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Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
THE GREAT BRIDGE 
 
 THE ORATIONS OP 
 
 Hon. ABRAM S. HEWITT 
 
 AND 
 
 Rev. Dr. R. S. STORRS 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF BRIDGB 
 
 BETWEEN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN, 
 
 MAY 24, 1883. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER 
 
 1885. 
 

 TR0W8 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDINQ COMPANY^ 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 ORATION OF ABRAM S. HEWITT. 
 
 Two hundred and seventy years ago the good ship 
 Tiger, commanded by Captain Adraien Block, was 
 burned to the water's edge as she hiy at anclior just off 
 the southern end of Manhattan Island. Her crew, thus 
 forced into winter quarters, were the first white men 
 who built and occupied a house on the land where New 
 York now stands; ''then," to quote the graphic lan- 
 guage of Mrs. Lamb in her history of the city, "in 
 primeval solitude, waiting till commerce should come 
 and claim its own. Nature wore a hardy countenance, as 
 wild and as untamed as the savage landholders. Manhat- 
 tan's twenty-two thousand acres of rock, lake and rolling 
 table-land, rising at places to a height of one hundred 
 and thirty-eight feet, were covered with sombre forests, 
 grassy knolls and dismal swamps. The trees were lofty; 
 and old, decayed and withered limbs contrasted with the 
 younger growth of branches; and wild flowers wasted 
 their sweetness among the dead leaves and uncut herb- 
 age at their roots. The wanton grapevine swung care- 
 lessly from the topmost boughs of the oak and the syca- 
 more; and blackberry and raspberry bushes, like a 
 picket guard, presented a bold front in all possible ave- 
 nues of approach. The entire surface of the island was 
 bold and granitic, and in profile resembled the cartilag- 
 inous back of the sturgeon." This pimeval scene was 
 the product of natural forces working through un- 
 
4 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 counted periods of time; the contineut slowly rising and 
 falling in the sea like the heaving breast of a world 
 asleep ; glaciers carving patiently through ages the deep 
 estuaries; seasons innumerable clothing the hills with 
 alternate bloom and decay. 
 
 The same sun shines to-day upon the same earth ; yet 
 how transformed! Could there be a more astounding 
 exhibition of the power of man to change the face of 
 nature than the panoramic view which presents itself 
 to the spectator standing upon the crowning arch of the 
 Bridge whose completion we are here to-day to celebrate 
 in the honored presence of the President of the United 
 States, with their fifty millions; of the Governor of the 
 State of New York, with its five millions; and of the 
 Mayors of the two cities, aggregating over two millions 
 of inhabitants? In the place of stillness and solitude, 
 the footsteps of these millions of human beings; instead 
 of the smooth waters, " uu vexed by any keel," highways 
 of commerce ablaze with the flags of all the nations; and 
 where once was the green monotony of forested hills, the 
 piled and towering splendors of a vast metropolis, the 
 countless homes of industry, the echoing marts of trade 
 the gorgeous palaces of luxury, the silent and steadfast 
 spires of worship! 
 
 To crown all, the work of separation wrought so surely, 
 yet so slowly, by the hand of time, is now reversed in 
 our own day, and " Manahatta" and '* Seawauhaka" are 
 joined again as once they were before the dawn of life 
 in the far azoic ages. 
 
 "It is donel 
 
 Clang of bell and roar of gun 
 Send the tidings up and down. 
 
 How the belfries rock and reel ! 
 
 How the great guns, peal on peal, 
 Fling the joy from town to town '" 
 
ORATION OF ABEAM S, HEWITT. 5 
 
 ** What liatli God wrought!" were the words of won- 
 der which ushered into being the magnetic telegraph, 
 the greatest marvel of the many marvelous inventions 
 of the present century. It was the natural impulse of 
 the pious maiden who chose this first message of rever- 
 ence and awe, to look to the Divine Power as the au- 
 thor of a new gospel. For it was the invisible, and not 
 the visible agency which addressed itself to her percep- 
 tions. Neither the bare poles, nor the slender wire, nor 
 even the small battery, could suggest an adequate ex- 
 planation for the extinction of time and space which was 
 manifest to her senses, and she could only say, " What 
 hath God wrought!" 
 
 But when we turn from the unsightly telegrapli to 
 the graceful structure at whose portal we stand, and 
 Avhen we contrast the airy outline of its curves of beauty 
 pendant between massive towers suggestive of art alone, 
 with the over-reaching vault of heaven above and the 
 ever-moviug flood of waters beneath* the work of om- 
 nipotent power, we are irresistibly moved to exclaim, 
 What hath man wrought! 
 
 SUCH A STRUCTURE ONLY POSSIBI-E IN THIS AGE. 
 
 Man hath indeed wrought for more than strikes the 
 eye in this daring undertaking, which, by the general 
 judgment of engineers, stands to (fay without a rival 
 among the wonders of human skill. It is not the work 
 of any one man or of any one age. It is the result of the 
 study of the experience and of the knowledge of many 
 men in many ages. It is not merely a creation ; it is a 
 growth. It stands before us to-day as the sum and epi- 
 tome of human knowledge; as the very heir of the nges; 
 as the latest glory of centuries of patient observation, 
 profound study and accumulated skill, gained, step by 
 
6 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 step, in th3 never-endmg struggle of man to subdue the 
 forces of nature to bis control and use. 
 
 In no previous period of the world's history could 
 this Bridge have been built. Within the last hundred 
 years the greater part of the knowledge necessary for 
 its erection has been gained. Chemistry was not born 
 until 1776, the year when political economy was ushered 
 into the world by Adam Smith, and the Declaration 
 of Independence was proclaimed by the Continental 
 Congress, to be maintained at the point of the sword 
 by George Washington. In the same year Watt pro- 
 duced his successful steam engine, and a century has 
 not elapsed since the first specimen of his skill was 
 erected on this continent. The law of gravitation was 
 indeed known a hundred years ago, but the intricate 
 laws of force wdiich now control the domain of industry 
 had not been developed by the study of physical science, 
 and their practical applications have only been effectually 
 accomplished within our own day, and indeed, some of 
 the most important of them during the building of the 
 Bridge. For use in the caissons, the perfecting of the 
 electric light came too late, though happily in season 
 for the illumination of the finished work. 
 
 This construction has not only employed every abstract 
 conclusion and formula of mathematics, whether derived 
 from the study of the earth or the heavens, but the whole 
 structure may be said to rest upon mathematical founda- 
 tion. The great discoveries of chemistry, shoAving the 
 composition of water, the nature of gases, the properties 
 of metals, the laws and processes of physics, from the 
 strains and pressures of mighty masses to the delicate 
 vibrations of molecules, are all recorded here. Every 
 department of human industr}^ is represented, from the 
 quarrying and cutting of the stones, the mining and 
 
ORATION OF ABB AM S. HEWITT. 7 
 
 smelting of the ores, the conversion of iron into steel by 
 tiie pneumatic process, to the final shaping of the masses 
 of metal into useful forms and its reduction into wire 
 so as to develop in the highest degree the tensile strength 
 which fits it for the work of suspension. Every tool 
 which the ingenuity of man has invented has some- 
 where, in some special detail, contributed its share ia 
 the accomplishment of the final result. 
 
 *' Ah! what a wondrous thing it is 
 To note how many wheels of toil 
 One word, one thought can set in motion." 
 
 But without the most recent discoveries of science, 
 which have enabled steel to be substituted for iron — ap- 
 plications made since the original plans of the Bridge 
 were devised — we should liave had a structure fit, in- 
 deed, for use, but of such moderate capacity that we 
 could not have justified the claim which we are now 
 able to make, that the cities of New York and Brooklyn 
 have constructed, and to-day rejoice in the possession 
 of the crowning glory of an age memorable for great 
 industrial achievements. 
 
 This is not the proper occasion for describing the 
 details of this undertaking. This grateful task will be 
 performed by the engineer in the final report, with 
 which every great work is properly committed to the 
 judgment of posterity. But there are some lessons to 
 be drawn from the hasty considerations I have pre- 
 sented, which may encourage and comfort us as to the 
 destiny of man, and the outcome of human progress. 
 
 What message, then, of hope and cheer does this 
 achievement convey to those who would fain believe 
 that love travels hand in hand with light along the 
 rugged pathway of time? Have the discoveries of sci- 
 ence, the triumphs of art, and the progress of civiliza- 
 
8 THE GREAT BBIBGE. 
 
 tion, which have made its coDStniction a possibility and 
 a reality, promoted the welfare of mankind, and raised 
 the great mass of the people to a higher plane of life? 
 
 SOCIAL CHANGES WHICH THE BRIDGE ILLUSTRATES. 
 
 This question can best be answered by comparing" ihe 
 compensation of the labor employed in the building of 
 this bridge with the earnings of labor employed uj^on 
 works of equal magnitude in ages gone by. The money 
 expended for the work of construction proper on the 
 bridge, exclusive of laud damages and other expenses, 
 such as interest, not entering into actual cost, is nine 
 million ($9,000,000) dollars. This money has been dis- 
 tributed in numberless channels— for quarrying, for 
 mining, for smelting, for fabricating the metals, for 
 shaping the materials, and erecting the work, employ- 
 ins: every kind and form of human labor. The wasres 
 paid at the bridge itself may be taken as the fair stand- 
 ard of the wages paid for the work done elsevrhere. 
 These wages are : 
 
 Average. 
 
 Laborf^rs $1 T5 per day. 
 
 Blacksmiths 3 50 to $4 00 per day. 
 
 Carpenters 3 00 to 3 50 per day. 
 
