When Charles came into the business in 1871 he found Charles Swan, my father's old superintendent, in charge.... Even before Swan left, the necessity of a new rolling mill had become apparent. The old one was antiquated, had a limited output and was adapted for small Swedish bars. The site selected for the new one was near Clinton Street where the present annealers are. New ground was bought and old houses torn down. Great improvements were effected in this new mill through the introduction of automatic return passes, saving several men and shortening the time of transit of the rod through the train, so that it was still hot when arriving at the last pass. Boys were used to take care of the long loops on the level floor. The use of an inclined slope was not thought of until years later and was then patented by another man.
At this time a galvanizing train was put in operation next to the old rope shop, where a great amount of experimenting and poor galvanizing was done. It takes time to grasp the full requirements of any new operation. There was the use of hot tubes to heat the wire and burn off the grease, the quality and quantity of muriatic acid, the washing off of the acid, the kind of pan needed to hold the melted speller, the heat, the quality of speller-most important-the best speed, the train of spools or reels for winding up the galvanized wire, the greatest number of wires to run through at once, the wiping when needed, how to avoid lumps and blackspots, and above all how to put on a coat of zinc which would not crack off when the wire was bent, how to prepare the wire, the protection against excessive oxidation, the handling of the dross and skimmings, how to handle heavy wire and fine wire, etc., etc. There were at least fifty difficulties to be solved satisfactorily, else the business would not pay.
This was the sort of schooling Charles had to go through, day after day from year to year. Even today, when we rank among the best galvanizers in the world, questions will still come up. Usually defective cleaning of the wires is the cause.
The telegraphs of the country were assuming enormous proportions, expanding daily. We could not supply the demand. Thousands and thousands of tons were demanded to cover the United States. Our output grew until it exceeded that of the famous Washburn mills in Worcester. Ferdinand was especially active in expanding this part of the business and was very successful. Too often great orders were filled and stock in new companies accepted in place of cash. This sort of gamble often resulted in heavy losses, running up into the hundred thousands.
A change in the tariff cut us off from importing foreign rods for telegraph. There was nothing to do but make our own blooms from foreign pig, domestic scrap and Jersey charcoal. Charles arranged these works in short order, putting in a heavy steam-hammer and a number of small reducing fires. This worked with Swedish workmen for four years, when another change in the tariff caused its abandonment.
The small galvanizing shop having proved insufficient, a large one was built on the site occupied by the present tinning shop. It held six or seven trains, working day and night and Sundays, and still unequal to the demand. Our wire drawing capacity having proved too small, Charles became ambitious and planned a large five-story mill on Elmer Street, to be equipped on Worcester lines and superintended by a Worcesterman, Cunningham. Hildenbrand, my former bridge assistant, helped to draw the plans. Property had to be bought and part of Clark Street was vacated. This mill was a wonder and a success. Of course, it brought with it an increase in annealing and cleaning house facilities. Some of the wire blocks in the old mill were moved over, giving us the room now used for storage of telegraph wire.
Previous to this some Yankee had invented a mechanical binder for binding wheat sheaves in the wheat field, thus supplanting hand labor. This opened a vista for untold quantities of binder wire. To make this, two of the upper floors of the old wire mill enlargement, opposite the present office, were fitted with fine wire blocks, and worked successfully for several years. Then it developed that ends and scraps of the wire got mixed in with the wheat and ground into the flour, thus not only killing people, but the fine wire trade, as well. We were then confronted with the problem of what to do with the fine wire output.
I think it was Ferdinand who urged our going into the wirecloth business. As we knew nothing whatsoever about it, it was necessary to find someone who did. This man proved to be a Mr. Orr, who had been foreman in a wire-cloth factory at Clinton, Massachusetts. He had also made some patented improvements in a loom, plans for which he brought. The New Jersey Wire-Cloth Company was now chartered, Mr. Orr to receive a salary and one-eighth of the stock of the company.
Charles, as usual, put up the necessary buildings on the east side of Clinton Street, our first invasion of that territory. The looms were built in contract, steam engine and boilers provided' and the business started.
Every new branch of business was always a pet for several years, until the novelty wore off, and the initial profits, which were large, had become reduced by competition and by the unfortunate fact that jobbers really controlled the profits. As time went along we consoled ourselves with the delusion that the wire-cloth business must be continued in order to consume the extra output of the wire mills. We had one good outlet for cloth in our California store. The handling of this business proved a heavy burden on Ferdinand's shoulders, and when his brother-in-law, F. O. Briggs, came to the office it was soon unloaded on to him, to F. W.'s great relief. As earnings, owing to competition, are soon reduced to unprofitable basis it is necessary to go into some new line of business, because it is only in the first few years that large profits are possible. But it does not always follow that a new departure is a success. Our entrance into the wire-nail business is an example of it. This was abandoned, not because it was intrinsically bad, but because it was necessary to make it one's principal line of production and arrange the entire plant with a view towards that one focus. It was intended as a side-show, and died as such. Nail-making was replaced by machines for flattening wire. This business assumed large proportions.
New projects and new developments kept crowding in. Charles and Ferdinand were busy day and night, year in and year out, to keep up with them. The era of Bessemer steel had arrived in the early 'seventies and was gradually taking the place of the costly Swedish iron and American charcoal iron.
The treatment of this material cost Charles many an anxious hour and years of experimenting. One of his most striking characteristics was that he wanted to do everything and find out everything himself. That disposition has great merits with a few demerits, because sometimes it is much cheaper to buy what you want than to waste thousands in experimenting. This tendency of self-reliance was one of Charles' chief points. It strengthened his capacity for successful work and enabled him in later years, when he was in his prime, to undertake great projects where he had no precedents and was forced to rely upon himself alone. This period in a busy man's life lasts only a few years. The time inevitably arrives when it is necessary to train someone else to take your place. With him that time never came, simply because he could not tolerate the idea of raising up an equal. Perhaps he died too soon. But the constant arguments that took place between him and Ferdinand had their root in that trait. On the other hand, it is a great thing to have a man at the manufacturing head in whose infallibility every subordinate had the most profound confidence.
