The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-08-18

 In all 75 different machines are used in making the new Pershing shoe, and the shoe machines of one kind or another made by the United States Shoe Machin- cry company run high up into the hun dreds. The factories here ship over 20,O00 different machines every year while the machine parts shipped are about 15,000, 900. During my visit to the Beverly plant I went through the stockroom which contains these parts ready for shipment on telegraphic or- der to any part of the country. The stockroom covers about an acre and a half and it is filled with shelves con- taining boxes, each of which has it's own special piece or part of machinery. There are thousands of different parts stored in this room and they are so arranged and labeled that any can be gotten in five minutes. Some of the parts are as big as watch pivot and others weigh as much as two tons. asked the manager of the room how many parts he had stored there. He replied: Just about as many as there are families in the United States We have more than 20.000,000 individual pieces of one kind or another and we are now shipping out about 500, ,000 parts every week" It takes 50 men to take care of the stockroom and the
 
 through the aisles on roller skates
 But am getting ahead of my story Let us take an airplane view of this huge plant which is turning out the many machines for making the shoes of our soldiers. The United Shoe Ma chinery factories at Beverly have floor space Of more than IT acres. They consist of great buildings of stone. iron a ola wide and four stories high. Their walls and roofs arc of glass set in frame work of stone and steel up tho sides of which the ivy has climbed until they look more like medieval castles than a great industrial establishment. If you look closely you will see guards here and there about tho buildings Their work is such that they have to be carefully protected, and no one may come near them without a pass and the proper credentials
 Entering the factories you find every floor filled with a maze of moving ma chinery of the most complicated de- scription- The plant makes nothing but machinery and machine parts, and the story of it's various processes would form an encyclopedia almost of the whole steel-making industry. There are enormous foundries where the molten
 
 great forging establishments where huge steam hammers shape tile red hot steel as easily as you could shape shoemakers' wax with your fingers There are lathes which cut the hard est of metal as though it were cheese and which will shaw. down the parts so that they fit to the ne-thousandth, and some even to the ten-thousandth of an inch The pulling over'' machine which I have already referred to has 400 different parts, some of which fit so closely, in it's complicated mechan- ism, that you could rot put a babys hair between the joints.
 On my way through the factories walked over floors covering half acre or more devoted to making a sim gle class of parts. The machines are automatic, and some of them make screws small enough for watch, while others turn out bolts big enough for safe. In making some of the screws the raw material goes in at one end in round steel bars as thick as lead pencil and comes out at the other iD screws perfectly shaped. with the cut in the head, ready for use. All that is necessary is to feed in the steel and the machine does the rest, turning out screws by the thousands. It takes one man only to care for five such ma chines. Similar work for making smaller screws is done by other ma. chimes not far away. In the latter the steel feed is rods as big around as knitting needle, and the product is the tiny screws fitted for the delicate parts Of certain shoemakingl tools.
 And then the careful work required for the making of the dies which are used for cutting out the parts of the shoes of the soldiers. The other day an order was sent out for 100000 Per- shing shoes. This shoe demanded cer- tain new machines. and every factory had to have new dies for cutting the uppers. They are making these dies at this writing and the output is upwards Of $500 per week. The dies include those for all parts of the uppers. Each starts as paper pattern representing one of the pieces of leather that is to go into the shoe This pattern is pasted on a sheet of steel, and the steel is cut to its shape. The die is bent about the steel patterns, so that the sharp edge Of it's frame work fits it exactly. TSe dies are made of steel bars about one sixteenth of an inch thick. The bending l IS done in an acetylene flame so bright that the men making the dies have blue glass between them and the light. Each die is made in two pieces, which are welded together by electricity. After this the edges are ground as sharp as a ra- zor. so that when laid on the leather and pressed down by the machines they cut out the parts. This die making must be accurate in every particular, for upon 1 1t depends the regularity of the shape of the shoe.
 It would take long story to describe all the wonders that have to do with the making of shoes. In addition to the machines proper this plan has men who manufacture only tools to make the mal chimes. and it has large department which might be called a research labora- ! tory. This is devoted to making experi- mental machines and machine parts, and connected with it are more than 100 in- ventors, who do nothing else but work m irnnrnvemenfa in shna rnachineru