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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1903)
Krupp's Estate and the German Workingman , s A t , ' . -J- , l - ii rf i i r : 'J v.". l r ,',.yt- r .' m . i ..u--f. : . a A STREET IN KRUPPS COLONT, KRONENBEfRO. APARTMENTS FOR WORKINGMEN AT $22 PER TEAR. (Copyright. 1908, by Frank O. Carpenter.) - ISSEN ON THE RUHR, April 15. I. I (Special Correspondence of The 1 n A T I V ft. - . t u.r"i iu iu iuo unrv ui lav Pruaalan Black Country, where the foundries and factories are as thick aa In the Black Country of England or in our own Black Country about Pittsburg. The land Is underlaid with coal and iron, and upon it has grown one of the greatest teel centers of the world. I rode here through forests of smokestacks. There are cities and Tillages all about me which hare steel and iron mills. Sollngen, the Shef field of Germany, la not ' far away, and within a hundred-mile radius are towns making almost everything under the sun. There are woolen factories and cotton fac tories, silk mills and velvet mills. There are glass works, steel works and great shops for the equipment of railroads, steam ships and every other steel thing under the un. The heart of this region la Essen and the oul of it ia the Krupps. The chief Krupp Is dead; but his spirit remains and Essen goes on as though he were alive. The town wm practically founded by a Krupp, it was built up by a Krupp and the Krupp estate support It today. When the first Krupp began work In his little foundry It was a village. Along In the 'BO's, when the second Krupp had be gun to make steel cannon, It had only 10, 000; but today It has more than 100,000 in habitants, and ntnety-nlne hundredths of these are supported by the Krupps. I despair of giving you an adequate con ception of the extent of this steel business which has been managed by one man and la now owned by one family. The word Krupp in Germany has much the same place that "Carnegie" or the words "The United States Steel Corporation" have in America. The Krupps have vasf. properties of many kinds. They own bOO different mines In Germany and other mlnea In Spain'. ' They dig their own coal, and they transport much of their goods on their own steamers. They have ships on the rivers, wharves at Rotterdam, miles of railroads and thousands of railroad cars. They have their own telephone and telegraph stations numbered by hundreds, and they have great factories at several places In Germany. Here at Essen their employes are more In number than was our army at the begin nlng of the Spanish war. - They have other thousands in their shipbuilding yarda at Kiel and their workmen altogether approx imate 60,000 men, the greateat Industrial) brigade that has ever been commanded by! a private Individual. Essen practically belongs to tho KruppsJ As you rome here from the Rhine yoir pass, a castle on a hill and are told It is Krupp's. There is a railroad station at tha estate and a prlvtie entrance, wbere the emperor pasaea up to visit the Krupp fam ily. In Essen the hotel belongs to Krupp. There are a Krupp hospital, Krupp club houses and Krupp schools.' Tho most ot the suburbs are made up ot Krupp's colo nies built by Krupp architects and Krupp workmen, and in one quarter you will find the beautiful village which Krupp has erected for his men who are too old te work. There sre scores of Krupp stores, Krupp factories and Krupp playgrounds for the children. The heart of all this Is the steel mills, whose sixty factories and furnaces are ever sending their volumes ot smoke Into the air. Their buildings cover an area ot a dosen gooA-slzed farms. They extend on and on along wide streets, so that it wearies you to walk from one end ot them to the other. They have many windows blackened with smoke snd tho dense clouds ot carbonised vapor which hang over them are ever dropping soot.. Hers snd there a gate opens Into one factory or another, but every gate has its guard and strangers are not admitted. In deed.' it is only through my Utters from the United States government, which show that I have nothing to do with steel and iron, that I sm a guest of the works, and am thus enabled to give an Inside view of this, the chief Industrial Institution of con tinental Europe. Come with me and tako a glance at the works. Wo might spend dsys and net go ... . . .. , . .''' v- . v ' . . . . ' - ' . . ' ' ' ' ' f umiiwwiiw"11111 Un mm ii i - ,, mi ihm"'" "M"" 11 11111 " ... " Jni i t - it t ' ,'' ' ; tt "l r fmr-iiinr "i t ikihh r i i rii iiski mi"-- . EACH COTTAGE 13 OCCUPIED BY A PENSIONED EMPLOYE. through them all. See this yard Oiled with steel rails Just from the rolling mills. There are miles of them. They are being shipped to different parts of Germany and also to Russia