Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, July 13, 1902, Page 29

lowa and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition W. T. SHEPHERD, HARLAN. OMEONE has suggested to the members of the Iowa commis- sion that will prepare the Hawk- eye exhibit at the St. Louls ex- position in 1904 that a fine exhibit would be a collection of 5,000 Iowa girls. Such an exhibit, it is pointed out, would attract more attention, excite more favor- able comment and be a bigger advertise- ment for the state of ITowa than any other that could be prepared. But the comm's- sloners decided that in view of the fact that the legislature of Iowa appropriated only $126,000 for the Iowa exhibit they would not attempt the display of 5,000 Towa girls at St. Louls. Another plan sug- gested has been to prepare an immense “‘corn palace” at the exposition and make it fully representative of the agricultural wealth of the state of Iowa; but it is also pointed out that inasmuch as Iowa is now a great deal more than an agricultural state this would not be appropriate. There is a general desire among the people of Towa that the Iowa exhibit at St. Louls shall show the state of Iowa as it is—n state of many Industries, of many features, filled with people of all kinds, rich in all things but a few, and above all else de- cldedly progressive. The commission which is to have charge of the expenditure of the $125,000 con- sists of former Governor Willlam Larra- bee of Clermont, chairman; W. T. Shep- herd of Harlan, secretary; L. A. Palmer of Mount Pleasant, former Congressman George M. Curtis of Clinton, former Con- gressman Thomas Updegraff of McGregor, Senator James E. Trewin of Cedar Rap!ds, Senator William F. Harriman of Hampton, Judge 8. 8. Carruthers of Bloomfleld, 8. M. Leach of Adel, Dr. P. L. Prentis of Delphos, W. C. Whiting of Whiting, former Senator E. C. Ericson of Boone and W. W. Wit- mer of Des Moines. The commission is an admirable one. Ex- Governor Willlam Larrabee was unani- mously selected as the president of the commission and he will be the leading epirit in all its work. Governor Larrabee, after twenty years of experience in the legisla- ture, was elected governor twice and dur- ing his last term was almost forced into a Wonderful Swing of the New Big Bridge Over East EVER iIn the history of bridge building have glant cables been hung so swiftly as they were on New York's new suspension bridge over the REast river. Seven months ago the first strand of wire for them was still undrawn. Today the four mighty cables are fin- ithed and the work of hanging the suspender cables from them is well under way: Those four cables contain 7,796 wires, each 3,000 feet long, making 4,429 miles of wire. And the seven months occu- pled in the work is exactly three times as fast as any similar work has ever been ac- complished. Thrcugh all those months men saw the work grow apparently so slowly that their senses became blunted, and they did not realize what cyclopean labor was being per- formed before thelr eyes. Every day they saw innumerable tiny black specks plodding to and fro on a tangle of wire ropes that locked llke fairy threads from below. No serious accidents, not a single interruption of the vast traffic of the roaring strait that is called Bast river, not a sound that could be heard, marked the work. Yet those black atoras, looking more like insects than men from below, threw 4,600 tons of cable through the air in that time, 8o high in air hang tho=e ropes of irom, 80 alry and loveiy in outline are those vast towers, that no man gazing upward from river shore can realize the monstrous di- mensions of everything connected with that glant swing. Somehow, despite the fact that all about it is so motionless ana still, the sight of those beautifully true and per- fectly sweeping ocables gives one an im- pression as if he were looking at the swoop of a bird suddenly fixed miraculously In midair in all its grace. Standing deep In the rushing green water the two steel tow- ers stand sturdy and powerful, like men at arms in metal harness. From every aspest one sees the blue sky shine through tmetr open grillage work, softening thelr mighty trusses and girders and making them look, 8. M. LEACH, ADEL. P. L. PRENTIS, DELPHOS. W. C. WHITING, WHITING. campaign for United States senator. But he retired to his beautiful farm near Clermont to attend to his farm and other business. As the years have gone by he has grown in the esteem of the people of Iowa until today he is regarded as one of the greatest of the men of the state. He was called from his retirement to be chalrman of the Board of Control when it was organized and when the work had been fairly started he retired therefrom. Messrs. Curtis and Updegraft, who have served In congress, have large business Interests of their own and are deeply coancerned in the welfare of the state. Senators Harriman and Trewin were both candidates for the republican nomina- tion for governor last year and both are prominent in the state senate. Trewin is & lawyer, who has recently moved to Ca- dar Rapids, and Harriman has long been Identified with the State Agricultural so- clety and the state fairs. Messrs. Palmer, Leach, Whiting and Shepherd are promi- nent business men in their respective com- munities. Mr. Witmer was formerly a not as if they were dead tons of weight, but as if they might be swayed by the lightest airs, Overwhelming Proportions. It is only when one is high on the struc- ture Iitself and can look downward from the towers that the true proportions of the great roadway become apparent. But then they become apparent overwhelmingly. Your correspondent was fortunate enough