Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-03-08

lie young NOrIneru kldutS WACu yOhAV" noeA
and clear gray eye, is ''the straightener." He
has heavy leather gloves on his hands and holds
a huge pincer with which he seizes the rail at
the end. He turns 1t over and runs his eye
along II. That eye-ABsOLUTELY ACCU-
RATE-gives to this young workman wages as
big as the wages Of five ordinary men.
He signals to another man In charge OF che
Strengthening apparatus. The rail must be
pressed here or pressed there. When he is done
with 1t the rail Is STRAIGHT.
And It rolls on down continuing its Journey,
until It Hes lined up evenly with half dozen
other steel rails that have been through the
mills through the furnace, out Of the ore-bed,
down the lake, and Strengthened by the eye Of
the man from the North.
You look now upon a group of steel rails,
still hot, although the white and the red heat
has left them. If they could, they would talk
Just as young men talk when they leave college,
and say:
eve have been through it all, we are educa-
ted now. Dug up, melted, hammered, straight
ened, we are, indeed, admirable, complete, I'm
ished beings"
AS they lie there, there comes floating along
the rail above them mysterious power-eOn-
ny man, Out not unucHSCOOu ny
That Is the electric magnet
If you picked up those rails with an iron tool,
soft as they are, you would bend them and in.
jure them.
The great magnet Is lowered until it almost
touches the bunch Of rails lying side by side.
It has no effect upon them, at all, until man
far off turns a switch. Instantly, the current
so wonderfully mysterious, causes those rails
to jump to the magnet-glued there with a
power against which their great weight Is a.
nothing.
The magnet Is carried above a waiting freight
car, especially designed, and lowered until the
rails rest upon the floor Of the car. The eur
rent ID cut of and the magnet Is removed to
begin over again its work of lifting giant load
with the power of chained lightning.
There the rails lie on the flatcar, side by side,
rapidly cooling into cold steel.
There Is EARRING of the car A locomotive
of iron is hooked up. And off go the rails, con-
WINGED, indeed, that the educating process Is
through.
But soon our lump of iron from the ore.bed
is in the hands of Italians grunting as a half
dozen of them carry 1t to It's place on the
wooden ties.
With iron spikes It Is fastened down. It Is
part of a railroad. ALONG COMES THE
TRAIN AND THEN IT'S EDUCATION
REALLY BEGINS.
For education with the steel rail, as with
the human being, begins WHEN THE RAIL
OR THE MAN BEGINS CARRYING HIS
LOAD.
The quality Of the rail- and the quality Of the
man and the value of education are shown in
the endurance with which the load Is carried.
Our lump of iron, changed to a steel rail- lies
on the wooden ties through the cold weather
and the hot The heavy freight trains pound
over it. The fast passenger trains strike the
joints with the great force Of huge driving.
wheels.
Here and there a rail breaks-toO much car.
bon in it-just as here and there man breaks
TOO MUCH ALCOHOL IN HIM or too much
Of something else.
Educated and at work, our shoveIfuI of iron
and ore lies as the trains rush over it. At last it
is hammered and broken beyond usefulness,
torn up and thrown on the scrap pile-just AZ
It happens with us human beings.
And the steel rail, now scrap iron, goes back
in the furnace to be made over and come out
again and begin work again in another way
just as we human beings go back into the
ground to be melted over and come up again
and be used In another form.
What the steel rail carrying the heavy load
is to the metal world the ordinary very good
worker Is to the human race. The majority Of
us are human steel rails, meant for good hard
work, not much else.
THE STEEL RAIL IS WORTH S2s A TON
TRUST PRICE.
The steel rail is worth $500 tOn-and Of
that about S27.OO represent education. ham