One of the most striking illustrations of the power of perseverance is the successful struggle of Cyrus West Field in laying the Atlantic cable. Mr. Field was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, November 30, 1819. His schooling, which was slight, was secured in his native town. When he was fifteen years old, he secured a position in a business house in New York City at a salary of fifty dollars a year. He subsequently founded a prosperous business in the manufacture and sale of paper. In 1854 Mr. Field's attention was directed to an attempt to lay an electric cable at Newfoundland, which had failed for want of funds. The idea of laying a cable across the Atlantic occurred to him. He laid his plans before a number of prominent citizens of New York. On four successive evenings they met at his home to study the project, and they finally decided to undertake it. On May 6, 1854, a company was organized to lay the cable, with Peter Cooper as president.
The next twelve years Field devoted exclusively to the cable. He went to England thirty times. The first cable was brought from England and was to be laid across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Forty miles had been successfully laid, when a storm arose and the cable was cut in order to save the ship. Then came a year's delay. Meantime the bottom of the sea was being explored and a vast tableland was discovered stretching from Newfoundland to Ireland. Field went to England, where he had little difficulty in organizing a company, and work was then begun on the construction of a new cable. Next he laid his enterprise before Congress, and asked for money. An appropriation bill was finally passed in the Senate by a majority of one, and was signed by President Pierce on March 3, 1857, the day before he retired from office. Field returned to England to superintend the construction of the cable and to make preparations for laying it. At last it was ready, tested, and coiled on the ship. On August 11, 1857, the sixth day out, after three hundred and thirty-five miles had been laid, the cable parted.
Lord Clarendon, in an interview with Field, had remarked: "But, suppose you don't succeed? Suppose you make the attempt and fail--your cable is lost in the sea--then what will you do?" The reply came promptly, "Charge it to profit and loss, and go to work to lay another." Lord Clarendon was so well pleased with the reply that he pledged his aid. The loss of three hundred and thirty-five miles of cable was the loss of half a million dollars. Field came back to America and secured from the Secretary of the Navy the vessels needed for another trial. On June 10, 1858, the United States steam frigate _Niagara_, then the largest in the world, and the British ship _Agamemnon_ set out from opposite shores, bound for mid-ocean. The vessels met, and the two sections of the cable were spliced; then they began laying it toward both shores at the same time. After a little more than a hundred miles had been laid, this cable parted in mid-ocean, and Field hurried to London to meet the discouraged directors.