 Masons and stonecutters 3 50 to 4 00 per day. 
 
 Riggers 2 00 to 2 50 per day. 
 
 Painters 2 00 to 2 50 per day. 
 
 Taking all these kinds of labor into account, the 
 wages paid for work on the bridge will thus average 
 $2.50 per day. 
 
 Now if this work had been done at the time when the 
 Pyramids were built, with the skill, appliances, and 
 tools then in use, and if the money available for its exe- 
 cution had been limited to nine million ($9,000,000) dol- 
 lars the laborers employed would have received an 
 average of not more than two cents per day in money of 
 
OPINION OF ABRAM S. HEWITT, 9 
 
 the same purchasing power as the coin of the present 
 era. In other words, the effect of the discoveries of 
 new methods, tools, and laws of force has been to raise 
 the wages of labor more than a hundredfold in the in- 
 terval which has elapsed since tlie Pyramids were built. 
 I shall not weaken the suggestive force of this statement 
 by any comments upon the astounding evidence of prog- 
 ress, beyond the obvious corollary that such a state of 
 civilization as gave birth to the Pyramids would now be 
 the signal for universal bloodshed, revolution, and an- 
 archy. I do not underestimate the hardships borne by 
 the labor of this century. They are, indeed, grievous, 
 and to lighten them is, as it should be, the chief con- 
 cern of statesmanship. But this compai-ison proves 
 that through fortyHenturies these hardships have been 
 steadily diminished; that all the achievements of sci- 
 ence, all the discoveries of art, all the inventions of 
 genius, all the progress of civilization tend by a higher 
 and inmiutable law to the steady and certain ameliora- 
 tion of the condition of society. It shows that, not- 
 withstanding the apparent growth of great fortunes, due 
 to an era of unparalled development, the distribution 
 of the fruits of labor is approaching from age to age to 
 more equitable conditions, and must at last reach the 
 plane of absolute justice between man and man. 
 
 But this is not the only lesson to be drawn from such 
 a comparison. The Pyramids were built by the sacri- 
 fices of the living for the dead. They served ro useful 
 purpose, except to make odious to future generations 
 the tyranny which reduces human beings into beasts of 
 burden. In this age of the world such a waste of effort 
 would not be tolerated. To-day the expenditures of 
 communities are directed to useful purposes. Except 
 only works designed for defense in time of war, the 
 
10 THE GREAT BRIDGE, 
 
 wealth of society is now mainly expended in opening 
 channels of communication for the free play of com- 
 merce and the communion of the human race. An 
 analysis of the distribution of the surplus earnings of 
 man after providing food, shelter, and raiment, sliows 
 thiit they are chiefly absorbed by railways, canals, ships, 
 bridges, and telegraphs. In ancient times these objects 
 of expenditure were scarcely known. Our bridge is 
 one of the most conspicuous examples of this change 
 in the social condition of the world and of the feeling 
 of men. In the Middle Ages cities walled each other 
 out, and the fetters of prejudice and tyranny held the 
 energies of man in hopeless bondage. To-day men and 
 nations seek free intercourse with each other, and the 
 whole force of the intellect and enft-gy of the world is 
 expended in breaking down the barriers established by 
 nature or created by man, to the solidarity of the human 
 race. 
 
 And yet in view of this tendency, the most striking 
 and characteristic feature of the nineteenth century, 
 there still are those who believe and teach that obstruc- 
 tion is the creator of wealih; that the peoples can be 
 made great and free by the erection of artificial barriers 
 to the beneficent action of commerce, and the unre- 
 stricted intercourse of men and nations with each 
 other. If they are right, then this bridge is a gigantic 
 blunder, and the doctrine which bids us love our neigh- 
 bors as ourselves is founded upon a misconception of 
 the Divine purpose. 
 
 A MONUMENT OF DEVOTION TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 
 
 But the Bridge is more than an embodiment of the 
 scientific knowledge of physical laws or a symbol of 
 social tendencies. It is equally a monument to the 
 
ORATION OF ABEAM S, HEWITT, 11 
 
 moral qualities of the human soul. It could never have 
 been built by mere knowledge and scientific skill alone. 
 It required in addition the infinite patience and un- 
 wearied courage by w^hicli great results are achieved. 
 It demanded the endurance of heat and cold and physi- 
 cal distress. Its constructors have had to face death in 
 its most repulsive form. Death, indeed, was the fate 
 of its great projector, and dread disease the heritage of 
 the greater engineer who has brought it to completion. 
 The faith of the saint and the courage of the hero have 
 been combined in the conception, the design and the 
 execution of this work 
 
 Let ns then record the names of the engineers and 
 foremen who have thus made humanity itself their 
 debtor, for the successful achievement which is not the 
 result of accident or of chance, but is the fruit of de- 
 sign, and of the consecration of all personal interest to 
 the public weal. They are: John A. Roebling, who 
 conceived tlie project and formulated the plan of the 
 Bridge; Washington A. Roebling, who, inheriting his 
 father's genius, and more than his father's knowledge 
 and skill, has directed the execution of this great work 
 from its inception to its completion; aided in the several 
 departments by Charles C. Martin, Francis CoUingwood, 
 William H. Payne, George W. McNulty, AVillielm Hil- 
 derbrand, Samuel R. Probasco and E. F. Farrington, 
 Arthur V. Abbott, William Vander Boscli, Charles 
 Young, and Harry Tupple, who, in apparently subor- 
 dinate positions, have shown themselves peculiarly fit- 
 ted to command, because they have known how to 
 serve. But the record would not be complete without 
 reverence to the unnamed men by whose unflinching 
 courage, in the depths of the caissons and upon the sus- 
 pended wires, the work was carried on amid storms and 
 
12 TEE GREAT BRIBQE, 
 
 accidents and dangers sufficient to appal the stoutest 
 heart. To them we can only render the tribute which 
 history accords to those wlio fight as privates in the 
 battle of freedom, with all the more devotion and 
 patriotism because their names will never be known by 
 tlie world, whose benefactors they are. One name, liow- 
 ever, which will find no place in the official records, 
 cannot be passed over here in silence. In ancient times 
 when great works were constructed a goddess was 
 chosen to whose tender care they were dedicated. Thus 
 the ruins of the Acropolis to-day recall the name of 
 Pallas Athene to an admiring world. In the Middle 
 Ages the blessing of some saint was invoked to protect 
 from the rude barbarians, and the destructive hand of 
 time the building erected by man's devotion to the 
 worship of God. So with this Bridge will ever be 
 coupled the thought of one through the subtle alembic 
 of whose brain, and by whose facile fingers communi- 
 cation was maintained betw^een the directing power of 
 its construct ion and the obedient agencies of its execu- 
 tion. It is thus an everlasting mcmument to the self- 
 sacriticing devotion of woman and of her capacit}^ for 
 that higher education from which she has been too long 
 debarred. The name of ]Mrs. Emily Warren Roebling 
 will thus be inseparably associated with all that is ad- 
 mirable in human nature, and with all that is wonderful 
 in the constructive world of art. 
 
 JOHN A. HOEBLTNG'S PLAN OF THE BRIDGE. 
 
 This tribute to the engineers, however, would not be 
 deserved if there is to be found any evidence of decep- 
 tion on their part in the origin of the work, or any com- 
 plicity with fraud in its execution and completion. It 
 is this consideration which induced me to accept the 
 
ORATION OF ABEAM S. HEWITT, 13 
 
 unexpected invitation of the trustees to speak for the 
 City of New York on the present occasion. When they 
 thus honored me, they did not know that John Roeb- 
 ling addressed to rne the letter in which he first sug- 
 gested (and, so for as I am aware, he was the first engi- 
 neer to suggest), the feasibility of a bridge between the 
 two cities, so constructed as to preserve unimpaired the 
 freedom of navigation. This letter, dated June 19, 
 1857, I caused to be printed in The Journal of Commerce, 
 where it attracted great attention, because it came from 
 an engineer who had already demonstrated by success- 
 fully building suspension bridges over the Schuykill, 
 the Ohio and the Niagara rivers, that he spoke with 
 the voice of experience and authority. This letter was 
 the first step toward the construction of the work 
 wdiich, however, came about in a manner different from 
 his expectations, and was finally completed on a plan 
 more extensive than he had ventured to describe. It 
 has been charged that the original estimates of cost have 
 been far exceeded by the actual outlay. If this were 
 true, the words of praise which I have uttered for the 
 eni2:ineers who designed and executed this work, oudit 
 rather to have been a sentence of censure and condem- 
 nation. Hence the invitation which came to me un- 
 sought seemed rather to be an appeal from the grave 
 for such vindication as it was in my power to make, 
 and which could not come with equal force from any 
 other quarter. 
 
 Engineers are of two kinds: the creative and the con- 
 structive. The power to conceive great works demands 
 imagination and faith. The creative engineer, like the 
 poet, is born, not made. If to the power to conceive is 
 added the ability to execute then have we one of 
 these rare geniuses, who not only benefit the world, but 
 
14 THE QBE AT BIUDGE, 
 
 add new glory to humanity. Such men were Michael 
 Aiigelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Watt, Wedgewood, Brunei 
 and Stephenson; and such a man was John A. Roebling. 
 It was his striking peculiarity, that while his concep- 
 tions were bold and original, his execution was always 
 exact, and within the limits of cost which he assigned 
 to the work of his brain. He had made bridges a study, 
 and had declared in favor of the suspension principle 
 for heavy traffic, when the greatest living authorities 
 had condemned it as costly and unsafe. When he 
 undertook to build a suspension bridge for railway use, 
 he did so in the face of the deliberate judgment of the 
 profession, that success would be impossible. George 
 Stephenson had condemned the suspension princi- 
 ple and approved the tubular girder for railway 
 traffic. But it was the Nemesis of Stephenson's fate, 
 that when he came out to approve the location of the 
 great tubular bridge at Montreal, he should pass over 
 the Niagara Eiver in a railway train, on a suspension 
 bridge, which he had declared to be an impracticable 
 undertaking. 
 
