The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1914-06-06
SCARCITY Of MIN
ing ENGINEERS

Pick up any technical journal,
open it at the page o, classified ads.
In the upper left hand corner note
the business managers fond invita-
tion in the form of $50 many cents
word for Help Wanted announce
ments. - IF one or two mine man
ayers list a need Hereunder, the
page can be proud Of itself, says the
Mining and Engineering World.
Now look under "Positions Want
ed" young men and old, from South
America to johannesburg and back TO
Nome; every variety of experience
and inexperience offers itself until
the page seems to be an exposition of
something that must be wrong.
Do you remember those easy
money days in 1905 and 1906 and
1907 There's a vivid picture in the
writer's mind of young engineer
who went out from Golden and pitch
ed his tent in Buckskin, just over the
Yerington divide in Nevada. He had
81 in his pockets, but copper was
around "a cents. He painted his own
shingle and hung it out: GU. 8. Min
eral Surveyor and a name.
Two months later a prospector Of
fered him $40 a day for week 8
work in the hills. "There = a cheap
surveyor up the stree, Mr.. Man." he
replied.
A 17-year-old boy wandered into
another camp at about the some time.
He had worried through a year of
trigonometry in high school, and had
punched stakes with a Western Pa
cifc location crew for four months. A
good-sized concern was glad to OBJ
tain his services for $125 a month
and board.
No dreams these; anyone who
wants them can have the names.
Today in alomst any of the west
ern mining camp can be found
dozen or more experienced mining
engineers lying around town waiting
for something to turn up.
Where is the fault, and where is
the remedyf
To decry our colleges for turning
out trained men during slack times
is surely an error. No profession, no
business can ever be over-supplied
with capoble workers. The fault lies
in the man who wants ready-made
berth into which he can step as easily
as the stenographer applying for So
week job.
A minine engineer must first and
foremost be a fighter, and second,
he should be a business man. Made
to- order positions, two times out of
three, 90 to some one near the con-
trolling stock interest. Nor is this
wrong. There ism a reader who
would not prefer his own son to
stranger in charge of operations
which present responsibility and
temptation This is under the ra-
tional presumption that the SON is at
least fairly equal to the task.
Apart from the properties under
the management. of our very large
corporations, visit one little mine
and smelter after another. It is
astonishing how almost uniformly the
superintendent is the man who has
developed that hole in the ground
from its prospect stage.
Make a mine of your own. If you
have years of igood work to your
credit, raise money. There is no
heayen- sent reason why man with
"a Columbia college degree and the
summers of a Nevada desert behind
him should not get the money to OBJ
tain control of some small property
of promise and compel it to yield
profit, while an East Side shoestring
merchant after decade of pedling
organizes corporation, builds a
Fifth avenue emporium and then de-
votes himself to the collection of old
masters.
Splendid opportunity awaits the
fresh graduate. A hundred and fifty
dollars is plenty. Get a pair of bur-
ros and pick and shovel. Fill a
couple of fve-gallon oil cans with
water and hike.
A lot of good mining was done
before the transit was invented.
Young man, you must become .
miner before you can hope to be an
engineer.
You who have handled many a
tough proposition underground, who
have made money for Others, yet
who today look first at the position
Vacant page, remember that the
onuly real way to get in on the ground
| floor is to build that ground floor
yourself. The engineer, however high
| in his ideals, however, unselfish his
service, must inevitably learn to use,
or must bow before the great law of
bllsiness--take it in its good sense
go get the money.