Morse was, unfortunately, not a keen judge of men.

Scrupulously honest and honorable himself, he had an almost childlike faith in the integrity of others, and all through his life he fell an easy victim to the schemes of self-seekers.

In this case a man of more acute intuition would have hesitated, and would have made some enquiries before allying himself with one whose ideas of honor proved eventually to be so at variance with his own.

Smith did so much in later years to injure Morse, and to besmirch his fame and good name, that I think it only just to give the following estimate of his character, made by the late Franklin Leonard Pope in an article contributed to the "Electrical World" in 1895:-- "A sense of justice compels me to say that the uncorroborated statements of F.O.J.Smith, in any matter affecting the credit or honor due to Professor Morse, should be allowed but little weight....

For no better reason than that Morse in 1843-1844 courteously but firmly refused to be a party to a questionable scheme devised by Smith for the irregular diversion into his own pocket of a portion of the governmental appropriation of $30,000 for the construction of the experimental line, he ever after cherished toward the inventor the bitterest animosity; a feeling which he took no pains to conceal.