The care of the worker’s health is one of the most important considerations of the Bureau of Safety, Sanitation, and Welfare. Sanitary measures are general in every mill. There is not a single plant of the Corporation but is equipped with modern facilities for washing, and experts in sanitation give their time to improving these methods whenever possible. Every suggestion that tends to diminish the risk of contagion or of diseases caused by unsanitary conditions, occupational conditions, etc., is adopted and there is a keen rivalry among the different plants to establish some new improvement which the others lack. In almost every plant the visitor is shown some idea or contrivance in the way of sanitation with the boast that this was first used at that plant. All of which makes for a constant improvement in the health of the worker.
Drinking water generally is thoroughly purified and piped through the mills so as to be at all times easily obtained by the men. Cups, with their possibility of contagion, are eliminated. Fountains, with guards to make it impossible for the drinker’s lips to touch the outlet, are substituted.
Most, if not all, of the comfort rooms maintained at the plants are equipped with shower baths and every workman has his private locker where he keeps soap, towels, and a change of clothes.
The results of these measures are not reflected only on the health of the men. The worker who is able at the end of a strenuous day’s endeavor in a hot mill or a coal mine to enjoy a cool shower and leave the plant clean and comfortably dressed must necessarily be a more self-respecting member of the community than he who has to return to the bosom of his family grimed with the sweat and dirt of his day’s toil, and his family also benefits, both in self-respect and comfort. It was a difficult job for the wife to maintain a pride in her home under the conditions that once existed in the steel districts.
Cleanliness is far-reaching in its results. It benefits not only those directly affected but the entire community.
Ore Cars at Proctor Yards
There is one aspect of the sanitation work that is hardly obvious, but nevertheless important. America is the great melting pot of the races. History has shown that it normally takes several generations in the crucible to produce the out-and-out American. And cleanliness, probably more than anything else, is the birthright and symbol of the American. Many of the foreign races that flock to our shores are regrettably lacking in this respect, but they learn quickly. And the more quickly we can accustom them to the idea of the necessity of personal cleanliness the more speedily will they become real Americans and good citizens.
General View of Duluth Ore Docks