Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1903 — Knew What Man Can Do. [ARTICLE]

Knew What Man Can Do.

A story of James B. Eads, the engineer of the great bridge at St. Louis, points to the kind of spirit that was In him, which did far more than his technical skill to make him a great man. The story is told by Colonel Frank A. Montgomery in "Reminiscenees of a Mlssissipplan.” When Eads was presenting to the committee of the House the plans which he had devised for rendering permanent the channel of the Mississippi River, there was on the committee a man named Jones, from a mountain district in Kentucky. This man, whose presence in Congress, not to say in this committee, was one of the many unexplained mysteries of American politics, continually interrupted Eads with foolish questions, nnd annoyed a man, who was bent on giving to the committee the best of Ids knowledge. —Presently he said, “Captain Eads, do you believe it possible to control the waters of the Mississippi River so as to prevent overflows?” Eads looked at him a moment and then said: “I should have great contempt for the human mind if I did not believe it conkl do it.” That speech had in it much of tho American faith in the ability of man to do what has not been done before, a faith that in this case gave us a great work by which all the people of the Union have been benefited for to the delta of the Mississippi has meant prosperity to many States.