Mexico weekly ledger., 1922-10-19
Electric Welding in Essen.

dustrial region is even larger than
the mining area, for it overfiows to the
southwest and includes the famous
factory towns of Barmen, Elberfeld
and Solingen!
Essen's Sudden Rise.
Boom towns of mushroom growth
are not peculiar to America, as the
startling rise of Essen proves. Though
founded away back in the Ninth cen
fury, it slumbered along for hundreds
of years, an obscure, unimp0rtant ham,
let. Even as late as 1850 1t had hard
ly more than 10000 people. Then the
Krupp boom-the rise Of the greatest
machine shop the world has ever e
struck 1t, and today the city houses
half q million.
Set In the heart Of the coal fields,
crowded with endless industrial plants
whose tall chimneys belch eternal
smoke and fumes, the great workshop
fairly thrObs with power and energy.
The roar and rattle of ceaseless wheels
and the din of giant hammers pound
ing on metal seem to keep the whole
town atremble.
Here every form Of iron and steel
article Is made, from boys skates to
giant marine engine shafts. Curious
ly enough, even some Of the smoke,
or the fumes from the smokestacks,
is caught and converted into a gas
that furnishes more power to run the
millsl
More than a hundred years ago the
first Krupp set up his small, crude
shop and began to make by hand the
tools, the drills and chisels, used by
tanners, blacksmiths and carpenters
along the Ruhr and the Rhine. He al
so made dies for use in the mint of
the government. Within 80 years, due
to the, old ambition for expansion,
Krupp tools were known and used as
far away as Greece and India.
Then came the great era of mass
production in steam engines, hammers,
steel tires for railway cars, cast-steel
shafts for river and ocean steamers,
and finally that astonishing output Of
guns and armor plate which brought
the militaristic nations Of the world
to buy at Essen.
The daily o a Of artillery at the
proving grounds, where each new gun
was tested, added to the din of
whistles, rushing trains, and r~attling
gears, made pre+war Ruhr probably
the noisiest place on earth. 1t is noisy
enough now, but the great guns are
silent; Krupp makes them no more.
The big lathes that once made guns
for every nation, from Chile to China,
now turn out shafting for marine AND
other engines. Box cars for Belgium,
car wheels for South America, and
whole tram-line systems for the Dutch
East Indies were some of the orders
being filed a few months ago.
Everybody Is a Worker.
This Ruhr is pre-eminently the habi-
tat Of labor. Everybody works, and
nearly everybody works with his hands.
An army of chemists, engineers and
technical men is employed, of course;
but they form merely a small element
of the grimy, dusty, sweaty popula-
tion that keeps the coal moving, the
furnaces roaring, and the big lathes'
turning.
The population, v~ariously estimated
at from three and one-half to four mil
lions, is not easy to determine, be-
cause thousands come and go as the
tide Of trade rises and falls and mo-
where is the worldwide house short
G more keenly felt than In this
densely populated area. About many
Of the mines the government has set
up temporary barracks where thou.
sands Of miners are housed.
In the more picturesque and less
crowded spots of the Ruhr the over
lords of industry have reared their
villas and spacious homes; but a dis.
tinctiye leisure class, an idle rich, like
the groups conspicuous in Charlotten.
berg, Dresden or Wiesbaden, is not
found. Hundreds are here who have
retired, but they are the aged and
pensioned workmen, doing comfort
ably in the clean. coy colonies built
for them in cities like Essen.
Al tiny speck on the map is this
heated, smoking, Ruhr, but big, like
a cinder, In the worlds eye--a spot
that Caesar knew, a high spot In .
region old In history.