GOT SIXTY CENTS A DAY.
The Head of the American Locomotive
Works Began His Career as a Machinist's
Apprentice.
Albert J. Pitkin, president of the American Locomotive Works, began his business life as a machinist's apprentice at the age of sixteen. His wages were sixty cents a day, and the little shop in which he was employed turned out one small stationary engine each week. He is now the head of the American Locomotive Company, which manufactures three thousand locomotives a year, or ten for each working day, and is capitalized at fifty million dollars. Seven men were employed in the shop where he learned his trade. He has now control of sixteen thousand men.
Pitkin's father was in poor circumstances, and at twelve years of age the boy went to live with his grandfather at Granville, Ohio. The grandfather was a cabinet-maker and wood-turner, and before long he had taught his grandson many of the secrets of the trade and had developed in the youth an understanding and appreciation of what machinery could be made to do.
"There is no use using hand tools if you can make a machine do the work," said the boy.
Then, from an old spinning-wheel which he found in the attic of the house, he made a machine that sawed wood and saved labor in the cabinet-shop. He also constructed other machines out of wood, and the cleverness with which they were fashioned and adapted to the needs of the little shop enabled him and his grandfather to turn out an increased amount of work.
At sixteen years of age it became necessary for young Pitkin to choose some trade, and he selected that of machinist. He was regularly indentured for three years, and received sixty cents a day for the first year, ninety cents a day for the second, and one dollar and twenty-five cents a day for the third. His father was disabled by ill health during this period, and the greater part of the son's meager earnings went to help support the family.