerful factor in the development of New York. It was the outcome, in the first place, of its founder's regret for the deficiencies of his own early training, which were owing partly to his parents' poverty and partly to the lack of public or free schools in his native city when he was a boy. But this regret, which could only have been felt by a man of superior intelligence, was made to flower in this great result by Mr. Cooper's genuine, deep, and unfailing love for his fellow-men, and his belief in the duty of every man to help the race forward in its progress to a better social condition. He has himself stated the principles on which his life was founded. His aim was "to render some equivalent to society, in some useful form of labor, for each day of his existence;" and "while he had always recognized that the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner, he had endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good."

In 1876 Mr. Cooper was nominated for the presidency by the National Independent or "Greenback" party. It was with no selfish ambition that he allowed his name to go before the voters of the country, and his only regret at the result was that a policy was defeated which he believed to be for the public good.

Mr. Cooper died April 4, 1883, at the age of ninety-two, after a short illness, the result of a cold. At his funeral, the late Dr. Crosby said: "What an example has been set by this life to our young men! How it shows them what the true aim of life should be! What an example to our wealthy men to show that money obtained by honest industry, and spent in benefiting mankind, will never produce war between labor and capital, but will assuage all angry elements, and give universal peace! Oh! if all our wealthy men were like Peter Cooper, all classes would be satisfied, all commotions cease, and the community would be as near perfection--as near perfection in the pecuniary view--as it possibly could be on earth."

[Signature: Clarence Cook.]

LOUIS KOSSUTH

(1802-1894)

Louis Kossuth was born at Monok, in Zemplin, one of the northern counties of Hungary, April 21, 1802. His family was ancient, but impoverished; his father served in the Austrian army during the wars against Napoleon; his mother is represented to have been a woman of extraordinary force of mind and character. Kossuth thus adds another to the long list of great men who seem to have inherited their genius from their mothers. As a boy he was remarkable for the winning gentleness of his disposition, and for an earnest enthusiasm, which gave promise of future eminence, could he but break the bonds imposed by low birth and iron fortune. A young clergyman was attracted by the character of the boy, and voluntarily took upon himself the office of his tutor, and thus first opened before his mind visions of a broader world than that of the miserable village of his residence. But these serene days of power expanding under genial guidance soon passed away. His father died, his tutor was translated to another post, and the walls of his prison-house seemed again to close upon the boy. But by the aid of members of his family, themselves in humble circumstances, he was enabled to attend such schools as the district furnished. Little worth knowing was taught there; but among that little was the Latin language; and through that door the young dreamer was introduced into the broad domains of history, where, abandoning the mean present, he could range at will through the immortal past.

In times of peace the law offers to an aspiring youth the readiest means of ascent from a low degree to lofty stations. Kossuth, therefore, when just entering upon manhood, made his way to Pesth, the capital, to study the legal profession. Here he entered the office of a notary, and began gradually to make himself known by his liberal opinions and the fervid eloquence with which he set forth and maintained them; and men began to see in him the promise of a powerful public writer, orator, and debater.

The man and the hour were alike preparing. In 1825, the year before Kossuth arrived at Pesth, the critical state of her Italian possessions compelled Austria to provide extraordinary revenues. The Hungarian Diet was then assembled, after an interval of thirteen years. This Diet at once demanded certain measures of reform before they would make the desired pecuniary grants. The court was obliged to concede these demands. Kossuth, having completed his legal studies, and finding no favorable opening in the capital, returned, in 1830, to his native district, and commenced the practice of the law, with marked success. He also began to make his way toward public life by his assiduous attendance and intelligent action in the local assemblies. A new Diet was assembled in 1832, and he received a commission as the representative in the Diet of a magnate who was absent. As proxy for an absentee he was only charged, by the Hungarian Constitution, with a very subordinate part, his functions being more those of a counsel than of a delegate. This, however, was a post much sought for by young and aspiring lawyers, as giving them an opportunity of mastering legal forms, displaying their abilities, and forming advantageous connections.

This Diet renewed the Liberal struggle with increased vigor. By far the best talent of Hungary was ranged upon the Liberal side. Kossuth early made himself known as a debater, and gradually won his way upward, and became associated with the leading men of the Liberal party, many of whom were among the proudest and richest of the Hungarian magnates. He soon undertook to publish a report of the debates and proceedings of the Diet. This attempt was opposed by the Palatine, and a law hunted up which forbade the "printing and publishing" of these reports. He, for a while, evaded the law by having his sheet lithographed. It increased in its development of democratic tendencies, and in popularity, until finally the lithographic press was seized by Government. Kossuth, determined not to be baffled, still issued his journal, every copy being written out by scribes, of whom he employed a large number. To avoid seizure at the post-office, they were circulated through the local authorities, who were almost invariably on the Liberal side. His periodical penetrated into every part of the kingdom, and men saw with wonder a young and almost unknown public writer boldly pitting himself against Metternich and the whole Austrian cabinet. Kossuth might well, at this period, declare that he "felt within himself something nameless."

