Electricity and Progress (Transcription)

Below is a transcription of the Gutenberg project version of 'Progress and Electricity'. The sample used is also attached below, with the relevant Gutenberg README file.

Ladies and gentlemen:

Those of us who began our love labors at the operator's key 50 years ago have been permitted to see and assist in the whole modern industrial development of electricity. Since the remarkable experiments of Morse in 1844 and the unsuccessful efforts of Field in 1858 that have come with incredible rapidity – one electrical arc after another. So that in practically every respect civilization has been revolutionized.

It is still too early to stand outside these events and pronounce final judgement on their lasting value.

But we may surely entertain the belief that the last half of the 19th century was a distinct and distinct in its electrical inventions and the results of the first half was in relation to steam.

The lessons of the Jubilee of the Atlantic Cable of 1858 is one of encouragement to all who would act to the resources of our race and extend our control over the forces of Nature. Never was failure more complete, never was higher courage shown, never was triumph more brilliant than that which set 1866 has kept the old world moored alongside the new by cables of steel and copper, the family ties of the civilized world.

When I look around at the resources of the electrical field today I feel that I would be glad to begin again my work as an electrician and inventor and we veterans get only older than our successors, the younger followers of Franklin and of Tolbin to realize the measure of their opportunities and to rise to the heights of their responsibilities in this day of electricity.