As the employer of labor it was Charles' duty to fix wages and settle strikes when they came, a most difficult task, because it is necessary to be just to both sides.
For many years we had nothing but Germans in our employ, a peaceful and tractable race. The number of operatives was comparatively small so that most everyone was known by sight or name. This could not last. Wire-drawing, a special trade, was gradually monopolized by Englishmen. About 1875 our Worcester competitors established a saving in the costly wiredrawing plates, by substituting for the larger-sized holes a cheap chilled cast-iron die which could be reamed to guage (sic) by a few men, the mere drawing of the wire and taking it off the block could then be done by ordinary labor. The high wages of wire-drawers had been due to the skill needed in set tiny up the holes, hammering the conical hole into shape and tempering the plate. When this went into effect every Englishman, about fifty in number, struck and refused to use chilled dies. They sat around on the fence for a couple of days, and then left, most of them going to Cleveland. Not one ever returned. This was the first serious strike. Charles was a good fighter. When he felt he was right he would not give in. This was the forerunner of many a subsequent strike, especially when he began to employ many different nationalities-Italians, Poles, Hungarians, Scandinavians, Croats, Russians, Roumanians (sic) , Greeks, etc. The hardest test comes when it is imperative to reduce wages in hard times. It requires courage then to face a band of infuriated men. Charles possessed that courage in the highest degree.
The point I wish to make is that this kind of work has a tendency to harden a man's character; he becomes brusque, suspicious, and this in a way tinges his intercourse with others that he comes in contact with. Life's crucible hardens many a heart, and one has to make allowances in judging character.
On one occasion a band of two hundred murderous Italians, armed with knives, made a raid through the mill, driving everyone out. Few men would face such a demonstration with a stout heart, but he did.
But to resume chronology-
Bessemer steel wire was now used for ropes. The product was unsatisfactory, brittle and cracky, maximum strength 160,000 per square inch. To galvanize it was a tough job. The largest contract for that material was with the Brooklyn Bridge, for footbridge cables, and later for stays and suspenders. Charles was very busy on that. In connection with it we found out how to temper galvanized wire straight (it did it itself) and avoid running the wire through heddles or straightening machines. Colonel Paine got a patent on it.
With every year the business horizon expanded.
A prosperous period for rope-making had now arrived, namely, making long ropes for cable roads. This surpassed all expectations, so much so that Charles had to start another wire rope shop alongside the old one, and build especially another big rope machine which could lay up 30,ooo feet of 1 1/2-inch diameter common lay and long lay, all of which he designed and executed in 1893, and none too soon. For a while we had all the cable road business to ourselves, but could scarcely handle it all, which brought on competition. While the roads were new the ropes lasted, then there came complaints, and finally the ruinous system of guaranteeing a certain mileage was forced on us. On top of that the roads insisted on our taking stock in pay. This entailed heavy losses on us, when so many roads went into bankruptcy, thereby neutralizing previous profits-Broadway, for example.
Constant additions of machinery and strand machines were being made to the new rope shop. In a year or two it was full. The strand machines were mostly the old type and running quite slow with a moderate output. It was slow work to make strand for the small-sized elevator ropes, for which the demand was steadily increasing.
The idea of making small-sized strand on fast-running horizontal Smith machines had not yet crystallized into the vast expansion it reached later on. In designing these machines Charles did his own work, making all the drawings himself, besides attending to all the work in the shops. His industry was indefatigable. Much trouble was experienced with the last new vertical rope-laying machine, built in 1885, which exerted a pressure of forty to fifty tons on the washers in the bottom step, causing frequent heating from friction and a stoppage. This was finally overcome by using a pump which forced oil all the time into the washers. The largest machine of all he built in 1893.
About this time, 1goo, we purchased the adjacent property on the canal front called the "Saw Works," where had been made circular saws with inserted teeth. Connected with it was a small outfit of drop hammers which we transferred to the new machine shop and have found very useful in forging wire rope sockets cheaply and strong. This goes on steadily.
Besides attending to strictly shop matters Charles attended to much outside engineering work connected with our business. For example, the systems of underground rope hauling assumed large proportions. Mr. Hildenbrand, who was released from Brooklyn Bridge work, collected facts and data described in a voluminous pamphlet. For a number of years this was a good business until gradually replaced by electric haulage later on.
Hildenbrand helped Charles in designing the new wire mills, making plans for small suspension bridges and many smaller contrivances. Wire-rope tramways were a tempting outlay of time and ingenuity, almost more trouble than it was worth.
Charles really did not have time to devote his best work on them, so it was left to assistants, who were better in promises than performances. One rascal cheated us badly. A competitor made some headway with the Bleichert Tramway. They do not last long, are temporary and a makeshift, and when it comes to guaranteeing a certain output it becomes a losing proposition. The manufacture of big ropes for a permanent cableway is a much better proposition. An active, prosperous, paying business is a source of great excitement. Almost daily new propositions come up to be considered as to their merits. In course of years the judgment becomes cultivated. Ferdinand was a great pusher, but it was Charles who had to do the actual work of creating the realities. It was impossible to take up every new thing. One outside enterprise, besides some others entered into, was the manufacture of a poor variant of regular barb fence, made of flat strip cut with saw-tooth edges. Ground was bought below us on the canal, a one-story building provided with fifty to one hundred edge-notching machines. For a couple of years it made money under Kelsey's [Henry C. Kelsey, a prominent citizen of Trenton and for many years Secretary of State] management (the John A. Roebling's Sons Company furnishing the raw strip)-it could not compete with ordinary barb fence, gradually dying out. The grounds and remains of plant were finally bought by the John A. Roebling's Sons Company, and now forms the site of the last rope shop, our most valuable asset.
