ompletion. It is this consideration which induced me to accept
the unexpected invitation of the trustees to speak for the city of New
York on the present occasion. When they thus honored me, they did not
know that John A. Roebling addressed to me the letter in which he
first suggested (and, so far as I am aware, he was the first engineer
to suggest), the feasibility of a bridge between the two cities, so
constructed as to preserve unimpaired the freedom of navigation. This
letter, dated June 19, 1857, I caused to be printed in the _New York
Journal of Commerce_, where it attracted great attention because it
came from an engineer who had already demonstrated, by successfully
building suspension bridges over the Schuylkill, the Ohio and the
Niagara rivers, that he spoke with the voice of experience and
authority. This letter was the first step towards the construction of
the work, which, however, came about in a manner different from his
expectations, and was finally completed on a plan more extensive than
he had ventured to describe. It has been charged that the original
estimates of cost have been far exceeded by the actual outlay. If this
were true, the words of praise which I have uttered for the engineers,
who designed and executed this work, ought rather to have been a
sentence of censure and condemnation. Hence, the invitation which came
to me unsought, seemed rather to be an appeal from the grave for such
vindication as it was within my power to make, and which could not
come with equal force from any other quarter.

Engineers are of two kinds: the creative and the constructive. The
power to conceive great works demands imagination and faith. The
creative engineer, like the poet, is born, not made. If to the power
to conceive, is added the ability to execute, then have we one of
those rare geniuses who not only give a decided impulse to
civilization, but add new glory to humanity. Such men were Michael
Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Watt, Wedgwood, Brunel, Stephenson and
Bessemer; and such a man was John A. Roebling. It was his striking
peculiarity, that while his conceptions were bold and original, his
execution was always exact, and within the limits of cost which he
assigned to the work of his brain. He had made bridges a study, and
had declared in favor of the suspension principle for heavy traffic,
when the greatest living authorities had condemned it as costly and
unsafe. When he undertook to build a suspension