 When Roebling suggested the bridge over the Enst 
 River, his ideas were limited to the demands of the 
 time, and controlled by the necessity for a profitable in- 
 vestment. He had no expectation that the two cities 
 would embark in the enterprise. Indeed, in one of his 
 letters so late as April 14, 1860, he says, "As to the 
 corporations of New York and Brooklyn undertakipg 
 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 origin 
 nal ideas of a structure, to be built exclusively by pri- 
 vate capital for the sake of profit. 
 
ORATION OF ABB AM S. HEWITT. 15 
 
 THE RING TAKING UP THE WORK. 
 
 How came this miracle to pass ? The war of the Re- 
 bellion occurred, delaying for a time the further con- 
 sideration of Roebling's ideas. This war accustomed 
 the nation to expenditures on a scale of which it had no 
 previous conception. It did more then expend lari^e 
 sums of mo*ney. Officials became corrupt and organ- 
 ized themselves for plunder. In the city of New York, 
 especially, the government fell into the hands of a baud 
 of thieves, who engaged in a series of great and bene- 
 ficial 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 armo- 
 ries; they opened roads, boulevards and parks; and they 
 organized two of the grandest devices for transporta- 
 tion which the genius of man has ever conceived; a 
 rapid transit elevated for New York, and a great 
 highway between New York and Brooklyn. The 
 Bridcre was commenced, but the rino; 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 undertaken. The collapse of 
 the ring brought the work on the Bridge to a standstill. 
 
 It was a timely event. The patriotic New Yorker 
 might well have exclaimed, just before this great de^ 
 liverence, in the words of the Consul of ancient Rome, 
 in Macauley's stirring poem, 
 
 " And if they once may win the bridge, 
 What hope to save the town ?" 
 
 Meanwhile, the elder Roebling has died, leaving be- 
 liind him his estimates and the general plan of the 
 structure to cost, independent of land damages and in- 
 terest, about $7,000,000. This great work which, if not 
 
16 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 "conceived in sin," was ''brought forth in iniquity," 
 til us became the object of great suspicion, and of a 
 prejudice which has not been removed to this day. I 
 know tliat to many 1 mal^e a startling announcement, 
 when I state the incontrovertible fact, that no money 
 was ever stolen by the ring from the funds of the 
 Bridge; that the wliole money raised has been honesily 
 expended; that the estimates 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 subscriptions; and to the cost of additional 
 height and breadth of the Bridge, and the increase of 
 sti-ength rendered necessary by a better comprehension 
 of the volume of traffic between the two cities. The 
 items covered by the original estimate of $7,000,000, 
 have thus been raised to $9,000,000, so that $2,000,000 
 represents the addition to the original estimates, and for 
 this excess, amounting to less than 30 per cent, there is 
 actual value in the Bridge in increased dimensions and 
 strength, whereby its capacity has been greatly in- 
 creased. 
 
 The carriage-ways, as originally designed, would 
 have permitted only a single line of vehicles in each 
 direction. The speed of the entire procession, more 
 than a mile long, would therefore have been limited by 
 the rate of the slowest; and every accident causing 
 stoppage to a single cart, would have stopped ever}^- 
 thiug behind it for an indefinite period. It is not too 
 much to say that the removal of this objection, by 
 widening the carriage-ways, has multiplied manifold 
 the practical usefulness of the Bridge. 
 
 The statement I have made is due to the memory 
 Dot only of John A. Eoebling, but also of Henry C. 
 
ORATION OF ABEAM S. HEWITT. 17 
 
 Murphy, that great man, who devoted his last years to 
 this enterprise; and who, having, like Moses, led the 
 people through the toilsome way, was permitted only 
 to look, but not to enter upon the promised hmd. 
 
 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. 
 
 THE STRUCTURE HONESTLY BUILT. 
 
 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 ex- 
 perts 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 wns 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 w^ork. This duty was performed without 
 fear or favor. The methods by wiiich the ring pro- 
 posed 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 date the Board has been con- 
 trolled 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 improb- 
 able to absurdity. 
 
18 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 The Bridge has not only been honestly built, but it 
 may be safely asserted that it could not now be dupli-. 
 cated 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 in- 
 terposed by mistaken public officials. Moreover, meas- 
 ured 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 
 b}^ the genius of man. This will be made evident by 
 a single comparison with the Britannia Tubular Bridge 
 erected by Stephenson over the Menai Stnlats. 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 
 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 only bear its own weight (62,- 
 000 tons) at 1,570 feet. Now, for a span of 1,600 feet 
 the Brooklyn Bridge contains but 6,740 tons of mate- 
 rial, 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. 
 
 Rocbling, 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 
 bridire 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 
 
ORATION OF ABRAM S. HEWITT. 19 
 
 which constructed this triumph of American engineer- 
 ing. 
 
 We have thus a monument to the public spirit of the 
 two cities, created by an expenditure as honest and as 
 economical as those which gave us the Erie Canal, the 
 Croton Aqueduct, and the Central Park. If it had 
 been otherwise, it would have been a monument to the 
 eternal infamy of the trustees and of the engineers 
 under wliose supervision it has been erected; and this 
 brings me to the final consideration which I feel con- 
 strained 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 countr}', and for her 
 sake braved death on many a well-fought battle field. 
 AVhen 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 
 might this suffering hero quote the words of Hyperion : 
 **0h, I have looked with wonder upon those who in 
 sorrow and privation and bodily discomfort and sick- 
 ness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right 
 on to the accomplishment of their great purposes; toil- 
 ing much, enduring much, fulfilling much; and then, 
 
20 THE GREAT BBIDGE. 
 
 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 sol- 
 emnly and forever!'* 
 
 THE QUESTION OF UNITING THE TWO CITIES. 
 
 And now what is to be the outcome of this great ex- 
 penditure upon thehighway which has been constructed 
 between 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 fore- 
 gone conclusion. Whether this gain shall in any wise bo 
 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 ex- 
 ponent and the index. Will the Bridge lead, as has been 
 forcibly suggested, and in some quarters hopefully 
 anticipated, to the union of the two cities under oue 
 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 sur- 
 rounding parts. Tliey are properly regarded as one 
 homogeneous accgregation of human beings. 
 
ORATION OF ABRAM S, HEWITT, 21 
 
 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 determine^ 
 before a satisfactory^ answer can be given. The tendency 
 of modern civilizatifjn is towards the concentration of 
 population in dense masses. This is due to the higher 
 and more diversified life which can be secured by asso- 
 ciation 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 improvement of our uay 
 in labor-saving machinery, and its application to agri- 
 culture, enabled the nation to be fed with a less percent- 
 age of its total force thus applied, and leave a large mar- 
 gin 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 popula- 
 tion resident in cities was 3.3 per cent of the total popu- 
 lation. This percentage slowly gained at each succes- 
 sive 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 wns 
 16.1 percent; 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 resi- 
 dent in cities was 22.5 per cent of the whole population. 
 
 Contemporaneous with this rapid growth of urban 
 population, have grown the complaints of corrupt ad- 
 ministration and bad municipal government. The out- 
 cry may be said to be universal, for it comes from both 
 sides of the Atlantic; and the complaints appenr to be 
 in direct proportion to the size of cities. It is obvious, 
 
23 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 therefore, that the knowledge of the art of local govern- 
 ment has not kept pace with the growth of population. 
 \ am here by your favor to speak for the City of New 
 York, and I should be the last person to throw any dis- 
 credit on its fair frame; 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 gov- 
 ernment, nor with its actual administration, even when 
 it is in the hands of intelligent and honest officials. 
 Dissatisfied as w^e 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 govern- 
 ment. Experiments without number have been tried, 
 and suggestions in infinite variet}^ have been offered, 
 but to-day no man can say that we have approached any 
 nearer to the idea of good government which is de- 
 manded by the intelligence and the wants of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 If, therefore, New York has not yet learned to gov- 
 ern itself, how can it be expected to be better governed 
 by adding half a million to its population, and ?^ great 
 territory to its area, unless it be with the idea that a 
 *' little leaven leaveneth the w4iole lump." Is Brooklyn 
 that leaven? And if not, and if possibly '* the salt has 
 lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?" Brooklyn 
 is now struggling with this problem, it remains to be 
 seen with what success* but meanwhile it is idle to con- 
 sider the idea of getting rid of our common evils by add- 
 ing them together. 
 
 Besides it is a fundamental axiom in politics, approved 
 by the experience of older countries as well as of our 
 own, that the sources of power should never be far le- 
 moved from those who are to feel its exercise, It is the 
 
ORATION OF ABB AM S- HEWITT. 23 
 
 violation of this principle which produces chronic revo- 
 lution in France and makes the British rule so obnox- 
 ious to the Irish people. This evil is happily avoided 
 when a natural boundary circumscribes administration 
 within narrow limits. While, therefore, we rejoice to- 
 gether at the new bond between New York and Brook- 
 lyn, we ought to rejoice the more that it destroys none 
 of the conditions which permit each city to govern it- 
 self, but rather urges them to a generous rivalry in per- 
 fecting each its own government, recognizing the truth 
 that there is no true liberty without law, and that eter- 
 nal vigilance, which is the only safeguard of liberty, can 
 best be exercised within limited areas. 
 
