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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1903)
10 THE ILLUSTRATED BEE. April 28, 10091 Carpenter's Letter (Continued from Twelfth rage.) nly- In the foundries, but also In other branches. Bricklayers, for Instance, re eel t from 8 to 9 cents an hour and com moo workmen 7 cents. Foremen get 1.60 dar. The men are well treated. Every foundry has Its waBh house and bath room, and each man has a locker for his clothes. Hot water for coffee Is free, and every em ploye has all the advantages of the Krupp worklngtncn's clubs, the Krupp libraries and Krupp stores, which I describe fur ther on. Mr. Krupp tried to keep travk of his In dividual workmen. He courted complaints and was ready to remedy any Injustice. Men . who were discharged without cause were sure of reinstatement, and this fact was so well known to the official that few such dismissals were made. The greatest care Is taken to minimize accidents. All dangerous machinery la painted a bright red, which means "be careful when you o by." I spent a day In going through the work ingmen's colonies which Krupp has built specially for his men. There are large Motions of Essen given up to such colo- ? U - - J ' I i ... ...U. ..... I I J MJ. .!.. I . U. . . MLM i U I - ' - I ' I : V"'.. w J j W p.:! J. 1 H .- iU lt LATINO THE CORNERSTONE OF LUTHER ACADEMY AT WAHOO, Neb., ON EASTER SUNDAY AFTERNOON Photo by N. J. Anderson, Wahoo. , ale. The ground Is laid out by the Krupps and the buildings erected to be rented out to the workmen. There are whole villages of them, some composed of beautiful cot tagea with gardens and lawns, others of sanitary tenements, about parks not far ' from the works and others" of little houses for those too old to work. There are alto gether about 42.000 apartments, renting from $23 to $80 a year. In addition there are also more expensive buildings for the fore men and officers of the works, and alto gether a collection of the most wonderful worklngmen's homes of this continent. The first colony I visited was near the works. It Is composed of three and four story buildings, attuated along wide streets ' shaded by forest trees. The streets cross on another at right angles, with a largo playground and park in the center, where there Is muslo by the Krupp band several times a week. ' The fiats are of two, three and four rooms. The first on I entered had a bed' room, kitchen, living room and parlor. Its tenant had hot and cold water and the use of a laundry In the basement. The rent vac $90 a year, or $7.60 a month. The man who occupied It received $80 a month. In another. hous. I. visited a flat of two rooms, which rented for $2 a year, the tenant getting only $3 a week. The woman who showed me the fiat was as clean as a pin, and she took pride, in her .housekeep- tng, which was as clean as herself.; The beds were neat. There were pictures on the walls and curtains In the windows, and everywhere the desire to make home beau ' tlful, although the rent was, all told, not more than. (0 cents weekly. In the colony there were 4,600 people, end I was told that the apartments were always rented. The cottages are more comfortable than the tenements.. There. are hundreds of them, each having Us own garden about It Each has It own. style of architecture, not unlike that of some of our beat suburban towns of the United States- 8ome cottages are single and some., double. There.. art seldom more than four families In any one cottage, and as a rule not more than one or two. On of the tour-room cottages I saw rented for $5 a month, and a little better one for $6. Where two families occupy a cottage there are two entrancea and each family has It own garden. The eoltagec are covered with vines. Flowers bloom about their doors, and' they are really plea, ant homes. There is such a demand foi LYCEUM PLAYERS, A COMPANY OF LOCAL AMATEURS IN A SCENE FROM "CHARLEY'S AUNT" Photo by a Staff Artist. and cucumber salad. - " "Tuesday Breakfast: Coffee, ham and bread. Dinner: 8oup, mutton stew, vege tables. Supper: Scrambled eggs and pota toes." In addition to this beer Is furnished at a little over cost price. . One of the most Interesting of the col onies Is Altenhof, which might be trans lated "Old Age Court." This is for the re tired workmen who have served out their terms In the shops and have pcnsl.ns. There la a regular system of Insurance and pensions by which the men after a certain term get $15 and upward per year and have , these houses free of rent. The most of . llieui nave oi.uer luvuuirs uvui men , rav- lngs. This section le made up of neat one and one-half story cottages, surrounded by gardens and filled with flowers. They are of brick and stucco, and have what the Germans would call all modern conven iences. . - There Is one family to 'the co'tige and tho'cottages are kept by the widows cf the old men after their death. It is a beautiful village, almost every inhabitant of which Is - over 60, a town of old men and old women,- ) fairly well dressed and apparently con tented. -. in addition to the cot '.ages there are club houses, for old widow s.