and the South American re publics. Further on Is an inclosure full ot mighty cannon. The unmounted guns are scattered over the sod as thickly as the leaves of Vallombrosa. Next door are steel plates tor ships, and there at the right aro bridge materials ready to start out for all parts ot the world. The Krupps have their drummers on every continent and In al most every country. I have met them la South America, in Japan and in China, and they are now working every part ot South Africa. Among the great products of this fac tory are guns and munitions of war. The Krupps have been making guns for more than half a century. Alfred Krupp, the grandfather of the man who died a few months ago, made cast steel cannon as far back as 1847, and in 18G9 old Kaiser Wll-. helm gave him his first order for the Ger man army. I am told that the first cannon were not a success, but those which fol lowed were, and the Franco-Prussian war was fought with materials supplied by the Krupps. Today Germany gets the most of -its war supplies here, and Krupp guns are used by the Russians, the Turks, the Ital ians, the Japaneae, and. In fact. In almpst every part ot the world. : I was In Germany at the time of the ' Dusseldorf exposition, where the Krupps had' samples' of their best guns, as well as the great armor plates which have been penetrated by them. The guns were of all sizes, some small enough to bs mounted on the back of a mule and others which sent, forth steel projectiles a foot thick and as high as your waist, weighing half a ton. Today the Krupps make single guns which weigh 120 tons, and which, notwith standing this weight, are manipulated by such machinery that a child could operate tbem. Notice some of the guns as they He on the floor of the shop. Their barrels are so large that a twenty-pound baby could crawl through them, and the weight of each is so great that it would take 100 horses to haul them. See how they are handled! They are carried from one end of tl)e shop to the other more easily than you bring In an armful of wood to the fire. That little man under the roof touches a button and a twelve-Inch gun is picked up by a traveling crane and carried from one end of the shop to the other. If ws had a week we might study the making of the guns. The Iron Is kneaded like doagh. After it comes from the fur nace the red-hot mass is pounded Into shape as a blacksmith pounds a horseshoe. The hole is bored Into it as easily as a boy bores out a popgun, and the hard metal is planed down as a carpenter'planes a board. The Krupps take fifty tons of the toughest metal and handle it as easily as the black smith, the carpenter and the boy handle their tools. Everything Is done by ma chinery and everything must be scientif ically correct. It takes . a long time to make a gun, and the biggest of them. If I rightly remember, costs as much as $100,000. But I cannot bag In to describe the pro cesses. The machinery is that of a thou sand workshops under one head. Krupp has his own school of Inventors, where men are always experimenting and assay ing. He has a number of laboratories, and at Mappan there are large experimental grounds, where guns and projeetiles are practically tested. - Shortly before he died the kaiser was here examining some new guns and only thirty were present when the tests were made.. . The. Krupp workmen are of all classes. It takes an army of clerks for the offices, and there are hordes of commercial travel ers on the road. . He has more than 1,200 mechanics In his building department and dozens of architects and subarchltects. The thousands ot men in the shops are dressed In blue Jeans, and many wear wooden clogs. They appear well fed and more than ordi narily Intelligent. They are up to the best ot the French laborers and better looking and better dressed than those ot Sheffield and Birmingham. - As I went through the shops I asked something as to wages and hours of work. The usual day begins at 6 and at 8 the men stop a quarter of an hour for rest and a cup of coffee. They then work on until noon, when their wives or children bring their midday meal. They have an hour and a half at this time, and then work on until 4. Then there is another fifteen minutes for rest and coffee, or beer, when they go back and work on until 6, putting in on the average a ten-hour day. The men are paid by the hour and not by tho day, and they are glad to work as long as possible. There are, I am told, no trade unions connected with the works, and so far no trouble has been had with strikes. Wages are much lower than with us, not (Continued on Page Sixteen.) i i f . . " I i ' X ! .... . ' ? n i i i I - , : 1 : ' j . ... ? . A :' fc, '.. ' '" ' - . ' .'. ' . " , ', . v ' R. 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