The electrical age had begun; everything was to be done electrically-lighting, communication, power lines and the hundreds of other appliances connected with it. All this meant copper wire, large and small, in untold quantities, not only bare but also insulated. We had never drawn or rolled copper wire; it was a new problem which Charles, of course, had to solve, and as usual he succeeded after some failures. Our rolling mill passes had to be adapted; we had to learn how to heat it properly. Then came the annealing and quenching in water, the drawing of the wire which was easy in large sizes, but had to be done through jewels in the fine sizes, the danger of overheating which oxidized the copper, and finally the invention and use of regular wire-drawing machines where one man could run a bench of six or eight reductions in size. Fortunately this did not have to be all invented in Trenton, because outsiders had already begun to make wire-drawing machines.
The copper business is entirely different from steel wire. Being three times as dear it takes three times the capital to swing it. For an unknown reason the profits per pound were very low, only a quarter of a cent for the larger sizes. It was higher for fine sizes, but the quantity was less. In executing contracts for telegraph companies you ran the risk of having to take stock. It therefore became a job of buying as cheap as possible, and secondly of insulating the wire, and thereby getting a little more profit out of it. The first braiding shop was a one-story frame building put up on the site where the large insulating shop is now. Braiders could already be bought and the other appliances were few at the beginning. Neither was much capital needed because the copper wire came theoretically from the mill. The methods of insulation were many, some patented. First came ordinary braiding with cotton yarns; later paper insulation was largely used, which brought no end of a law suit. Since the object of this article is to a large extent the history of Charles G. Roebling I am free to say that he never fully approved of it. It was a side-show attended with much bother and trouble; it was never very profitable, even at first when it usually pays, and in many years this business showed a considerable deficit. Taken as a whole, including the fire losses, I do not think it has ever paid. It was looked upon as an outlet for our increasing output of copper wire. As was to be expected, this shop burnt down one summer in half an hour, in 1892. Then came the question, shall we rebuild Ferdinand was so insistent that Charles yielded, and a greater braiding shop was put up by him; in fact when very heavy wire was being braided for power conductors and electric lights an extra small shop was put up behind the galvanizing shop. This was also destroyed by fire later on. All this sort of business goes on today, only on a tenfold scale.
The whole manufacturing world was going mad about electricity. At an early period Ferdinand was fascinated by the magnet-wire business, affording an outlet for very fine copper wire covered with green and other shades of high-priced silk thread-it was a delicate, nice, clean business. After some trouble a mechanic was found to build one machine; this was improved upon, then others were invented and acquired. This was a successful venture, much to the credit of F. W., who deserves it. It runs to this day, although replaced to a large extent by enamelled (sic) wire, which we are also making at a profit and is a business that could be largely extended, located at the Buckthorn works.
About this time, 1887, a man appeared on the horizon, a promoter of the flattering sort. F. W. was very much taken with the prospects of the incandescent light business. This promoter pretended to own a patent fiber and to have on option an Englishman who would come over and run a factory. Charles positively refused to go into the combination, where he showed his good sense. I was dragged into it unwillingly and before I got through with it I had lost $75,ooo. A small old factory was secured in Newark. The Englishman who came proved to be a drunken palsied paralytic with two mistresses, who came along. Of course, suits were filed for infringement. The film being a carbonized thread, the promoter went to work to make bulbs and lights. It was not a success in spite of his fake reports of great success. The four other stockholders quit and the thing gradually died, taking years to wind up. F. W. lost more than I did. In addition he had this promoter on his hands. He started in on a salary to promote electric roads, mostly for stock, more loss than gain. Fortunately after some years he died. This was one of the many ventures that did not succeed. It is not all velvet in any business. The general insulated wire business, however, received much attention; two very large additional buildings were put up and gradually filled with machinery, about 1898. This went pretty well for a couple of years, when the fashion changed to a rubber insulation. To hold our trade we had to go into the rubber business. This was something new for Charles, but he managed it, put up splendid large machinery in a new shop at great cost and slowly learned the business as it is today. This business also expanded into side-lines, and finally arrived at its present state of perfection, with small profits and sometimes none.
In 1896 Charles was preparing one of his tours de force, namely, a new rod-rolling mill to be located on the east side of Clinton Street where the additional ground had been bought.
Great advances had taken place in rod mills. A competitive mill had just been built which could roll three and four rods at a time as small as No. 5 guage (sic), and having an output three or four times that of our old mill. The main driving power in the old mill had been a huge cogwheel, 22 feet in diameter, provided with wooden cogs. This sufficed for soft iron, but would not answer for harder steels.
Charles tackled the problem with his usual zeal. To do it all with one engine was out of the question. He divided the system into three parts, one engine to drive the heavy rolls for breaking down billets, direct acting-an old engine was used for that. The rod train proper was divided into two parts, each with its engine. A new principle was adopted. All former heavy gearing was replaced by huge, wide, fast-running belts, 2 1/2 feet wide and three-ply, thus avoiding all shock; intermediate heavy passes were provided for by intermediate belting. The big belt pulley was the flywheel at the same time. The inclined plane was adopted for taking care of the slack (patented). Powerful Porter-Allen engines were installed to drive the train, two automatic double semi-circles for returning the rods were used on one side, saving four men. Charles devised a new reeling-up apparatus of four circular revolving tables, self-discharging, all operated by one man. A vertical arrangement of this sort had failed. Other people used a patented revolving goose-neck, very simple, which could not be had. All minor difficulties were finally overcome. The train proved a great success and is now running. Such a train requires many accessories: a great battery of steam boilers, with a railroad in front to supply coal direct. City water was dear, so a huge well was dug, 35 feet in diameter by 30 feet deep, supplying most of the water for heating and cooling (another such well 800 feet away proved dry); ashes had to be disposed of. For the first time on the place the Siemens gas-heating brick complexes were used to heat the coal gas supplied to the heating furnaces from the gas generators-all difficult work-then came conveyors, roll-turning shops, new kinds of guides, arrangements to dispose of the products as well as to bring the billets there. Not everything can be thought out in advance; usually something has to be perfected by intelligent experiment. After running a few years some Swede invented a new heating furnace in which the entire charge was constantly pushed ahead by a hydraulic ram, saving much labor. Charles built it. Of course, a strike followed. The workman so often acts contrary to his real interest, because every improvement like this increases the output and improves the quality and gives him more work in the end.
