The Great Bridge

by David McCullough

  Mr. J. Lloyd Haigh presented several samples of very good wire, apparently cast-steel, of three different stocks. The tensile strength exceeding the requirements, the elongation very good, the elastic limit up to the mark, the modulus of elasticity admissible. This wire is very straight, galvanizing smooth, the polish, though of no advantage, adds to the appearance of the wire….

  The best wire was from the English firm Richard Johnson & Nephew. The rings from the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company were quite good, but not well galvanized. A German wire was also rated as excellent, and one ring of Bessemer steel wire from John A. Roebling’s Sons was designated very good, but two other Roebling rings, of cast steel, had not stood up to the bending tests satisfactorily.

  Once Murphy had finished Roebling’s report, the committee unanimously recommended that the contract be awarded to John A. Roebling’s Sons and Murphy was requested to convene a special meeting of the board the following week.

  But now things began changing swiftly behind the scenes. Several trustees, and most notably Thomas Kinsella, began playing for time. When the board met next, two days after Christmas, it was decided, on a motion from Kinsella, to postpone the final vote on the contract for two more weeks. The newspapers were informed that the results of the tests were still under consideration. Only the bids were released for publication, which made headlines but left the story still very much in the air.

  These latest delays were the direct result of the Hill disclosures, the Herald quickly claimed, commending the “honorable members” of the board for their discretion. A little later, under an article headed “CHEAP STEEL INSURES A WEAK BRIDGE,” the paper insisted that the whole issue at stake was the one Hill raised at the start: why Roebling had not specified crucible steel.

  Then the night before the trustees were to meet to vote, the Eagle, after first demolishing Hill’s attack (Hill was actually a Hungarian, the Eagle had earlier claimed, by way of a disclosure), suggested that perhaps Bessemer steel was not after all the best answer. “Unquestionably Bessemer steel wire is the cheapest,” wrote Kinsella in a three-column editorial, “but whether the trustees should get the cheapest wire, or the best at the cheapest rate, is the question which they will be called upon tomorrow to consider.”

  Kinsella also pointedly raised the issue of Roebling’s connection to his family’s business, and even implied that perhaps Roebling’s break with the business was not altogether certain or done for the most commendable reason. “He had recently, it appears, sold out his interest in the Trenton works, so as not to embarrass his brothers…There is no disguising the fact, however, that the whole subject is complicated by this consideration.”

  For anyone who had been following the story closely, it was clear the tables were turning. Never once before had the Eagle had a critical word for Roebling. Indeed it was Kinsella, more than anyone, who had made such a popular figure of the man. Moreover, Kinsella’s call for the best steel at the cheapest price was clearly another way of saying that the contract ought to go to the lowest bidder for crucible steel, who, of course, was J. Lloyd Haigh of Brooklyn. But no one knew which of the other trustees Kinsella was speaking for or how many of them there were.

  The meeting of the trustees on the afternoon of January 11, 1877, was held as usual in the board room of the bridge offices, where now the model of Roebling cable exhibited at the Centennial was prominently on display, along with Hildenbrand’s mural-sized drawing in a mammoth frame. The meeting was the largest ever held. Nineteen were present, which was the entire board save one—Abram Hewitt, who was “unavoidably detained” in Washington, but whose presence would be very much felt all the same. Also in the room, sitting unobtrusively in the back and saying nothing, were a few privileged visitors, one of whom was J. Lloyd Haigh.

  First on the agenda was the annual report from the Chief Engineer covering the year 1876, which was presented by Henry Murphy. The document included, among other things, Roebling’s explanation of how and why the wire had been tested, and emphasized, as Roebling had to Murphy, that the tests should not be taken as a hard-and-fast guarantee. “The assurance of the correct performance of these tests must remain a matter of confidence and trust,” said the Chief Engineer. “The building of the whole bridge is a matter of trust.”

  The board then proceeded to consider the resolution from the Executive Committee recommending that the contract be awarded to the Roebling company. General Slocum wanted Army engineers appointed to inspect the wire before it left the Roebling works. This he said would entirely remove all public suspicion about the Chief Engineer. Action on the resolution was deferred.

  Then the chair was asked to read a letter from Abram Hewitt, dated Washington, January 8. The letter was addressed to Murphy and was quite long. Hewitt was still extremely concerned about who was to get the wire contract.

  He began by saying that if the trustees were willing to rely on the specifications and on the kind of inspection called for in the specifications, then he did not see how the trustees could do anything but award the contract to the lowest bidder, the Roeblings.

  In this event, however, in view of the personal relation of the chief engineer to the stockholders of that company, and for the protection of the honorable reputation which he deservedly enjoys, it seems to me that it will be the imperative duty of the trustees to provide for the inspection of the wire entirely independent of the supervision and control of the chief engineer. In this particular I have no doubt I only anticipate a request delicacy and a sense of propriety would have led him to make to the trustees.

  But, said Hewitt, there remained the very big question of whether the specifications guaranteed a suitable quality of wire, provided it were of Bessemer steel, and in his opinion they did not. He did not consider Bessemer steel of sufficient quality. He had had a great deal of experience in these matters, he said, and the kind of tests Roebling had designated were not enough to prove or disprove the quality of Bessemer wire.

