THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 775 and July it had saved enough meat to give 4,000,000 persons a ration of one-half pound each and sugar enough to furnish several million with one pound each. The war garden vegetables would have supplied the entire population of Belgium for an impressive period. In view of these statistics it might be fitting to remark that the health commission, at this time, estimated the population of Cleveland at 900,000, basing the figure upon the Federal census of children under school age. Reports from the rural state districts indicated a big yield of wheat, corn and oats, so prospects for food during the winter were bright. So were the prospects for peace, even though informed military opinion was fixing September of 1919 as the date when hostilities could be expected to cease. While the farmers and "farmerettes" were reckoning their crops, there was another crop which was estimated by Uncle Sam at this time, and about which there must be some detailed discussion. This was the crop of war implements, ordnance and supplies. A survey showed what had been accomplished to date and what might be expected during the coming winter. Then, not long after the armistice, Secretary Baker asked department heads to summarize their war work. The figures themselves are interesting as showing what Cleveland and other districts actually produced ; but there is better reading between the lines, for there is indicated what a tremendous war machine would have been created in 1919, had hostilities lasted so long. The story properly starts back in 1914 with a glance at Cleveland's potentialities for production of war materials. The city was already manufacturing goods to the value of $350,418,000, with 2,346 plants, capitalized at $312,909,000, employing 103,000 wage earners and 17,800 salaried employees. The three leading manufacturing industries were : first, iron and steel works and rolling mills, with a 1914 out-put of $59,000,000 ; second, foundries and machine shops producing $51,000,000 ; and third, makers of automobiles, bodies and parts, with an output of $27,000,000. These industries lend themselves admirably to the production of munitions of war, and Cleveland was selected as 776 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS the center of an "industrial Ruhr," comprising northern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, 26,000 square miles, with a popu-lation of 3,000,000. Headquarters were in the Plymouth Building, at Prospect Avenue and East Twenty-Second Street, the entire building being occupied by the government. Samuel Scovill, former head of the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, was in charge of all activities here, assisted by 2,200 workers, including 85 officers and 100 enlisted men. In March, 1918, eleven months after the declaration of war, 200,000 workers were employed in the district, with 385 contractors holding 1,408 contracts involving $400,000,000, and about 5,000 sub-contractors, engaged in producing $800,000,000 worth of war munitions. These figures simply mean that in 1918 Cleveland was the head of a district that had munitions contracts on hand amounting to three times the value of the city's entire production in 1914. Listing some of the larger producers helps one form an idea of the character of the work that was going on. The Van Dorn Iron Works were assembling big, six ton Renault army tanks, parts for which were built elsewhere. They had completed 47 of these by Armistice Day and had a total output of 120 by December 31. The Warner and Swasey Company was the largest maker of gun carriage sights in the country. It put out 8,000 panoramic field-gun sights for the army, 4,000 musket sights and 8,000 gun-sight telescopes, the latter for the navy. This kind of work required great precision, consequently the company had 200 women workers out of a total payroll of 1,600. The panoramic sights were most difficult to manufacture, and represent the most notable performance of the Warner and Swasey Company. This concern also made machine tools, on a large scale, for plants in Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia, as well as in the United States. The American Multigraph Company had the distinction of being the largest maker of shell fuses in the country. War orders increased the number of employees in its plant from 1,000 to 3,500, a large proportion of the newcomers being THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 777 women, as in the case of most of the munition plants. There were 500 girls in the inspection department of the Multi-graph Company, a department where they excelled. This company had been trained for its American munitions work by earlier contracts with the British and Russians. By the time Uncle Sam got into the fight, the company had developed a number of special machines for increasing production, and it generously furnished these to other manufacturers. They had to work their machines twenty-one and a half hours a day at the Multigraph plant, but just before the Armistice they were producing daily 35,000 point detonating fuses, 5,000 base detonating fuses, 5,000 anti-aircraft boosters and 10,000 medium-caliber base fuses, the latter for the navy. August production here was less than half that of November, while December was 25 per cent ahead of November. They were accelerating in those days. The Multigraph Company showed an example in caring for its employees, too. There were hospital, dispensary, restaurant and special facilities for women