Evidently such inspection as this is of no value. It is exactly this utterly incompetent and dishonest inspection, this guessing that a bridge will stand until it falls, that lies at the bottom of half the disasters in the country. It is under exactly such inspection that those wretched traps, the Ashtabula and Tariffville bridges, fell, and killed over one hundred people. No wonder that railroad officials have an undisguised contempt for State inspection. While in a few States the inspection is not quite so bad as that referred to, as a general thing it is no better; and we have no right to expect any thing better under the present system. The State inspection which we have had throughout this country has not prevented the breaking down of one hundred bridges in the past ten years. Twenty-five States have railroad commissions; but in nine of them the commission consists of only a single man, who, in some cases, is paid only $500 a year. A State can pay $500 a year for having its bridges inspected, and it will get such service as never did and never will prevent a disaster; or it can pay a good price for competent inspection, which will be worth ten times the money to the State. The money which the Lake Shore Railroad paid in damages for the Ashtabula disaster alone, would have employed permanently six men at $5,000 a year each, and a hundred lives would have been saved besides.
With regard to highway bridges, we are, if possible, even worse off than in regard to railway bridges; for in the case of such structures, neither the owners nor the State make any pretence at inspection. It is impossible to say how many highway bridges have broken down during the past ten years, but it is estimated by bridge-builders that the number cannot be less than two hundred. This is, no doubt, far within the truth; and by far the larger part of these structures are not old wooden bridges, but are new bridges of iron.
If we knew positively that in just six months a terrible disaster would occur under the present system of bridge inspection, and knew also, that, by a better system, such disaster would certainly be prevented, it is possible that a change might be made. We know that a proper method of building and inspecting bridges would certainly have prevented the disasters at Ashtabula, Tariffville, and Dixon. We know that the inspection which those bridges received, did not prevent three of the most fearful disasters the country has ever seen. Admitting, now, that structures so important to the public safety as bridges, both upon roads and railroads, ought to be kept under rigid inspection and control, and that no system at present existing has been able to prevent the most fearful catastrophes, what shall we do? Directly after the Ashtabula disaster, the Ohio legislative committee, appointed to investigate that affair, presented to the Legislature a bill, "To secure greater safety for public travel over bridges," in which was plainly specified the loads for which all bridges should be proportioned, the maximum strains to which the iron should be subjected, and a method for inspecting the plans of all bridges before building, and the bridges themselves during and after construction. The governor, with the consent of the Senate, was to appoint the inspector for a term of five years at a salary not exceeding $3,000 a year, such inspector to pass a satisfactory examination before a committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers, themselves practical experts in bridge construction, and he was also to take a suitable oath for the faithful performance of his duty. This bill never became a law. An appropriation was made for a short time to pay for certain examinations, and there the matter stopped.