to recelve an invitation from Assistant Chief Engineer Hildenbrandt to accompany him over the entire structure just before the dizzy foot bridges that had been swung for the work of cable laying were torn away, and thus we were possibly the last party to cross under conditions fitted ex- ceptionally to bring out the stupendous slzes of everything connected with the work, We began our climb at the Brooklyn anchorage, just as the last wire was being brought across by the busy wheel that has carried all those miles of it without an error or a break. The work of carrying the wires over was simplicity itself, as, in- deed, is almost everything connected with the bullding of the bridge. On each shore of the river was a reel of wire. This was hitched Into a groove in the wheel, as a belt is put around a fiywheel. Then the wheel was pulled over to the other side with a wire cable, revolving all the way and pay- ing out the wire strand that it carried. At the other side another wire was harnessed to it and it was sent back. 8o it traveled to and fro day after day, laying the wires precisely where they were wanted. At intervals of a few yards men with tongs and pliers stood ready to seize the wire as it was delivered, lay it in place and tle It to the rest with stout steel bands. The anchorage, a plle of granite, looks more like a busy shipyard than an edifice of the land. Diving into eubterranean caverns beneath the tons of stone are immense chain of tempered steel, held in place by the superincumbent mass of roeck, W. W. WITMER, DES MOINES. newspaper man and Las been conspicuous in politics, but in recent years has devoted himself to business. Senator Ericson is a man of generous impulses. He made a present of Jowa land worth many thousand dollars to the Augustana college at Rock Island and presented his home city with a fine library building. Judge Carruthers and Dr. Prentis are professional men, the latter having also served in the legisla- ture. With such an array of business men on the commission it is certain that the Iowa exh'bit at St. Louls will be largely a busi- ness exhibit. The coal industry of the state will be exhibited and the coal mine owners will be expected to contribute to the ex- hibit from their wealth. Other mining and mineral interests will be made prominent. The manufacturing interests of the state will receive quite as much attention as the agricultural, but as the members of the commission have not yet fairly gotten ac- quainted, no definite plans have been made. An Towa building will be erected, but it a veritable anchor, only one of enormous size, holds the cables proper, which them- selves cease some d.stance away from the anchor. Their connection with the chain is made by simply passing the endless strands of wire around the outer links. The individual wires in the cable are not as thick as a lead pencil. But out of them have been spun cables that are nine- teen inches in dlameter. Although the anchorage itself rises high over surrounding buildings, the senses re- fuse to give the impression of height, for just ahead there springs the vast tower over which the cables are hung. Up, up, rising to its top with a swing so abrupt and great that one feels as if they were actually climbing visibly before one, go the four great cables. To climb up the tiny footbridge, slippery with months of oil drippings (for every wire that went across the bridge passed through an oil bath before it started), seemed quite impossible of achievement. ‘‘A most ridiculously inade- quate thing to carry Caesar and his for- tunes,” said a visiting ergineer, who was one of the party, as he balanced on the narrow planks and looked through the wide spaces at his feet down into the street far below. Half way up the ascent to the tower top the climb became & scramble. Mo- lasses-llke masees of oil made the feet slip—and one does not enjoy slipping when the nearest place to land is 150 feet below. uripping the oily guy rope, the only means of support, we climbed and climbed, with the threatening mass of the cable hanging just over our heads. On the Tower's Top. At last we emerged and stood on a tiny lacding place before the tower. A dive thru, .’ an opening that seemed to lead stralght 'nto the sky, and we had gained the top of the Brooklyn tower—332 feet above high water, higher by twenty-four feet than the gigantic St. Paul building, man who is leading us across! W. F. HARRIMAN, HAMPTON C. L. ERICSON, BOONE. will not be an elaborate one. The appro- priation may be increased two years hence if that is deemed necessary, but the com- mission Is planning to keep within the amount set aside for the exhibit. Iowa was represented at an international exposition for the first time at Philadelphia in 1876. The legislature of 1874 had failed to do anything for ar exhibit and prep- arations were made by a volunieer organ- ization, but the legislature of 1876 appro- priated $20,000, with which and the pri- vate funds raised a fine exhibit was made. At the New Orleans Cotton centennial in 1884 the exhibit was entirely a private one, made by a volunteer commission, but the exhibit won great favor and many prizes came to Iowa. At the exposition at Paris in 1889 a few Iowa exhibits were shown by private enterprise. At the Chicago exposition the commis- sion for Iowa had at its d'sposal a total of $141,000. The exhibit included a hand- some building, which was In fact the Jack- son Park pavilion worked over for an and seeming as high as a snow-capped mountain to us as we stood on the un- fenced, unguarded summit, with all New York, Long Island, the sound, the rivers and the bay at our feet like a neat map. And now look forward and