Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-11-09

visitors that the works at Creighton COM
pose only one of the three great plants of the
Pittsburg Plate Glass Company, the other
two being at Tarentum and Ford City. The
Creighton mills are the oldest and the Ford
City works the newest and largest. The
capacity of all the mills is 100000 square
feet of polished plate glass per month.
Mr.. Edward Ford took immediate charge
of Senior Romero and Mr.. Blaine, while
Mr.. E. L. Ford took Judge Estee and ex-
Senator Henderson under his immediate
care, The other visitors followed close and
listened intently to the explanations made.
The party was led to the furnace department,
where the glass materials are melted in the
crucible pots. The process of carrying the
huge crucibles to the rolling tables and roll
ing the dump into plates nine-sixteenths of
an inch thick, was observed with much in
terest. The visitors saw three pots emptied,
rolled and showed into the ovens.
HENDERSON WANTED TO EAT IT
On one occasion, while the yellow white
glass, looking like sweet taffy, was
being poured upon the rolling table,
ex-senator Henderson said: "That stuff
looks good enough to eat" The Spanish
American gentlemen took keener interest
in the operations of the plate glass works,
and asked more questions than at any other
mill during their local trips. The visitors
took each department in its proper turn,
and observed with care the work in the
smoothing and polishing mills. In the
latter department Mr.. Edward Ford ex-
planned to many who asked that the red
material used in polishing was the finest
oxide of iron. The ordinary oxide of iron
of commerce would scratch the glass. The
delegates then inspected the storage rooms,
where huge plates of finished glass, II by
II feet, are kept in stock. In the office
pretty souvenir was presented to each OF the
visitors. 1t was a box containing four
pieces of glass, ono a finely beveled paper
weight, another a piece of rough glass as 1T
comes from the rolls, the third parallelo-
gram of smoOthed glass, and the fourth
piece finally polished.
The train left Creighton at 12:40 O'Clock,
ran up the West Penn to Freeport and at
the West Penn Junction was transferred to
the Allegheny Valley Railway, returning
by that line to the city at 2:S0 P. NJ. Lunch
was served to all during this journey. The
rain caused a change in the programme. 1t
was decided not to stop at the mills In Law
renceville.
INSPECTING IRON WORKS.
Arriving at Fifty-frst street, however,
eight or ten of the party left the train and
inspected the Pittsburg Locomotive Works
and the Crescent Steel Works. Senor Ro-
nero was one of the foreign ministers who
stopped of. The A, French Spring Com
pany's two mills were decorated With flags,
the workmen were crowded to tie windows,
and all revealed shadow OF disappointment
as the train went slowly past
On the return to Pittsburg Captain James |
h. Ford, of the Pittsburg Plate Glass Com
pany, the veteran glass manufacturer in this
country, was on the train. In a short talk |
he said to the reporter for The DISPATCH: |
"Our company has now practically driven |
foreign plate glass out of this country. or
course, we could not do that without the |
tariff We pay three and four times as
much wages as they pay in Belgium and |
France, but our improved machinery ena-
bles US to make 21S times as much glass with |
the same number of men in the same time. |
We have cut out Europe in our market by |
our low figures, and are selling plate glass |
from Maine to California. made the first |
plate glass in this country at.New Albany, |
Ind. 1 lost considerable money at first, but |
I've got it all back. We are making no ef-
fort to get trade abroad. Ali we can ask is |
our home market. That is great enough to
satisfy ANYBODY We are now 100, 900 feet |
behind our orders. One-half of our work |
men are foreigners, but we are teaching |
American bows the trade as rapidly as we |
can. 1t pays us to do so, for the young men |
of this country learn rapidly and in a short |
time make much better workmen than the |
foreigners, They are quicker and more |
jealous"