The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1918-06-14
Youngstown, O., June 8, 1918.

Dear Sir:
received number of Leader pa
pers from dear old Tarpon this week
and was glad to get them and to read
the news that they contain / think
Tarpon Springs is to be congratulated
and ought to be very proud to have
such a newsy paper. have given
some of the papers to my working as
sociates and they say, Il guess 1 will
see that place as soon as the war is
over"
Well, you see that | have changed
my place of work since / last wrote
you. Last January / volunteered to
work in shipyards or any place the
government needed me, so it seems
this was the place was wanted, and
so here l am painting in one of the
large plants that have been turned
over to the government work.
Youngstown is situated in Mahon-
| ing valley, is the county seat of Ma
honing county, and is about in the cen
ter of many miles of other cities
where the principal industry is steel
works THIS plant ! am located in is
four miles long and one-Ealf mile
wide. They employ $4,000 hands,
many Of whom are women.
The great stacks of the furnaces
pouring ont such a never-ceasing
amount of smoke make it very smoky
and dirty al through the valley, but
the residential section is built back
on the hillside and is a very pretty
city.
Wages are very good here, and the
demand for skilled and unslsilled help
is enormous. Men who can endure the
heat in many of these plants draw as
high as $500 every two weeks, but all
other men get good wages, and I tell
you all Youngstown is saware of the
fact, so look close to it that a man
does not draw much of his pay out of
Youngstown. Board is from So to $12
per week End room to sleep in that
is comfortable is $3.50 to $500 per
week BARRIERS think they are reason
ble-haircut, soc; shave, 25c. Two
furnished rooms from Sc to SIS per
week, and in fact everything the
same. Pork or lamb chops, 40c per
pound; bananas, Soc a dozen; oranges,
SC to l0c apiece; grapefruit just large
enough foT good baseball, 15e each.
It is 4 pretty sight at night to see
the blast furnaces pour the melted
steel into large tubes that hold six
tons, and as it pours out Of the fur
mace it throws up shower of sparks
that lights the whole valley from one
furnace to another. | have seen a
piece of steel about feet long and
6 or s inches wide and inches thick
put through from one set of rollers to
another until it is just wide enough
to roll and make ga inch pipe. Then
it goes to the welder who draws out
from that piece of, steel one-eighth of
mile of pipe, and as it passes this
man, still red hot, there are shears
that cut it into equal lengths and
thread it at the same time.
Youngstown and Mahoning county
are very active in doing all they can
to help win the war. Mahoning coun-
by has bought twenty-seven million
five hundred thousand in liberty
bonds, and when the extra effort was
made to fill the war chest almost the
next week after the third liberty loan,
the city of Youngstown endeavored to
give one million, but in five days over
two million YVES raised. Many of the
plants were credited with 100 per cent
war chest. To get this, those who
would not give one days pay every
three months were paid off and they.
could not go to any other pant WI
out a receipt for their war chest. One
plant with $4,000 hands was 100 per
cent, and less than 40 hands We're laid
off. This shows good, especially with
the foreign population.
I am not positive of the number of
men gone from this. county, brit many
thousands; several times 800 at a
time. Some of the freight houses are
using women to truck freight and for
checkers.
When | read in your dear paper the
THE SPONGE MOP