The men at the front, the puddlers, were the labor10 princes of this realm and yet among the hardest worked. A puddling or blast furnace was a brick structure like an oven, about seven feet high and six feet square, with two compartments12, one a receptacle into which pigiron was thrown, the other a fuel chamber13 where the melting heat was generated. The drafts were so arranged that the flame swept from the fuel chamber directly upon the surface of the iron. From five to six hundred pounds of pigiron were put into each furnace at one time, after which it was closed and sufficient heat applied14 to melt down the iron. Then the puddler11 began to work it with an iron rod through a hole in the furnace door, so as to stir up the liquid and bring it in contact with the air. As the impurities15 became separated from the iron and rose to the top as slag, they were tipped out through a center notch16. As it became freer from impurities, a constantly higher temperature was required to keep the iron in a liquid condition. Gradually it began to solidify17 in granules, much as butter forms in churning. Later it took on or was worked into large malleable18 balls or lumps or rolls like butter, three to any given “charge” or furnace. Then, while still in a comparatively soft but not molten condition, these were taken out and thrown across a steel floor to a “taker” to be worked by other machinery and other processes.
Puddling was a full-sized man’s job. There were always two, and sometimes three, to a single furnace, and they took turns at working the metal, as a rule ten minutes to a turn. No man could stand before a furnace and perform that back-breaking toil19 continually. Even when working by spells a man was often nearly exhausted20 at the end of his spell. As a rule he had to go outside and sit on a bench, the perspiration21 running off him. The intensity22 of the heat in those days (1893) was not as yet relieved by the device of shielding the furnace with water-cooled plates. The wages of these men was in the neighborhood of three dollars a day, the highest then paid. Before the great strike it had been more.
But the men who most fascinated me were the “roughers” who, once the puddler had done his work and thrown his lump of red-hot iron out upon an open hearth24, and another man had taken it and thrown it to a “rougher,” fed it into a second machine which rolled or beat it into a more easily handled and workable form. The exact details of the process escape me now, but I remember the picture they presented in those hot, fire-lighted, noisy and sputtering25 rooms. Agility26 and even youth were at a premium27, and a false step possibly meant death. I remember watching two men in the mill below Mt. Washington, one who pulled out billet after billet from furnace after furnace and threw them along the steel floor to the “rougher,” and the latter, who, dressed only in trousers and a sleeveless flannel28 shirt, the sweat pouring from his body and his muscles standing29 out in knots, took these same and, with the skill and agility of a tight-rope performer, tossed them into the machine. He was constantly leaping about thrusting the red billets which came almost in a stream into or between the first pair of rolls for which they were intended. And yet before he could turn back there was always another on the floor behind him. The rolls into which he fed these billets were built in a train, side by side in line, and as they went through one pair they had to be seized by a “catcher” and shoved back through the next. Back and forth30, back and forth they went at an ever increasing speed, until the catcher at the next to the last pair of rolls, seizing the end of the rod as it came through, still red-hot, described with it a fiery31 circle bending it back again to enter the last roll, from which it passed into water. It was wonderful.
And yet these men were not looked upon as anything extraordinary. While the places in which they worked were metal infernos32 and their toil of the most intense and exacting33 character, they were not allowed to organize to better their condition. The recent great victory of the steel magnates had settled that. In that very city and elsewhere, these magnates were rolling in wealth. Their profits were tumbling in so fast that they scarcely knew what to do with them. Vast libraries and universities were being built with their gifts. Immense mansions35 were crowded with art and historic furniture. Their children were being sent to special schools to be taught how to be ladies and gentlemen in a democracy which they contemned36; and on the other hand, these sweating men were being denied an additional five or ten cents an hour and the right to organize. If they protested or attempted to drive out imported strike-breakers they were fired and State or Federal troops were called in to protect the mills. They could not organize then, and they are not organized now.