&nd old widowers. These are for those of the aged who havo no families or whs. do not want to keep house. In one of thse club& I found eight men and talked with eeveral of th?m. . One told . me that he had worked for Krupp twenty-four years, and ihat out of hU sav ings ne now naa an income or. an)ui siu a month. His house rent cos's h'm nor h'.aj and he can, he says, live quite comfortably on this amount. I asked him If he did not get tired doing noth'ng. . "No; I worked hard as a blacksmith for twenty-four years. I am 64 years eld now, and I am glad to stop. When I am tired sitting I take a walk, 'and when I . am tired walking I take a s;at It tu::s me' very well." Among the widows I found some quite as content as this old man. Ona nioe old woman said she had a pension of .$7.50 a mcnth and that It kept hr very wcl She cooked her own breakfast, and had her din ner sent in from the old-age eating bouse at 9 cents per meal. A part of the pension fund is furnished v by the government, but Krupp gave a vast amount himself every year. Indeed, In tils respect alone - his charLles , annually - amounted to $250,000. f The company stores of the United States are often run tor the benefit' of the capi talists.' The Krupps have established cash stores for the benefit of the men. There . are fifty-four different stores and shops great and small here, which sell only to Krupp employes. . They are all managed by the establishment and are run on a co operative principle. The Krupps take out a low Interest on tho capital they have Invested In them and the profits beyond this are divided among the customers ac cording to the amount of their purchases." This profit foots up 7 or 8 per cent In a year; to that If a man spends $100 at the tore he receives $7 or $8 back at tho cloje of the year. ; The stores provide ..everything that a man needs. They embrace butchers, bakers and candlestick makers. They Include dry goods shops, tailor chips and even under taking establishments. The man who be longs to Krupp's works can have a coffin at bis death, and his heirs at the end of the year will receive S per cent on the purchase. The Krupp bakeries mak 20,000 000 loaves cf bread a year, the butcher shops annually 1:111 20.000 cattle, and everything else Is proportionately large. All sales are made for cash and everything Is sold as cheap as or a little cheaper than It can be bought alsewhere. FRANK O. CARPENTER. Attention is called to the advertisement In another column of Dr. Whitney's Nerve and Flesh Builder, which Is sold in Omaha by the Sherman & McConnell Drug com pany.; In' some former advertisement In this paper our types roads us say thin preparation was "expensive," when the word "inexpensive" should have been used. Call at the Sherman A McConnell Drug Co. for convincing free trial package. them that the waiting list Is long and men are often months and years In getting the apartments they desire. There are club houses here for bachelor workmen; boarding, houses for' single men built and furnished by the 'Krupps and managed by their people at as near cost as ' possible. Each of these buildings has about sixty rooms, which are rented out with full board to the men of Jthe shops. Every man has his own room. The charge Is 40 cents per dsy, and the men who occupy them make $1.60 per day. As 1 went through one of these houses I asked the manager what he could furnish for 40 cents a day. He replied: ' "You have seen the rooms. Each Is about 8x10 In size1, it has a table, chairs and a comfortable bed. In addition there is a bathroom, a general reading or loafing room and a tenpln alley. We give the men bread and coffee on rising. Here, for Instance, Is the ration for the last two days:" . The man here handed me a paper, which I have copied. . "Monday Breakfast: Coffee, bread, cheese and sausage. Dinner: Soup, roast beef 'and spinach. Supper: Coffee, steak v..rVV 7 tr - f P. 7 :. .1 A. J A MR. AND MRS. ALEXANDER BARRETT OF DILLBR. Neb PHOTO TAKEN IN 1902 IN ROOM IN WHICH THEY WERE MARRIED FORTY-NINE YEARS BEFORE'