An enterprise like this new rolling mill requires at least a year and a half from its first inception until its final completion, and it came out of the brain of one man, and that man was Charles G. Roebling. In 1 goo the rolling-mill engines were shifted, a larger one being put in the center so as to enable us to roll hard steel, for which there had not been enough power. It was done in less than two months.
Through a remarkable train of queer circumstances this mill was practically destroyed by fire some fifteen years later. A hot rod managed to find its way into the flywheel pit of one of the big engines, setting fire to a lot of grease and oil which the wheel scattered all over, and at the same time the rod became entangled in the wheel and was thrown up against the roof, setting fire to it instantaneously. The biggest loss was in the belts and a cracked flywheel, or big belt pulley. In six weeks everything was running again. One man died from fright.
There were a couple of years of hard times now; wages had to be reduced, followed by the usual strike which had to be settled by Charles. I was present when he addressed the rolling mill men, and certainly did not envy him the task. When there is much of this a man's temper becomes hardened; there is no help for it, you have to face the music. As usual he was the only man to do it. The old abandoned rolling mill was now junk, which means that much lost or wasted, and casts a heavy debit into the balance sheet.
Charles' first attempts at lead tempering had provided better results than subsequent ones. Why, no one knows. A large lead pan to do the heating, then a short air space to do a little cooling and then a small pan to draw the temper. C. G. always inclined to air tempering, which is now being used almost exclusively. About 1888 Bessemer steel was being replaced by open-hearth steel. Most of our fine steel rods for wire rope were imported from Sheffield. Iron rods for extra B. B. telegraph wire came from Sweden and steel billets had to be bought in this country, and even abroad, wherever we could get them. We were beginning to feel that we were laboring under a great handicap because we could not produce our own steel.
The commercial end of the business usually outstripped the other. We had our stores in San Francisco, in New York and Chicago and elsewhere; agents all over. Our man Shippy had become a globe-trotter. Cable ropes in quantity went to Australia and elsewhere. Expansion was the order of the day. Every branch of the business was run at top notch. But it was not all profit. Heavy losses at times would neutralize the profits of half a year. From 1897 to 1goo was really a period of depression which ended with our victory in the Spanish War. Then came good times; al1 kinds of juggling were resorted to keep the place a-going and supplied with work. Then is the time one suffers from over-expansion. But it is also the time when everything is cheap and therefore the time for laying the foundation for future expansion. For a while losses in the copper trade overbalanced any profit, and we are not through with it to this day (1919).
In 1898 to 1900 the removal of the old rolling mill made available a large piece of open ground, corner of Clinton and Elmer Streets. The temptation to build another large wire mill on this site proved irresistible; in fact it was needed. Charles went at it with his usual vigor. The building was about 40 per cent larger than the Elmer Street mill, being considerably longer and somewhat wider. An engine of double the power of the other was designed for the southern end, a new series of boilers installed close by. Hildenbrand assisted in getting out the plan of the building, which was provided with two elevators. As usual, the most difficult part of such a problem is the transmission of power by means of belts to the various floors. The stories being of average height, these vertical belts had to be short and worked under great tension to do their work, and this is not economical. This was not fully recognized and led to an entirely different plan at Kinkora (now Roebling) when those great wire mills were designed, and where there was ample room to put everything on one floor. In a five-story mill the capacity of the elevators measures the capacity of the mill. The greatest danger in these tall buildings is that of fire. If it once starts there is no hope; both of these wire mills must go, especially as they are connected-Clinton Street wire mill built in i899. Charles always turned up his nose at any suggestion about protection against fire, but our two large fires gave him a jolt which he did not forget until his dying day. The worth of the new sprinkling systems remains to be proved.
A few years previous we had bought from Charles Carr the property facing the canal and extending from the Saw Works to Mackenzie's foundry, with the ultimate idea of building another wire-rope shop there. That time had arrived. The demand for small-sized elevator rope had become so great that we could no longer devote the slow and cumbrous machines in the old shop to do this work profitably. Charles proceeded to erect a long two-story building, nearly 600 feet long with a short extension on the canal side for cable work and galvanized strand. Many small-sized upright _g-wire strand machines were put in; also a number of horizontal machines for 19-wire strands, together with a suitable number of rope-laying machines, not to forget very small fast-running machines for Tiller rope strand. All of this machinery was built on the place and had to be designed and properly proportioned in Charles' office. A carpenter shop was built on the same lot and a coal yard established. The boiler house was provided with automatic stokers-first on the place. After running most successfully for less than ten years the building with all its valuable contents was totally destroyed by fire one bitter cold night, zero weather and heavy snow. It started as usual between shifts when no one was there. No one knew how it originated. This was in February 1908.
This was the first great fire we had on the place and was a great blow to us all, especially Charles. He saw the work of several years swept away in a few hours; he realized the heavy monetary loss, and more than that the prospective loss of business. Added to this came the thought of all the work ahead to put up a new building and replace all the machinery. Much rope was made for us outside. This was the first of three or four really great fires that devastated our plant later on. Fortunately, there was much rope machinery available in the I.W.D. [Insulated Wire Department] and Buckthorn plants. Working day and night and Sundays in all shops helped wonderfully. The old shop was untouched.
In December 1899 the contract for building the four cables of the Williamsburg Suspension Bridge was let to the John A. Roebling's Sons Company of New York for the sum of $1,389,000, to be finished in ten months. Mr. L. L. Buck was engineer of the bridge and had prepared the specifications. All the work on this bridge was done by contract, nothing by day's work-just the reverse of the old Brooklyn Bridge. Charles Roebling's ambition was fired; he was determined to build them. They were more than twice the size of the Brooklyn Bridge cables; consequently the honor would be twice as great.
