The Great Bridge (50 page)

Were he asked point-blank which were the finest samples tested to date, he told Murphy, it would be those from Richard Johnson & Nephew of Manchester, England. As far as the bids themselves were concerned, he remained “in total ignorance.”

Hill, however, had still more to say. The mathematics in the specifications were not up to snuff, he next claimed, and the
Herald
presented his own computations, in several long, dense paragraphs, full of wire weights and measurements, diameters and principles of physics, very little of which anyone other than a professional engineer could or would wish to struggle through. But seeing it all set forth in print in one of New York’s most powerful papers had a profound effect on the nervous system of those trustees who had had any prior misgivings about Roebling’s ability to handle the job, most of whom knew next to nothing about engineering.

“Of course this is only a theoretical demonstration,” Hill remarked in conclusion. Just how the
Herald
happened to come upon Hill or why the editors chose to give his opinions such a play was not made clear. He had never built a suspension bridge, as he admitted. None of the assistant engineers had ever heard of him, including Martin, who had been a Brooklyn man for more than twenty years. But the
Herald
called Hill’s argument clear and lucid and claimed the errors in Roebling’s calculations were so glaring that the specifications were worthless and no contracts should be made on them.
Herald
reporters looked up another engineer who agreed with Hill, a General Francis Vinton, professor of civil engineering at Columbia, who was interviewed at his bachelor quarters at the Racquet Club.
Herald
editorials demanded that the bridge trustees answer the charges and every one connected with the management of the bridge began getting extremely edgy.

The gist of all Hill’s arithmetic was that the Number 8 wire being specified had a breaking strength of 3,600 pounds instead of 3,400 as Roebling had it.

In actual fact, there was nothing at all to Hill’s charges, as anyone working on the wire tests could have shown, and as would be explained by Paine very shortly. But before that happened three badly informed trustees agreed to be interviewed on the subject. General Aspinwall made the silly comment that with 6,300 wires in each cable he did not see how a difference of two hundred pounds one way or the other mattered much; Thomas Kinsella said simply that he was going along with Hewitt on all this and that Hewitt, who was a wire manufacturer himself, had found nothing wrong with the specifications. And the third man, who refused to be named, said he could understand why Roebling might want his brother to get the contract. If he were Roebling, he said, he would want his brother to get the contract.

Hill fired back that a difference of 200 pounds per wire among 6,300 wires added up to a 1,260,000-pound difference and that he was not out to prove Roebling was no engineer. In conclusion he added a last gratuitous comment, which Roebling doubtless found about as revolting as anything said about him to date:

To a great many people it probably seemed that an absurdly big fuss was being made over very little. But the effect on several trustees was quite serious just the same. Hastily it was decided that the specifications and tests were “worthy of investigation” and Murphy told Paine to come up with an answer to Hill’s charges at once.

Ferdinand Roebling came on from Trenton to tell Henry Murphy that the Roebling family had had about enough of all this and to simplify things would just as soon withdraw their bid. But Murphy, who seems to have maintained his composure, talked him out of it.

Two days before Christmas Murphy called a private meeting of the Executive Committee to consider the bids and make a recommendation. The tests, he announced, were now completed and he had a report on the results from the Chief Engineer. He also had Paine’s reply.

Hill’s theoretical mathematics, Paine explained, were based on Hill’s own figures for the specific gravity and diameter of Number 8, Birmingham gauge. These were different from the ones the bridge engineers were going by, which, he acknowledged, were round figures. “These specifications were intended for the guidance of practical wiremakers,” Paine said, “and are written in plain language, easily understood by practical men, and are not incumbered by the formula employed, or the details of calculations necessarily used in their construction.” He proceeded then to disprove each of Hill’s charges, point by point, confirming the accuracy of the specifications to the satisfaction of everyone at the meeting. Paine did not, however, attempt any answer to the question Hill had raised about the quality of steel to be used.

Murphy next read Roebling’s report on the tests.

The letter was dated December 18. Roebling still had not been told which firm was lowest bidder or what any of the bids were. He said that nearly every bidder had been able to meet the standards required. Except for a few cases, he had no information concerning the variety of steel used in the numerous samples submitted. Nor did he know whether the manufacturers had provided that information with their bids. Regardless, he said, “It would be very unwise to accept two special prepared rings, as an absolute guarantee of the perfection of 6,000,000 pounds.” He then gave a brief account of each manufacturer’s samples, describing the first on his list this way:

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 “C
HEAP
S
TEEL
I
NSURES A
W
EAK
B
RIDGE
,” 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.

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.