The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1909-10-16
CONVERSATION ANENT
THU. BRIDGE
oPENAiR VAUDEVILLE NEARS
END-SMITH AND JONES GIVE
OPINIONS.

For more than year Missoula has
enjoyed an open-air vaudeville of
merit. For a twelvemonth the Higgins
avenue bridge has afforded steady
amusement for hundreds dag by day
and now. when the program is near
ing its end. the audiences are growing
Yesterday was an ideal day for anna
teur bridge inspection WORK and the
inspectors were there in strong num-
bers. Everything is approval now:
the amateurs have at last conceded
that the professionals understand what
they are doing and criticism is strik-
ingly rare-just now. \ few months
ago il was different Nine out of
every 10 that lined the temporary
bridge knew that the piers were not
being built in the proper manner. that
the concrete was not mixed just right
and that the whole structure would be
dismal failure. Most of these men
were rather surprised when the build
ers went right on and the piers didn't
collapse or crumblc before the current
of the Missoual river, but turned with
great joy to the steel work. when the
bridge assumed that stage. Some way
or other. the steel men kept on putting
up steel and boiling great Orders to-
gether and the rivets held and the
travelling crane didn't topp!e over in
To the river and all of tine men who fell
off were rescued and-my. but IL was
hard on the sideliRe experts.
Finally. a straight line of steel
stretched entirely across the two chan
nels of the river and there was
great revulsion of sentiment and the
spectator-engineers culled their we'll
worked vocabularies for words of
praise and expressions of commenda
ton. blind man might have
watched the progress of the bridge
by listening to the comment of the
self appointed supervisors. He would
have heard opinion change from bitter
condemnation to hearty praise, through
n gamut Of half hearted criticism. to
luke-warm commentator. Yesterday.
had he been listening at the uptown
end of, the new passageway. he would
have heard this. which Is word for
word the conversation of two citizens.
whose MINDS are naturally full of the
three greatest things in the world
right now. the Higgins avenue bridge.
the outcome of the final game of the
worlds championship series and the re-
suit of the Johnson Ketchel fight.
Jones: Take ii from me- there's
some class to this bridge but Il think
Pittsburg will win that game Satur-
day. all right
Smith: You bet it is. but where
do you figure Detroit is going to be
all the time? Why. the Tigers II eat
the Pirates up. It's cinch. See.
they've got the concrete mixer on
wheels and are going To run it right
out onto the bridge. Believe me.
these bridge people are all to the good.
Now. Wen be walking across there in
a couple of weeks. looks like to me-"
Jones: $50 we will. but Detroit isn't
going To walk oven Pittsburg to any
great extent tomorrow. Just you look
at Hans Wagner: all he did the other
day was to get four hits and steal
four bases. Show me where Ty Cobb
ever got away with anything like that.
Why. yesterday he played all over the
field and never made an error. Then
there's Leach: he's there. believe me
and-What's' that? Schmidt? That
Dutch bonehead doesn't know he's in
the game half the time. He lost last
year for Detroit bs-'
Smith: What do you know about
1t, anyway? | suppose you've bet four
bits on Pittsburg and are talking to
keep up your courage and Say. /
did you notice that they're putting up
the inside railing posts there? That's
the system, There won't any horses
or automobiles get over that They're
going TO leave this track down for the
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