Charles Roebling had a double task, namely, to build the cables and also make the wire-a big job in itself. After the contract was let Mr. Buck left for Europe, where he spent over a year. On his return they were nearly done. Before the contract was signed the authorities in New York demanded that I should look a little after the work because Charles had not built large cables before and I had. This was simply precautionary. Charles did all the real hard work. As an assistant he had William Hildenbrand, who had been my assistant on the cable work on the Brooklyn Bridge, and was familiar with the vital points. Owing to Charles' disposition I occupied a delicate position, but an occasional hint to Hildenbrand was sufficient.
One of the first things to decide was this: Mr. Buck had prescribed that the land spans of the cables should be laid in a straight line, resting on an enormously high trestle work, the object being to avoid the excessive saddle movement of seven feet, there being no load on the land spans. The objection to this was the great cost and trouble of putting up such a trestle, and the great danger from fire which would ruin the cables. Moreover, it would be impossible to regulate the tension of the wires in the main span properly without a counterbalancing tension in the land spans. Mr. Buck, being away, had left everything to the Roeblings. I succeeded in convincing Charles that my view was correct. The trestle was abandoned, the saddles moved all right, and perfect cables were the result. Hurrah!
Charles attacked every problem with his usual energy. On the Brooklyn Bridge the footbridge cables had been taken over on small carrier cables, so as not to interfere with navigation, ferryboats being very thick there. But here vessels were much fewer and Charles successfully adopted the plan of placing all four cable reels at once on one barge, towing that across and letting all the ropes pay off into the water at once, and then raising them to their place afterwards. The only thing I did not approve of were the excessively heavy temporary wooden footbridges. Three or four times as much timber was put in them as was necessary. I partly blame Hildenbrand for this.
The experience on the Brooklyn Bridge had been of great value. The wires in these cables were made of No. 6 steel wire, over a size larger, strength 190,000 pounds per square inch. The wire was tempered straight. Consequently the strands did not have to be made under high tension to take out the kinks and bends. The strands were laid only a short distance above the main cables, thereby reducing the strain on them, shortening the leg, and enabling quick release by using long jacks. Thus the danger of letting off high tension strands was largely eliminated. Since the Roeblings also made the wire it became possible to splice the wire together in long lengths and wind it up on wooden reels at Trenton, which were sent to the anchorages and returned empty, thus reducing the splicing of wire on the anchorages to a minimum. The next great improvement consisted in transporting wires across double; he invented a double wheel, that is, the travelling (sic) wheel carried wires both in going over and in coming back, thereby reducing the time of cable-making over a third. (Even this was improved on by one Robinson who had been cable inspector on part of the city. He divided each cable into two separate halves, laying wires into each half, thereby reducing the time of cable-making another third, on the Manhattan Bridge.)
On the Brooklyn Bridge I had to design my own machinery, but the art of making portable hoisting or pulling engines and drums had so advanced that the Otis Elevator Company quickly devised the necessary machinery, under Charles' direction, adequate to pull over all the wires both ways.
Cable-making itself did not take seven months. The packing of the nineteen strands was properly done; they were clamped and the suspender saddles of cast-iron put on. The engineer, perhaps because the Brooklyn Bridge cables were made of galvanized wire, had ordered the wire to be merely oiled. This was a great mistake. Similarly he deprecated the beautiful wrapping which makes the cables look like solid cylinders. Sheet steel covers were put on instead, but afterwards they were taken off and the cables wrapped between the suspenders. After the cables were finished a fire broke out on top of one tower. The footbridges were destroyed from end to end, and one cable quite seriously damaged. This was a terrible blow to Charles. On inspection by a committee it was found feasible to cut out the burnt wires and replace them. But the footbridges had to be rebuilt in order to put on the suspenders and cover the cables. The wire was made in Trenton and oiled in a building corner of Mott and Clinton Streets.... Charles never wrote an account of these cables. I have taken this occasion to do so.
In 1898 the United States Steel began its career by buying up all the cheap steel properties that were lying around for sale on account of the hard times. Mr. Gates was always the go-between. They made us an offer and Ferdinand insisted on taking it; even Charles favored it. But I am free to say that I violently opposed it, and the deal did not go through.
Another proposition which I unfortunately could not frustrate was the formation of the Roebling Construction Company. Mr. Orr, the superintendent of the New Jersey Wire Cloth Company, anxious to retrieve the low price of cloth and chicken netting, had introduced the use of stiffened wire lathing for fireproof partitions and walls-a very good thing. This was the new era of fireproof buildings. In addition he proposed concrete floors stiffened by reinforcing with round rods, all in panels put together in the shop, ready for use. This was all very well in a small way and brought in some business for several years. Then the idea was broached, why not take the contract for the entire building and get the profit of the middle man_ Now this was an entirely different proposition; it was the tail wagging the dog; it meant taking risky contracts of $500,000 to $1,000,000 for the sake of a few thousands of profit to the New Jersey Wire Cloth Company. Both F.W. and C.G. were hot for it. I was reproved as one opposing all progress and expansion. My point was that such a large and intricate business would require the constant attention, every day, of both F.W. and C.G. to make it any kind of a success; that the buildings were scattered all over the country and the work had to be entirely left to subordinates. Well, I was overruled. For a year it went poorly. Then the office management was left to F. O. Briggs and the actual building to Himmelwright. No year showed any profit, losses accumulated; fifty or a hundred thousand was nothing. After seventeen years Charles fortunately got mad one day and wound up the company. A deficit of one million and a half was charged off by the John A. Roebling's Sons Company, to whom it was owing. This does not include many previous losses. I have always thought that our own legitimate business, which is thoroughly understood, afforded every avenue of expansion that the future might offer, and I still think so. No business can flourish unless it is to a large extent under one's personal supervision, and there is a limit even to that, as we are finding out in 1919.
In a large business all sorts of deals are made, many kinds of propositions are made and have to be considered. The best judgment sometimes goes astray because we are prompted too much by our greed or influenced by the fluttering moth of more orders in the future. The owner has one bugbear always confronting him, and that is he must keep his factory running as nearly full as possible, otherwise the vast number of outside and overhead expenses eat him up. One mistake has often been made: after a deal is completed for stock or bonds, at a profit, and the securities received, they are laid away and forgotten; you delude yourself with the belief that they will always be good until you wake up some morning and find that their value has disappeared overnight. The only cure is to sell the securities and put them into something solid. But there you run counter to all kinds of personal idiosyncrasies, the worst of which is the one that you think you are infallible and nothing can happen against your better judgment. Such minds, and there are many, are simply incurable. The saving of years begins to crumble away; you have not the energy to cut a loss, suddenly all is gone, and too often it represents the labor and worry of years. I do not mean to imply by any means that I was always on the right side.
