The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-06-24
DANGERS OF BRlpGE BUILDERS

Cleveland Moffet in St. Nicholas.
As 1 went time and again to the great
East river bridge (the new one whose
huge steel towers were drawing to full
helght in the last months of the century,
L found myself under a growing impress
sion that here at last was a business
with not only danger in it, but fear of
danger Divers and steeple climbers 1
had seen who pronounced their work
perfectly safe Though l knew better and
balloonists of the same mind about perils
of the air; there were none, they de-
clared although L had a list of deaths
TO prove the contrary. And so on with
others. But here on the bri6ge were
men who showed by little things land
sometimes admitted) that they We're
afraid of the black ribbed monster. And
1t seemed to me that they We're men with
the best kind of grit in them. for al
though tey were afraid they were not
afraid of their fear, and they stuck to
their job week after week, month after
month, facing the same peril until-welI-
1 came upon this fear of the bridge the
very first time 1 sought leave to go upon
the unfinished structure. 1t was in a
little shanty of an office on the BROOKLYN
side, where after some talk 1 suggested
to. an assistant engineer, bent over his
plans, that l would like to take picture
seemed simple enough thing
Think you can keep your head up
there?" said he with a sharp look
1 told him I had climbed to a steeple
top.
Eyes. But you were dashed fast then
in swing and had a rope to hold on to.
Here you've got to climb UP by YOUR
self without anything to hold on to, and
it's twice as high as the average steeple.
Hae saddles are 40 feet ahoIra tho ,,
'Saddles?" 1 queried
That's what we call EN-. They're beds
of steel on top of the towers for the ca
bles to rest on-nice little beds, Weighing
thirty-six tons each"
"Oh!' said L How do you get them
up?'
Swing EN- up with steam derricks
and cables. Guess you wouldn't care
70 rthat job, hanging out on one O. those
booms by your eyelashes" He smiled.
Perhaps not" 1 admitted. But I'd
like to watch it."
He said 1 must see somebody with
more authority and turned to his plans.
He was busy
you don't feel in danger yourself, do
yeu,' 1 persisted, when you go up?"
Don't, eh?' he answered well, 1
nearly got cut in two the other day by
a plate washer. 1t fell more than 100
feet and went two inches slam into a
piece of timber l was standing on" Then
he explained what havoc a small piece
of iron-some stray bolt or nammer-can
work after a long drop.
THE plate washer said he weigh
ed only two pounds and a half when it
began to fall, but it weighed as much
as you do when it strickland you're q
fair size"
rs that true-I mean statement based
on calculation" said 1, ''or is 1t a joker
~ - <rlf sTNT1ls
he answered, land it's no Joke for The
man who gets hit. Say, why don't you
go down in the yard and look around a
little?'
I told him I would and presently went
down into the yard, noisy, confusing
through a forest of scaffolding that held
the bare black roadway skeleton 100 feet
overhead. 1t was a long sheet OF iron
resting on a long street of wood with
the timber and steel built up in KS on
KS, the whole thing rising in an easy
slant to yonder grim tower that doomed
bow-Iegged H, with the upper half
stretched to a great length and each leg
piled up with more black KS held by
two enormous ones between, It looked
for all the world as if it had come
ready made in a box and had been
jointed together ike chi! ren,s blocks,
bridge was finished on paper, in all
it's parts, before even a beam of it saw
the East river. AS l drew near It's feet
(Which could take a row of houses be-
tween heel and toe had the illusion,
due to bigness and height, that the Whole
tower was rocking towards me under the
hurrying Clouds and at first 1 did not
| see the workmen swarming over it. they
were so tiny.
these workmen, with their striking and
hosting, and shouting.
There was the ring of hammers, the
chunk-chunk of engines, the hiss Of the
steam. the mellow sound of planks fall
| ing on planks, and the angry clash Of
| metal. Presently, far UP the sides OF
| the tower I made out painters dangling
! on scaffolding, or growing out on girders,
busy with scrapers and brushes. And
| higher still I saw the glow of red hot
iron. where the riveters were working.
And at the very top I watched black dots
of men swing out over the gulf on the
monster derrick booms or haul on the
guiding lines. And from time to time
the signal bell would send it's impatient
call to the throttle man below six strokes.
four strokes, or one stroke, telling hiN
what to do with his engine. and to do
1t quick.
rrrS HAD SrOnn TDnN NM