in the big plant, and morale was at a high standard. This was indicated by the reception given to returning soldiers who were former employees. A whole floor was turned into a ballroom and a real military ball staged, with soldiers and shop girls in khaki uniforms and office girls in white. Over at the Hydraulic Pressed Steel plant they were forging 1,500,000 75-millimeter shells a month, which were machined by the Chicago Pneumatic Tool Company and the Spencer Engineering Company. Forgings for five-inch shells were made by the Cleveland Crane and Engineering Company and for eight-inch shells by the McMyler Interstate Company. The only Hotchkiss machine gun tripods made in this country were produced by the Cleveland district and were delivered ahead of schedule. The Winton Company was the very first to complete a Browning machine gun tripod that functioned perfectly. Out of a total order of 71,500 of these tripods, the country allotted 41,000 to the Cleveland district. It was not enough that the manufacturers of Cleveland 778 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS put on more men, bought new machinery and enlarged their buildings. The pressing demands for speed and more speed in production brought out their native American ingenuity and resulted in brand-new ideas that added their value to peace-time pursuits. Among these devices was the hollow axle, to eliminate boring, and another was a breechlock forging that counteracted the stresses of exploding gases. They learned how to stream-line a shell so that it added three miles to the range of a gun, and they developed a kiln-drying process that halved the time needed for seasoning lumber used in artillery wheels. In some respects the big war was characterized by a return to the most primitive methods of warfare, methods which had disappeared centuries ago. Liquid fire, hand grenades, steel helmets and armor had a new birth. Even the old pitchfork, while it was not brought into actual conflict, served by reminding the American Fork and Hoe Company that bayonets could be made by a rolling instead of a forging process, like pitchforks, with resulting economies and increased efficiency. The Chandler Motor Company by November 11 had made 700 complete tractors, ten-ton giants for artillery, and had attained a capacity of twelve of these a day. This company's war contract amounted to $17,500,000 and was the largest of the Cleveland district, the average being $195,215. Another extraordinary performance was that of the Leece-Neville Company, which was the first American producer of a perfect automatic aircraft gun sight. As for steel, Cleveland had the American Steel and Wire Company, the Bourne-Fuller Company and the McKinney Steel Company. Out of a total of 900,000 tons contracted for, half had been delivered when the war ended. Much information was gained from these operations to be used for future emergencies. Scovill declared, after his task was completed, that civil service regulations were a detriment to this sort of operation, and should be suspended in like cases. Great stress was placed upon welfare work, and labor troubles were negligible. Under the circum- THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 779 stances, the workers being engaged upon government work and that government at war, strikes were hardly possible. Nevertheless, much credit for harmonious relations between employers and munitions workers must be given to judicious treatment. The Cleveland ordnance district undertook housing surveys and managed to induce the construction of 500 houses in the field of its operation. It also procured the closing of saloons in the neighborhood of its plants. In all the district there were probably 500 factories engaged in ordnance production. In addition there were activities so varied that it is impracticable to enumerate them here. There were musical instruments required, and the H. M. White Company made them. There were paints, oils, leather for automobile cushions, blankets, uniforms, etc. A contract for a $50,000 plant in France, to manufacture nitrous oxide for the Red Cross, was awarded to the Ohio Chemical and Manufacturing Company. Cleveland's war contribution in ships has already been told in a chapter on shipping. Of the 432 steel freighters built for ocean service in Great Lakes yards, 176 were turned out by the American Shipbuilding Company. Numerous 110-foot submarine chasers were built in a little yard at Rocky River. Surely there would have been a different tale to tell, had the war gone into another year. Benedict Crowell, assistant to the Secretary of War, says : "The offensive for 1919 would have had its surprises, some of which might well have been decisive." Certain of these were in large production toward the end of 1918, and many of them are still held secret in the records of the War Department. But one which may be mentioned was a gas developed in a plant at Willoughby which was seventy-two times more effective than the dreaded mustard gas. Vienna made overtures, which the President declined, popular sentiment applauding, and the Kaiser's army was unmistakably on the retreat. There was no disposition, though, on the part of the city or the nation, to slacken efforts 780 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS for an early and triumphant conclusion. No matter how much was being done at home, ways were always being found to increase the output of effort. There were 75,000 draft registrants in the city, in deferred classifications, practically all of whom were engaged