On January 18, 1915, the great calamity came. The entire Buckthorn works were destroyed by fire, absolutely-not a vestige left, and undoubtedly set on fire by an incendiary. The fire occurred between 6 and 7 in the evening when the men were away. The fire alarm was systematically cut so that fifteen minutes were lost waiting for fire engines. It started in a room where no work was being done, but there were quantities of cotton, jute, etc., stored there, all inflammable, and lastly a man was seen running away from the room. The fire burnt all night; there was so much to burn that the flames went sky high; the intense heat scorched the adjacent buildings; by morning nothing was left. The loss has been estimated at one and a half to two millions. The great stocks of copper were burnt and oxidized. The lead and tin melted and formed a solid floor of metal in the cellars. The machinery was all scrapped. The lead presses alone escaped damage. This was the era of advancing prices due to the war; hence the metal salvage was great.
Before deciding the question of rebuilding, the ruins had to be cleared off. That was a job, taking months. The oxyacetylene blowpipe showed its great worth. As usual the rebuilding came on Charles' shoulders, but he finally built on a reduced scale, putting up only two stories in place of three, which proved more than ample because we lost very much business. A great change was made in the driving power. For the first time Charles used the steam turbine in place of the steam engines in the building; electric drives with motors were applied throughout, doing away with expensive shafting and belting; more boilers were gradually put in, also three cooling towers. A large carpenter shop was built on the old site, where all the spools, reels and drumsides are made. The braiders were reduced in number and more attention paid to lead cables. Even at this day (January 1919) the rooms are not all utilized.
Owing to the World War an enormous demand for rope had arisen, both domestic and from abroad, more than we could do. So Charles determined to build another rope shop opposite the Buckthorn building, when the latter had scarce been finished. Ground was bought, streets changed, the building laid out and foundations put in as quickly as possible, end of _915. Owing to the lay of ground the building could not be straight, but made an angle. It took in the old chicken-netting factory, but did not disturb the enamelling (sic) shop, which is almost surrounded. Connected with it was a warehouse for rope and strand. It was winter before the brick work was finished. Increased power was provided, another turbine put in and more boilers. Scarcely was it finished when the second great calamity came to pass.
On November 11, 1915, the new rope shop on Elmer Street burnt down about 3 a.m. The fire started in the Clark Street annex, second story, where the large stocks of hemp centers were stored and tarred. As usual, the fire alarm wires were cut or out of order, causing the fatal delay. No foreman being about, there was only disorder. Owing to the long strike of the previous year we had many disaffected foreigners working in the shop, especially Austrians. The probability is that it was incendiary. The fire spread and spread. The imaginary fireproof construction of iron beams and brick arches was worse than useless. As the beams became red hot the whole construction collapsed. It is only by enveloping iron beams or posts in concrete that they become fireproof.
Soon the entire building was in flames and al1 the valuable machinery was doomed. About 160 machines were ruined, large and small. The upper stories of the Clark Street building were filled with wooden boxes; nothing could have saved that portion. It was only with the greatest difficulty that the Elmer Street wire mill was saved. Had that gone, Clinton Street mill would have gone, too. Photographs of the ruins depict indescribable masses of tangled beams, machinery, columns, wire and wire rope. The salvage was really nominal-just scrap; very few rope machines could be used again.
The war demand for ropes, especially foreign, was so great that we were fairly overwhelmed with orders at high prices. A million dollars in prospective profits was gone!
This occurrence was another great shock to Charles, not so much the loss of nearly two millions, but the prospect of rebuilding that had to be done. But he went at it with surprising energy.
The new rope shop building at the Buckthorn was completed but had no machinery; that had to be made yet. Our other rope shops, including the I.W.D., did what they could, working night and day and Sundays. Wire was rushed to several other factories. At Clinton, Massachusetts, Charles bought a whole rope factory; at Plainfield, New Jersey, a small one; he bought strand machines in Providence and Easton. Our own machine shop was rushed to death. Fortunately, the large Buckthorn building had four empty rooms with power; strand making began in them at once. Slowly, but by degrees, one machine after the other was added, but a full year elapsed before equilibrium was reached, even now we are many months behind on rope orders, but in nothing else.
The Elmer Street rope shop has also been rebuilt and is slowly filling up with machines. When this is done we will for the first time have a surplus of rope machinery. The Clark Street annex was of great _use in Government work and the like-nets, harness, mines and so on. Most of the problems connected with Government work required brains to handle. The bulk of the great net (carrying mines) across the North Sea, 200 miles long, was made in our shops and assembled elsewhere. The making of artillery harness was something new. Wire rope and appliances for mine sweeping were also new. Great quantities of copper were manufactured.
The manufacture of fine rope for aeroplanes, guys and stays was conducted on a stupendous scale; an incredible quantity was manufactured-hundreds of millions of feet. The new rope shop at the Buckthorn was taxed to its utmost capacity night and day. At the close of the war much of the machinery stands idle. With this aircraft strand came the various fastenings that went with it, 50,ooo pieces a week or more; all had to be-thought out and contrived. We made the bulk of the large nets closing the principal harbors of the Atlantic coast, nets of great length, ranging from 50 to 400 feet in depth. For all of them special appliances had to be invented to make them rapidly and at a reasonable cost-all done in Charles' office.
I could fill pages with war-time activities, but must refrain -they have not all ceased yet.
