Men were working on the roof of a Pennsylvania ferryhouse,
overhanging the North River on the Jersey side.
The passengers on one of the big ferryboats watched with
admiration the work of the fearless young mechanics.
The men stood on a board not more than a foot wide. They had
nothing to hold to. Sixty feet below them was a mass of rough
piles. A misstep would have meant death.
One of the men, standing perfectly at ease on his narrow ledge,
swung a heavy sledge-hammer, while the other held in place the
bolt to be driven home in the iron-work. ----
The work on that bolt was finished, and one of the young men, a
wiry giant over six feet tall, picked up in his arms a small
wooden keg which stood on the board beside him. It was a keg
such as nails are packed in. About forty feet away from the
bridge, up among the iron beams, a smith was at work heating the
bolts red-hot.
This smith saw the young man on the narrow board holding the
wooden keg in his arms. He knew that another bolt was needed.
The bolt, white-hot, was seized with a pair of tongs, thrown
violently through the air, sending off a shower of white sparks
as it went.
As the white bolt shot toward the metal worker, he held out the
wooden keg in a matter-of-fact way, caught the bolt, picked it
out of the keg with a pair of pincers, and soon the heavy sledge-
hammer was at work driving the metal, still white-hot, into the
hole. ----
Passengers who make their living in a less exciting way watched
with great excitement as one after another of these heavy red-hot
bolts came flying through the air, each in its turn caught by the
mechanic standing on the narrow board.
If the bolt had struck or burned him, he must almost inevitably
have fallen. He must have fallen had he made a misstep reaching
out the wooden keg to catch the flying iron.
Among those who watched him were very prosperous men come in from
the seaside on the flying express, bound for Wall Street. These
men were sorry when their boat pulled out, so deeply interested
were they in the skill and courage of the mechanics working so
high up on so narrow a footing.
If their opinion had been asked then and there they would have
said that no reasonable rate of pay would be too high for such
mechanics, and that eight hours of work catching red-hot bolts
and driving them home, on a narrow plank sixty feet in the air,
ought to be considered a fair day's work.
We trust that if these men read in the future that the structural
iron-workers or the house-smiths are striking for a little more
pay and for eight hours' work they will remember those men
working on the ferryhouse, and remember that all of these
iron-workers, like all miners, and many others, earn their bread
at the risk of their lives.
We hope that those who watched the red-hot bolts flying through
the air will remember their sensations when they hear of a strike
among those men, and not say, as they usually do:
"The impudence of union labor must be suppressed. The men are
lazy; that's what's the matter with them. It is all nonsense to
talk about working eight hours. Union labor, if it keeps on,
will ruin this country's commercial supremacy." ----
The trouble with human beings is that their lives are widely
separated and sympathy is killed by ignorance.
The banker does not see, therefore cannot appreciate, the courage
of the man working on an iron beam at the top of a steel frame
300 feet in the air.
The mechanic cannot understand, and therefore cannot appreciate,
the worry, the mental stress of the money man, who must make ends
meet, pay bills, arrange mortgages, find tenants and settle his
union troubles at the same time.
Better acquaintance with each other is what human beings need.
It would be well if more very rich men had seen that young
mechanic catching his red-hot bolts.
It would be well if more young mechanics who like their beefsteak
and onions could see John D. Rockefeller sipping his glass of
milk and seltzer (his whole dinner), or know what Rockefeller
feels when he lies awake half the night. He has found pretty
well-paid employment for a hundred thousand men who sleep soundly
while he tosses and turns and feels the weight of a ton on his
chest.