Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883Kingsley, William C.
History
Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883
Kingsley, William C.
Brooklyn Bridge (New York, N.Y.)
The men who controlled this enterprise at the outset were not all of
the best type; some of them, as we have seen, were public jobbers. But
they knew that they could not build a bridge, although they had no
doubt of their ability to govern a city. They thereupon proceeded to
organize the knowledge which existed as to the construction of
bridges; and they held the organization thus created responsible for
results. Now, we know that it is at least as difficult to govern a
city as to build a bridge, and yet, as citizens, we have deliberately
allowed the ignorance of the community to be organized for its
government, and we then complain that it is a failure. Until we
imitate the example of the Ring, and organize the intelligence of the
community for its government, our complaint is childish and
unreasonable. But we shall be told that there is no analogy between
building a bridge and governing a city. Let us examine this objection.
A city is made up of infinite interests. They vary from hour to hour,
and conflict is the law of their being. Many of the elements of social
life are what mathematicians term "variables of the independent
order." The problem is, to reconcile these conflicting interests and
variable elements into one organization which shall work without jar,
and allow each citizen to pursue his calling, if it be an honest one,
in peace and quiet.
Now, turn to the Bridge. It looks like a motionless mass of masonry
and metal; but, as a matter of fact, it is instinct with motion. There
is not a particle of matter in it which is at rest even for the
minutest portion of time. It is an aggregation of unstable elements,
changing with every change in the temperature, and every movement of
the heavenly bodies. The problem was, out of these unstable elements,
to produce absolute stability; and it was this problem which the
engineers, the organized intelligence, had to solve, or confess to
inglorious failure. The problem has been solved. In the first
construction of suspension bridges it was attempted to check, repress
and overcome their motion, and failure resulted. It was then seen that
motion is the law of existence for suspension bridges, and provision
was made for its free play. Then they became a success. The Bridge
before us elongates and contracts between the extremes of temperature
from 14 to 16 inches; the vertical rise and fall in the centre of the
main span ranges between 2 ft. 3 in. and 2 ft. 9 in.; and before the
suspenders were attached to the cable it actually revolved on its own
axis through an arc of thirty degrees, when exposed to the sun shining
upon it on one side. You do not perceive this motion, and you would
know nothing about it unless you watched the gauges which record its
movement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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