They had an opportunity to estimate for a pair of very large blowing engines. They got out their estimate for one engine, forgot to multiply the amount by two, and were astonished the morning after they had sent in their tender to receive the acceptance of it by telegraph.
James C. Brooks
Performances of this kind were expensive. When their capital was all gone, they borrowed five hundred thousand dollars on their bonds, secured by a blanket mortgage. This did not last a great while. Only five or six years after I left the affairs of the company reached a crisis. They had no money to carry on the business, and no business worth mentioning to carry on, and they owed a floating debt of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. In this emergency the directors invited Mr. James C. Brooks to take the presidency of the company. Mr. Brooks was then a member of the firm of William Sellers and Company. He was already well acquainted with the high character of the engine. He found the works well equipped with tools, nothing wanting but brains. He felt encouraged to make this proposition to the directors, that if they would raise two hundred and fifty thousand dollars by an issue of preferred stock, to pay off the floating debt and give him seventy-five thousand dollars to start with, he would take hold and see what he could do. This proposition was accepted and Mr. Brooks took hold; and by a rare combination of engineering skill and business ability and force of character, having no one to interfere with him, he soon set the business on its feet, and started it on a career of magnificent development, which under his management, has continued for nearly twenty years to the present time.
Of all this, however I was ignorant. I was so situated as not to have any knowledge of the company. I only observed that their advertisements had long ago disappeared from the engineering journals. In the fall of 1905, being in Philadelphia on a social visit, in the course of conversation I asked my host “Is the Southwark Foundry still running?” With a look of amazement he exclaimed, “Running! I should say it was running and is doing a tremendous business.” “Is Mr. Brooks still at the head of it” I asked. “Yes,” he replied, “you will find him at his old post, and no doubt he will be glad to see you.”
The next day I called, and was most cordially received by Mr. Brooks. He said he discontinued advertising a number of years ago, “because the business was not of a nature to be benefited by advertising, it rested entirely upon its reputation.” “Our correspondence,” he added, “is enormous, employing six typewriters.” He took me to the erecting floor of the shop. I was filled with amazement and delight at the sight which met my eyes. This floor, which had been greatly enlarged, was crowded with large engines in process of completion, most of them larger and some a great deal larger, than the largest I had built. I confess to a feeling bordering on ecstasy, heightened of course by the suddenness of the relevation, when I realized the commanding height to which the Porter-Allen Engine had been raised by this remarkable man. Mr. Brooks offered to take me through the shops; this however I declined, not being willing to trespass further on his time. He showed me the old shop engine which I had not seen for twenty-three years. Everything looked familiar except its speed. He said to me, “we have never done anything to this engine, except to increase its speed from 230 revolutions to 300 revolutions per minute, to supply the additional power required by the growth of the business.” Respecting their system, he mentioned only one feature, which he evidently regarded as of special importance, and which he seemed to suppose would be new to me. It was this: “We make a separate drawing of every piece.”
Under date of Oct. 31, 1907, Mr. Brooks writes me, “the business now employs ten typewriters, and the engine which was started in 1881, and which has run at 300 revolutions per minute for the last seven years, has now been compelled by their increased requirements to give place to a compound condensing engine of more than twice its power.”
Three or four years ago I was spending a few days at the Mohonk Lake Mountain House, Mr. Albert K. Smiley’s famous summer resort, and one day strolled into the power house, where were three dynamos, each driven by a Ball & Wood engine, the latter making, I think, something over 200 revolutions per minute.
I fell into conversation with the engineer, rather an old man and quite communicative. He told me he had been in Mr. Smiley’s employ for seventeen years, and was voluble in his praises; said he was a wonderful man, repeating “wonderful” with emphasis, but he added “he don’t know nothin about machinery, nothin, no more’n you do.” My attention was attracted by the dynamos, which were new to me and the framing of which I thought presented a remarkably well studied design.