The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1906-12-04
in A POWDER MILL.
WHERE MEN LIVE IN CONSTANT
FEAR OF DEATR,


cupatiOn-How the Powder is Made.
Within ten miles Of Kansas City is
village whose people live in contin-
ual dread of a terrible death. 1t is
Holmes Park, three miles south of
Swope Park.
/ Near this village is powder mill in
which are made each day 1000 kegs Of
the most powerful blasting powder.
Within few rods of the little white
schoolhouse around which children of
the village romp and play is great
magazine in which are stored 10000
kegs of powder If this should explode
1t would wreck every house in the lit
tie village and would cause building in
Kansas City to tremble as if an earth
quake shook them
In this powder plant twenty-four
men work. Death, stark and fearful
stares them in the face every moment.
The tiniest spark struck from a bit of
iron anywhere would cause the explos-
ion that every one breads.
These men who work eye to eye
with death have faces sober and drawn
with anxiety, and fear and continual
brooding over what might happen. No
man ever becomes accustomed to it.
says the Kansas City Star, so that he
] forgets and is care free as workmen in
other trades are. In or around this
powder mill is never heard a snatch of
song or a merry laugh. The men work
in silence.
! The mental strain is hard and the
men do not stay long. They come and
go. Some stay for year; more say
for six months; but the majority quit
after few weeks Of it. There are al
ways new men to take the places of
those who 60 The high wages tempt
them, Men who do common labor are
paid 50 day. Others who work in the
corning mill, where the liability of
explosion is every present, are paid
$3.50 day.
A man may be a daredevil, he might
have the courage fight his weight in
wildcats and he might begin work in
the powder mill without fear in his
/ heart. But everywhere he would see
the utmost precautions against the
dreaded explosion, and soon this would
begin TO tell upon him. He would see
the rules before his nose at every turn.
/ No rlotches allowed anywhere upon
the place, no smoking, no striking of
iron against iron, no drinking of in
toxicants' He would see men moving
slowly lifting things gingerly and lay
ing them down with care, even putting
their feet down tenderly upon the pow
der strewn floors, always fearful of the
spark that might strike. But more than
all else he would be impressed uncon-
sciously with the strained look upon
the mems faces, and soon the same
4 haggard look would come into his face,
he would dream of the awful thing at
night no would brood over it by day
and he would come to a point where
lie could stand 1t no longer and he
would quit the job.
They tell story of man who had
worked in the powder mill until he
was almost nervous wreck. He had
dreamed hundreds of times Of being
torn to atoms by the explosion of the
mill One day his work beneath huge
Icyl.nGtrs in which tons of powder were
revolving he turned and saw parcel
1 in red handana handkerchief which q
fellow workman had laid in a corner.
To his imagination it looked like the
red blood splotches of a torn and man
gled body and he turned and ran and
did not stop until he was beyond sight
Of the powedr mill.
The wives of the powder makers suf-
fer with the nervous stream fully as
much as their husbants. They know
that If the explosion comes it will be
without a moments warning or time
for thought
But the children play around the
sci dollhouse as cheerily as children
anywhere. They are the only ones who
do rot feel the burden and the gloom
in the powder village,
Not long ago a spark some way
ouched the clothing of a man who
worked in the powder mill. His cloth
ling was saturated with powder. There
was 10 explosion, but every thread up.
on him went up in a-hash and he died
from the burns Luckily for the others
in tine mill he was not where an ex-
lplosi1n might happen.
Th9te are sixty acres in the podwcr
mill grounds It is yer billy, The mil
ha& twenty different houses, each of
them small and built of sheet iron.
Eaca Is built into an excavation dug
in the side of the hill and each is fd"
lenough IRON the other SO tfat II one
Iexplodes it might not cause any of the
lother nineteen to explode too
A man who was quitting the job
last week said: 1.-THE thing that kept
me worried was the fact that the lit
tie sheet iron building in which work.
ed was set into hole in the hillside
so that if it exploded it would all go
straight up in the air, That kept the
dread of an explosion before me all
| the time and imagined myself going
up in the air in a sheet Of fame. l
just had to quit or I'd go crazy"
To minimize the danger of hot bikes
lall the journal bearings Of the ma
chinery are of brass, the tools Of the
workmen are Of brass, so that no
spark may be struck. There are twenty
tons of brass upon the plant.
The powder is made of sodium nj
trate, which comes from Peru, sulphur
from Louisiana, and charcoal from
Missouri. The charcoal and sulphur
are put into great iron drums and
lchunks Of steel are put in with them.
They are reyolva all night and by