Before proceeding to the history of Roebling (Kinkora), I must briefly allude to some other branches which have been deferred. One of them is the 7Jat-were business. It had a small beginning, after nails were given up, but we kept at it and had much to learn. The manufacture of the hardened and tempered flattening rolls was a hard nut to crack, but was finally mastered to perfection. The machines were all built in our own shop, comprising many styles and sizes, ranging from the tiny bookbinding wire up to the heavy 5- and 6-inch wide flats, for which we bought the raw material outside. It takes some years to find out what does not pay (box strap, for example). The chief specialty is highly-tempered corset wire. It took years of experimenting before perfection in this was reached. Now we have it and propose to retain it. Making these flats gives work to the rolling mills.
The first shop, which of course burnt down, corner of Mott and Clinton Streets, was gradually rebuilt with two stories and lengthened (supposedly fireproof). Here the heavy work is done. At one end the polishing and grinding of rolls is performed. Another building was soon erected alongside, three stories high, the two upper stories devoted to fine flats and corset wire; below are long tempering furnaces, a shipping room, cleaning house, bakers and driers. Recently a long building was erected along Hudson Street for annealing in scale, also for muffling in cast-iron coffins. These extensions are demanded to give work for the rolling mills. On Swan Street is a shop for very fine wire, No. 40 guage (sic), to wind around telephone wires -$1.00 per pound. Charles put up a remarkable structure for the steam boilers and steam turbines to drive the new rope shop on Elmer Street and part of the wire mill. Selfacting conveyors take the crushed coal aloft and shoot it down the automatically stoking boilers; the same conveyors remove ashes; coal is delivered daily, there being no coal yard any more. The steam turbines are wonderful constructions. The huge cooling towers along the canal give a medieval aspect to that front. Sprinkling systems have been installed for the I.W.D. and the new rope shop. It is all work, nothing but work. The novelty shop is a mass of queer contraptions. We even drill our own diamonds!
For some years it had become apparent more and more that if we did not make our own open-hearth steel we would soon be left behind in the race. Buying rods abroad was unsatisfactory, as it was uncertain. It took too long, delivery was slow and uncertain. The tariff made the price high. Rods could not be bought in the United States. Neither could we buy billets of the proper quality. Even telegraph wire was made now of very low carbon open-hearth steel, all of which we had to buy.
After examinations of the proposition it was found to be of great magnitude and would cost from five to ten millions. (It is more than that today.)
There were many considerations. The proper site should be not too far from Trenton, with proper railroad facilities, supplemented by water transportation. The first effort was made ta acquire the Lalor tract just below Trenton, close at hand with good railroad connection. We had bought a part of it years before. This fell through because the old lady refused to sell at any price! She preferred peace and comfort to money and worry.
Charles then made a systematic search between Trenton and Burlington, finally selecting a site one mile south of the little station of Kinkora on the old Camden & Amboy Railroad. Here he bought a farm having a front on the water of over a mile (afterwards increased to two miles), costing $200 per acre. An extended riparian line promised to give ample room for dumping slag and ashes, a very important consideration. The farm being a little hilly, a vast level plain was created by dredging and filling in. The Pennsylvania Railroad people were delighted with the prospect of a real big business in place of peaches and potatoes. (The old Camden & Amboy had long been cast in the shade by the Pennsylvania main line.)
A number of things had to be planned. A line of open-hearth steel furnaces, making large ingots; a billet mill to roll the ingots into billets; a new huge rod mill to consume the billets; two new wire mills, all on one floor, for heavy and finer wire; later a fine wire mill was added; an annealing house; a large tempering shop, a galvanizing shop; a large pump house with engines; an electric light station; machine shops; cleaning houses; offices; laboratories; store rooms; storage yards for pig iron, scrap, limestone, coal and general supplies, and above all for billets. All those buildings had to be properly located to best advantage and afterwards connected by suitable lines of communicating lines operated by our own locomotives.
One of the defects of the old Trenton works was they had simply grown up without any plan (there was no room to make a plan). The consequence was that transportation of material between the various shops cost two or three times more than it ought to. All this was obviated at Kinkora. Everything proceeded in a quiet, orderly manner.
Perhaps the most troublesome feature of Kinkora (so named at first) was the utter lack of houses where the working men could live. This could only be overcome by building an entire town, a so-called "model town." Once having the town meant that it be taken care of. It required a large general store where everything a man needed could be bought and was sold to him at a moderate price. It meant a bakery, a drug store, a good hotel. It demanded a water system with pure water, gas, electricity, sewers, drainage, a sewage disposal system, good streets, watchmen, policemen and a jail, a doctor. As more houses were built they were made less pretentious, more suitable for the poor man. Then came a public school, of which our share was $80,000. With it came taxation problems. The man who owns a town often wishes he had never been born.
To build steel furnaces was a somewhat new departure for Charles. He procured the services of a so-called expert from Worcester, a Swede, who brought with him some Swedish workmen. He remained until several furnaces had been built and were running. At the beginning these furnaces were heated by producer gas, all made in a line of producers running parallel with the line of furnaces. Later on when oil became cheaper and could be supplied steadily, it replaced producer gas to great advantage. To make good steel is not easy. You have to learn how to make both acid and basic steel and prepare your bottoms accordingly. The mysteries of Spiegeleisen, ferrosilicon and ferro-manganese all had to be mastered. The pouring of the steel into the ingot mould, and to make it without blow holes or shrinkage, are all problems not perfectly solved to this day. It took months to learn how to make steel of different degrees of hardness. All had to be learned. What kind of pig iron to buy and what quality of scrap. A good testing laboratory was necessary from the beginning. We began with 12-inch-square ingots and are now preparing for 16 1/2-inch squares.
The blooming or billet mill was the first necessary adjunct to the steel furnaces. It did not involve many new problems. Hydraulic elevating platforms for passing blooms to and fro were used (patented). The engines and rolls were well designed and placed; so were the furnaces. Cutting off of billets and placing them on cars by means of a mechanical hand were new features and were designed in Charles' office.
The endless tier of great boilers to furnish steam to the many engines is a most imposing sight. All railroad tracks were conveniently arranged for delivery of material where wanted. To get water from the river a subterranean conduit was built in most treacherous ground, on a bed of peat and in quaking clay. It is 1,500 feet long, terminating near the dock, where there is 14 to 16 feet of water for boats. The building of this conduit was a very big job, well considered and successfully carried out, like everything Charles did.
