Evening star., 1917-11-25

Copyright, 1917, by Frank G. Carpenter.)
GARY. Ind, 1917.
r HAVE como from the iron mines at
vessel loaded with ore to the great
o steel plants here at tho foot of
Lake Michigan. My steamer had a car
go of 10000 tons. She unloaded this
In less than five hours and the ore is
already on its way to the furnace.
BY the time this letter is published 1t
will have been made into steel, and
will have gone out with other sister
cargoes into steel rails. big guns and
shells and the thousand and one other
forms in which Uncle Sam is using
steel in our fight with the Germans.
Last year, when we were still out of the
war. we sold to England and France
four or five million tons of steel shells
and 766,000.000 pounds of barbed wire
for entanglements. That steel would
have filled a train of fifty-ton cars as
long as from New York to Chicago. and
the barbed wire would have been
enough to build a nine-strand hog
tight fence around the world on the
lire of the equator. Those were the
sales of one year and of only two
items. They were made when we had
not yet begun to fight. Now. we are
in the struggle with every atom of
muscle and every bit of machinery
we can command. The government is
taking the produce of all the steel
plants. and the output will be greater
than ever before. The plants are now
backed by more than four billions Of
capital. Every worker in steel and
iron has been drafted into the indus
trial army and we have today more
than a million such men in the ranks.
X X
Away down here at the foot Of Lake
of this army of iron and steel. AL
though officered by the United States
Steel Corporation, they are now under
the government and they are fighting
the battle after the most improved
methods of modern efficiency. 1t is to
show you something of what they are
doing that I have come here to South
Chicago and Gary. But first let me
show you how strategically the two
camps are located and how well they
are fitted for waging the war. They
are situated on the deep waters of
Lake Michigan, where the ore from
the mountains of Lake Superior can be
shot from the ships almost into the
furnaces. where coal and limestone can
be cheaply secured and where the steel
products can be rapidly transported to
any part of the world.
The South Chicago plant is a part of
the city Of Chicago. This section has
about eighty thousand Inhabitants.
and the most of them are supported
by the steel works. The town of
Gary is just across the Indiana
boundary, about thirty miles from Chi
cago. 1t has ffty-f1ve thousand inhab-
itants. and there are about twelve
thousand men at work in the mills and
the furnaces.
The South Chicago plant Is that of
the Illinois Steel Company. It's build
ings already cover about four hundred
more land adjoining it which will
eventually be used for the works. The
Gary plant belongs to the Indiana
Steel Company, another branch of the
United States Steel Corporation. 1t is
already three miles long and a mile
territory is covered with structures
that are very mountains of steel. The
towers and turrets of it's furnaces
stand out like mighty castles against
the sky and its huge buildings are
filled with masses of machinery that
network of railroad tracks runs in
and out through the works, and great
pipes Of steel. some of them so large
that Pullman train could pass
through them without touching the
walls of the pipe. wind in and out,
it. carrying millions of feet of gas
to the various parts of the works.
do not know the cost of the South
Chicago plant. but 1t has run far up
The machinery Of the Gary plant alone
has cost more than one hundred and
forty millions, and the United States
Steel Corporation is now spending
millions more in connection with 1t.
Today, owing to the demands Of the