backward and behold the vast work that this little creature, man, has done. Human hands, not as big by many inches as any one of hundreds of rivets around us, have hurled this mass of iron and steel across an arm of sea. Before these tiny two-legged ani- mals that are hanging like flies to dizzy places all around us are through they will have hung 12,000 tons to these cables that they have spun. The engineer is saying that the total weight of the bridge when completed wiil be 16,000 tons with the live load that it is designed to carry. But, he says, that will be play for the cables, for their total strength is expressed in 96,000 tons. Ninety-six thousand times ninety-six thousand tons seems child's play to us, gazing down at them as they sweep in four glorious masses down and far out over the river and then up again, seem- ing to dart straight at the sky as they reach bravely for the top of the New York tower. Four torrents of metal, spouting out from steel embrasures! If archi- tecture is frozen music, here, in this engi- neering feat, is Wagnerian opera trans- formed at the moment of its wildest revelry into rigid steel. That giant swing, caught in its upward sweep, might, indeed, be the thunder itself, caught and transfixed to hang there, visible forever. Hundreds of wire ropes hang every- where. Footbridges, planks, rope ladders, tackle, make a tangle around us. But as well might one expect the eye to note a fly when looking at Niagara as to see anything here except those noble spans, hanging serene and beautiful, high cver the city's smoky atmosphere. Hung by such as this spare, shy, smiling Now he JAMES E. TREWIN, CEDAR RAPIDS. lowa building. The exhibit includes some- thing in almost every class—live stock, grains, vegetables, dairying, aplary, horti- culture, minerals and geology, woman's work, education and fine arts, forestry, photography and manufactures. It was re- garded as a highly creditable exhibit and Iowa made a fine showing at the exposition. At the Tranemississippl exposition at Omaha there was neither thestime nor the money to make an exhibit such as the state should have had. The legislature had ap- propriated $10,000 at first and afterward this was raised to $35,000, but the latter sum was not available until nearly time for the opening of the exposition. A commission was appointed consisting of S. H. Mallory, Chariton; J. H. Wallback, Mount Pleasant; 8. D. Cook, Davenport; F. N. Chase, Cedar Falls; J. BE. E. Markley, Mason City; R H. Moore, Ottumwa; Allan Dawson, Des Moinee; George W. McCoid, Logan; Owen Lovejoy, Jefferson, and W. W. Erwin, Sloux City. Mr. Chase afterward resigned in or- der to make himself available for secre- tary, and 8. B. Packard of Marshalltown was appointed in his stead. An Iowa state building was erected on the exposition grounds at Omaha at a cost of about $8,000, which was headquarters for the Iowa people during the Transmississippi exposi- tion and where a registry book was kept for visitors and where the ceremonies for Iowa were held. A fine exhibit of livestock from Iowa was given, especially of cattle. In the general agricultural and dairying departments the Iowa exhibits were fine. In the horticultural building a splendid ex- Libit of apples and other fruit was shown by Iowa exhibitors. A feature of the Iowa show was the “wigwam’ erected by the people of Pottawattamie county and main- tained by them. The address on Iowa day at the Transmississippi exposition was de- livered by Robert G. Cousins, member of congress from the Fifth district and it was a masterly oration. Although it is two years until the ex- position at St. Louils opens already the commission in charge is at work and has selected the site for the Iowa building. The Iowa exhibit will far exceed anything ever done by the state at any exposition. ORA WILLIAMS. River is pointing downward. Advancing to the edge of the tower, where it drops sheer into the deep water so far away that its rolling waves look like ripples, we see a war ship just leaving the Brooklyn Navy yard that l.es just belcw. Other war ships, one of them a mighty battleship, lie in berths there. While we are looking, the engineer raises his hand to warn us of a dangerous spot in the path. And instan- taneously all the picture is gone. So high are we that his hand suffices to blot out a navy yard and all its ships. A ferryboat passes under us. Beautifully distinet, like the image in the camera obscura, are its passengers, with the hats of the women making gaudy patches of color in it. We count ninety-four persons on the forward deck and four big two-horse teams and trucks. But I hold out my out- spread hand over the gulf and, lo! my thumb alone serves to hide them all. Over the mver, Now, we are descending the footbridge toward the center of the span, over the middle of the river. We have to grip the guy rope with power and lean backward as if we were trylng to haul something up the incline. Be sure that none of us has the least desire to let his momentum start him to hurrying down that swinging aerial way. Tugboats and side-wheelers, lines of tows, ocean steamers, pass below—miser- able little toy boats. Some of them cough spitefully, trying to puff their black smoke at us. But it dissipates miles and miles below. Miles and miles below floats a triple row of excursion barges, lashed to- gether and crowded with people from stem to stern. We see a fluttering of white. It is as If one saw the wicd stir a daisy 6tudded fleld far away. Those are hun- dreds of handkerchiefs that are being waved at us, black specks, that crawl on the cobweb fillament far above them. In the center of the span the wind (Continued on Eighth Page.)