r fame, but to do in the
perfect way the work that only he could do.

In 1867 a grand convention for the improvement of the Mississippi and
its tributaries met in Saint Louis. Even then people were beginning to
see vaguely that the Mississippi Valley is destined to be the ruling
section of the country. Eads in his speech showed that he foresaw it
plainly. He urged the convention to persuade the government to take
steps to improve the river; showing that for less money than was paid
by the river boats in three years for insurance against obstructions,
those obstructions could be removed. There was not one of them, he
said, that engineering skill and cunning could not master.

Two years later he urged upon the commercial convention at New Orleans
by letter the importance of introducing iron boats on the Mississippi;
saying that it was the fault of the tariff on iron that the saving they
would effect was not taken note of. Thirty years later this scheme has
again been brought up. Perhaps Eads was before his time in advocating
it. But it shows how he had the interests of commerce at heart.

His convention speech is a good sample of his style. He was so
painstaking that even in private letters he would insert words and
change sentences and sometimes rewrite. There are first draughts with
excisions of whole half pages, for he sought conciseness. He sought
also a certain rhythm or grace or forcefulness, it is hard to tell
exactly what, since in his letters it often resulted in a rather
self-conscious formality or a stiff playfulness, and in his speeches in
a prettiness or a floweriness of style. He sought too carefully.
Probably in delivery the speeches sounded better than we should
imagine. In reading them, they seem florid. That was, however, the
favorite style of the time. And while, by overdoing it, he often seems
to lose force, he is almost always clear and always entirely logical.
In contrast to his speeches his professional reports are models: simple
and complete, written not faultlessly perhaps, but with a limpidity
which makes one interested even in dry technical details. One of his
most marked talents, often noted, was the ability to explain an
abstruse subject so that it would be quite clear to anybody. And this
he did nearly as well in writing as by word of mouth.

He thus made clear his remarkable plans for the bridge; for in 1867 the
long talked of bridge at Saint Louis was at last begun.

In 1833, when Eads