Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883

by William C. Kingsley; Franklin Edson; Seth Low

This testimony is due also to the living trustees and to the engineers who have controlled and directed this large expenditure in the public service, the latter, in the conscientious discharge of professional duty; and the former, with no other object than the welfare of the public, and without any other possible reward than the good opinion of their fellow-citizens.

I do not make this statement without a full sense of the responsibility which it involves, and I realize that its accuracy will shortly be tested by the report of experts who are now examining the accounts. But it will be found that I have spoken the words of truth and soberness. When the Ring absconded I was asked by William C. Havemeyer, then the Mayor of New York, to become a trustee, in order to investigate the expenditures, and to report as to the propriety of going on with the work. This duty was performed without fear or favor. The methods by which the Ring proposed to benefit themselves were clear enough, but its members fled before they succeeded in reimbursing themselves for the preliminary expenses which they had defrayed. With their flight a new era commenced, and during the three years when I acted as a trustee, I am sure that no fraud was committed, and that none was possible. Since that time the Board has been controlled by trustees, some of whom are thorough experts in bridge building, and the others men of such high character that the suggestion of malpractice is improbable to absurdity.

The Bridge has not only been honestly built, but it may be safely asserted that it could not now be duplicated at the same cost. Much money might, however, have been saved if the work had not been delayed through want of means, and unnecessary obstacles interposed by mistaken public officials. Moreover, measured by its capacity, and the limitations imposed on its construction by its relation to the interests of traffic and navigation, it is the cheapest structure ever erected by the genius of man. This will be made evident by a single comparison with the Britannia Tubular Bridge erected by Stephenson over the Menai Straits. He adopted the tubular principle, because he believed that the suspension principle could not be made practical for railway traffic, although he had to deal with spans not greater than 470 feet. He built a structure that contained 10,540 tons of iron, and cost 601,000 pounds sterling, or about $3,000,000. Fortunately he has left a calculation on record as to the possible extension of the tubular girder, showing that it would reach the limits in which it could bear only its own weight (62,000 tons), at 1,570 feet. Now, for a span of 1,595½ feet, the Brooklyn Bridge contains but 6,740 tons of material, and will sustain seven times its own weight. Its cost is $9,000,000, whereas a tubular bridge for the same span would contain ten times the weight of metal, and though costing twice as much money, would be without the ability to do any useful work.

Roebling, therefore, solved the problem which had defied Stephenson; and upon his design has been built a successful structure, at half the cost of a tubular bridge that would have fallen when loaded in actual use. It is impossible to furnish any more striking proof of the genius which originated, and of the economy which constructed this triumph of American engineering.

We have thus a monument to the public spirit of the two cities, created by an expenditure as honest and as economical as the management which gave us the Erie Canal, the Croton Aqueduct, and the Central Park. Otherwise, it would have been a monument to the eternal infamy of the trustees and of the engineers under whose supervision it has been erected, and this brings me to the final consideration which I feel constrained to offer on this point.

During all these years of trial, and false report, a great soul lay in the shadow of death, praying only to stay long enough for the completion of the work to which he had devoted his life. I say a great soul, for in the spring-time of youth, with friends and fortune at his command, he gave himself to his country, and for her sake braved death on many a well-fought battle-field. When restored to civil life, his health was sacrificed to the duties which had devolved upon him, as the inheritor of his father's fame, and the executor of his father's plans. Living only for honor, and freed from the temptations of narrow means, how is it conceivable that such a man—whose approval was necessary to every expenditure—should, by conniving with jobbers, throw away more than the life which was dear to him, that he might fulfill his destiny, and leave to his children the heritage of a good name and the glory of a grand achievement? Well may this suffering hero quote the words of Hyperion: "Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much; and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and slept the sleep of death, and the world talks of them while they sleep! And as in the sun's eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in this life-eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great eternity, burning solemnly and forever!"

And now what is to be the outcome of this great expenditure upon the highway which unites the two cities, for which Dr. Storrs and I have the honor to speak to-day? That Brooklyn will gain in numbers and in wealth with accelerated speed is a foregone conclusion. Whether this gain shall in any wise be at the expense of New York, is a matter in regard to which the great metropolis does not concern herself. Her citizens are content with the knowledge that she exists and grows with the growth of the whole country, of whose progress and prosperity she is but the exponent and the index. Will the Bridge lead, as has been forcibly suggested, and in some quarters hopefully anticipated, to the further union of the two cities under one name and one government? This suggestion is in part sentimental and in part practical. So far as the union in name is concerned, it is scarcely worth consideration, for in any comparison which our national or local pride may institute between this metropolis and the other great cities of the world, its environment, whether in Long Island, Staten Island, or New Jersey, will always be included. In considering the population of London, no one ever separates the city proper from the surrounding parts. They are properly regarded as one homogeneous aggregation of human beings.

It is only when we come to consider the problem of governing great masses that the serious elements of the question present themselves, and must be determined before a satisfactory answer can be given. The tendency of modern civilization is towards the concentration of population in dense masses. This is due to the higher and more diversified life, which can be secured by association and co-operation on a large scale, affording not merely greater comfort and often luxury, but actually distributing the fruits of labor on a more equitable basis than is possible in sparsely settled regions and among feeble communities. The great improvements of our day in labor-saving machinery, and its application to agriculture, enable the nation to be fed with a less percentage of its total force thus applied, and leave a larger margin of population free to engage in such other pursuits as are best carried on in large cities.

The disclosures of the last census prove the truth of this statement. At the first census in 1790 the population resident in cities was 3.3 per cent. of the total population. This percentage slowly gained at each successive census, until in 1840 it had reached 8.5 per cent. In fifty years it had thus gained a little over five per cent. But in 1850 it rose to 12.5 per cent.; in 1860 it was 16.1 per cent.; in 1870 it was 20.9 per cent., having in this one decade gained as much as in the first fifty years of our political existence. In 1880 the population resident in cities was 22.5 per cent. of the whole population.

With this rapid growth of urban population, have grown the contemporaneous complaints of corrupt administration and bad municipal government. The outcry may be said to be universal, for it comes from both sides of the Atlantic; and the complaints appear to be in direct proportion to the size of cities. It is obvious, therefore, that the knowledge of the art of local government has not kept pace with the growth of population. I am here by your favor to speak for the city of New York, and I should be the last person to throw any discredit on its fair fame; but I think I only give voice to the general feeling, when I say that the citizens of New York are satisfied neither with the structure of its government, nor with its actual administration, even when it is in the hands of intelligent and honest officials. Dissatisfied as we are, no man has been able to devise a system which commends itself to the general approval, and it may be asserted that the remedy is not to be found in devices for any special machinery of government. Experiments without number have been tried, and suggestions in infinite variety have been offered, but to-day no man can say that we have approached any nearer to the idea of good government, which is demanded by the intelligence and the wants of the community.