CONNEAUT
More splendid lake road beyond Erie, though we were constantly running
into detours which took us through sections dreadful to contemplate. The
next place of any importance was the city of Conneaut, Ohio, which
revealed one form of mechanical advance I had never dreamed existed.
Conneaut being “contagious,” as Philosopher Dooley used to say, to the
coal fields of Pennsylvania—hard and soft—and incidentally (by water) to
the iron and copper mines “up Superior way” in northern Michigan, a kind
of transshipping business has sprung up, the coal from these mines being
brought here and loaded onto boats for all points on the Great Lakes.
Similarly copper and iron coming down from upper Michigan and Wisconsin
on boats are here taken out and loaded into cars. I never knew before
that iron ore was powdered for shipment—it looks just like a dull red
earth—or that they stored it in great hills pending a day of use,—hills
which looked to me as though a thousand ships might not lower them in a
year. John D. Rockefeller, I am told, was the guiding spirit in all this
development here, having first seen the profit and convenience of
bringing ore from the mines in northern Michigan south by water to the
mills of Pennsylvania and incidentally returning in the same carriers
coal to all parts of the Great Lakes and elsewhere. A canny man, that.
Won’t some American Homer kindly sing of him as one of the great wonders
of the world?
Optically and for a material thrill, the machinery for transshipping
these enormous supplies was most interesting to me.
Suppose you were able to take an iron car weighing say thirty or forty
thousand pounds, load it with coal weighing thirty or forty thousand
pounds more, and turn it up, quite as you would a coal scuttle, and
empty the contents into a waiting ship.... Then suppose you looked in
the car and saw three or four pieces of coal still lying in it and said
to yourself, “Oh, well, I might as well dump these in, too,” and then
you lifted up the car and dumped the remaining two or three pieces
out—wouldn’t you feel rather strong?
Well, that is what is being done at Conneaut, Ohio, morning, noon and
night, and often all night, as all day. The boats bringing these immense
loads of iron ore are waiting to take back coal, and so this enormous
process of loading and unloading goes on continually. Franklin and I
were standing on a high bank commanding all this and a wonderful view of
Lake Erie, never dreaming that the little box-like things we saw in the
distance being elevated and turned over were steel coal cars, when he
suddenly exclaimed, “I do believe those things over there are cars,
Dreiser,—steel coal cars.”
“Get out!” I replied incredulously.
“That’s what they are,” he insisted. “We’ll have Speed run the machine
over onto that other hill, and then we can be sure.”
From this second vantage point it was all very clear—great cars being
run upon a platform, elevated quickly to a given position over a runway
or coal chute leading down into the hold of a waiting steamer, and then
quickly and completely upset; the last few coals being shaken out as
though each grain were precious.
“How long do you think it takes them to fill a ship like that?” I
queried.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Franklin meditatively.
“Let’s see how long it takes to empty a car.”
We timed them—one car every three minutes.
“That means twenty cars an hour,” I figured, “or one hundred cars in
five hours. That ought to fill any steamer.”
A little farther along this same shore, reaching out toward the lake,
where eventually was a small, white lighthouse, were those same hills of
red powdered iron I have been telling you about—great long hills that it
must have taken ships and ships and ships of iron to build. I thought of
the ownership of all those things, the iron and copper mines in northern
Michigan, the vast coal beds in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and how they
were acquired. Did you ever read a true history of them? I’ll wager you
haven’t. Well, there is one, not so detached as it might be, a little
propagandistic in tone in spots, but for all that a true and effective
work. It is entitled “A History of the Great American Fortunes,” by one
Gustavus Myers, a curious soul, and ill repaid, as I have reason to
know, for his untiring energy. It is really a most important work, and
can be had in three compact volumes for about six dollars. It is almost
too good to be true, a thorough going, forthright statement of the whole
process. Some of his expositions make clear the almost hopeless nature
of democracy,—and that is a very important thing to discover.
As I have said, this northern portion of Ohio is a mixture of half city
and half country, and this little city of Conneaut was an interesting
illustration of the rural American grappling with the metropolitan idea.
In one imposing drug or candy store (the two are almost synonymous these
days) to which Franklin and I went for a drink of soda, we met a
striking example of the rural fixity of idea, or perhaps better,
religiosity of mind or prejudice, in regard to certain normal human
appetites or vices. In most of these small towns and cities in Ohio
these days, total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors is enforced
by local option. In Conneaut local option had decided that no
intoxicating liquor of any kind should be sold there. But since human
nature is as it is and must have some small outlet for its human
naturalness, apparently they now get what are sometimes called
near-drinks, which are sold under such enticing names as “Sparkade”
(which is nothing more than a carbonated cider or apple juice),
“Gayola,” “Cheercoala,” and a score of other,—all dosed, no doubt, with
a trace of some temporarily bracing drug, like caffeine or kolanut. The
one which I tried on this occasion was “Sparkade,” a feeble, watery
thing, which was advertised to have all the invigorating qualities of
champagne and to taste the same.
