Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-02-04
BIG sun SHIP PLANT
TO DOUBLE CAPACITY
Works With Greatest Fabrica-
ton Shop Will Employ Adj
ditional $500 Experts
MUCH DONE IN ONE YEAR
Photographs illustrating ihi~ article
viii be found on the last page "t tins
new spaper

wv" ~f"f'''
CHESTER, IA. Feb. ..
The ycar.,id sun Shipbuldmg Com
rauy. at Chester, launched It's second
rir cargo ship last week and it, $500
workers viii e. ON putting ships to-
gc,hcr as fast as any $500 mon IN inc
world cnn work from this tim" un'u
the war is won and from then on on'H
IA, United States is the greatest MARI
time uat'ou in tho world.
And there seems no reason 20 believe
thut the great yards Will not continue
to send ships down tho six great con-
crctc ways even after that time. Rather
;rc likelihood Is that there will he more
WAYS and more men aud ships in even
greater number.
Even now the sun Company has It's
/ Mr.. Drcnneu--Mr. c. j. nrcuncn, To be
ICNaCt--out after $500 more workers. ana
/ Mr.. bremen has found enough ana has
prC spccts of find'u enough more To war.
rdut the statement that In another month
another shift W II be added md the ship
lu idIug CapaCIty OF the yard Will be
doubled There are 80 many interest
iur features to be found when one goes
through the sun Shlpbulldiug plant that
Z, iS difficult to decide which TO mention
first. but the thing that most deeply i'm.
.ui.ssea one who il fortunate enough 20
nuu II msclr within the gates tx the
fact that such Il hugo inst tuition is SO
thoroughly organized and Is working
with such smooth and maChneliNc pre-
C,siOn when II has been established only
a year.
There are new buildings. Of course
buildings that have been erected only
few weeks--and other buildings in
course Of construction, but the buildings
erected year ago are weather
SCARED now and one does not get the
impression that the plant Is new. Every
thing il so we'll organized. the different
shops are so carefully and satisfactorily
operated and the work done by each Is
so well co-ordinated that one would
think the establishment had been going
on for years, That is true only Of the
machinery department which was the
famous Wetherill Works before Il was
taken over by the newly organized Sun
Company year ago and which is still
known "a the Wetherill plant.
Another remarkable feature Of the
plant Is that it sends out ships that are
complete in every detail. ready for sail
iug--or steaminG if one wishes to do
away with figures of speech. The sun
men, and if called upon to do so perhaps
. it could produce those.
In the storeroom. which itself is u huge
building and not room, can be found
every part OF a ship except the huge
: engines and the steel plates which form
. the structure of the vessel itself. Al.
} kinds Of bolts, nuts and burs and valves
and pipes and bars are here. There ar,
: thousands of them IN cases. arranged
+ like the hooks in Il public library and
catalogued and card indexed so that
{ each can be found in a second whenever
t it is needed That is not all for there
are also all the fittings and fixtures and
t furnishings, even to bed linen for hunks
and teakettles and coffee pots for tn,
[ cook.
' Then there is the great fabricatiul
shop which is the largest now in use
= by any shipbuiding plant and one OF
: the largest single rooms to be found ir
i any industrial plant in the world There
? may be Il larger, but the Sun people anC
no one else that can be found knows
| anything about 1t. The shop or room /!
( so large that one of the l0000-tor
standard vessels that the company
builds could be set up in it il any one
wanted to do so.
. III the great mold loft in the top OF
this fabrcating shop the wooden pacl
~ tcrnS of the ships are made. In most
: mold lofts these patterns are mad,
n 9mallSr >'n actual size and much worl
and expense is incurred in making the
. actual parts larger than the patterns
There Is no such expense here. Tho
ship is pattcrn'S in actual size in this
tremendous mole loft.
p. In the fabricating shop itself, on tht
5 ground, the huge steel plates are heated
= in huge furnaces ana bent and shaped
. until they conform to the wooden pat
terms. Then they are bolted and rivetcd
2 together.
1 And in the machine shops of the
: Wethcrill plant all the engines and va
e riouS machines that 60 to make a COM
4 plotc ship are being manufactured. Here
I the most highly skilled mechanics
1 many of whom arc true artists ant
: nothing lesS-arc ut work. They do moi
+ only make the ships engines, but they
make the engines that are needed ii
building engines. All the machinery
used in the Wetherill plant bears tho
brass plates of that plant itself o.
course, the first engines of the Wethcr
HltISant were not built there, but al
this others We're.
y Charles Morris. who presidcs over tho
! Wctherill plant. is assistant to Presiden
j. Howard Pew. of the sun Company
watches every piece of manufacture, II,
, matter how big or how little: no mat
u ter how important or uninportant, ii'
Is through the various shops all day
and nobody of all the workers t. afrai'
to have Mr.. Morris come arOund--bc
cause Mr.. Morris doesn't employ tn
kind of men who are afraid 10 have tn
e boss. come around. There is no plac
y anywhere in the sun plant for suCl
IS men, but there are places for all Of tn
nd NNhp a
Is c. j. bremen, the employment man
d ager, is the man who goes out aftc
20 moro wOrimen and seems To be gcttn
n them. lie Is the man who undertuO
the big task OF landing $500 moro me
Y TO make the extra shifts and is gettin
II them.
e lie gets them hecausc the sun Com
c panv is making Il reputation for treatin
It its men dccently and because he, bein
lie a shipbuidcr himself, knows how to hir
- men. He doesn't have TO take an al
If pliCant's word for his ability. If IL
D. man poses aS an expert in a line who
ut he isn't bremen finds 1t out by askir
re- half a dozen questions and he doesn
lc hire him. tie asks more questions al
~ finds out that the man would bo vail
able elsewhere, and If he wants to 8
el there he puts him there otherwise
ID never goes to work
s once in a while a man doesn't qui
Is "hit It OFF, with his foreman. II 1t
NJ certain the man is 10 good he quit
and quits quick. but il there Is al
?, doubt of it he gets another chance
re clean slate with another foreman in a
he other department.
s. Nobody Is going 70 90 away fro
le. here and say he wasn't treated flgh'
~, says Drennen.
The employment manager has eve
"A, worker catalogued and card-indeXed {