My friend Martyn, who was intensely sympathetic toward them, was still more sympathetic toward the men who were not so skillful, mere37 day laborers39 who received from one dollar to one-sixty-five at a time when two a day was too little to support any one. He grew melodramatic as he told me where these men lived and how they lived, and finally took me in order that I might see for myself. Afterward40, in the course of my reportorial work, I came upon some of these neighborhoods and individuals, and since they are all a part of the great fortune-building era, and illustrate41 how democracy works in America, and how some great fortunes were built, I propose to put down here a few pictures of things that I saw. Wages varied42 from one to one-sixty-five a day for the commonest laborer38, three and even four a day for the skilled worker. Rents, or what the cheaper workers, who constituted by far the greater number, were able to pay, varied from two-fifteen per week, or eight-sixty per month, to four-seventy-two per week, or twenty per month.
And the type of places they could secure for this! I recall visiting a two-room tenement2 in a court, the character of which first opened my eyes to the type of home these workers endured. This court consisted of four sides with an open space in the center. Three of these sides were smoke-grimed wooden houses three stories in height; the fourth was an ancient and odorous wooden stable, where the horses of a contractor43 were kept. In the center of this court stood a circular wooden building or lavatory44 with ten triangular45 compartments, each opening into one vault46 or cesspool. Near this was one hydrant, the only water-supply for all these homes or rooms. These two conveniences served twenty families, Polish, Hungarian, Slavonic, Jewish, Negro, of from three to five people each, living in the sixty-three rooms which made up the three grimy sides above mentioned. There were twenty-seven children in these rooms, for whom this court was their only playground. For twenty housewives this was the only place where they could string their wash-lines. For twenty tired, sweaty, unwashed husbands this was, aside from the saloon, the only near and neighborly recreation and companionship center. Here of a sweltering summer night, after playing cards and drinking beer, they would frequently stretch themselves to sleep.
But this was not all. As waste pipes were wanting in the houses, heavy tubs of water had to be carried in and out, and this in a smoky town where a double amount of washing and cleaning was necessary. When the weather permitted, the heavy washes were done in the yard. Then the pavement of this populous47 court, covered with tubs, wringers, clothes baskets and pools of soapy water, made a poor playground for children. In addition to this, these lavatories48 must be used, and in consequence a situation was created which may be better imagined than explained. Many of the front windows of these apartments looked down on this center, which was only a few yards from the kitchen windows, creating a neat, sanitary49 and uplifting condition. While usually only two families used one of these compartments, in some other courts three or four families were compelled to use one, giving rise to indifference50 and a sense of irresponsibility for their condition. While all the streets had sewers51 and by borough52 ordinance53 these outside vaults54 must be connected with them, still most of them were flushed only by waste water, which flowed directly into them from the yard faucet55. When conditions became unbearable56 the vaults were washed out with a hose attached to the hydrant, but in winter, when there was danger of freezing, this was not always possible. There was not one indoor closet in any of these courts.
But to return to the apartment in question. The kitchen was steaming with vapor57 from a big washtub set on a chair in the middle of the room. The mother, who had carried the water in, was trying to wash and at the same time keep the older of her two babies from tumbling into the tub of scalding water that was standing on the floor. On one side of the room was a huge puffy bed, with one feather tick to sleep on and another for covering. Near the window was a sewing-machine, in a corner a melodeon, and of course there was the inevitable58 cookstove, upon which was simmering a pot of soup. To the left, in the second room, were one boarder and the man of the house asleep. Two boarders, so I learned, were at work, but at night would be home to sleep in the bed now occupied by one boarder and the man of the house. The little family and their boarders, taken to help out on the rent, worked and lived so in order that Mr. Carnegie might give the world one or two extra libraries with his name plastered on the front, and Mr. Frick a mansion34 on Fifth Avenue.
