The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-09-02

ace at EnSley
 shoe with which you lift tacks, and so electrify your knife that it will pick up iron filings or make them dance around over sheet of white paper. They have magnets here so powerful that they will lift enormous bodies of iron and carry them or drop them at will. Such mag nets are used for the loading of the heaviest steel rails. Two of them fas- tened to a traiveling crane overhead will lift up 15 of these long rails at one time and lay them down on the cars
 Another magnet, which is also attached to crane, is used for the crushing of limestone and slag. The crusher is great round steel ball so heavy that it would require 30 horses to haul It if it were placed on truck to be carried over country road. The ball weighs 15 tons, and it Is as tall as a man. Nevertheless the magnet drops down from the crane and kisses it, as it were. As it rises the ball clngs to its lips and a touch of button by the man who is operating the magnet releases the ball and it falls on the slag, breaking 1t and crushing 1t to powder. The power of the magnet comes from the electric plant the juice" being turned off and on by the man who Is doing the work
 After the slag is crushed there Is more or less iron left in It. This Is taken ont by magnets, which are passed over it again and again until almost no iron Is left. The final crushing is done in a ball mill, which consists of thousands of manganese steel balls the size of a mar ble or larger. They roll around through the slag and grind 1t to powder. At the end 1t Is so fine that it will pass through a mesh of 800 holes to the square inch. It is now fertilizer, and is put up in bag and shipped to the farmers.
 One of the surprising things about the modern steel plant is the small part that man has in the work Tho machinery is largely automatic. and although there are 17,00o empIoyes connected with the Tennessee Coal and iron company you see but few of them apout the furnaces and in the great rolling mills The work seems to be largely managed after the motto of the photographers: You press the button and I'll do the rest" The same force is used over and over again The excess gas rom the furnaces smelling the iron goes to the boiler plant and runs if The works have 22 great boilers, which produce more than 16,00O-horse power. The engines that force the blast into the furnaces are run by these boilers. They are equipped with belt wheels as high as a two-story house.
 And then there are the great Inger- soll-Rand turbines which use the ex- haust steam from the other engines. They blow 55,000 cubic feet of air per minute against a pressure of 30 pounds to the square inch. The machinery of these engines is quiet They look 8 though they were dead, and it takes only one man to handle them. Never theless each turbine does as much as four big steam engines It produces 3OO0 6 of ali ctr;r haust steam which once went to waste The whole plant, in short, shows won derful economization and reproduction of force It takes the giant gas and turns him into steam. and works him until he is worn to frazzle. After that it picks up his remains and changes him into electricity and works him over again.
 This same spirit of common sense and broad-gauge economy has been adopted in handling the labor connected with the work of this iron and steel making com pany. President Crawford believes that the health and spirits of the men in the plants are as important a cost-efficiency item as the character of the machinery and the raw material that go through it.
 He looks upon human labor as conlmer- cial asset and his welfare work, which is large is based upon the profits that ac- crue therefrom to the works. He has here the largest steel plant in the south It includes mines of coal and iron, many great furnaces and an enormous by-prod- uct plant. He has altogether about IT GOO workmen. of whom 5000 are negroes, about 1000 white Americans and, in addition more than POGO foreigners It was MT Crawford's work to take this labor ma ter1al and to increase it's efficiency to the highest possible degree When he took charge, many predicted his failure. The steel men of the north said you could not make good steel with negor labor and that the white and colored men would not work we'll together He has proved that they were wrong, and he has today force which is said to be one of the best in the country
 In reorganzng the labor MT. Crawford had rigid physical examination of the laborers and of all who asked for employ ment. He went on the principle that d sick man could not do good work, and ha first weeded out those who had conta- gious or infectious diseases Among other things, he investigated the teeth of the men and brought in corps Of den- lists to put them in order. In speaking Of this to me he said: When came here I-found that we were fixing the teeth of our mules but were paying no atten- ton to the teeth of the men. We had 800 mules, and we kept veterinary sur geons to file their teeth and fit them for chewing. I was told that 15 per cent of the mules needed attention, and thought if that was so the teeth of the men might be equally bad. As result we put the dentists to work and we now have the teeth of all the employees gone over at regular intervals. Men asking for work are rejected if their teeth are in bad condition. and if man has several bad teeth he must get them fixed before We can give him 8 permanent job. If he has no money we sometimes allow him to pay the bill on the installment plan
 As 1t is now, the steel plant has med