  So far as I can see, therefore, a proper regard for the public safety requires that the trustees should either stipulate on the contract that Bessemer steel should not be employed for the manufacture of the wire, or if it be employed the wire should be subjected to different and more ample tests than are provided for in the existing specifications. Those tests should be made by engineers having no relations to the contractors…

  …I confess that I have such grave doubts that I would not venture to record my vote in favor of Bessemer steel upon the tests now provided for in the specifications, and I am convinced that the apparent economy involved in the use of wire made from this material should not weigh against the risk involved in its use, unless it can be more carefully guarded than it now appears to be…

  The letter was a bombshell. This was the same Hewitt who, four months earlier, sitting in this same room, had called the specifications “eminently wise” and whose own much publicized resolution had supposedly resolved all ethical questions raised by Roebling’s ties to the wire business. Moreover, Hewitt happened also to be the very one who had urged Roebling not to specify crucible steel this time, but to leave the bidding open for Bessemer steel as well.

  Still, Hewitt was the expert, supposedly, and a looming figure these days, particularly among Democrats. And irrespective of politics or personalities, grave suspicions had been raised by the Hill attack and even the fairest, most impartial men in the room were quite honestly at a loss to know just whom to go along with: Hewitt or Roebling?

  Furthermore, in the back of everyone’s mind were two very recent sensational tragedies. On the night of December 5, the Brooklyn Theater, built by William Kingsley’s construction company and owned by his partner, Abner Keeney, had caught fire and 295 people had lost their lives, many of them because the balcony had collapsed. It was the worst disaster in the city’s history. Then on the night of December 29, one of the worst railroad disasters of the nineteenth century occurred when a bridge failed at Ashtabula, Ohio. The bridge was just eleven years
old, a wrought-iron truss over a seventy-five-foot gorge. When a train pulled by two locomotives started across it in the middle of a snowstorm, the center span gave way. It was thought that the metal had failed somehow. Eighty lives were lost.

  The newspapers were angrily crying for an explanation. Harper’s Weekly in its latest issue asked:

  Was it improperly constructed? Was the iron of inferior quality? After eleven years of service, had it suddenly lost its strength?…Was the bridge, when made, the best of its kind, or the cheapest of its kind?

  The chief engineer of the railroad, a man named Charles Collins, who had had nothing to do with the design of the bridge, but had examined it frequently and conscientiously, tendered his resignation, then committed suicide.

  The Ashtabula bridge had not been cheaply built and the iron had not suddenly lost its strength in some mysterious fashion. As subsequent investigations would show, the bridge probably went down because the derailed wheels of several cars ripped the bridge floor, causing a violent pull of a kind the truss had not been built to withstand. But the idea of bad (cheap) metal failing had been planted in the public mind. *

  After Hewitt’s letter was read the bids were reviewed still one more time, at the request of “Honest John” Kelly, Comptroller of the City of New York, who had replaced Tweed as the head of Tammany Hall. General Aspinwall said the history of crucible steel was too well known to need further consideration. The whole matter resolved itself, he said, into the question of whether they would put into the cables of the bridge a wire made from steel, the strength of which might be in doubt, as was the case with Bessemer steel, or use crucible steel, about which there could be no doubts whatever. Emphatically he was in favor of using crucible steel and nothing else.

  Mayor Ely of New York said this was the most important question put before the trustees in the entire history of the bridge and he personally wanted more time to familiarize himself with the subject. He therefore moved for adjournment. But Stranahan said now was the time to discuss the issue, while there were so many of them present, and the meeting continued.

  At about that point a trustee named William Marshall, who was a wealthy cordage manufacturer and one of Brooklyn’s most prominent citizens, recalled a conversation he had once had with John A. Roebling, during which Roebling talked about a testing strain for the wire that was half what his son had specified. So it did not seem to Marshall that anyone ought to get very worried about the standards called for in the specifications. The important thing, he said, was to buy wire that came up to standards. Thomas Kinsella, who had kept very quiet so far, said he thought no undue weight should be attached to the informal remarks of the elder Roebling. Kinsella did not think the lowest-price steel would be the cheapest. “It was the duty of the trustees to do for the bridge, as they would do for themselves,” he said. He was not interested in any special kind of steel, he wished them to understand. However, he did have an interest and pride in his own city and said he had a natural wish that the contract might come there. (There were two Brooklyn firms in the bidding, J. Lloyd Haigh and the Chrome Steel Company, but the Chrome Steel bid worked out to more than $200,000 higher than the Haigh bid and so was, for all intents and purposes, quite out of the running.) He would vote, Kinsella said, for using crucible steel.

  Henry Murphy read some extracts from engineering papers, extolling the superiority of steel made by the Bessemer process. Then there was a long discussion about what crucible steel was or was not, how Roebling’s earlier specifications called for crucible steel and why that was. William Marshall reminded everyone that the change had been made at Hewitt’s urging. “Mr. Hewitt was something of an expert and ought to know something about steel,” Marshall said. The problem seemed to be that Hewitt could be quoted to substantiate either side of the argument.

