The times., 1899-10-08
STORIES OF TIE ERUPPS
New Facts About Their Slew Rise
From Poverty.
Their Struggle for Forty Years-The
Payroll Today Embraces 41.75O
Men-The Father Melted His Plate
to Pay His Help Their waEes-Thc
First Success of the Cannon Kings.

Traveller comes Wllnl0 SlSul Ol us sCOiSs
of tall chimneys and the trains. laden with
iron ore moving into the ar-spreading
grounds of the Krupp works, the greatest
industrial establishment of Germany. Ey-
erybody knows that Essen supplies Eu-
rope and the world with the famous cast
steel guns which made the reputation and
success of Krapp, their inventor There
is one country in Europe, however, that
has no Krupp guns in its armament, and
that is France, for the great gunmaker
has refused to sell France a single cannon
since her war with Germany. Krupp is
| best known by his big guns though they
are only a small part of his steel and
iron productions, and the present head of
the house, with his father and grandfather
before him, made the city of Essen what
it is Eighty-nine years ago, when the first
Krupp opened his little iron works, in
which he toiled with rolled up sleeves from
dawn to dusk, the town had only 1000 in
habitants Last year Essen entered the list
of cities having over 100, 900 residents, and
it is now one of the most populous towns
of Prussia. The growth of the Krupp
works have made Essen.
little book entitled "Bei Krupp," writ
ten by DR.. Kley, has just been published
in Germany. 1t Will attract much atten-
tion because it gives a great many curious
statistics and interesting bits of history
connected with the rise of the Krupps
that have never appeared in the numerous
| accounts of the great establishment.
more remarkable story of Industrial devel-
opment was never written. 1t is the histo-
ry of an enterprise that had the humblest
possible beginning and struggled for many
years to overcome crowd OF difficulties
that often threatened to sti1e it, and II
tells of the sudden success that came like
flood and soon made the name of Krupp
known everywhere. Here are some of the
/ most interesting facts and incidents, taken
from DR.. Kley's book, that marked the
| growth, first slow and then impetuous that
| has marked the development of the Krupp
works.
Krupp's Grandfather.
The grandfather of the present Krupp
was an iron worker of Essen who saved
his money until he had accumulated few
thousand marks, with which he went into
business on his own account by starting
little foundry in 1910. It was not his
fortune to make much headway in the six
teen laborious years he spent with two or
three employees in his humble building. He
made a bare living. but managed to keep
his small property and it was the nucleus
from which the Krupp works sprang In
1926 his son Alfred became the owner OF
the establishment and he tasted all the
tribulations his father had known and
many more, for years and years, before the
tide turned and carried him to great pros.
perity.
1t was only by enormous labor endur-
ance. and pluck that Alfred Krupp was
able al last TO master the situation. In
1882, six years after he had entered upon
the management of the enterprise, he had
only nine men is his employ, and this was
twenty-five years after the works had
started. He struggled along for quarter
of century, making good steel good
guns, and other good articles all that time,
but there was SO little demand for his
work that he scarcely kept his head above
water. He had few pieces OF
silver plate, family plate, heir
looms, and he was reduced to such
straits al one time that he melted the
plate and sold the silver in order TO raise
little money with which to pay his
workmen. He often said, after he became
prosperous, that for fifteen years it was a
constant struggle TO get cash enough to
pay his help. Often, when things were at
their worst, he found the purchase of
postage stamps with which to mail his few
letters a rather annoying necessity.
Could Not Secure Recognition.
The trouble was that he seemed unable
TO secure recognition for his products eth
er at home OF abroad. The old adage that
"a prophet is not without honor save in
his own country was at last verified again
| in Krupp's case. He took his steel and
gun or two to the London Exposition, in
| 1851, and before it was over the British
were calling him great steelmaker. He
| emerged from the competition with the
! English steel industry with flying colors
| and found himself talked about as a man
whose technical methods were not under
stood, but whose products were undoubted-
| ly first class. 1t may be said that there
! are processes in the Krupp manufacture
| and manipulation Of steel that are not
known in the trade today. and they are
carried on in buildings that no visitor or
employe who does not work in them is
permitted to enter.
The London Exposition of 1851 made the
tide in the affairs of Krupp that led on to
| fortune. His own country followed in the
wake of other lands, and Krupp had his
| hands full of business when Prussia gave
| linn, in 1855, her first order for breech-
leaders. His first large commissions were
received from the Khedive of Egypt and
| the Bey of Tunis, and they did him the un-
| usual honor of paying spot cash for his
! goods Russia has been the best customer
of the Krupp works. Since 1878, when the
| Russian Government purchased 1S00
| Krupp guns as its new field equipment
the cannon king has sold to that coun-
| try over 10000 guns.
Business came in by leaps and bounds
and Krupp did not have sufficient capital
TO enlarge his plant fast enough to meet
the demands upon it. So he borrowed 30
600 marks and with the profits OF his busi-
ness, in twelve years, he was able TO dis
| charge this debt He used the borrowed
money and his own not only TO increase his
facilities for making steel and it's pro-
| ducts, but also to render himself independ-
| ent of all rings and syndicates in all forms
| OF industry with which his business was
| closely connected. He began to buy coal
mines coke ovens, iron mines, blast fur
naces, and so on. In 1872 Alfred Krupp
owned Ala iron ore diggings, and his son
and successor now has oyer 500, and all but
small part of the Krupp steel is made
from Krupp's ore. smelted by means of the
coke he makes from his own coal II has
| been the policy of the establishment for
many years to be entirely independent of
all fluctuations in the prices of ore, pIa
iron, and coal, and so Krupp has not only
acquired the ownership TO the lands which
supply most OF his raw material but he
has also laid in large stocks purchased
abroad.
Extent of the KrupD Works.
For long time four Krupp iron ore
steamships were constantly plying be-
tween the north coast of Spain and Rotter-
l