 THE TRUE PRINCIPLE OF GOOD MUNICIPAL GOVERN- 
 MENT. 
 
 It would be a most fortunate conclusion if the com- 
 pletion of this Bridge should arouse public attention to 
 the absolute necessity of good municipal government, 
 and recall the only principle upon which it can ever be 
 successfully founded. There is reason to hope that this 
 result will follow because the erection of this structure 
 shows how a problem, analagous to that which con- 
 fronts us in regard to the city government, has been met 
 and solved in the domain of physical science. 
 
 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 pro- 
 ceeded to organize the knowledge which existed as to 
 the construction of bridges, and they held the organiza- 
 tion thus created responsible for results. JSTow, we 
 know that it is at least as difficult to govern a city as to 
 
24 THE GBEAT BRIDGE. 
 
 build a bridge, and yet, as citizens, we have deliberately 
 allowed the ignorance of the community to be organized 
 for its government, and then we complain that it is a 
 failure. Until we imitate the example of the ring, and 
 organize the intelligence of the community for its gov- 
 ernment, our complaint is childish and imreasonable. 
 But we shall be told that there is no analogy between 
 building a bridge and governing a city. Let us exam- 
 ine this objection. A city is made up of infinite inter- 
 ests. They vary from hour to hour, and conflict is the 
 law of their being. Many of the elements of social life 
 are what methematicians term ''variable of the inde- 
 pendent order." The problem is to reconcile these con- 
 flicting interests and variable elements into one organi- 
 zation 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 mat- 
 ter in it which is at rest even for the minutest portion of 
 time. It is an aggregation of unstable elements, chang- 
 ing with every change in the temperature, and every 
 movement of the heavenly bodies. The problem was, 
 out of these unstable elements, to produce absolute sta- 
 bility, and it was this problem which the engineers, the 
 organized intelligence, had to solve, or confess to inglo- 
 rious failure. . The problem has been solved. In the 
 first construction of suspension bridges it was attempted 
 to check, repress and overcome their motion, and fail- 
 ure 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 
 
Or.ATIOX OF ABUAZI G- HEWITT, 25 
 
 the extremes of temperature from 14 to 16 inches; the 
 vertical rise and fall in the centre of the main span 
 ranges between 2 feet 3 inches and 2 feet 9 inches; and 
 before the suspenders were attached to the cable it ac- 
 tually 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. 
 
 Now, if our political system were guided by organized 
 intelligence, it would not seek to repress the free play of 
 human interests and emotions, of human hopes and 
 fears, but would make provision for their development 
 and existence, in accordance with the higher law of lib- 
 erty and morality. A large portion of our vices and 
 crimes are created either by law or its mal-administra- 
 tion. Tliese laws exist because organized ignorance, 
 like a highwayman with a club, is permitted to stand 
 in the way of wise legislation and honest administra- 
 tion, and to demand satisfaction from the spoils of office 
 and the profits of contracts. Of this state of affairs we 
 complain, and on great occasions the community arises 
 in its wrath and visits summary punishment on the 
 offenders of the hour, and then relapses into chronic 
 grumbling until grievances sufficiently accumulate to 
 stir it again to action. 
 
 REMEDIES FOR PRESENT EVILS. 
 
 What is the remedy for this state of affairs? Shall 
 there be no more political parties, and shall we shatter 
 the political machinery which, bad as it is, is far better 
 than no machinery at all? Shall we embrace Nihilism 
 as our creed, because we have practical communism 
 
26 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 forced upon us as the cousequeuce of jobbery, and the 
 imposition of unjust taxes? 
 
 No, let us ratlier learn the lesson of the Bridge. In- 
 stead of attempting to restrict suffrage, let us tr}^ to edu- 
 cate the voters; instead of disbanding parlies, let each 
 citizen within the party always vote, but never for a 
 man who is unfit to liold office. Thus parties, as well 
 as voters, will be organized on the basis of intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 But wiiat man is fit to hold office? Only he who re- 
 gards political office as a public trust, and not as a pri- 
 vate perquisite to be used for the pecuniary advantage 
 of himself, or his family, or even his part3^ Is there in- 
 telligence enough in these cities, if thus organized within 
 the parties, to produce the result which we desire? 
 Why, the overthrow of the Tweed ring was conclusive 
 evidence of tlie preponderance of public virtue in the 
 City of New York. In no other country in the world, 
 and in no other political S3^stem than one which pro- 
 vides for and secures universal suffrage, would such a 
 sudden and peaceful revolution have been possible. 
 The demonstration of this fact was richly worth the 
 $25,000,000 or $30,000,000 which the thieves had stolen. 
 Thereafter, and thenceforth, there was no doubt 
 whether our city population, heterogeneous as it is, 
 contains within itself sufficient virtue for its own pres- 
 ervation. Let it never be forgotten that the remedy is 
 complete; that it is ever present; that no man ought to 
 be deprived of the opportunit}^ of its exercise, and that, 
 if it be exercised, the will of the community can never 
 be paralyzed. Our safety and our success rest on the 
 ballot in the hands of freemen at the polls, deliberately 
 deposited, never for an unworthj^ man, but always with 
 a profound sense of the responsibility which should 
 
ORATION OF ABEAM S. HEWITT. 27 
 
 govern every citizen in tlie exercise of this fundamental 
 right. 
 
 If the lesson of the Bridge, which I have thus sought 
 to enforce, shall revive the confidence of the people in 
 their own power, and induce them to use it practically 
 for the election of good men to office, then, indeed, 
 will its completion be a public blessing, worthy of the 
 new era of industrial development in which it is our 
 fortunate lot to live. 
 
 Great, indeed, has been our national progress. Per- 
 haps w^e who belong to a commercial community do not 
 fully realize its significance and promise. We buy and 
 sell stocks, without stopping to think that they repre- 
 sent the most astonishing achievements of enterprise 
 and skill, in the magical extension of our vast railw^ay 
 system; we speculate in wheat, without reflecting on the 
 stupendous fact that the plains of Dakota and Califor- 
 nia are feeding hungry mouths in Europe; we hear that 
 the Treasmy has made a call for bonds, and forget that 
 the rapid extinction of our national debt is a proof of 
 our prosperity and patriotism, as wonderful to the 
 world as was the power we exhibited in the struggle 
 wdiicli left that apparently crushing burden upon us. 
 If, then, we deal successfully wath the evils which 
 threaten our political life, who can predict the limits of 
 our future w^ealth and glory — wealth that shall enrich 
 all; glory that shall be no selfish heritage, but the bless- 
 ing of mankind? Beyond all legends of oriental treas- 
 ure, beyond all dreams of the golden age, will be the 
 splendor, and majesty, and happiness of the free people 
 dwelling upon this fair domain, if, as may be fairly an- 
 ticipated, they shall then have learned how to make 
 equitable distribution among themselves of the fruits of 
 
38 THE GREAT BlUDGE. 
 
 their common labor. As our own Bryant sang as long 
 ago as 1821 : 
 
 " Here the free spirit of mankind at length 
 Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place 
 A limit to the giant's untamed strength, 
 Or curb its swiftness in the forward race ! 
 Far, like the comet's way through infinite space, 
 Stretches the long untraveled path of light 
 Into the depths of ages ; we may trace 
 Distant, the brightening glory of its flight, 
 'Till the receding rays are lost to human sight." 
 
 At the ocean gateway of such a nation well may stand 
 the stately figure of '* Liberty Enlightening the World;" 
 and, in hope and faith, as well as gratitude, we write 
 upon the towers of our beautiful Bridge, to be illumi- 
 nated by her electric ray, the words of exultation, Finis 
 coronat opus. 
 
 ORATION OF THE REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Fellow-Citizens: It can surprise 
 no one that we celebrate the completion of this great 
 work in which lines of delicate and aerial grace are 
 combined with a strength more enduring than of mar- 
 ble, and the w^oven wires prolong to these heights the 
 metropolitan avenues. After delays which have often 
 disturbed the popular patience, and have oftener disap- 
 pointed the hopes of the builders, we gratefully wel- 
 come this superb consummation; rejoicing to know 
 that "the silver streak," which so long has divided this 
 cit}" from tlie continent, is conquered henceforth by the 
 silver band stretching above it, careless alike of the 
 wind and tide, of ice and fog, of current and of calm. 
 
ORATION OF BEV. DP. STORES, 29 
 
 To the mind which for fourteen years has watched, 
 guided and governed the work, looking out upon it 
 through ph^^sical organs almost fatrtlly smitten in its 
 prosecution, we bring our eager and unanimous tribute 
 of honor and applause. He who took up, elaborated 
 and has brought to fulfillment the plans of the father, 
 whose own life had been sacrificed in their futherancc, 
 has builded to both the noblest memorial. He may 
 with truth have said heretofore, as the furnaces have 
 glowed from which this welded network- has come, in 
 the words of Schiller's ''Lay of the Bell:" 
 
 • " Deep hid within the nether cell 
 
 What force with fire is moulding thus, 
 In yonder airy towers shall dwell, 
 And witness wide and far of us." 
 
 He may at this hour add for himself the lines which 
 the poet hears from the lips of his house-master: 
 
 " My house is built upon a rock, 
 And sees unmoved the stormy shock 
 Of waves that fret below." 
 
