Later that year, Representative Barnes Compton (D-Maryland) introduced legislation in Congress to build a $60,000 bridge of wood on wooden piers. But the Compton bill was strongly opposed by the D.C. Commissioners. The legislation required that the city pay half the cost of the structure, and Commissioner Samuel E. Wheatley led the city government in adamantly refusing to support the bill. A group of EWCA members began personally lobbying Congress for the bridge. Samuel Taylor Suit, a state senator in the Maryland legislature, won passage of a resolution by that state supporting the bridge. These efforts proved highly successful. Senator Blackburn and Representative Rowell won a $40,000 increase in the amount appropriated for the bridge, and inserted language into the bill requiring that it be constructed of iron and be set on stone piers. This legislation passed both chambers of Congress unanimously on February 23, 1887.