In the succeeding Diets the Opposition grew still more determined. Kossuth, though twice admonished by Government, still continued his journal; and no longer confined himself to simple reports of the proceedings of the Diet, but added political remarks of the keenest satire and most bitter denunciation. He was aware that his course was a perilous one. He was once found by a friend walking in deep reverie in the fortress of Buda, and in reply to a question as to the subject of his meditations, he said, "I was looking at the casemates, for I fear that I shall soon be quartered there." Government finally determined to use arguments more cogent than discussion could furnish. Baron Wesselenyi, the leader of the Liberal party, was arrested, together with a number of his adherents, among whom Kossuth was of too much note to be overlooked.

Kossuth became at once sanctified in the popular mind as a martyr. Liberal subscriptions were raised through the country for the benefit of his mother and sisters, whom he had supported by his exertions, and who were now left without protection. Wesselenyi became blind in prison; Lovassi, an intimate friend of Kossuth, lost his reason; and Kossuth himself, as was certified by his physicians, was in imminent risk of falling a victim to a serious disease. The rigor of his confinement was mitigated; he was allowed books, newspapers, and writing materials, and suffered to walk daily upon the bastions of the fortress, in charge of an officer. Among those who were inspired with admiration for his political efforts, and with sympathy for his fate, was Teresa Mezlenyi, the young daughter of a nobleman. She sent him books, and corresponded with him during his imprisonment; and they were married in 1841, soon after his liberation.

In the second year of Kossuth's imprisonment Austria again needed Hungarian assistance. The threatening aspect of affairs in the East, growing out of the relations between Turkey and Egypt, determined all the great powers to increase their armaments. A demand was made upon the Hungarian Diet for an additional levy of 18,000 troops. A large body of delegates was chosen pledged to oppose this grant except upon condition of certain concessions, among which was a general amnesty, with a special reference to the cases of Wesselenyi and Kossuth. The more sagacious of the Conservative party advised Government to liberate all the prisoners, with the exception of Kossuth; and to do this before the meeting of the Diet, in order that their liberation might not be made a condition of granting the levy, which must be the occasion of great excitement. The cabinet temporized and did nothing. The Diet was opened, and the contest was waged during six months. The Opposition had a majority of two in the Chamber of Deputies, but were in a meagre minority in the Chamber of Magnates. But Metternich and the cabinet grew alarmed at the struggle, and were eager to obtain the grant of men, and to close the refractory Diet. In 1840 a royal rescript suddenly made its appearance, granting the amnesty, accompanied also with conciliatory remarks, and the demands of the Government for men and money were at once complied with.

Kossuth issued from prison, in 1840, bearing in his debilitated frame, his pallid face, and glassy eyes, traces of severe sufferings, both of mind and body. He repaired for a time to a watering-place among the mountains to recruit his shattered health. His imprisonment had done more for his influence than he could have effected if at liberty. The visitors at the watering-place treated with silent respect the man who moved about among them in dressing-gown and slippers, and whose slow steps, and languid features, disfigured with yellow spots, proclaimed him an invalid. Abundant subscriptions had been made for his benefit and that of his family, and he now stood on an equality with the proudest magnates. These had so often used the name of the "Martyr of the Liberty of the Press," in pointing their speeches, that they now had no choice but to accept the popular verdict as their own.

Soon after his liberation, Kossuth came forward as the principal editor of the _Pesth Gazette_ (_Pesthi Hirlap_), which a bookseller who enjoyed the protection of the Government had received permission to establish. The name of the editor was now sufficient to electrify the country; and Kossuth at once stood forth as the advocate of the rights of the lower and middle classes against the inordinate privileges and immunities enjoyed by the magnates. But when he went to the extent of demanding that the house-tax should be paid by all classes in the community, not even excepting the highest nobility, a party was raised up against him among the nobles, who established a paper to combat so disorganizing a doctrine. This party, backed by the influence of the Government, succeeded in defeating the election of Kossuth as member from Pesth for the Diet of 1843. He was, however, very active in the local assembly of the capital.

Kossuth was not altogether without support among the higher nobles. The blind old Wesselenyi traversed the country, advocating rural freedom and the abolition of the urbarial burdens. Among his supporters at this period, also, was Count Louis Batthyanyi, one of the most considerable of the Magyar magnates, subsequently President of the Hungarian Ministry, and the most illustrious martyr of the Hungarian cause. Aided by his powerful support, Kossuth was again brought forward, in 1847, as one of the two candidates from Pesth. The Government party, aware that they were in a decided minority, limited their efforts to an attempt to defeat the election of Kossuth. This they endeavored to effect by stratagem, but failed utterly.

Kossuth no sooner took his seat in the Diet than the foremost place was at once conceded to him. At the opening of the session he moved an address to the king, concluding with the petition that "liberal institutions, similar to those of the Hungarian Constitution, might be accorded to all the hereditary states, that thus might be created a united Austrian monarchy, based upon broad and constitutional principles." During the early months of the session Kossuth showed himself a most accomplished parliamentary orator and debater; and carried on a series of attacks upon the policy of the Austrian cabinet, which for skill and power have few parallels in the annals of parliamentary warfare. Those form a very inadequate conception of its scope and power, whose ideas of the eloquence of Kossuth are derived solely from the impassioned and exclamatory harangues which he flung out during the war. These were addressed to men wrought up to the utmost tension, and can be judged fairly only by men in a state of high excitement. He adapted his matter and manner to the occasion and the audience. Some of his speeches are marked by a stringency of logic worthy of Webster or Calhoun; but it was what all eloquence of a high order must ever be--"logic red-hot."