With the possible exception of the Williamsburg Bridge cables I think the large rod mill at Roebling is the proudest achievement of Charles' career. It has been admired by many mechanical engineers of the country.
The capacity of this mill is at least three times greater than the old mill up in Trenton. The first part of the mill is built on the continuous plan, with a powerful compound engine alongside, driving the heavy rolls by a succession of geared miter wheels. The remainder of the train, consisting of smaller rolls as the rods diminish in size, is driven by a large pair of compound engines, running at very high speed, connected by driving belts to the fast-running roll shafts. An inspection of this pair of engines, especially when standing under the big belts, gives one an overpowering sensation of the tremendous force that is being exerted. The finished rods, when released from the horizontal winding reels, travel along a conveyor, whence they are pushed into cars, whole trainloads of them. Everything works with a minimum amount of hand labor. These car loads are then distributed around the works or sent to Trenton or elsewhere. The capacity of this mill is greater than the demands of the works, but there are always delays, small breakdowns, or holidays, which reduce it. It is a wonderful sight at night or on a dark day to watch the endless procession of hot rods, with their numerous loops, making their rapid way from end to end of train. The work of the attendants is so arduous that they are spelled every half hour.
Neither let the onlooker forget that all he sees had to be designed and thought out in one man's brain.
After the rod mill came the great wire mills, differing radically from those in Trenton, by being arranged all on one floor, giving an oversight at once of everything, doing away with elevators and also with the ever present danger of fire. The driving engines of these mills are also a new departure. For the first time Charles used a hemp-rope drive on a large scale, operated by large compound engines, the many wire benches standing at right angles to the drive. On the opposite sides of the mills are arranged the numerous dryers and the cleaning houses as well as annealers. No. 2 wire mill was built on concrete piles, the ground having been all filled in. Later on a third mill was constructed, mostly for drawing fine wire on continuous wire-drawing machines, electrically driven. It is a grand sight to see them when they are all in operation. A few heavy benches for spoke wire and large copper wire were also put in. There is capacity here for many years to come.
To complete the cycle of operations a new galvanizing shop and tempering shop were built at Roebling. Six trains of the former, running as much as 30 to 40 wires per pan, the wire being mostly used for strand for telephone and telegraph companies and similar purposes, but little for rope. Here the cable wire for the Manhattan Suspension Bridge was galvanized. Such large plants must be run at their full capacity to be profitable. It looks to me as if we have reached the limit. This shop has been a great relief to the overtaxed galvanizing shop in Trenton, which was one of its objects.
The tempering occupies a very large building with twelve tempering trains operating on the air-tempering principle; furnaces stand entirely on made ground which could not be used for heavy buildings or machinery. The handling of the wire, its transportation from place to place, has been so well designed that the cost of it is reduced to a minimum, compared to Trenton, where it costs two or three times as much. All these shops have their definite foremen, who are looking for a head at Roebling. Where he is to come from is a question for the future. The electric light and power station is a wonder for perfection and size of its machinery, which seems to be adequate for future demands.
The water supply and pumping station, including filtering, is a maze of intricate pipes, elbows, T's, and curves, track of which can only be kept by complete drawings kept up to date in the draughting room. Compared to Trenton, the Roebling works seem to be quiet as the grave, yet the efficiency is double. There is an absence of street noise, of teams handling the freight, the railroad trains are farther off, buildings are larger and further apart, there is an absence of the busy crowds surrounding the main office, or of the gangs of yard men seen in Trenton-matters move on a more majestic scale.
Owing to the expansion of the flat-wire trade in Trenton it was found that there was no room unless the wire-cloth business was moved to Roebling. This was accomplished on the usual grand and complete scale. A large loom shop of three stories adjoins the village; next comes a wire lathing room, storerooms, a galvanizing department and more storerooms for chicken netting, an establishment sufficient for years to come. Space which seemed too vast at the beginning is being rapidly taken up now, even including the land gained by filling in with furnace slag and ashes, and which is very considerable.
Shortly before Charles' death he had planned an enlargement of the blooming mill, likewise the addition of two more steel furnaces, all of which is now being carried on by his successor, Karl G. Roebling.
After the war frenzy a few years of quiet, sedate business seem to be coming, even a year or two of hard times, when money-making almost stops, and no one had the heart to advocate new extensions or new enterprises, whereas that is just the time to inaugurate them. That manufacturing giant, the United States Steel Corporation, was founded on the ruins of a dozen smaller steel works who had given up the ghost.
After all, vitality supported by good judgment is the best asset. Charles did just about so much work in every year, no matter if the times were good or bad, and in most cases it was found that he had not built enough. Whenever common sense dictated that a certain work should be done, he did not dream about it or postpone it but went right ahead, almost before his brothers knew it. Ferdinand always said that Charles had the building fever bad; no one could stop him, always building and building. He had to have an outlet for his boundless energy.
As a general thing he educated his own foremen. Very few men came from outside. By this method we had men attached to the place and faithful to the management. A carpenter soon became a millwright, a plain wiredrawer could become a foreman, office men were often put in charge of stores. After steel making began at Roebling he found it necessary to become an expert metallurgist. He knew all about the physical properties of steel and its chemical constitution; he kept pace with the progress in microscopic examination of steel. He learned how to make iron telegraph wire in a steel furnace, the lowest grade of all, from that up to .80 carbon. The distinction between acid and basic steel was soon mastered by him and applied in the acquisition of the proper material. He made it a point to go down to Roebling two or three times a week. They knew no other master and now they miss him. His principles were those of the open shop. With union management the walking delegate becomes the real master, he dictates the hours of labor, makes the wages, hires and discharges men, stops piecework and reduces everything to the lowest efficiency. The real owner becomes a mere clerk, allowed to look after orders and finances. His reward is a mere pittance compared to the wages of the men; all progress stops. One great strike cost us $75,000 but we won out. But enough, I must cease singing his praises.