 It must be a superlative moment in life when one 
 stands on a structure as majestic as this, which was at 
 first a mere thought in the brain, which was afterward 
 a plan on the paper, and which has been transported 
 hither, from quarry and mine, from woodyard and 
 workshop, on the point of his pencil! He would be 
 first to acknowledge, also, if he were speaking, the in- 
 telligent, faithful, indefatigable service, rendered in 
 execution of his plans, by those who have been associ- 
 ated with him, as assistant engineers, as master mechan- 
 ics, or as trained, trusted and experienced workmen. 
 On their knowledge and vigilance, their practiced skill 
 and patient fidelity, the work, of necessity, had largely 
 depended for its completed grace and strength. They 
 
30 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 have ^Yrougllt the zealous labor of years into all parts of 
 it; and it will bear to them hereafter, as it does to-day, 
 most honorable witness. 
 
 Some of our honored fellow-citizens, who have had 
 distinguished part in this enterprise, are no more here 
 to share our festivities. Mr. John Prentice, for 3'ears 
 the Treasurer of the Board, wise in counsel, of a liberal 
 3'et a w\atchful economy, of incorruptible integrity, 
 passed from the earth two years ago; but to those who 
 knew him his memory is as fresh as the verdure above 
 his grave at Greenwood. More lately, one who had 
 been from the outset associated with what to manj- ap- 
 peared this visionary plan, to whose capacity and expe- 
 rience, his legal skill, his legislative influence, his social 
 distinction, the work has been always largely indebted, 
 and who was for years the President of this Board, has 
 followed into the silent land. It is a grief to all who 
 know him that he is not here to see the consummation 
 of labors and plans which for years had occupied his 
 life. But his face and figure are before us, almost as 
 distinctly as if he w^ere present; and it will be only the 
 dullest forgetfulness which will ever cease to connect 
 with this Bridge the name of the accomplished scholar, 
 the experienced diplomatist, the untiring worker, the 
 cordial and ever-helpful friend, Mr. Henry C. Murphy. 
 
 But others remain, to whom the work has brought 
 its burdens, of labor, care, and long solicitude, some- 
 times, no doubt, of a public criticism whose imperious 
 sharpness they may have felt, but who have followed 
 their plans to completion without wavering or pause, 
 who have indeed expanded those plans as the progress 
 of the work suggested enlargement, and who to-day 
 enter the reward which belongs to those v/ho, after pro- 
 moting a magnificent enterprise, see it accomplished. 
 
OBATION OF REV. DR. STORRS. 31 
 
 Among them are two who were associated with it at 
 the beginniog, aud Avho Iiave continued so associated 
 from that day to this: Mr. William C. Kingsle}^ Mr. 
 James S. T. Stranahan. Tlie judgment cannot be mis- 
 taken which affirms that to tlicse men, more than to any 
 other of our citizens remaining among us, the prosecu- 
 tion of this work to its crowning success is properly 
 ascribed. They are the true orators of the hour. We 
 may praise, but they have builded. On the tenacity of 
 their purpose, of which that of these combining wires 
 only presents the physical image — on the lift of their 
 wills, stronger than of these consenting cables — the 
 immense structure has risen to its place. ISTo grander 
 w^ork has it been given to men to do for the city which 
 will feel the unfailing impulse of their foresight and 
 courage, their wisdom in counsel, and their resolute 
 service, to the end of its history. 
 
 Mr. William Marshall and General Henry W. Slocura 
 were also connected with the work at the outset, and, 
 with intervals in the period of their service, have given 
 it important assistance to the end; while others are with 
 us who have joined with intelligence, enthusiasm, aud 
 helpfulness, in the councils of the Board, at different 
 times. We rejoice in the presence of all those who ear- 
 lier or later have taken part in the plans, at once vast 
 and minute, wiiich now are realized. We offer them 
 the tribute of our admiring and grateful esteem. We 
 trust that their remembrance of the work they have 
 accomplished, and their personal experience of its mani' 
 fold benefits, may continue through many happy years. 
 And we congratulate ourselves, as well as them, that 
 the city will keep the memorial of them, not in yonder 
 tablets alone, but in the great fabric above which those 
 stand, while stone and steel retain their strength. 
 
82 THE GBEAT BRIDGE, 
 
 THE BRIDGE AS A POPULAR ACHIEVEMENT. 
 
 But after all, the real builder of this surpassing acd 
 significant structure has been the people; whose watch- 
 fulness of its progress has been constant; whose desire 
 for its benefits has been the incentive behind its plans; 
 by whom its treasury has been supplied; whose exultant 
 gladness now welcomes its success. The people of New 
 York have illustrated anew their magnanimous spirit in 
 cheerfully supplying their share of the cost, though not 
 anticipating from such large outlay direct reliefs and 
 signal advantages. The people of Brooklyn have shown 
 at least an intelligent, intrepid, and far-sighted sagacity, 
 in readil}^ accepting the immediate burdens in expecta- 
 tion of future returns. 
 
 Such a popular achievement is one to be proud of. St. 
 Petersburgli could be commenced 180 years ago — almost 
 to a day, on May 27, 1703 — and could afterward be built 
 by the will of an autocrat, to give him a new centre of 
 empire, with a nearer outlook over Europe; its palaces 
 rising on artificial foundations which it cost, it is said, a 
 hundred thousand lives in the first year to lay. Paris 
 could be reconstructed twenty-five years ago, by the 
 mandate of an Emperor determined to make it more 
 beautiful than before, to open new avenues for guns and 
 troops, to give to its laborers, who might become 
 troublesome, desired occupation. But not only have 
 these cities of ours been founded, built, reconstructed 
 by the people, but this charming and mighty avenue in 
 the air, by which they are henceforth rebuilt into one, 
 is to the people's honor and praise. It shows what mul- 
 titudes, democratically organized, can do if they will. 
 It will show to those who shall succeed us to what larger 
 Dcss of enterprise, what patience of purpose, what 
 
ORATION OF BEV. DR. STORRS, 33 
 
 liberal wisdom, the populations now ruling these asso- 
 ciated cities were competent in their time. It takes the 
 aspect, as so regarded, of a durable monument to demo- 
 cracy itself. 
 
 We congratulate the Mayors of both the cities, and 
 their associates in the government of them, on the pub- 
 lic spirit manifested by both, on the ample opportuni- 
 ties offered to each, and on those intimate alliances be- 
 tween them which are a source of happiness to both, 
 and which are almost certainly prophetic of an organic 
 union to be realized hereafter. And we trust that the 
 crosses, encircled by the laurel wreath on the original 
 seal of New- Amsterdam, with the Dutch legend of this 
 city, "Union makes strength," may continue to de- 
 scribe them, whether or not stamped upon parchments 
 and blazoned on banners, as long as human eyes shall 
 see them. 
 
 The work now completed is of interest to both cities, 
 and its enduring and multiplying benefits will be found, 
 we are confident, to be common, not local. We who 
 have made and steadfastly kept our homes in Brooklyn, 
 and who are fond and proud of the city — for its fresh, 
 bracing and healthful air and the brilliant out-stretch of 
 sea and land which opens from the Heights, for its 
 scores of thousands of prosperous homes, for its un- 
 surpassed schools, its co-operating churches, the social 
 temper which pervades it, the independence and enter- 
 prise of its journals, and the local enthusiasm which they 
 fruitfully foster; for its general liberality and the occa- 
 sional splendid examples of individual munificence 
 wdiich have given it fame, for its recent but energetic 
 institutions of literature, art and a noble philanthropy, 
 and for the stimulating enterprise and culture of the 
 young life which is coming to command in it— we have 
 
34 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 obvious reason to rejoice in the work which brings us 
 into nearer connection with all that is delightful and 
 all that is enriching in the metropolis; and with that 
 diverging system of railways, overspreading the con- 
 tinent, which has in the commercial capital its natural 
 centre of radiation. 
 
 We have no word of criticism to speak, only words 
 of most henit}^ admiration, for the safe and speedy 
 water service on the lines of the ferries, which has 
 given us heretofore such easy transportation from city 
 to city, without delays that were not unavoidable, and 
 with a remarkable exemption from disaster. So far as 
 human carefulness and skill could assure safety and 
 speed, in the midst of conditions unfriendly to both, the 
 management of these ferries has been peerless, their 
 success unsurpassed. To them is due, in largest mea- 
 sure, the rapid growth already here realized. They 
 have formed the indispensable arteries of supply and 
 transmission through which the circulating life-blood 
 has flowed; and their ministry to this city has been 
 constant and vital. But we confess ourselves glad to 
 reach with surer certainty, and a greater rapidity, the 
 libraries and galleries, the churches and the homes, as 
 well as the resorts of business and of pleasure, with 
 which we are now in instant connection; and the 
 horizon widens around us as we touch with more im- 
 mediate contact the lines of travel which open hence to 
 the edges of the continent. 
 
 If we have not as much to offer in immediate return, 
 we liave at least a broad expanse of uncovered acres 
 within the cit}^ for the easy occupation of those who 
 wish homes, either modest or splendid, or who shall 
 wdsh such as the growth of the metropolis multiplies 
 its population into the millions, crowds its roofs higher 
 
ORATIOy OF REV. DR. STGRRS. So 
 
 towards the stars, and make a productive silver mine 
 of each several house-lot. And to those who visit us 
 but at intervals we can open not onl}^ yonder park, set 
 like an emerald in the great circular sweep of our 
 boundaries from the waters of the Narrows to the 
 waters of the Sound, but also their readiest approach to 
 the ocean. The capital and the sea are henceforth 
 brought to nearer neighborhood. Long Island bays, 
 and brooks, and beaches, are within readier reach of the 
 town. The winds that have touched no other land 
 this side of Cuba are more accessible to those who seek 
 their tonic breath. The long roll of the surf on the 
 shore breaks closer than before to office and mansion, 
 and to tenement chamber. 
 