“Has this any real champagne in it?” I asked the conventional but rosy
cheeked girl who waited on me, jestingly.
“No, sir. I don’t think so, sir. I’ve never tried it, though.”
“What?” I said, “Never tried this wonderful drink? Have you ever tasted
champagne?”
“Indeed, not!” she replied, with a concerned and self-preservative air.
“What, never? Well, then, there’s your chance. I’m going to drink a
bottle of Sparkade and you can taste mine.”
I poured out the bubbling stuff and offered it to her.
“No, thank you,” she replied haughtily, and as I still held it toward
her, “’_No, thank you!_ I never touch anything of that kind.”
“But you say it is a nonintoxicant?”
“Well, I think it is, but I’m not sure. And anyhow, I don’t think I’d
care for it.”
“Don’t you belong to some society that is opposed to intoxicants of all
kinds?” I queried teasingly.
“Yes, sir. Our church is opposed to liquor in any form.”
“Even Sparkade?” I persisted.
She made a contemptuous mouth.
“There you have it, Franklin,” I said to him. “You see—the Church rules
here—a moral opinion. That’s the way to bring up the rising
generation—above corruption.”
[Illustration:
CONNEAUT, OHIO
Trading Coal for Iron
]
But outside Conneaut was so delightful. There was such a downpour of
sunlight upon great, wide armed trees and mottling the sidewalks and
roadways. In the local garage where we stopped for oil and some tools
all was so orderly and clean—a veritable cosmos of mechanical
intricacies which set me to meditating on the vast array of specialties
into which the human mind may delve and make a living. Citizens were
drifting about in an easy, summery way it seemed to me,—not with that
hard pressure which seems to afflict the members of many larger cities.
I felt so comfortable here, so much like idling. And Franklin and Speed
seemed in the same mood.
Query. Was it the noon hour? or the gay, delicious sunlight seen through
trees? or some inherent, spiritual quality in Conneaut itself? Query.
Beyond Conneaut we scuttled over more of that wonderful road, always in
sight of the lake and so fine that when completed it will be the peer of
any scenic route in the world, I fancy. Though as yet but earth, it was
fast being made into brick. And positively I may assure you that you
need never believe people you meet on the road and of whom you seek
information as to shortest routes, places to eat, condition of road or
the best roads. No traveling motorist seems to know, and no local
resident or wiseacre anywhere is to be trusted. People tell you all
sorts of things and without the slightest positive information. Franklin
told me that out in his home town, Carmel, he had discovered that the
wise loafers who hang about the post office and public stores, and had
lived in Hamilton County all their lives, had been for years uniformly
misdirecting passing automobilists as to the best or shortest route
between Carmel and Nobelsville, Indiana. In some cases it might be done,
he thought, in a spirit of deviltry, in others prejudice as to routes
was responsible, in still others nothing more than blank ignorance as to
what constitutes good roads!
Here in Conneaut, as we were entering the city by “the largest viaduct
in the world,” we asked an old toll keeper, who collected thirty cents
from us as a token of his esteem, which was the shortest and best road
to Ashtabula and whether there wasn’t a good shore road.
“Well, now, I’ll tell you,” he began, striking a position and beginning
to smooth his abundant whiskers. “There is a shore road that runs along
the lake, but it hain’t no good. If you’re a-goin' fer business you’ll
take the Ridge Road, but if you’re just out joy ridin' and don’t care
where you go, you can go by the lake. The Ridge Road’s the business
man’s road. There hain’t no good road along the lake at this time o'
year, with all the rain we’ve been havin'.”
Franklin, I am sure, was inclined to heed his advice at first, whereas
I, having listened to similar bits of misinformation all the way out
from New York, was inclined to be skeptical and even angry, and besides
the car wasn’t mine. These wretched old fixtures, I said to myself, who
had never been in an automobile more than a half dozen times in their
lives, were the most convinced, apparently, as to the soundness of their
information. They infuriated me at times, particularly when their advice
tended to drive us out of the course I was interested in, and the shore
road was the road I wanted to follow. I persuaded Franklin to pay no
attention to this old fussbutton.
“What does he know?” I inquired. “There he sits at that bridge day in
and day out and takes toll. Farmers with heavy loads may report all
sorts of things, but we’ve seen how fine the dirt roads have been
everywhere we’ve followed them.”
Speed agreed with me.
So we struck out along the shore road and nothing could have been
better. It was not exactly smooth, but it was soft with a light dust and
so close to the lake that you could see the tumbling waves and throw a
stone into them if you chose; and at certain points where a cove gave a
wider view, there were people bathing and tents tacked down along the
shore against the wind. It was wonderful. Every now and then we would
encounter young men and women bathers ambling along the road in their
water costumes, and in one instance the girl was so very shapely and so
young and attractive that we exclaimed with pleasure. When she saw us
looking at her she merely laughed and waved her hands. At another point
two young girls standing beside a fence called, “Don’t you wish you
could take us along?” They were attractive enough to make anybody wish
it.