The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-06-17
ELECTRIC PL \ N I SHIPS PRODUCTS ALL OVER WORLD.
Carpenter Tells Why Capital ists Object To New
 8-Hour Day
ONLY OVERTIME CAN KEEP GERMANY FROM STARVING
Germans Feel That Wars Greatest Loss Is Efficient
 Man Power Of Nation
By FRANK G. CARPENTER Especial Correspondent of Dirming-
 ham A9e-Hera1d.)

By FRANK G. CARPENTER
 Special Correspondent of Dirming-
 ham AGe-Hera1d.)
 SIEMENSSTADT, Germany, June 16. Germany is the Samson of the com mercial and industrial world. Before the Great war he was conquering his competitors, capturing markets from Peking to Paris, from Berlin to Bagdad, and from the Rio Grande to the Straits of Magellan. He has as many antics as the Samson of old and his dumping policies injured the trade of his enemies as did Samson's 300 foxes with the firebrands tied to their tails when they burnt up the corn of the Philistines. He overcame them with the cunning of fox rather than the jawbone of an ass, and by his organization and unscru- pulous methods was everywhere vic torious. when he was charmed by the Delilah of military ambition. He went in unto her and slept on her knees and she shaved his hair to the scalp. Now his strength Is gone for the time, and the French by taking the Ruhr have bound him with fet- ters of brass. But once let his hair grow. and he may yet pull down the pillars of Dagon and involve the fn- dustry and trade of all other nations in ruin.
 The German Peril
 I must confess l am afraid of the Germans. They are indomitable workers, and keep on plugging away under ct tnditions which would light the fires of revolution In France bring bolshevism to England. and overturn everything in the United States. There are millions now em- nIo r., at which do not equal more than 25 cents gold per day. They are as skilled as We are. They have almost as good plants, and they work with modern machinery. We worry abt ut the yellow peril" consisting of O000.00O Chinese who work with their hands It is poor machine that does not multiply the product tenfold On that basis these 60.O00, 900 of Germans are equal to 600, ,00o, 900, or twice the Chinese. and just now the wages are not far apart I do not kntw the average factory wage of the United States. One of our billionaires who makes cheap automobiles pays his men $6 or more a day, and I venture the average American sets at least s3 for his every eight hours of work. These Germans are doing the same kind of labor at cents per hour. and they are making goo ds to compete with ours in the markets of the world. There is a mighty difference between 25 cents and $3, and a still greater difference between 3 cents an hour and the from $1 to 8 an hour of certain American mechanics, and this difference will show in the prices at which the goods can be sold. The greatest cost of manufacturing today is in the labor required to produce. and 1t will be long before we can raise our tariff walls high enough to shut out German goods when condi- tions again become stable. The wages will rise, but the difference between 25 cents and $3 Is SO great that the possible damage is almost beyond computation.
 EurOpe's Greatest Electric Plant.
 The above Is by way of introduction to some visits I have made and am making to the chief industrial piants of this country and to talks with their highest officials as to present and future conditions. l shall hrst take you to Siemensstadt. an cleo :rical city within 20 minutes of the heart of Berlin in a high"powereu automobile. The place compares in extent with the Westinghouse works al Pittsburg or those of the Genera. Electric company at Schenectady. T. is the home of a firm which has 3o,0O0 employees working in its grea- estab- l'shments here and In other parts of tie world. It has about 5000o at Nuremberg; it has electric installa- tions of one kind or another In every great city in Europe, and it's, name is known wherever electricity Is used. In the general offices at Siemensstadt there are almost 5000 employees, and he fo heir q divided up Into units, each making a eel tain kind of electrical goods, and home of the units employing more than 10000 men. The homes of the wCrkmen constitute city having ill tho neighborhood of 100000 popula- ton, in the center of which is the office building where I was received by the general manager and given every facility for examining the plant.
 Q Q o
 From The Clock Tower.
 was first taken by an electric elevator to the roof of square tower which rises over the ma;s office build ing. It has aa electric clock on each Sae, the face of which would cover the floor of your parlor. and the roof gives view of the plant. It stretches far and wide on every side-great each of five or six stories. Each building is separate, and often some distance away from the others, and all are humming with some special industry. One, for instance, Is mak- ing automobiles, another electric light machines, and others portable heating apparatus or telegraph instruments. including the tickers from which brokers read their stock reports. There are great shops making police and fire signals, factories making electric fans, acres of works devoted to dynamos, and smaller establish ments where they turn out the most delicate apparatus for scientists, sur geons and dentists.
 Coming down out of the tower l strOlled about from one great buliu- ing to another, stopping here to watch them make electric motors for house industries and farms, going through plants where they are build ing machinery for mines, including sinking pump motors and electric rock drills. and thence to the great turbo- generators of which they have erected about 600 with total output of 250.000 kilowatts. I saw, also, the street railway plants, and on the cables for the transmission lines which are now being established in Norway. Sweden and elsewhere. They are making. also. automatic tele- phones which are rapidly coming into use in some of tho countries of Flu rope. Everywhere the hands were busy, and the work was as good as that in our great United States es- establishments.
 O O O
 Twenty-Five Cents For Eight Hours.
 made some inquiries as to wages, and was informed that twenty-five cents is high for the average man at the machines. One of my guides