 The benefits will therefore be reciprocal which pass 
 back and forth across this lovely and stately framework; 
 and both cities will rejoice, we gladly hope, in the pa- 
 tience and labor, the disciplined skill, the large expen- 
 diture, of which it is the trophy and fruit. New York 
 has now^ the unique opportunity to widen its boundar- 
 ies to the sea; and around its brilliant civic shield, 
 more stately and manifold than that of Achilles, b^^ the 
 aid of those who have wrought already these twisted 
 bracelets and clasping cables, to set the glowing and 
 spacious margin of the resounding ocean-stream. 
 
 AN INCENTIVE TO OTHER GREAT ENTERPRISES. ' 
 
 This work is important, too, we cannot but feel, in 
 wider relations; for what it signifies as for what it se- 
 cures, and for all that it promises. Itself a rep'esenta- 
 tive product and part of the new civilization, one stand- 
 ing on it finds an outlook from it of larger circumfer- 
 ence than that of these cities. Every enterprise like 
 this, successfully accomplished, becomes an incentive 
 
36 TEE GEE AT BRIDGE. 
 
 to others like it. It leeds on to such, and supplies in- 
 cessant encouragement to them. We may not know, 
 or probably conjecture, what those are to be, in the city 
 or the State in the years that shall come. But what- 
 ever they may be, for the more complete equipment of 
 either with conditions of happiness and the instruments 
 of progress, they will all take an impulse from that 
 which here has been accomplished. Such atrophy of 
 triumph over an original obstacle of nature, will not 
 conduce to sleep in others, and whatever is needed of 
 material improvement, throughout the State of which it 
 is our pride to be citizens, will be only more surely and 
 speedily supplied because of this impressive success. 
 
 It is, therefore, most fitting to our festival that we are 
 permitted to welcome to it the Chief Magistrate of the 
 State, with those representing its different regions in the 
 legislative councils. We rejoice to remember that the 
 work before us has been assisted by the favoring action 
 of those heretofore in authority in the State; and we 
 trust that to those now holding high offices in it, who 
 are present to-day, the occasion will be one of pleasant 
 experience, and of enlarged and reinforced expecta- 
 tion. 
 
 Indeed, it is not extravagant to say that the future of 
 the country opens before us, as we see what skill and 
 will can do to overleap obstacles, and make nature sub- 
 servient to human designs. So we gladly welcome these 
 eminent men from other States; while the presence of 
 the Executive head of the Nation, and of some of tlie 
 members of his Cabinet, is appropriate to the time as it 
 is an occasion of sincere and profound gratification to 
 us all. Without the concurrence of the National Gov- 
 ernment, this structure, though primarily of local rela- 
 tions, as reaching across these navigable waters, could 
 
OIIATION OF REV. BE. STORRS. 37 
 
 not have been built. We feel assured that those hon- 
 orably representing that Government, who favor its 
 completion with their attendance, and in whose pres- 
 ence political differences are forgotten, will share with 
 us in the joyful pride with which we regard it, and in 
 the inspiring anticipation that the physical apparatus of 
 civilization in the land is to take fresh iftipu'se, not im- 
 pediment or hindrance, from that which here has been 
 effected. The day seems brought distinctly nearer 
 when the Nation, equipped with the latest implements 
 furnished by science, shall master and use as never be- 
 fore its rich domain. 
 
 Not only the modern spirit is here, even in eminence, 
 which dares great effort for great advantage, but the 
 chiefest of modern instruments is here, which is the 
 ancient intractable iron, transfigured into steel. It was 
 a sign, and even a measure of ancient degeneracy, when 
 the age of gold w^as followed if not forgotten by one of 
 iron. Decadence of arts, of learnings and laws, of so- 
 ciety itself, was implied in the fact. The more intrepid 
 intelligence, the more versatile energ}^ amid which 
 we live have achieved the success of combining the 
 two: so that while it is true, now as of old, that *' No 
 mattock plunges a golden edge into the ground, and no 
 nail drives a silver point into the plank," it is also true 
 that under the stimulus of the larger expenditure which 
 the added supplies of gold make possible, the duller 
 metal has taken a fineness, a brightness and hardness, 
 and a tensile strength before unfamiliar. 
 
 Tlie iron, as of old, quarries the gold, and cuts 
 it out from river-bed and from rock. But under the 
 alchemy which gold applies the iron takes nobler 
 properties upon it. Converted into steel in masses 
 that would lately have staggered men's thoughts, 
 
38 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 it becomes tlie kingliest instrumGnt of peoples for sub- 
 duing the earth. Things dainty and things mighty are 
 fashioned from it iu equal abundance; gun-carriage and 
 cannon, with the solid platforms on which they rest, 
 the largest castings and heaviest plates, as well as 
 wheel, axle and rail, as well as screw, or file or saw. It 
 is shaped into the hulls of ships. It is built alike into 
 column and truss, balcony, roof, and springing dom.e. 
 To the loom and the press, and the boiler from whose 
 fierce and untiring heart their force is supplied it is 
 equally apt; while as drawn into delicate wires it is 
 coiled into springs, woven into gauze, sharpened into 
 needles and twisted into ropes; it is made to yield music 
 in all our homes; electric currents are sent upon it 
 along our streets, around the world. It enables us to 
 talk with correspondents afar; or it is knit, as before 
 our eyes, into the new and noble causeways of pleasure 
 and of commerce. 
 
 I hardly think that we 3'et appreciate the signification 
 of this change which has passed upon iron. It is the in- 
 dustrial victory of the century, not to have heaped the 
 extracted gold in higher piles, or to have crowded the 
 bursting vaults with accumulated silver, but to have 
 conferred, by the sovereign touch of scientific invention, 
 flexibility, grace, variety of use, and almost ethereal 
 and spiritual virtue, on this stubbornest of metals. 
 The indications of physical achievements iu the future, 
 thus inaugurated, outrun the compass of human 
 thought. 
 
 Two bridges lie near each other across the historical 
 stream of the Moldau, under the shadow of the ancient 
 and haughty palace at Prague: the one, tlie picturesque 
 bridge of St. iSTcpomuk, patron of bridges throughor.t 
 Bohemia, of massive stone, which occupied a century 
 
ORATION OF REV. BR. STORRS. 39 
 
 and a half in its erection, and was finished almost four 
 centuries ago; with stately statues along its sides, with 
 a superb monument at its end, sustaining symbolic and 
 portrait figures; the other, an iron suspension-bridge, 
 built and finished in three years, a half century since, 
 and singularly contrasting, in its lightness and grace, 
 tlie sombre solidity of the first. It is impossible to look 
 upon the two without feeling how distinctly the dif- 
 ferent ages to which they belong are indicated by them, 
 and how the ceremonial and military character of the 
 centuries that are past has been superseded by the rapid 
 and practical spirit of commerce. 
 
 But the modern bridge is there, a small one, and rests 
 at the centre on an island and a pier. The structure 
 before us, the largest of its class as yet in the world, in 
 its swifter, more graceful, and more daring leap, from 
 bank to bank across the tides of this arm of the sea, not 
 only illustrates the bolder temper which is natural here, 
 the readiness to attempt unparalleled w^orks, the disdain 
 of difficulties in unfaltering reliance on exact calcula- 
 tion, but in the material out of which it is wrought, it 
 shows the new supremacy of man over the metal which 
 in former time he scarcely could use save lor rude and 
 coarse implements. The steel of the blades of Damas- 
 cus or Toledo is not here needed; nor that of the chisel, 
 the knife-blade, the w^atch spring, or the surgical instru- 
 ment. But the steel of the medioBval lance-head or 
 sabre was hardly finer than that which is here built into 
 a castle, which the sea cannot shake, whose binding 
 cement the rains cannot loosen, and before whose unde- 
 caying parapets open fairer visions of island and town, 
 of earth, water and sky, than from any fortress along 
 the Rhine. There is inexhaustible promise in the fact. 
 
40 THE GREAT BRIDGE, 
 
 THE TYPE OF A GREAT SYSTEM AND THE SYMBOL OF 
 
 PEACE. 
 
 Of course, too, tliere is impressively before us — in- 
 stalled as on this fair and brilliant civic throne — that 
 desire for swiftest inter -communication between towns 
 and districts divided from each other, which belongs to 
 our times, and w^hicli is to be an energetic, enduriug 
 and salutary force in moulding the nation. The years 
 are not distant in which separated communities regarded 
 each other with aversion and distrust, and the effort 
 was mutual to raise barriers between them, not to unite 
 them in closer alliance. Now, the traffic of one is 
 vitally dependent on the industries of another; the 
 counting-room in the one has the factory or the ware- 
 house tributary to it established in the other; and the 
 demand is imperative that the two be linked, by all 
 possible mechuisms, in a union as complete as if no 
 chasm had opened between them. So these cities are 
 henceforth united; and so all cities, which may minister 
 to each other, are bound more and more in intimate 
 combinations. Santa Fe, which soon celebrates the 
 third of a millennium since its foundation, reaches 
 out its connections toward the newest log-city in 
 Washington Territory ; and the oldest towns upon our 
 seaboard find allies in those that have risen like exhtila- 
 tions along the western lakes and rivers. 
 
