Big Job to Roebling

Engineers estimated that it would take them four years to hang a bridge across the Golden Gate. Last week exactly half that time had elapsed since a $35,000,000 bond issue was voted to finance the Golden Gate Suspension Bridge./- But not a single strand of cable swung silhouetted against the sunset. The two years have been filled with legal wrangling. . . .

Prices have slumped greatly since the summer of 1931 when bids on the Bridge were called for, and some specifications have been changed. New bids were solicited. Last week the contract for the spectacular job of fabricating and erecting the cable-work was awarded to John A. Roebling's Sons Co. (wire & cables) of Trenton. N. J. The winning Roebling bid was $5,885.000. It was only $31,000 below that of Columbia Steel Co. This greatly vexed United States Steel Corp. which had bought Columbia in the hope of getting more Pacific Coast business. Last week many a Californian felt that the award should have been given to Columbia to provide more work for Californians.

The Roebling company will be no novice at the job. Greatest of its great feats was the construction of Brooklyn Bridge. The Bridge was the idea of John Augustus Roebling, the first U. S. engineer to use a steel strand in bridge-building. His foot was crushed in 1869 while making a preliminary survey for Brooklyn Bridge and 18 days later he lay dead of tetanus infection. The work was carried on by his young son Washington Augustus Roebling. an engineer proud of his Civil War-earned rank of Colonel. His specialty was caisson construction and he spent much time in high-pressure chambers under the East River. He contracted the "bends" a disease feared by all men who work under compressed air. Close to death, he rented a room on Brooklyn Heights and watched the construction through a telescope. His voice failed him and he wrote his instructions and specifications. By the time the Bridge was opened in 1889 Col. Washington Augustus Roebling was bedridden, blind in one eye. and a bitter, hard man.

Ferdinand Roebling, his brother, served as president of the company until he died in 1917. Col. Roebling then startled the directors by writing them a letter filled with comments upon his brother's vanity and other faults. The company was taken over by Col. Roebling's nephew Karl Roebling, who carried it through the evil post-War days until the strain killed him in 1921. Then, bitter old Col. Roebling made a titanic attempt to step back into his old job. For five years he managed the concern by day, and by night he rummaged in his valuable mineral collection. Legends about him abounded: he would never set foot in a motorcar; he would have none of typewriters; he ate upside down in a special swivel chair; he felt himself too great to ring a doorbell and upon making a call would stand, fiercely majestic, until the door was opened. Then one day he tucked a note among his rocks: "W. A. R. has to give up absolutely, June. 1926." A month later the last of the great bridge-building Roeblings died. Today Nephew Ferdinand William Roebling Jr, brother of Nephew Karl, is president of the company and other members of new Roebling generations work there. President Roebling, 54. studied engineering at Lehigh University and went thence directly into the mills. In public he is taciturn: in private a good conversationalist, well informed, having read many a biography. He smokes incessantly, never dresses in the evening unless he is going to a function where more than 100 people will be present. Then he dons white tie and tails. He has a large collection of pictures and prints of Brooklyn Bridge. Although he has been called "the greatest engineer of the family" his work for the company has been chiefly financial. He is a director of Chase National Bank and of his good customer Otis Elevator Co. He is known as Trenton's biggest philanthropist and in 1925 received the Trenton Times award for his civic deeds. He served as an elector in 1928 and this year his wife, a member of many New Jersey committees, was an electoral candidate. While Roeblings_ work at their Roebling tasks with varying zeal, they all appear promptly at directors' meetings and walk in together, alert lest one Roebling edge ahead of another in his sway of Roebling matters.

Most famed of recent Roebling works was the cable-erection 'of the Hudson Bridge. The following figures show how that great span will compare with the one to be flung over the Golden Gate:

Hudson Golden Gate

Length Suspended. 4,760 ft. 6,450 ft.

Span Length 3,500 ft. 4,200 ft.

Width 120 ft. 90 ft.

Clearance 213 ft. 220 ft.

Tower-height 635 ft. 746 ft.

Main Cables 4 2

Diam. of Cables 36 in. 36 1/4 in.

/- Running between San Francisco's Presidio and Marin county (near Sausalito), it is not to be confused with the R. F. C.-backed San Francisco-Oakland Bridge.

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