Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1923-06-17

electrical city within twenty minutes
of the heart of Berlin in high
powered automobile. The place COM
pares in extent with the Westing-
house works at Pittsburgh or those
OF the General Electric Company at
Schenectady II is the home of a
firm which has $4,000 employees work
ing in its great establishments here
and in other parts of the world. Il
has about 10000 at Nuremberg: il
has electric installations of one kind
or another in every great city in Eu-
rope. and its name is known where
ever electricity is used. In the gen.
eral offices at Siemenstadt there are
almost 5000 employees, and the fac
tories cover many acres, being di-
vided up into units each making a
certain kind of electrical goods, and
some of the units employing more
than 10000 men. The homes of the
workmen constitute city having in
the neighborhood Of 100000 popula-
ton, in the center of which is the
office building where I was received
by the general manager. and had
every facility for examining the plant.
was first taken by an electric
elevator to the roof of a square tower
which rises over the main Office build
ing. 1t has an electric clock on each
side the face. of which would cover
the floor of your parlor, and the roof
gives d view of the plant. Tt stretches
I far and wide on every side-great
buildings of steel. iron and glass, 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 making automo-
biles, another electric light machines
and others portable heating apparatus
or telegraph instruments, including
the tickers from which brokers read
their stock market reports. There
are great shops making police and fire
signals, factories making electric
| fans, acres of works devoted to dyna-
mos and smaller establishments
where they turn out the most deli
| cate apparatus for scientists. sur
| geons and dentists.
Coming down out Of the tower
strolled about from one great build
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
! rbo-generators of which they have
erected about 500 with a total output
of 100000 kilowatts. I saw, also, the
machines which were morking on the
street railay plants. and on the cables
| for the transmits sion lines which are
now being established in Norway,
| Sweden and elsewhere. They are
making, also. automatic telephones
which are rapidly coming into use in
some of the countries Of Europe.
Everywhere the hands were busy, and
the work was as good as that in our
great United States establishments.
\
T MADE some Inquiries as to wages
i and was Informed that as cents
is high for the average man at the
machines. One of my guides, the
head of a department which employs
| 5000 men. told me he Is getting only
about $40 month. and that notwith-
standing the fact that before the war
| he made $4,000 a year. In one fac
DRY I saw three men straining AZ
Ithey carried machine weighing sew