The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-02-01
MACHINERY VS. MEN
Rod Mill ExempIifies the
Passing of Hand Labor.
FIFTY MEN NOW PERFORM
In Jones & LaughIin's Mill the
Work of 800.
FIFTY MEN NOW PERFORM

Pittsburg, Pa, Jan. 30.-Labor troubles
have been Instrumental in fostering labor
saving machinery more than any other
known agency. In has Become such a
mania that the inventor who claims he
can produce a machine displace num-
her of hands is given immediate atten-
ton. An instance of how 800 men were
superseded by machinery because of a
strike is evidenced in Pittsburgh, where
Jones & Laughlins recently installed two
rod-mills, which, with the aid of 80 men,
do the labor formerly accomplished by
800.
In 1897 a, strike occurred among the
''roughers" at Jones & Laughlins' mills
"Rougners'' are employed TO take a
rough piece of steel and reduce it by
rolling it to a suitable size for the fin
ishing mill. The rollers, heaters, and
other mill employees did not care to join
the strike, but it caused considerable f.
nancial loss to the firm, so the decision
was arrived at that as soon as pract-
cable the latest labor saving machinery
would be introduced to displace unreli-
able hand labor. The rod-mill for the
manufa cpure of merchant-bar steel is
the first result of the strike of 1897. as
machinery of this class cannot be de-
signed and built in a day.
The class OF work done on the rod-miIl
in question was done years ago on
merchantmen mill, employing scores of
men at high salaries, turning out a pro-
duct Of forty or fifty tons a day. To ap-
preciate the revolution in steel-making
and to contrast 1t with the methods OF
today a brief description of a bar-mill is
necessary, leaving out the heating fur
mace. The rolls Of the bar-mills were d.
vided into sets, revolving in cast-iron
frames, with indentations cut in the rolls
to correspond with the shapes desired
A billet of steel four feet long and four
inches square, at white heat, was "tel-
egraphed" from the furnace to the first !
It was three rolls high, |
the lower and center rolls revolving in
the same direction, and the top roll re
volving in the opposite direction, the OBJ
ject being to pass the metal through the |
lower rolls, reduce it in size as much |
as possible, when It would be caught by |
a catcher with steel bar attached to a /
chain overhead, who would use the same |
as a lever to hoist the billet. assisted by
a tougher with a pair of large tongs
to guide the piece to the top roll, to be
showed back 10 the side it came from
Backward and Harvard it would go until
reduced, when it was passed to
the next rolls, to go throug the same
until it passed TO the finishing
mill. which rolled it clean, and passed
then to the straighteneTs, who slapped
the serpentine-shaped bars across a
straight floor several times, gave them !
a third roll with their tongs, and laid
them aside to cool off, when they were
carried to the shears, cut in lengths.
weighed, carried to the stoclQ-hous and
stored, to be carried out again at some
future day to be loaded on cars for ship
ment
Thus It required about forty-six men a
turn to handle the product of a merchant
bar mill Of fifty tons capacity, making
from % to q round bars on a ter-inch
bar-mill. the turns being divided into re-
liefs of eight hours each, giving employ
ment to 13S men when the mill was rum
ming twenty-four hours day. The num-
Der of men employed varied according to
serve the purpose of illustrating the evo-
luton OF labor-saving machinery. To
begin with, the photographers, whose
IS no more, earned from SO to
s. per ady, running a long pair OF tongs
fastened to overhead chains, which in
turn were attached to a wheel gliding
along an overhead track or skid between
the rolls and the furnace Occasionally
4 door in the furnace was opened and
the tongs were poked in and a specimen
selected from the bunch of blazing bill
lets to be carried out to be squeezed
down to a handy size for the blacksmith,
machinist, etc. Machinery does the tel
work now. Six men to each mill ,
lost their jobs with one swoop The
roughers and catches on each side of the
rolls from het roughing to the finishing
rolls, about forty-eight in number have
been done away with, leaving human
nothing but three passers. whose occu-
patton will be explained later. The fin
shing rollers or flnishers, are no more.
The six straighteners and six helpers are
done away with completely, and none but
the shearsmen remain to tell of the'good
Did days" His nearest neighbor is a how
perched IN a crane twenty feet above
him, ever and anon to carry ten or TWEEN
ty tons OF bar-iron to some other part of
the building or to load it on a freight
Ear.
The accident and death list in one of
the old-fashioned mills was worse than A
battle field Stretchers were kent con-
SANITY on hand in the stock room. Piles
Of material would fall on laborers: some
poor fellow would be pierced by hot !
rod; the tonEs would be jerked from their
hands, almost tearing their arms off
The reason for this was that the men c