  Comptroller Kelly said he wanted the bids for Bessemer steel referred back to the Executive Committee, Kelly wanted the other manufacturers to have the chance to bid on the lower quality of steel (as though they had not in the first place) and he moved the Executive Committee open up the bids again. Aspinwall seconded the idea. The motion carried and that might have ended things for the time being had Kinsella not said that they ought to test the prevailing mood of the meeting on the question of which kind of steel to use. He would offer a motion, he said, to make the contract with the lowest bidder for crucible steel.

  Kelly said he hoped the resolution would not pass. Aspinwall said he did not want to be trapped into committing himself. Kinsella answered that he had no desire to trap anybody. The only object was to call a test vote. Stranahan said the motion, if carried, would pledge them to use crucible steel.

  The vote was taken and the motion lost, 8 to 7, with four abstaining. After a few further comments, the meeting broke up. By that time it was nearing five in the afternoon. But then the Executive Committee met, privately, and instead of reopening the bids as directed by the board, the contract was immediately awarded to J. Lloyd Haigh.

  There is no way of knowing what happened, since everything said in the meeting was kept secret. All Murphy said later in a letter to the board was that the committee’s decision had been the direct result of Kinsella’s test vote. “They [the committee] regard that vote, although wanting one of a majority, still as decisive against the use of Bessemer steel; for in so important a matter as the main cables, it would, in their opinion, be unwise to adopt a material which is distrusted by any considerable portion of the trustees. The question of cost is an important one, but it is subordinate to that of safety, and the difference of expense between the two is comparatively too small to permit such difference to prevent unanimity and entire confidence.” (The difference between the Haigh bid and that of the Roeblings for Bessemer steel came to $132,600.) The official record of the committee meeting states there were seven men present—Murphy, Stranahan, Slocum, Van Schaick, Motley, Marshall, and Kingsley.

  How close was the vote? Who voted which way? The record provides no answers.

  Since its meeting of December 23, the committee had done a complete about-face. But because everything was done in private, the public, to whom the bridge supposedly belonged, would never know anything about that. Four days later, on Monday, January 15, another special meeting of the board was called. Murphy announced that J. Lloyd Haigh would post $50,000, or about 10 per cent of the contract, as surety, and he read a letter in which Haigh promised to supply crucible steel of the same quality as his samples. Then a resolution giving Haigh the contract was adopted by a vote of 16 to 1, the one dissenting vote being cast by William Marshall.

  So the wire in the bridge would not be Roebling wire. It would be made in Brooklyn by the one man Roebling had specifically warned Murphy not to trust.

  The news was warmly received in Brooklyn. Thomas Kinsella called the decision “most satisfactory” and said it was a “matter for congratulation” that a Brooklyn manufacturer had won out over the leading wiremakers of America and Europe (he did not specify which he meant). The resolution of this whole wire controversy was a great triumph the Eagle contended. “It is, we suppose, admitted on all hands that the cables which are to sustain the bridge structure are the most important features of this great undertaking. These failing, all fails.”

  The Union wrote that the bridge trustees had honored themselves and said, “We shall try to forget as soon as possible that they were ever brought to discuss so absurd a proposition as the use of Bessemer steel.” The impression left was that a catastrophic blunder had been narrowly averted. Someone had not known what he was doing and that someone had to be Roebling. The Union wanted prompt action taken.

  …They.. They [the trustees] can help us and the public to forget this by taking the next most necessary step in their great undertaking, the selection at once of a suitable and eminent consulting engineer. We know the exceeding delicacy of this point. No one, and not we, certainly, desires to be unconcerned or lacking in sympathy with the physical troubles and disabilities of the prese
nt Chief Engineer…But we must deal with things as they are; the subject is too important for sentiment, and the bridge needs the live attention of a man in his best powers. It is almost such a case as that where General Winfield Scott used to sit in lethargy over the early business of the war, when the great rebellion at its outbreak found him with his great powers masked and half useless by the infirmities of age. It seemed to be unkind and treasonable to say of this old hero, and in his presence, that the duties of the Commander-in-Chief must be done by someone who could take the field, endure the hardship, and live in the saddle…. So now the great bridge enterprise needs an active consulting engineer, bringing to his duties the best qualities of natural fitness and training, with physical powers equal to every emergency. It is loading a great and difficult undertaking to an unnecessary strain, this carrying with it its disabled chief engineer, and keeping down its discussions to the atmosphere and the hush of his sick room…

  There had been no comment from Roebling since the wire decision was announced, nor any from either of his brothers in Trenton. But a few days later, the following letter appeared in the Eagle. It was signed “Tripod.” Quite possibly it was written by Washington Roebling.

  My attention has been called to an article in the Union, relating to the appointment of a consulting engineer for the New York and Brooklyn Bridge. I know not what power behind the throne dictates the spirit of this, and similar articles, though I am forced to the conclusion that there is one as there was in the case of Mr. Hill, who professed to expose inaccuracies in the specifications for the wire, a matter by the way, in which he has finally failed…