 This mighty and symmetrical band before us seems to 
 stand as the type of all that immeasurable communicat- 
 ing system wiiich is more completely with every year 
 to inter-link cities, to confederate States, to make one 
 country of our distributed imperial domain, and to weave 
 its history into a vast harmonious contexture, as mes- 
 sages fly instantaneously across it, and the rapid trains 
 rush back and forth, like shuttles upon a mighty loomo 
 
OBATION BY REV, DR. STORRS. 41 
 
 It is not fanciful, either, to feel that in all its history, 
 and in what is peculiar in its constitution, it becomes a 
 noble visible symbol of that benign peace, amid which 
 its towers and roadway have risen, and which we trust 
 it may long continue to signalize and to share. We 
 may look at this moment on the site of the shipyard 
 from which in March, 1862, twenty-one years ago, went 
 forth the unmasted and raft-like Monitor, with its flat 
 decks, its low bulwarks, its guarded mechanism, its 
 heavy armament, and its impenetrable revolving turret, 
 to that near battle with the Merrimac on wdiich, as it 
 seemed to us at the time, the destiny of the nation was 
 perilously poised. The material of which the ship was 
 wrought was largely that wdiich is built in beauty into 
 this luxurious lofty fabric. But no contrast could be 
 greater, among the works of human genius, than be- 
 tween the compact and rigid solidity into which the 
 iron had there been forged and wedged and rammed, 
 and these waving and graceful curves, swinging down- 
 w^ard and up, almost like blossoming festooned vines 
 along the perfumed Italian lanes, this alluring roadw^^y, 
 resting on towers which rise like those of ancient cathe- 
 drals, this lacework of threads, interweaving their sepa- 
 rate delicate strengths into the complex solidity of the 
 whole. 
 
 The ship was for war, and the bridge is for peace, the 
 product of it; almost, one might say, its express palpa- 
 ble emblem; in its harmony of proportions, its dainty 
 elegance, its advantages for all and its ample con- 
 venience. The deadly raft, floating level with the 
 weaves, w^as related to this etherial structure, whose 
 finest curves are wrought in the strength of toughest 
 steel. We could not have had this, except for that un- 
 sightl}^ craft, which at first refused to be steered, which 
 
42 THE GREAT BBIBGE. 
 
 bumped headlong against our piers, wliicli almost sank 
 \vhile being towed to the field of its fame, and which at 
 last, when its mission was fulfilled, found its grave in 
 the deep over whose w^aters, and near their line, its 
 shattering lightnings had been shot. This structure will 
 stand, we fondly trust, for generations to come, even 
 for centuries, while metal and granite retain their 
 coherence; not only emitting, when the wind surges or 
 plays through its network, that serial music of which 
 it is the mighty harp, but representing to every eye the 
 manifold bonds of interest and affection, of sympathy 
 and purpose, of common political faith and hope, over 
 and from whose mightier chords shall rise the living 
 and unmatched harmonies of continental gladness and 
 praise. 
 
 While no man, therefore, can measure In thought the 
 vast processions — 40,000,000 a year, it already is com- 
 puted — which shall pass back and forth across this path- 
 way, or shall pause on its summit to survey the vast and 
 bright panorama, to greet the break of summer morn- 
 ing, or watch the pageant of closing day, we may hope 
 that the one use to which it never will need to be put is 
 that of war; that the one tramp not to be heard on it is 
 that of soldiers marching to battle; that the only wheels 
 whose roll it shall not be called to echo are the wheels 
 of the tumbrils of troops and artillery. Born of peace 
 and signifying peace, may its mission of peace be un- 
 interrupted till its strong towers and cables fail. 
 
 If such expectations shall be fulfilled, of mechanical 
 invention ever-advancing, of cities and States linked 
 more closely, of beneficent peace assured to all, it is im- 
 possible to assign any limit to the coming expansion 
 and opuhmce of these cities, or to the influence v>diich 
 they shall exert on the developing liie of the country. 
 
OBATION BY BEV. DR. STORRS. 43 
 
 THE MAKVELOUS DEVELOPMENT OF CITIES. 
 
 Cities Lave often, in other times, been created by war; 
 as men were crowded together in them the better to 
 escape the whirls of strife hj which the unwalled dis- 
 tricts were ravaged, or the more effectively to combine 
 their force against threatening foes. And it is a strik- 
 ing suggestion of history that to the frightful ravages of 
 the Hans — swarthy, ill-shaped, ferocious, destroying — 
 may have been due the great wall of China, for the 
 protection of its remote towns, as to them, on the oiher 
 hand, was certainly due the foundation of Venice. The 
 first inhabitants of what has been since that queenly 
 city, along whose liquid and level streets the traveler 
 passes between palaces, churches and fascinating 
 squares, in constant delight — its first inhabitants fied 
 before Attila, to the flooded lagoons which were after- 
 Tvard to blossom into the beauty of a consummate art. 
 The fearful crash of blood and fire in which Aquileia 
 and Padua fell smote Venice into existence. 
 
 But even the city thus born of war must afterward be 
 built up by peace, when the strifes which had pushed 
 it to its sudden beginning had died into the distant 
 silence. The fishing industry, the m.anufacture of salt, 
 the timid commerce, gradually expanding, till it left the 
 rivers and sought the sea — these and other related 
 industries liad made Venetian galleys known on the 
 eastern Mediterranean before the immense rush of tlie 
 Crusaders crowded tumultuously over its quays nnd 
 many ])ridges. Its variety of industry and its commer- 
 cial connections turned that vast movement into another 
 source of wealth. It rose rapidly to that naval su- 
 premacy which enabled it to capture piratical vessels 
 and wealthy galleons, to seize or sack Ionian cities, to 
 
44 THE GREAT BRIDGE, 
 
 storm Byzantium and make the south of Greece its 
 suburb. Its manufactures were multiplied. Its dock- 
 yards were thronged with busy workmen. Its palaces 
 were crowded with precious and famous works of art, 
 while themselves marvels of beauty. St. Maik's un- 
 folded its magnificent loveliness above the great square. 
 In the palace adjoining was the seat of a dominion at the 
 time unsurpassed, and still brilliant in history; and it 
 was in no fanciful or exaggerated pride that the Doge 
 was wont yearly, on Ascension Da}^ to wed the Adri- 
 atic with a ring, as the bridegroom weds the bride. 
 
 Dreamlike, as it seems, equally with Amr.terdam, the 
 larger and richer ''Venice of the North," it was erected 
 by hardy hands. The various works and arts of peace, 
 with a prosperous commerce, were the real piles, sunken 
 beneath the flashing surface, on which church and pal- 
 ace, piazza and arsenal all arose. It was only when 
 these unseen supports inwardly failed that advance- 
 ment ceased, and the horses of St. Mark's at last were 
 bridled. Not all the wars, with Genoa, Hungary, with 
 Western Europe, the Greek Empire or the Ottoman — 
 not earthquake, plague or conflagration, though by all 
 it was smitten — overwhelmed the city whose place in 
 Europe had been so distinguished. The decadence of 
 enterprise, the growing discredit put upon industry, the 
 final discovery by Yasco de Gama of the passage around 
 the Cape of Good Hope, diverting traflSc into new chan- 
 nels — these laid their silent and tightened grasp on the 
 power of Venice, till 
 
 The salt sea-weed 
 Clung to the marble of her palaces, 
 
 and the glory of the past was merged in a gloom which 
 later centuries have not lightened. There is a lesson 
 and a promise in the fact. 
 
ORATION BY REV, DR. STORRS, 45 
 
 New York itself may almost be said to have sprung from 
 war; as tlie vast excitements of the forty years' wrestle 
 between Spain and its revolted provinces gave incentive 
 at least to the settlement of New Netheriand. But the 
 city, since its real development was begun, has been 
 almost wholly built up by peace; and the swiftness 
 of its progress in our own time, which challenges par- 
 allel, shows what, if the ministry of that shall continue, 
 may be looked for in the f utui'e. 
 
 When the Dutch traders raised their storehouse of 
 logs on yonder untamed and desolate strand, perhaps 
 as early as 1615; when the Walloons established their 
 settlement on this side of the river, in 1624, at that 
 "Walloon's Bay," which is since called the Wallabout; 
 or when, later, in May, 1626, Manhattan Island, esti- 
 mated to contain 22,000 acres, was purchased from the 
 Indians for $24, paid in beads, buttons and trinkets, 
 and the block house w^as built, with cedar palisades, on 
 the site of the Battery — it is, of course, commonplace 
 to say that they who had come hither could scarcely 
 have had the least conception of what a career they thus 
 were commencing for two great cities. But it is not so 
 wholly commonplace to say that those who saw this 
 now wealthy and splendid New York a hundred years 
 since, less conspicuous than Boston, far smaller than 
 Philadelphia — with its first bank established in 1784, 
 •and not fully chartered till seven years later; with its 
 first daily paper in 1785, its first ship in the Eastern 
 trade returning in May of the same year; its first Di- 
 rectory published in 1786, and containing only 900 names ; 
 its Broadway extending only to St. Paul's; the grounds 
 about Reade Street grazing-fields for cattle, and ducks 
 still shot in that Beekman's Swamp which the traffic in 
 leather has since made famous; or those who saw it 
 
46 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 even ifty years ago, when its population was little more 
 than one-third of the present population of this younger 
 city, when its first Mayor had not yei been chosen by 
 popular election, when gas had but lately been intro- 
 duced, and the superseding of the primitive pumps by 
 Croton water had not yet been projected — the}^, all, 
 could hardly have imagined what already the city 
 should have become, the recognized centre of the com- 
 merce of the continent, one of the principal cities of the 
 world. 
 
