Samuel Morse: American Hero (cough, cough)

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Wed Jun 13, 2012, 01:31 PM - Edit history (8)

The man best known for Morse Code was a so-so portrait painter who felt that people were too dumb to "get" what a great portrait painter he was, so he scrapped art to concentrate on his real life's work—resisting the vast Catholic conspiracy in America. It seems, according to Morse, that there were sleeper cells of armed Jesuits everywhere.

He once ran for mayor of New York on a platform of persecuting Catholics.


Morse's family had money. When he heard about the telegraph technology he went to visit the actual inventor (Joseph Henry, a teacher who did things to amuse his students like make a battery-powered electro-magnet that could lift 1700 pounds, and I think eventually headed the Smithsonian) to learn everything he could about it. He found that Henry hadn't patented anything, believing that it was simple idea that belonged to the nation. And besides... a similar set-up was being used in Europe. It's not like one person could own such a basic idea.

So Morse patented it himself. He greased people in congress to get government backing for a telegraph line to Baltimore, though the profit from that start-up ended up going to Morse. He spent the remainder of his life making a lot of money and appearing in court to defend his claim to have invented the telegraph. At one point, before the US Supreme Court, his lawyer said that the old notebook in Morse's hand showing his original work on the telegraph (which the lawyer had said he would produce) had actually been lost in a fire.

Let's review what makes Morse a real American hero...

A moderately talented conspiracy-crackpot bigot who happens to be from money steals an important invention, uses influence in congress to get the people to fund development of the stolen idea, and to defend his claim to invention, and then pockets all the money.

His name goes down in history as the inventor of the telegraph because though everyone knows he didn't invent it he was supposedly the "first to see the commercial applications" of it. (Despite the fact that it was in use in Europe commercially, and Morse, a frequent traveler, had studied it there.)

Invention? Fuck that. Any silly scientist can invent something. Real invention is figuring out how to profit from something, and if that profit is underwritten by the tax-payers then that's real genius.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. so much to do, so little time

snark.

Actually, the jesuits meet every 50 years, and plot out how they will take over the work each meeting. Their last meeting was about 15 yrs ago.

[TrogL]

2. Jesuits took over the world centuries ago

We're just not obvious about it

[cthulu2016]

3. ...

[Confusious]

4. Abraham Lincoln thought

Black people were inferior to white people.

What a racist!

why do we hold this man up as an example to be followed? we should tear down all the monuments to that racist.

Washington owned slaves! we should erase every mention of that slaver in the history books...

FDR was a philadering racist... why bother even using the things he did as an example? He was a racist, so that nullifies any good he did.

[Luminous Animal]

5. Do you have a problem with seeing Morse as he was rather than

how the power brokers wanted us to see him?

[Confusious]

10. If you want to get into tearing people down

picking at all their flaws, judging them on the standards of our time, not theirs, then we could be here quite a long time, and have nothing left in the history books.

Because if they're so vile, might as well wipe them from it.

I personally like the quote "show me a hero and I'll show you a bum" nobody in history can stand nitpicking at their lives.

I doubt you could.

PS.... "OMG! he hated catholics, look at how he treated them." Kind of ignores the fact that there was vile anti-catholic bigotry throughout the entire country all the way up to JFK. So, he was normal for the time, he didn't have the benefit of your "enlightenment."

Another thing, any protestant country at the time hated catholics, and the catholics hated the Protestants. neither side is "worthy."

[cthulu2016]

8. If it turned out that some other guy had freed the slaves...

...would that affect your view of Lincoln?

The OP is not tearing down a great historical figure for tengential flaws. It is pointing out that Mr. Morse was really not a great historical figure at all.

Does this represent some loss to anyone? Kids can be raised to admire Joseph Henry (who seems to have been a pretty cool guy, and invented the telegraph) instead of Morse (who was a rich bigot who swiped 90% of the telegraph) without losing a hero.

[Confusious]

9. Umm

Like most inventions, he perfected the telegraph, so like most things, at most times, he gets credit.

So, once he perfected it, it took off. So as a matter of fact, he was important.

I suppose you remember the name James Watt? He didn't invent the steam engine, just made it practical. What about all the people before him? Does that constitute stealing?

I'm sure you could find Some dirt on him. If you don't remember then name, the "watt" a unit of power is named after him.

Oh, and Morse was a pretty good artist.

[Luminous Animal]

6. Thanks! I just got done reading "History as Mystory" by Micahel Parenti

and there is mountains of misinformation "the powers that be" advanced that were contrary to the facts.

[demwing]

7. "Real invention is figuring out how to profit from something"

That's a home run hit, right there. The new American dream is not one of freedom, or of justice. The new American dream is one of profitability.

[HiPointDem]

11. +1. but it's not the new american dream; it's the same old one, as the morse example shows.

there are a lot of people like morse in us history.