346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



were limited to the demands of tlie time, and controlled by the neces- 

 sity for a profitable investment. He had no expectation that the two 

 cities would embark in the enterjDrise. Indeed, in one of bis letters so 

 late as April 14, 18G0, 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 oc- 

 curred, 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, boule- 

 vards, 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 un- 

 dertaken. 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 con- 

 sul of ancient Rome, in Macaulay's stirring poem : 



" 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 Avhen 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 esti- 

 mates 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 sub- 

 scriptions, and to the cost of additional height and breadth of the 