 So those who have lived in this city from childhood, 
 and who hardly yet claim the dignities of age, could 
 scarcely have conjectured, w^hen looking on what Mr. 
 Murphy recalled as the village of his youth, "a hamlet 
 of a hundred houses," that it should have become in our 
 time a city of nearly 80,000 dwelling-houses, occupied 
 by twice as many families; with a population, by the 
 census rates of little less than 700,000; with more than 
 150,000 children in its public and private schools; with 
 330 miles of paved streets, as many as last year in New 
 York, and with more than 200 additional miles impatient- 
 ly waiting to be paved; with 130 miles of street railway 
 track, over which last year 88,000,000 passengers were 
 carried; with nearly 2,500 miles of telegraph and tel- 
 ephone wire knitting it together; with 35,000,000 gal- 
 lons of water, the best on the continent, to which 
 20,000,000 more are soon to be added, daily distributed 
 in its houses, through 360 miles of pipe; with an aggre- 
 gate value of real propert}^ exceeding certainly $400,- 
 000,000, with an annual tax levy of $6,500,000; with 
 manufactures in it whose reported product in 1880 was 
 $103,000,000; with a water front, of pier, dock, basin, 
 canal, already exceeding twent3^-five miles, and not as 
 yet half developed, at which lies shipping from all the 
 
I 
 
 ORATION BY REV DR. STORRS. 47 
 
 world, more largely than at the piers of New York; and 
 finally with what to most modern communities appears 
 to flash as a costly but brilliant diamond necklace, a 
 public debt, beginning' now to diminish, it is true, but 
 still approaching, in net amount $37,500,000! 
 
 THE FUTURE OF NEW YORK AKD BROOKLYN. 
 
 The child watches, in a happy wonder, the swelling 
 film of soapy water into whose iridescent globe he has 
 blown the speck from the bowl of the pipe. But this 
 amazing development around us is not of airy and van- 
 ishing fil ms. It is solidly constructed in marble and brick, 
 in stone and iron, while the proportions to which it has 
 swelled surpass precedent and rebuke the timidity of the 
 boldest prediction. But that which has built it has 
 been simply the industry, manifold, constant, going 
 on in these cities, to which peace offers incentive and 
 room. 
 
 Their future advancement is to come in like manner; 
 not through a prestige derived from their history; not by 
 the gradual increments of their wealth, already collect- 
 ed; not by the riches which they pull to themselves 
 from other cities and distant coasts; not even from their 
 beautiful fortune of location; but by prosperous man- 
 ufactures prosecuted in them; b}^ the traffic which radi- 
 ates over the country; by the foreign commerce which, 
 in values increasing every year, seeks this harbor. 
 Each railway, whose rapid wheels roll hither, from East 
 or West, from North or South, from the rocks of New- 
 foundland or the copper deposits of Lake Superior, from 
 the orange groves of Florida, the Louisiana bayous, the 
 silver ridges of the West, the Golden Gate, gives its 
 guarantee of growth to the still young metropolis. On 
 the cotton-fields of the South, and its sugar- plantations; 
 
48 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 on coal mines and iron mines, on the lakes which 
 winter roofs with ice, and from which drips refreshing 
 coolness through our summer; on fisheries, factories, 
 wlieat-fields, pine-forests, on meadows wealtliy with 
 grahis or grass, and orchards bending beneatli their bur- 
 dens, this enlarging prosperity must be maintained, and 
 on the steamships, and the telegraph lines, which iuter- 
 w^eave us with all the world. The swart miner must 
 do his part for it ; the ingenious workman, in whatever 
 department; the ploughman in the field, and the fisher- 
 man on the banks; the man of science, putting nature to 
 the question; the laborer with no other capital than his 
 muscle ; the sailor on the sea, wherever commerce opens 
 its wings. 
 
 Our Arch of Triumph is therefore fitly this Bridge of 
 Peace. Our Bradenburg Gate, bearing on its summit no 
 car of military victory, is this great work of industrial 
 skill. It stands not like the arch famous at Milan, out- 
 side the city, but in the midst of these united and busy 
 populations. And if the tranquil public order wiiich it 
 celebrates and prefigures shall continue as years proceed, 
 not London itself a century hence will surpass the com- 
 pass of this united city by the sea, in which all civilized 
 nations of mankind have already their many represent- 
 atives, and to which the world shall pay an increasing 
 annual tribute. 
 
 And so the last suggestion comes, which the hour 
 presents and of which time allows the expression. 
 
 It was not to an American mind that we owed the 
 Monitor of which I have spoken; but to one trained in 
 Swedish schools, the Swedish army, and representing 
 that brave nationality. It is not to an American mind 
 that the scheme of construction carried out in this Bridge 
 is to be ascribed; but to one representing the German 
 
ORATION OF REV. DR. STORRS. 49 
 
 peoples, who, in such enriching and fruitful multitudes 
 have found here their home. American enterprise, 
 American money, built them both. But the skill which 
 devised, and much, no doubt, of the labor which 
 wrought them, came from afar. 
 
 Local and particular as is the work, therefore, it rep- 
 resents that fellowship of the nations which is more and 
 more prominently a fact of our times, and which gives 
 to these cities incessant augmentation. When, by and 
 by, on yonder island, the majestic French Statue of 
 Liberty shall stand, holding in its hand the radiant 
 crown of electric flames, and answering by them to those 
 as brilliant along this causeway, our beautiful bay will 
 have taken what specially illuminates and adorns it 
 from Central and from Western Europe. The distant 
 lands from which oceans divide us, though we touch 
 them each moment with the fingers of the telegraph, 
 will have set their conspicuous double crown on the 
 head of our harbor. The alliances of nations, the 
 peace of the world, will seem to find illustrious predic- 
 tion in such superb and novel regalia. 
 
 RELATIONS OF THE TWO CITIES TO THE STATE AND 
 
 NATION. 
 
 Friends and fellow-citizens, let us not forget that in 
 the growth of these cities, henceforth united, and des- 
 tined ere long to be formally one, lies either a threat, 
 or one of the conspicuous promises of the time. 
 
 Cities have always been powers in history. Athens 
 educated Greece, as well as adorned it, while Corinth 
 filled the throbbing and thirsty Hellenic veins with poi- 
 soned blood. The weight of Constantinople broke the 
 Roman empire asunder. The capture of the same mag- 
 nificent city gave to the Turks their establishment in 
 
50 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 Europe for the following centuries. Even where they 
 have not had such a commanding pre-eminence of loca- 
 tion, the social, political, moral force proceeding from 
 cities has been vigorous in impression, immense in ex- 
 tent. The passion of Paris, for a hundred years, has 
 created or directed the sentiment of France. Berlin is 
 more than the legislative or administrative centre of the 
 German Empire. And even a government as autocratic 
 as that of the Czar, in a country as undeveloped as Rus- 
 sia, has to consult the popular feeling of St. Petersburg 
 or of Moscow. 
 
 In our Nation political power is widely distributed, 
 and the largest or wealthiest commercial centre can 
 have but its share. Great as is the weight of the aggre- 
 gate vote in these henceforth compacted cities, the vote 
 of the State will always overbear it. Amid the suffrages 
 of the Nation at large, it can only be reckoned as one of 
 many consenting or conflicting factors. But the influ- 
 ence which constantly proceeds from these cities, on 
 their journalism not only, or on the issues of their book- 
 presses, or on the multitudes going forth from them, but 
 on the example presented in them, of educational, social, 
 religious life, this, for shadow and check, or for fine in- 
 spiration is already of unlimited extent, of incalculable 
 force. It must increase as they expand, and are lifted 
 before the country to a new elevation. 
 
 A larger and a smaller sun are sometimes associated, 
 astronomers tell us, to form a binary centre in the heav- 
 ens, for what is doubtless an unseen system, receiving 
 from them impulse and light. On a scale not utterly in- 
 significant a parallel may be hereafter suggested in the 
 relation of these combined cities to a part, at least, of 
 our national system. Their attitude and action during 
 the war — successfully closed under the gallant military 
 
ORATION OF REV, DR. STORRS. 51 
 
 leadership of men whom we gladly welcome and honor 
 — were of vast advantage to the national cause. The 
 moral, political, intellectual temper which dominates in 
 them as years go on will touch with beauty, or scar 
 with scorching and baleful heats, extended regions. 
 Their religious life, as it grows in intensity or with a 
 faint and failing lustre, will be repeated, in answering 
 image, from the widening frontier. The beneficence 
 which gives them grace and consecration, and which — 
 as lately — they follow to the grave with universal bene- 
 diction, or, on the other hand, the selfish ambitions 
 which crowd and crush along their streets, intent only 
 on accumulated wealth and its sumptuous display, or 
 the glittering vices which they accept and set on high — 
 these will make impression on those who never cross the 
 continent to our homes, to whom our journals are but 
 names. 
 
 Surely we should not go from this hour, which marks 
 a new era in the history of these cities and which points 
 to their future indefinite expansion, without the pur- 
 pose in each of us that so far forth, as in us lies, with 
 their increase in numbers, wealth, equipment, shall also 
 proceed, with equal step, their progress in whatever is 
 noblest and best in private and in public life; that all 
 which sets humanity forward shall come in them to 
 ampler endowment, more renowned exhibition: so that, 
 linked together as hereafter they must be, and seeing 
 "the purple deepening in their robes of power," they 
 may be always increasingly conscious of fulfilled obli- 
 gation to the Nation and to God; may make the land at 
 whose magnificent gateway they stand their constant 
 debtor; and may contribute their mighty part toward 
 that ultimate perfect human society for which the seer 
 could find no image so meet or majestic as that of a 
 
52 THE GREAT BRIDGE. 
 
 city, coming down from above, its stones laid with fair 
 colors, its foundations with sapphires, its windows of 
 agates, its gates of carbuncles, and all its borders of 
 pleasant stones with the sovereign promise resplendent 
 above it: *'And great shall be the peace of thy chil- 
 dren," 
 
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