The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-03-25
THE kRuPP OF ESSEN.
Something About Town Built Up by
Kind Hearted Capitalist.

Something About Town Built up Dya
Kind Hearted Capitalist.
The last number of the Annals OF the
American Academy of Political and 30
cial Science gives an admirable sum-
mary of the work done at the krupp
foundries for the men employed there
and their families The writer. says the
Philadelphia Ledger, Mr.. S. M. Lindsay,
furnishes an object lesson that may well
be commended to employers OF labor IN
this country. The Krupp works employ
10000 men, and with their families,
numbering over So 600, constituting the
bulk of the population Of the town OF
Essen, while over 5000 are located at
various branch works, and the total
number benefited by their numerous
charitable and philanthropic enterprises
is estimated at $4,000 workmen, and
with their families $1,000 persons.
The Krupp works were started IN
very humble way in 1910, and it was not
until the fiftes that cast steel, their spe-
cial product, attained such universal
use and the works began their rapid
growth and steady increase. The krupps
situations for their workmen and their
families are based first on their own
business interests. Would there were
more such employers whose selflshness
took the same direction!
Their successful efforts to raise the
condition of their workmen have been
made in various ways-the building OF
dwellings, rented at fair rates and sold
on easy terms; cooperative stores; &C
commodations for boarding and lodging
unmarried workmen; their treatment In
sickness and the prevention OF disease;
insurance against accident and sickness
and pension funds, in anticipation and
largely in excess of the severe require
ments of recent German legislation on
the subject; savings banks, common and
industrial schools, the education Of APP
prentices, the training OF young girls IN
housekeeping, humanitarian rules IN FAC
tory work, liberal help for religious
teaching and charity.
The Krupps have built over 4,0oo
houses-from frame dwellings OF two
rooms, renting at fifteen dollars year,
11p to six room houses, renting at eighty
dollars a year. They have expended
over Sc, OO0, 900 on them, earning about 2
per cent on the investment, but this, with
much more, has been spent in benef1tlng
the working classes in other ways.
The cooperative stores managed by
the Krupps at their own risk include
fifteen retail grocery stores, nine branch
stores. with one main store for general
merchandise, shoe factory with three
stores, a hardware store, mill and bak-
ery with six bread stores, a slaughter
house with seven retail meat stores, two
clothing establishments, seven restau-
rants, a wine store, an ice company, a
coffee house, brush factory, laundry,
a weekly market for fresh vegetables, a
| coffee roasting establishment-in them
nearly 500 persons were employed, wild
ows, or daughters Of workmen.
There is boarding house for the I'M
married workmen, where lodging and
food are supplied at twenty cents day.
In 1870 Alfred Krupp built hospital
| for sick and wounded soldiers, and since
the Franco-German war it has been used
for their workmen and their families
| thew are cared for at the price OF thirty
eight cents day for men, thirty cents a
day for women and twenty-five cents
for children. There is a large bathing
| establishment, where COCO free baths
were given last year, and bath tickets
are sold for 81 cents apiece. The insur-
ance funds against accident and death
and for pensions have been largely sup
plemented by the Krupps in addition to
| the strict requirements of the German
laws. Primary and advanced and tech
meal schools are maintained, and the
churches of all denominations are large
ly supported by the Krupps.