WHEN the ingot comes from the furnace, it is put in this press, deep buried in a pit, and the hot metal is compressed into the shape of a section of a great Gun—then it is taken out and bored and planed and finally, after about a year of work, the gun is ready to do its work.
THESE Pits which I have drawn in Europe and America have the greatest individuality of all the processes of war industry. The buildings are most impressive, towering, windowless, sombre without, very spacious within, filled with strong shadows and strange shapes.
And as I looked out from the blackness to the ore crane, making new ranges of Alps on its hillside, I wanted a gun—or rather wanted to know how it was moved.
“Why, bring him one,” said the manager—and it came and posed while I drew, and was such a good sitter. And so I find my studio and my models wherever I work.
NO better proof could be shown of the way each big plant puts big character into its products than this and the previous drawing. Here everything is done deep down under ground; in the other shop it is all above, away up high in the air. And one day, they told me, the President of the Company passed with a party—and he saw a man, tired out, sitting with his head in his hands. “Why don’t you clean out the pit, boy?” “Well, Sammie, if you want to know why, you go down an’ find out for yourself.”
SO like a British one, that I wonder which one got the idea of arrangement of the Shop from the other. Here the guns are turned; and one man said to me: “Well, I don’t know whether I’ll be drafted by the U. S.—but I do know, I’d sooner waste my time makin’ guns, than spend it havin’ ’em shot at me by some Dutchman.”
MANY of the subjects I have chosen are probably the “biggest in the world” and the most impressive, too—that is the reason why I have drawn them. I have seen great lathes and great guns in Europe, but this one is certainly greater than any other.
“You couldn’t do that, Fatty,” said the man.
“Couldn’t I,” said the other. “You bet I could if I had been drawin’ lathes as long as him!” It was the second one I have drawn.
INTO the rocky cliff great holes had been bored, and into them the Guns mounted on their carriages, by the great gantry, were fired, passing through wires hung from screens, to test their velocity. One thing that interested me, standing behind the guns—interested me too much, really—was, that there was no smoke, save that which came out of the hole where the shells exploded. And another fact was, that I could not see the shell in its flight—nor can those at whom it is fired—it goes so fast the sound cannot keep up with it. Sight cannot follow it.
WHAT perpendicular cathedral is as full of mystery as this shop. I know of none and I know most of them, and when the fires glow on the work altar, and the great jaws pierce and rivet the boiler plates, then is heard the Hymn of Work.
IN serried lines they stood—first one for Russia—then one for France—and on the other side several for ourselves—and I said, “Why, this is Ford’s idea!” for the parts came in at the sides of the shop and the finished engine steamed out at the end. “Oh, yes!” said the manager, “only we have been doing it twenty years,” and now they build a locomotive in four days.
YES, locomotives can soar—can fly—and, like Mahomet’s coffin, stand in the air; and they do these things in a blaze of glory—because the shop where they are built is not big enough to shift them about in any other way. As the engine sailed toward me I tried to make a note of it. “Why would you like to draw it?” said the manager, as I frantically went on making notes of the approaching monster. “Which end would you like up?” He made a signal, they don’t talk in these shops, it stopped and there it hung. “Bring on another,” signalled the manager—and so I drew and so the creature posed till I had finished—an excellent model in a wonderful studio.
IN the centre of the new city is something like a long train of box cars—yet when you see their sides you find they are houses. As you look they grow—and from a few holes in the ground till the building is finished takes about forty-five minutes, the architects tell me. They are better built than the English Munition towns—they are unbelievable—these Cities of fifty thousand inhabitants built while the army was formed. This drawing is but a bit of one of them—to right and to left and behind the town stretched—the embodiment of usefulness, respectability—a triumph of ugliness and energy.