superimposed in the American mind.

     It was in 1844 that Samuel Morse opened a telegraph line 
from Washington to Baltimore with $30,000 obtained from 
Congress. Private enterprise, as usual, waited for bureaucracy 
to clarify the image and goals of the new operation. Once it 
proved profitable, the fury of private promotion and initiative 
became impressive, leading to some savage episodes. No new 
technology, not even the railroad, manifested a more rapid 
growth than the telegraph. By 1858 the first cable had been 
laid across the Atlantic, and by 1861 telegraph wires had 
reached across America. That each new method of 
transporting commodity or information should have to come 
into existence in a bitter competitive battle against previously 
existing devices is not surprising. Each innovation is not only 
commercially disrupting, but socially and psychologically