Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1932-01-03

furnaces and coke ovens, while the
workers who build them burrow
into the earth for rude shelter their clothing
in rags their rations black bread and potatoes,
and sometimes dried sailed fish.
Six years ago the people led almost
pastoral, sometimes a nomad, existence
Today Siberia is Soviet frontier, where the
dugout in frontier days in America has
become the common type of dwelling, the
quickest method of giving shelter to hundreds
of thousands of new industrial workers who
pour in frem every section of the Soviet
Union.
In KuznetSkStroy, where vast new metal
1urgical plant is airing on the Siberian plain
these dugoutS fascinated more than the
giant new construction blast furnaces
which the American engineers call THE Mad
house" where there is uproar of riveting,
hammering, welding powerful HOSTS swinging
heavy burdens through the air, engines rush.
ing unheedingly back and forth the net
work of tracks, workers climbing recklesSly
under moving cars, horses and wagons thread
ing their way through mazeS Of pipes, piles Of
iron and rubbish
And above all this chaos the lofty iron sides
of the ovens the fantastic outlines Of the blast
furnaces rise. To the right stand the almost
completed coke ovens the first battery already
fired, to the left stretch the open hearth and
steel skeletons of the rolling mills The axis
of the works runs north and south, with the
Altaii Mountains to the southeast and the
Tom River flowing into the Arctic.
A MAGNIFICENT site, this, from the point
N of view of raw material as well as dis
tribution. for the giant metallurgical plant, an
important link in the KuZbaS-Ural Combine,
whose chief task will be to supply rails.
But it is a barren spot from esthetic
point of view There is none of the natural
beauty of KemeroVo also on the Tom River
Here no small
of silver birch turning yellow.
On its edge stands the common grave and
the wooden, futuriStic monument in black and
red to the % who lost their lives the day I
arrived when a scaffolding over the coke oven
silos collapsed beneath the weight of 100
workers who were holding spectacular pep"
meeting top Dawn they went, 500 feet
below, into the bottom Of the concrete silo and
a hole had to be torn through the thick wall
to pull them out, % already dead, many ter
ribly injured and suffocating
An unnecessary tragedy, due to the careless
ness of the assistant chief of construction who
had called the meeting and was the first to
go down to his death.
Building a metallurgica1 plant in the wilds
of Siberia is child's play. More than $50
workers have lost their lives since the con-
struction started two years ago.
1.-THE Russians are so careless" young
American engineer told me, 't's a
vel to me more of them are not killed. Hardly
a day passes that I don't pull some fool from
under moving train"
The 'Freyn Engineering Co. of Chicago, in
charge of construction at Kuznetskstroy has
lost one of its men, too Hill, already some
what of a legendary hero among the AZ
Americans chief rigger, m charge of hoist
ing, and, according to his comrades reck-
less happy-go- lucky fellow.
Il heard him singing Dixie as he passed
nv hat of he
engineers told me- as we sat in the social hall
of the American Hotel" where live Freyn
men who left their wives back home. 1t is
large two-stery log house, with steam heat