Let us, then, record the names of the engineers and foremen who have thus made humanity itself their debtor for a successful achievement, not the result of accident or of chance, but the fruit of design, and of the consecration of all personal interest to the public weal. They are: John A. Roebling, who conceived the project and formulated the plan of the Bridge; Washington A. Roebling, who, inheriting his father's genius, and more than his father's knowledge and skill, has directed the execution of this great work from its inception to its completion; aided in the several departments by Charles C. Martin, Francis Collingwood, William H. Paine, George W. McNulty, Wilhelm Hildenbrand and Samuel R. Probasco as assistant engineers; and as foremen by E.F. Farrington, Arthur V. Abbott, William Van der Bosch, Charles Young and Harry Tupple, who, in apparently subordinate positions, have shown themselves peculiarly fitted to command, because they have known how to serve. But the record would not be complete without reference to the unnamed men by whose unflinching courage, in the depths of the caissons, and upon the suspended wires, the work was carried on amid storms, and accidents, and dangers, sufficient to appall the stoutest heart. To them we can only render the tribute which history accords to those who fight as privates in the battles of freedom, with all the more devotion and patriotism because their names will never be known by the world whose benefactors they are. One name, however, which may find no place in the official records, cannot be passed over here in silence. In ancient times when great works were constructed, a goddess was chosen, to whose tender care they were dedicated. Thus the ruins of the Acropolis to-day recall the name of Pallas Athene to an admiring world. In the Middle Ages, the blessing of some saint was invoked to protect from the rude attacks of the barbarians, and the destructive hand of time, the building erected by man's devotion to the worship of God. So, with this Bridge will ever be coupled the thought of one, through the subtle alembic of whose brain, and by whose facile fingers, communication was maintained between the directing power of its construction, and the obedient agencies of its execution. It is thus an everlasting monument to the self-sacrificing devotion of woman, and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long debarred. The name of Mrs. Emily Warren Roebling will thus be inseparably associated with all that is admirable in human nature, and with all that is wonderful in the constructive world of art.
This tribute to the engineers, however, would not be deserved, if there is to be found any evidence of deception on their part in the origin of the work, or any complicity with fraud in its execution and completion. It is this consideration which induced me to accept the unexpected invitation of the trustees to speak for the city of New York on the present occasion. When they thus honored me, they did not know that John A. Roebling addressed to me the letter in which he first suggested (and, so far as I am aware, he was the first engineer to suggest), the feasibility of a bridge between the two cities, so constructed as to preserve unimpaired the freedom of navigation. This letter, dated June 19, 1857, I caused to be printed in the New York Journal of Commerce, where it attracted great attention because it came from an engineer who had already demonstrated, by successfully building suspension bridges over the Schuylkill, the Ohio and the Niagara rivers, that he spoke with the voice of experience and authority. This letter was the first step towards the construction of the work, which, however, came about in a manner different from his expectations, and was finally completed on a plan more extensive than he had ventured to describe. It has been charged that the original estimates of cost have been far exceeded by the actual outlay. If this were true, the words of praise which I have uttered for the engineers, who designed and executed this work, ought rather to have been a sentence of censure and condemnation. Hence, the invitation which came to me unsought, seemed rather to be an appeal from the grave for such vindication as it was within my power to make, and which could not come with equal force from any other quarter.
Engineers are of two kinds: the creative and the constructive. The power to conceive great works demands imagination and faith. The creative engineer, like the poet, is born, not made. If to the power to conceive, is added the ability to execute, then have we one of those rare geniuses who not only give a decided impulse to civilization, but add new glory to humanity. Such men were Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Watt, Wedgwood, Brunel, Stephenson and Bessemer; and such a man was John A. Roebling. It was his striking peculiarity, that while his conceptions were bold and original, his execution was always exact, and within the limits of cost which he assigned to the work of his brain. He had made bridges a study, and had declared in favor of the suspension principle for heavy traffic, when the greatest living authorities had condemned it as costly and unsafe. When he undertook to build a suspension bridge for railway use, he did so in the face of the deliberate judgment of the profession, that success would be impossible. Stephenson had condemned the suspension principle and approved the tubular girder for railway traffic. But it was the Nemesis of his fate, that when he came out to approve the location of the great tubular bridge at Montreal, he should pass over the Niagara River in a railway train, on a suspension bridge, which he had declared to be an impracticable undertaking.
When Roebling suggested the Bridge over the East River, his ideas were limited to the demands of the time, and controlled by the necessity for a profitable investment. He had no expectation that the two cities would embark in the enterprise. Indeed, in one of his letters so late as April 14, 1860, he says, "As to the corporations of New York and Brooklyn undertaking the job, no such hope may be entertained in our time." In eight years thereafter, these cities had undertaken the task upon a scale of expense far exceeding his original ideas of a structure, to be built exclusively by private capital for the sake of profit.
How came this miracle to pass? The war of the rebellion occurred, delaying for a time the further consideration of Roebling's ideas. This war accustomed the nation to expenditures on a scale of which it had no previous conception. It did more than expend large sums of money. Officials became corrupt and organized themselves for plunder. In the city of New York, especially, the government fell into the hands of a band of thieves, who engaged in a series of great and beneficial public works, not for the good they might do, but for the opportunity which they would afford to rob the public treasury. They erected court-houses and armories; they opened roads, boulevards and parks; and they organized two of the grandest devices for transportation which the genius of man has ever conceived; a rapid transit railway for New York, and a great highway between New York and Brooklyn. The Bridge was commenced, but the Ring was driven into exile by the force of public indignation, before the rapid transit scheme, since executed on a different route by private capital, was undertaken. The collapse of the Ring brought the work on the Bridge to a stand-still.
It was a timely event. The patriotic New Yorker might well have exclaimed, just before this great deliverance, in the words of the Consul of ancient Rome, in Macaulay's stirring poem,
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"And if they once may win the bridge, What hope to save the town?" |
Meanwhile, the elder Roebling had died, leaving behind him his estimates and the general plans of the structure, to cost, independent of land damages and interest, about $7,000,000. This great work which, if not "conceived in sin," was "brought forth in iniquity," thus became the object of great suspicion, and of a prejudice which has not been removed to this day. I know that to many I make a startling announcement, when I state the incontrovertible fact, that no money was ever stolen by the Ring from the funds of the Bridge; that the whole money raised has been honestly expended; that the estimates for construction have not been materially exceeded; and that the excess of cost over the estimates is due to purchases of land which were never included in the estimates; to interest paid on the city subscriptions; to the cost of additional height and breadth of the Bridge; and the increase in strength rendered necessary by a better comprehension of the volume of traffic between the two cities. The items covered by the original estimate of $7,000,000 have thus been raised to $9,000,000, so that $2,000,000 represents the addition to the original estimates.
For this excess, amounting to less than thirty per cent., there is actual value in the Bridge in dimension and strength, whereby its working capacity has been greatly increased. The carriage-ways, as originally designed, would have permitted only a single line of vehicles in each direction. The speed of the entire procession, more than a mile long, would, therefore, have been limited by the rate of the slowest; and every accident causing stoppage to a single cart would have stopped everything behind it for an indefinite period. It is not too much to say that the removal of this objection, by widening the carriage-ways, has multiplied manifold the practical usefulness of the Bridge.
The statement I have made is due to the memory not only of John A. Roebling, but also of Henry C. Murphy, that great man who devoted his last years to this enterprise; and who, having, like Moses, led the people through the toilsome way, was permitted only to look, but not to enter upon the promised land.