Political Quotes

“I am not a scientist, but I am a historian. I understand history. I know, for example, in 1844 Congress was approached by a man who said: I want to revolutionize the communications systems in this country. He asked Congress to appropriate $40,000 for an experiment he did not have the wherewithal to do. He had been trying for many years to get the money to do this. The experiment was to build a telegraph line between Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD. For $40,000 they did it. The Federal Government did not ever have to put another penny into that project. It revolutionized the way we communicated in America--the telegraph system. The Federal Government did the right thing by doing the research and development on this issue. Let's fast forward now more than 100 years from 1844 when two scientists from MIT, by the name of Danby and Powell, were stuck in traffic in New York. They were both professors at MIT, scientists. They said: This is ridiculous. We shouldn't be stuck in traffic like this. We should figure something out that would stop this.”