Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1910-03-25
Ntt!S tHltHltTISHtS :1S: .St!ttS tSSsS!
3 SAYS YANKEES j
! beat GERMANS
3 OUR WORKMAN USES HIS
3 HEAD AND BETTER TOOLS. Z
8 Dces in II Days as Much as q !
y German Docs in a Month, Says I
the Boss Of the Lauchhammef ?
= Works--A Matter Of Progress. /!
s siveness Rather than Skill.

UXVIVISVESVESSHVV -
It is not often that a German manu-.
facturer will admit when he comes
over here that there is really some
thing better in this country than his
own country produces, but DIR. Jo-
seph Hollenbauer, general manager
of the Lauchhammer company, which
turns out bridges, structural steel for
buildings and bronze monuments,
says that American tools are far
more up to date than German tools
and that American workmen use their
brains more than do German work
men.
DR.. Hollenbauer arrived from E,l'
rope on his way to San Francisco, as
he said, to learn something.
81 came over here the first time
in 1866" he said, land I remained
two years at the La Sale Zinc Works
in Illinois, one of the proprietors OF
which is a relative of mine. / think
learned something then Then
came here again ten years afterward,
and again and again, and each time
/ have learned something.
"Our works are not more than one
tenth the size OF the Krupp concern,
but in our rolling mills and steel
works we employ 400 men. We have
two plants in Prussia and two in Sax
opy. Our output per year amounts to
100000 marks, which Is more than
SS,OO0,00O. We have men working in
various parts of Europe, in Africa and
in South America, building bridges
and doing steel and iron construction
work.
I'VE also make machinery for iron
and steel works, and in our bronze
works we turn out great many mon.
uments.
You have a good number OF our
monuments in this country, notably
the Schiller and Goethe in Cleveland,
and others in Philadelphia, Milwau.
kee and elsewhere.
81 have tried in vain to get our
German workmen' to become we'll ed.
ucated and to work in the spirit that
Americans work, to show some indi-
viduaIity and initiative. / talked over
my efforts in this direction the other
day with DIR. Benjamin Ide Wheeler,
president of the University of Cali
fornia, who has been making a tour
of Germany. He seemed to think
that German workmen are too much
on the lookout for their own personal
safety and are unwilling to take risks.
mind you, the German workmen
are very skilful, and what they do
they do well. But the American
workman prepares his tools for a
week, and at the end of three days
he has done a weeks work, and he
sharpens them again. The German
workman sharpens his tools for a
week, and he works with them a
week before sharpening them again.
The German workman is content to
work with old fashioned tools. He
does not care for good tools of the
most modern make. The result is
that it takes him month to turn
out work that good American work
man would accomplish in eleven days.
"Why, few years ago / bought a
lot of modern tools in the United
States and made presents of them
to our workmen. Did they use them
No. They were used to the tools
that their fathers had used and with
which they had been trained, and the
improved implements were quickly
discarded. And yet if you bring those
same German workmen to America
within a month they will be doing as
much work as the average native
workman and of course earning more
money than they did at home. They
are skilful enough about their work
in Germany, but very few of them
work with their intellects.
Now l have come over again to
do some more studying. l have
brought over one of my head en-
gineers to study the transmission of
electrical power long distances, and
We are going to San Francisco for
that purpose. saw an example Of
that out there four years ago, and
We are about to make an application
Of the principle for ourselves. We
have decided to generate all the cleo
tricity for our plants in one place,
Lauchhammer, and it will be neces-
sary to transmit it as far as thirty.