THE KRUPP WORKS AT ESSEN.
Standing in the main square before the town hall of Essen is a large bronze monument, representing not a king, nor yet a hero, but a man clad in a simple citizen's coat. His right hand rests on an anvil, and his penetrating eyes are overhung by a thinker's brow. The granite pedestal bears the name of "Alfred Krupp."
Long ago England knew the process of making cast steel, but she carefully kept it a secret. In 1800 Friedrich Krupp, the father of Alfred, began to experiment. He worked early and late. His friends told him that he was wasting his time, but Friedrich worked on. After eleven years he discovered the precious secret, and in 1818, on the present site of the Essen works, he built eight furnaces, each with one crucible. He employed only two laborers. And that was the beginning of the great Krupp works at Essen.
Bertha Krupp, Her Husband and Children.
His son Alfred was born in 1812, just one year after the great discovery was made, and in 1842 Alfred assumed entire charge of the works. His father had been able to cast steel only in small masses. In 1855 Alfred Krupp sent a block of steel weighing 4500 pounds to the London Exhibition, and he was able to cast steel in one mass weighing more than 100,000 pounds. Alfred Krupp died in 1887, and it was under him that the Krupp works grew, to such enormous proportions.
A Large Community House.
Alfred Friedrich Krupp, the third in line, was born in 1854 and died in 1902. He was known as the cannon king. When he died nearly all his wealth went to his daughter Bertha. In 1906, at the age of twenty years, Bertha Krupp was married to a plain German gentleman with only a "von" to his name, Herr von Bohlen and Halbach. They have four children living and one child dead, and they live very quietly at "Villa Hügel" in Essen, a lovely villa built on the hills above the town. In 1900, before his marriage, Herr von Bohlen was an attaché at the German embassy at Washington. Bertha Krupp is the second richest person in the German empire, running the Kaiser a close second, and when this war is over her wealth may surpass his.
Community Houses in Essen.
Essen lies twenty-two miles north of Düsseldorf on the main railway to Berlin. This is a very thickly populated district, and the center of a network of railways which makes it accessible to the Westphalia coal fields. It is a gloomy-looking town of gray slate roofs, only brightened by emerald green shutters. The whole town depends on the Krupp plant for their livelihood, except the store-keepers and a few hundred men who manufacture woolen goods, cigars and dyes.
The present Krupp works cover over 150 acres, and the daily output in time of peace is 1977 tons, and many times greater in time of war. In 1907 they employed 64,354 workmen, and each year this number had increased. They make all kinds of guns of all calibers—guns for naval and coast defenses, siege guns, fortress guns, field guns, armor shields and disappearing carriages for hoisting and transporting machinery for ammunition. They produce crucible, Martin, puddled and Bessemer steel, and also steel castings. They make ammunition with fuses and bursting charges, armor piercing shells, explosive steel shells, torpedo shells, cast iron shells, shrapnel, case shot and fuse setters. Besides these warlike productions they make railway material, engineering material, and sheet iron for motor cars.
400 Damaged French and English Cannon Being Repaired at the Krupp Factory.
Plans have been made to erect a gigantic branch of the Krupp works at Munich. These works will cover one hundred acres, and the city of Munich recognizing this opportunity for further developments, has provided enough ground for private industries that are bound to follow Krupp.
A View of the Mills.
The house of Krupp has worked out an elaborate scheme for the benefit of their workingmen. It is not a charity scheme, but a building scheme for both workmen and employer. The scheme was carried out by Alfred Friedrich Krupp. He built 5469 dwellings, well lighted houses, with as much space between them as possible and each with a little garden. All the houses have good water. Three thousand of the houses were built within fifteen minutes' walk from the works. The men longest in the firm's employ and with the largest families were given the selection of the houses.
Policemen and teachers are eligible to become tenants of the dwellings. The leases are very binding and forbid the carrying on of business in the houses, sub-letting, quarreling with the neighbors, disorderly noises, the building of additions, misuse of the drains, the keeping of animals that are disturbing to the neighbors, smoking stove-pipes without covers and the lighting of the fire with oil.
Another View of the Krupp Works.
The tenant on the first floor must clean the pavement every day before nine A. M., except Sundays and holidays when it must be done on the preceding day between three and four P. M. The rent of the houses runs from $15 a year for two rooms, to $85 for five or six rooms with a cellar.
The Essener Hof is a hotel run by the Krupps, and it is intended for the guests of the Krupps who are doing business with the firm. Then there is a boarding-house for bachelors and widowers. This boarding-house was started in 1855 with two hundred men and now it has over a thousand.
For the community of workers there are many stores, twenty-five grocery stores, two slaughter-houses, a bakery, a flour mill, an ice plant, a brush factory, two tailors, two shoemakers, a laundry, a hotel, eleven restaurants, three cafés, nine beerhalls and two clubhouses.
A Street in Essen at the Entrance of the Krupp Works.
There is a whole staff of doctors to look after the workmen and their families, and the strict medical treatment prevents contagious diseases. The laws of the German empire require certain classes of workmen to be insured against old age and broken-down constitutions. This came through the efforts of Bismarck, and it applies to all workmen with a salary not exceeding $500 a year. Alfred Krupp gave $250,000 to the workmen, the interest of which is used as a fund to encourage them to build their own houses and as a help for the needy. It is loaned to the workmen at a very small rate of interest.
Besides these benefits he established private schools the purpose of which is to qualify the children of the workmen to earn honest profitable livings. A fee of five cents a month is charged to each pupil, but if the child remains fifteen months, seventy-five cents is placed in the savings bank to his credit.
Krupp realized that a contented body of workmen brings about better results than unhappy ones, and he felt that his scheme was not only a philanthropic one but also a good business investment.
In the war of 1870 Krupp guns were used, and in this present war they have played a star role. The Kaiser sent his personal thanks to the house of Krupp for all that they have done for Germany. Frau Bertha is very proud of her works and also of the nickname of her howitzers: "Busy Berthas."