It was to Martyn and his interest that I owed still other views. He took me one day to a boardinghouse in which lived twenty-four people, all in two rooms, and yet, to my astonishment59 and confusion, it was not so bad as that other court, so great apparently60 is the value of intimate human contact. Few of the very poor day laborers, as Martyn explained to me, who were young and unmarried, cared how they lived so long as they lived cheaply and could save a little. This particular boardinghouse in Homestead was in a court such as I have described, and consisted of two rooms, one above the other, each measuring perhaps 12 × 20. In the kitchen at the time was the wife of the boarding boss cooking dinner. Along one side of the room was an oilcloth-covered table with a plank61 bench on each side; above it was a rack holding a long row of white cups, and a shelf with tin knives and forks. Near the up-to-date range, the only real piece of furniture in the room, hung the buckets in which all mill men carried their noon or midnight meals. A crowd of men were lounging cheerfully about, talking, smoking and enjoying life, one of them playing a concertina. They were making the most of a brief spell before their meal and departure for work. In the room above, as the landlord cheerfully showed us, were double iron bedsteads set close together and on them comfortables neatly62 laid.
In these two rooms lived, besides the boarding boss and his wife, both stalwart Bulgarians, and their two babies, twenty men. They were those Who handled steel billets and bars, unloaded and loaded trains, worked in cinder63 pits, filled steel buckets with stock, and what not. They all worked twelve hours a day, and their reward was this and what they could save over and above it out of nine-sixty per week. Martyn said a good thing about them at the time: “I don’t know how it is. I know these people are exploited and misused64. The mill-owners pay them the lowest wages, the landlords exploit these boardinghouse keepers as well as their boarders, and the community which they make by their work don’t give a damn for them, and yet they are happy, and I’ll be hanged if they don’t make me happy. It must be that just work is happiness,” and I agreed with him. Plenty of work, something to do, the ability to avoid the ennui65 of idleness and useless, pensive66, futile67 thought!
There was another side that I thought was a part of all this, and that was the “vice23” situation. There were so many girls who walked the streets here, and back of the Dispatch and postoffice buildings, as well as in the streets ranged along the Monongahela below Smithfield (Water, First and Second), were many houses of disrepute, as large and flourishing an area as I had seen in any city. As I learned from the political and police man, the police here as elsewhere “protected” vice, or in other words preyed68 upon it.
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1
tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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tenement
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| n.公寓；房屋 | |
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smelted
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| v.熔炼，提炼（矿石）( smelt的过去式和过去分词 )；合演( costar的过去式和过去分词 )；闻到；嗅出 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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slag
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| n.熔渣，铁屑，矿渣；v.使变成熔渣，变熔渣 | |
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limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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hoist
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| n.升高，起重机，推动；v.升起，升高，举起 | |
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trolley
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| n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车 | |
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9
labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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puddler
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| n.捣泥者，搅拌器，混凝器 | |
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compartments
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| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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impurities
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| 不纯( impurity的名词复数 )； 不洁； 淫秽； 杂质 | |
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notch
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| n.(V字形)槽口，缺口，等级 | |
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solidify
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| v.(使)凝固，(使)固化，(使)团结 | |
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malleable
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| adj.(金属)可锻的;有延展性的；(性格)可训练的 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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22
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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24
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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25
sputtering
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| n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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agility
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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premium
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| n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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infernos
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| n.地狱( inferno的名词复数 )；很热的地方 | |
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exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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contemned
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| v.侮辱，蔑视( contemn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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laborer
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| n.劳动者，劳工 | |
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laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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42
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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contractor
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| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
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44
lavatory
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| n.盥洗室，厕所 | |
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triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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46
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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47
populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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48
lavatories
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| n.厕所( lavatory的名词复数 )；抽水马桶；公共厕所（或卫生间、洗手间、盥洗室）；浴室水池 | |
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49
sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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50
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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51
sewers
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| n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 ) | |
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52
borough
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| n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇 | |
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53
ordinance
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| n.法令；条令；条例 | |
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54
vaults
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| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
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55
faucet
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| n.水龙头 | |
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56
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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57
vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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58
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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cinder
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| n.余烬，矿渣 | |
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misused
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| v.使用…不当( misuse的过去式和过去分词 )；把…派作不正当的用途；虐待；滥用 | |
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ennui
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| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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preyed
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| v.掠食( prey的过去式和过去分词 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生 | |
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