The Cordele dispatch. (Cordele, Ga.) 19??-1971, 1918-10-02
WORLDS GREATEST
ship BUILDERS

Philadelphia, Sept. Transform
ed in less than a year from a dosolate
waste, practically inaccessible, into
the greatest ship yard in the world
is the story, in brief, of Hog Island.
1t was hardly more than ten months
after the first surveyor ran line
through the length of the island
that Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, wife of
the President, christened the first
ship to be lunched at the big plant.
From it's fifty ways, very soon, three
fabricated steel cargo carriers a week
will slide into the Delaware river
with splash that soon must swell
into a tidal wave rolling in the di-
rection of Germany.
With two vessels already launched
and forty now on the ways in pro-
gressive stages of construction, the
yard today virtually is complete. Be
ore the end of the year, according
to officials of the American Inter
national Shipbuilding Corporation,
there will be fifty ships on the way
and twenty-eight more, already
launched in the finishing basins, or
seventy-eight under construction at
one time-more than two miles of
ships.
AS fast as the vessels are launched
other keels are laid and as fast as
they are delivered others will pass to
the Quitting piers. In twenty-twp
and a half month from the time the
contract was signed on September 10,
1917, Hog Island, these officials say,
will deliver to the government 1885,
600 tons carrying capacity of ships
at cost considerably in excess of
$200,000000. When the yard is in
full operation it will have a capacity
of 100000 tons a year, more than
three times the entire yearly output
of America before the war. About
thirty-one thousand men are engag-
ed in the work.
The fifty ways at the yard, which
is located on the Delaware just out
side of Philadelphia, extend for mile
and quarter along the river front
and are completely equipped with
highly flexible system of derricks for
assembling the fabricated parts.
These ways are operated in ten
groups of five and each, with auxiliary
buildings and tool shops, is an indie
pendent ship assembling unit. Ad-
joining them and forming a continu-
Gus water front of another mile and
a quarter are the ship Quitting bas-
ms with seven piers, each 1000 feet
long, and outfitting berths to accom-
modate twenty-eight vessels at one
time during the period between
launching and completion.
In all there are about $50 perma-
nent buildings in the yard. They COW
er approximately twenty-five acres
and include a central administration
building housing 1850 persons and
an engineers building for $50 en-
gineers and draughtmen. There are
barracks for $500 workmen, three
guards barracks, handsome Y. M.
c. A. building, large hotel, a central
cafeteria, mess halls, a model emer-
gency hospital and innumerable aux
iliary buildings which make up a city
within itself. There is also a train
ing school for shipbuilders with $50
instructors. New men are rapidly
trained 600 at time, and most of
them, officials say, are becoming
adopts in the new trade of ship cree
ton and assembly.
The army of $4,000 workers at the
great plant include men of all ma
tionalities and all occupations. Near
ly 1000 girls are also employed and
many of them are doing work former
ly done by men. Most of the COM
mon labor was obtained in and
around this city, but the skilled me-
chanics and office employees hail from
virtually every section of the coun-
try. The lay roll aveages close to
$1,OOO,OOO a week
Virtually no labor trouble has been
experienced at Hog Island, the few
minor grievances of the employees be-
ing quickly adjusted. After a recent
inspection tour of the yard, Charles
M. Schwab, director general of the
Emergency Fleet Corporation, said
that everything was most harmoni-
GUS" The only thing needed, he ad
ded, was additional experienced rivet-
ing gangs an these soon would be
turned out at the training school,
One of the most serious problems
encountered in the development of
this great city of shipbuilders VISA