New-York tribune., 1901-07-28
OFFICIAL MENDACITY.

OF course. Commissioner Shea assures the
public that the bridge management is and has
been all right. 1t is his management, and he is
bound 10 say Naturally he explains the
ridiculous, confused and contradictory state
ments concerning the accident as merely the
reasonable difference Of opinion between eX-
perts. Doctors may disagree about a disease,
but if q doctor should tell man suffering from
q broken arm that this member was normally
fixed firmly at right angles to his body, ana
that fracture was the natural result OF his
moving ii TO one side he would be thought
either an ignoramus or a knave. His DR.. Pro
basco seems to have about as much knowledge
of bridge anatomy. His statements cannot be
excused the opinions Of one expert. They
are rather the pretensons of the charlatan to
explain what he did not understand or was
afraid truthfully TO account for.
Whatever mistakes or omissions Mr.. Martin
may have made or been compelled by his Tam
many superiors to make in bridge adminstra-
tiOn his report on the accident is frank anu
manly. Mr.. Probasco on the other hand has
acted like bad boy overtaken in a fault. Any
excuse, no matter how nonsensical or untrue;
any denial no matter how braZen, is eagerly
seized in the hope to sneak out of a whipping.
The youngster who did not go In swimming,
but got his clothes turned wrong side out run
ming fast from the boys who tempted him TO
disobedience, was not more pitiable figure
than Probasco, with his denials that the bridge
sagged. his pretence that the breaks were new
and had rusted from the dampness of q pleasant
night, and his prepOsterous fairy tale about the
fixed rods strained sidewise by the heat, when
in fact they were hinged so that they had no such
strain under expansion OF course, Mr. Shea will
defend this preposteroGs romancer, but every
body else must see that his engineer either can
not be trusted to tell the truth about this struct
ure, on the safety of which thousands of lives
depend, or else is incompetent through his igno-
rance to have any part In its management.
Nor is Mr.. Shea's Endorsement OF any particu-
lar value He himself is up to the same tricks.
He solemny declares that the trolley cars have
regularly been kept 102 feet apart on the centre
span and that before the break the rule against
crOwding was enforced That is absolutely
untrue, and IL he does not know it he is sys-
tematically blind to the affairs of his own
department. He could without the least trouble
find a thousand witnesses TO the habtual crowd
ing of cars on the centre span. 1t has occurred
every day for months and denials of 1t are sheer
impudence. Perhaps Mr.. Shea thinks that the
people of this city fools. that he and his
assistants can mock them with palpable non
sense and induce them to disbelieve the evi-
dence Of their senses Perhaps he thinks
that the Tammany police officials plan of deny
ing the existence of whatever they do not want
to see can be conveniently followed in the
bridge department Certain it is that the state
ments made by bridge officials in the last few
days have not merely taxed popular credulity,
but established regulations of brazen admins
trative mendacity.