The log cabin Democrat., 1916-05-22
Alaskan Borer Who Knows "Tun- neI Stiffs" and How to Get
 Them to Work.
REAL CONQUER0R OF NATURE
Boss of Hard-Fisted Devil-May-Care ltinerants Who Drive Tunnels Differs Little In Appearance
 From Corner Grocer.

king of hard rock men, has been spend ing a few days at his home in Sc attle Seldom does MT. O'Neill enjoy . vacation at home. for he is usually in Alaska hanging up new records in tunnel driving.
 MT. O'Neill's business would be de scribed as mining, but he has won his fame as tunnel driver. Boss of the hard-fisted, powder-scarred, devil-may- care itinerants who drive tunnels this summer in Alaska and next winter perhaps in Florida or New Jersey, Pat H. O'Neill has set faster pace than any man has set before him.
 What he needed to make his suc- cess is what every famous general has had--the understanding of men.
 Take a hard rock man away from his environment and he isn't so much to look at. Tunnel stiffs" is the gen. eric term for them all "Hoboes" the uninitiated would call them, but the uninitiated would be wrong in their classification. They are soldiers of progress, hard working, hard hitting. hard living often and class conscious as are their acrobatic brothers, the structural steel workers, who spin their cobwebs against the clouds.
 Men Who Conquer Nature.
 Look at these tunnel stiffs" in the heading of bore under a mile of mountain, place where the air quiv- CTS to the cannonading of compressed air drills, where the scanned rock squeezes, jealous of intrusion, where the earth sweats and quivers with ter TOT. lined up across the face of rock behind the air drills that look like ners working cheek to cheek, eyes in- tent only on the granite before them, ears and fingers attuned to read from the thunderous vibrations the life's history of the hidden strata where their steel bits are chewing, their helpers crawling between the buck ing machines, wrench in hand, to ad- just nut here and valve there, and you will see the tunnel stiffs" as su- permen, who fight and conquer nature in it's toughest aspects.
 The black oil splatters them till their teeth show ghastly white and their eyes glow. The steam of com pressed air glistens upon them The flying rock bites and scars them. They drive tunnel at so much a foot with the enthusiasm of men mad with the lust of battle
 To handle such men as these. to spur them on to fresh bursts of speed, to make them do the impossible, takes a man who knows hard rock men. That is probably one reason why Pat O'Neill, tunnel boss, has succeeded.
 When the Alaska -Gastineau Mining company put through a two-mile tun- mel in 1913 so it's railroad could haul ore O'Neill was the tunnel boss That was the job on which he sat the su- preme pace. Six hundred feet a month was the average progress and the last month the drills bit through the rock at the rate of 660 feet.
 When the tunnel was finished Col. D. c. Jackling came to Alaska in his princely yacht Cyprus His guests were notable financiers and their fine wives. And one day his guest of hon. or was Pat O'Neill, the tunnel boss.
 Gets Striking Tribute.
 Probably no king of hard rock men ever received a more striking tribute than was paid this tunnel boss that day, says the Post-Intelligencer. The entertainment which honored him reached its climax when he was pre- sonted with watch valued at s1,OOO the gift of Colonel Jackling and his associates.
 But alas for expectations, the king of hard rock men differs in appearance from the corner grocer only in the subtler details which authority and experience in bossing men traces on A mans face and in his habits of thought. In Seattle. at least Pat ONeill has little of the appearance of the tunnel boss as he is pictured in fiction.
 The man, whose father and grand. father were miners and who started mining at thirteen years old as a uip- per boy in Michigan, is under medium height, broad of shoulder and thick ening about the middle. His head somewhat large. fits snugly upon those broad shoulders by short. thick neck. His face is the face of a con- mander of men. The nose is thin and long and hooked. the eyes are small. dark brown and piercing of gaze. his Jaw is heavy and his chin is granite. Otherwise P. H. ONeill is not man to attract attention in crowd
 "!c an American and I've worked in hard rock most all over America. So far as this making a record at the Gastineau mine Is concerned we had ideal rock to work in. The men were working six-hour shifts, that was one thing made it go fast. They got good pay, $S and s9 day and bonus for everything over $50 feet. The bonus had lot to do with 1t"