in essential industry; yet these were organized to aid in the selling of government securities, another issue of which was to be offered in Cleveland September 25. Names of another host of available workers were made available in the second draft, September 12, when all the men from 18 to 45, not called before, were registered. There were 150,000 of these in Cleveland. The fourth Liberty Bond issue gave Cleveland a quota of $112,100,950, double the amount of the last assignment, and a seemingly staggering burden. But the city showed, when the results were counted on October 20, that it had not only met its obligation but had contributed an additional $7,000,000 for good measure. Peace was approaching, and purely local affairs were beginning to assume again their aforetime importance. War suffered the humiliation of being pushed off the front pages of the newspapers when the returns of the November state elections came in, showing that Governor Cox had been re-elected and the state had voted "dry." Peace came, and Cleveland, like all other cities, had two distinct celebrations, the first caused by a premature report of the armistice. The real celebration, on November 11, was undoubtedly the greatest local civic spectacle ever staged. A community of nearly a million was entirely unanimous in sentiment and expressed itself in delirium. Cleveland sent 30,000 of her sons into the active service of her country. That was her quota. Gold stars in many a home tell of the costly sacrifice that mothers made. There are gold stars in lonely homes the world over. Bred and nurtured in peace, Cleveland built herself into a war machine in five months. So did Detroit and Chicago and the rest. The lasting memorial is the portrait the city painted of herself in those concurrent "invest" and "give" campaigns.—W. C. M. CHAPTER V GENERAL INDUSTRY The most characteristic thing about Cleveland industry is its diversity. The city might be regarded almost as a cross-section of American industry. Of the 280 classes of industry used by the government for census purposes, metropolitan Cleveland has been found to possess 218. A more detailed classification contained in a recently published Market Data Handbook of the United States gave 348 varieties of manufacture for the whole country, of which 292 were found in Ohio and 220 in Cleveland. The Cleveland Buyers' Guide has recently listed more than 2,200 Cleveland manufacturers making more than 10,000 different products. Thus the city is not dependent upon its leading industries as are most of its neighbors and competitors. Its automotive factories are important; yet it is not prostrated, as Detroit is, by a lull in automobile production. Its iron and steel are important; but a slump in this industry does not hit it so hard as Pittsburgh or Youngstown. It is far more fortunate than Akron, the rubber city, in not having put most of its industrial eggs into one basket. Its basic steel, motor, elec-trical, clothing, paint and meat packing industries might close down, its ships might lie at anchor and its bakeries let their ovens grow cold, and Cleveland would still remain a great industrial center. Only a general prostration of industry and trade affecting the whole country can bring indus-trial disaster upon Cleveland ; and even in the recent depression, unprecedented in American history, the effect has been less pronounced here, and improvement has begun sooner, than in most of our other industrial centers. - 781 - 782 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS The major industries of the city have been set forth at some length, in previous chapters, with regard for their statistical importance and their human interest for Cleveland readers, as the writer has conceived them. This chapter aims to round out the story with brief sketches of a few other industries of special interest—a difficult choice, where so many are interesting—presenting the remainder, then necessarily in bulk. It may be a very statistical chapter. Yet there is a certain fitness in such treatment, for present day Cleveland has been called "the most statistical minded city in the United States." MACHINES AND MACHINE TOOLS "Machinery is the most important product manufactured from metal," as Mary Price Corre writes in one of her vocational studies for the Cleveland public schools. So machinery is probably the most important product of Cleveland industry. Most of it is made of iron, and by iron, and to such uses goes a very large part of the ore that Cleveland ships bring down the lakes. The most remarkable example of iron making iron found in Cleveland, or possibly in the whole world, is the new automatic rolling mill of the Otis Steel Company, completed in 1932, producing a huge volume of manufactured steel without the touch of a human hand. The processes are all controlled by electric switches operated by a few men standing on a platform above the roar of the rolls and the hiss of the hot bars. If machinery is the most important metal product, then the most important machinery is "machine tools," which have been described as machines to make machines. All modern machinery is made by machine tools, and the machine age could not begin until such tools were provided. Lack of these made it very difficult to manufacture the first steam engines; ample provision of them gave impetus to the automobile age. The English, the first machine tool builders, had forbidden their exportation. They were produced in growing volume toward the end of the eighteenth century. Philadelphia was THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 783 our first manufacturing center for them. About the middle of the last century Ohio began making her own. Cleveland pioneers in this industry were Cox and Prentiss, predecessors of Cleveland Twist Drill Company, established in 1878, which built milling machines for its own use in manufacturing twist drills. From the work of this company, together with Warner and Swasey, who entered the field three years later, has grown a local industry with more than two dozen factories, providing fifteen per cent of all the metal-working machinery in the United States. There are four basic types of machine tools—lathes, planers, milling machines and drilling machines. Of these the lathe is most important. It is used to "machine" cylinder-shaped metal bodies and parts by means of a tool which cuts the metal as the cylinder revolves, ranging in scope from an almost invisible bit of jewelry to a ship's propeller. The "turret lathe," with its series of tools working automatically in turn, is one of the most notable variations. The planer is used to flatten the surfaces of metal castings, a table with the casting usually moving under the tool. The largest planers weigh hundreds of tons, and are so true that they can plane a piece of iron thirty or forty feet long within one-ten-thousandth of an inch. The milling machine was invented by Eli Whitney, better known for his cotton gin. It is used to shape intricate parts, large or small. The universal miller, invented by Joseph R. Browne, another American, is a revolving disc with many sharp teeth, into which the metal being shaped is fed as it turns. The drilling machine is the simplest and easiest to operate of the machine tools. There is also the shaper, a tool which moves over a stationary casting, used for planing small parts; the grinding machine, which sharpens tools, grinds surfaces smooth or finishes the inside of holes, especially useful in automobile manufacture ; and the boring mill, either horizontal or vertical, for boring out the barrel of a gun and similar work. Closely allied with the machine tools used in making other machines are those used in shaping metal products of almost 784 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS infinite variety—furnaces, stoves, safes, gas and electric fixtures, tools of many kinds, bolts, nuts, nails, screws and miscellaneous hardware. There are factories, too, equipped with machine tools to repair machines. Cleveland ranks third among American cities in her machine tool production. Of special interest in this field is the pioneer firm of Warner and Swasey. Worcester R. Warner and Ambrose Swasey came from the East in 1880 and established a machine tool business in Chicago, but found that city not sufficiently advanced mechanically, and were persuaded by Thomas H. White of the White Sewing Machine Company to come to Cleveland. Swasey was interested chiefly in gears and turning mechanism, Warner in astronomy. They were able to unite these two interests in the manufacture of astronomical instruments. One of them once said that they made money out of their machine tools and glory out of their telescopes. One of their first products, made principally to prove their skill, was a nine and one-half-inch telescope. They began producing machines for making bicycle and sewing machine parts, then proceeded to brass-working machinery for plumbing supplies. Opportunities multiplied. In a few years their turret lathes and other machines were known all over the world. In 1887 they obtained the contract for the Lick Observatory's thirty-six-inch telescope, a marvel in its time. Later they performed a similar service for the Naval observatory at Washington, and built the famous Yerkes telescope near Chicago, a great telescope at Victoria, British Columbia, and numerous others. These master-workmen were not satisfied to make machines, but wanted also to make machinists. They established an apprentice school in which they provided technical training, both in classroom and machine shop work, for ambitious and promising young men. Their own work was characterized by mechanism of unequalled accuracy. They both traveled much in their later years. They lived happily and usefully, and grew wealthy doing what they loved to do. Mr. THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 785 Warner died in 1929 in Germany, on one of his travel trips. The work of a few other great machinists must be mentioned. Machinery for handling heavy and bulky freight has been invaluable to Cleveland, especially at the lake and river docks, as has been told in another section. The first Brown Hoist ore unloader, the bridge tramway, was built in the early eighties, and soon Cleveland was known throughout the country for her heavy dock machinery. Locomotive cranes, in which Cleveland leads the world, soon followed. Also steam shovels, belt and chain conveyors, electric hoists, overhead cranes, clamshell buckets and numerous other devices which have made possible our vast lake ore and coal traffic and big engineering projects everywhere. Important firms engaged in this sort of manufacturing are the C. O. Bartlett and Snow Company, Browning Crane Company, Cleveland Crane and Engineering Company, Euclid Crane and Hoist Company, Industrial Brown Hoist Corporation, Thew Shovel Company and Wellman Engineering Company. There has been also a large development of forging technique and machinery in this district, with drop hammers, bull-dozers, upsetters, etc., made by the Ajax Manufacturing Company, the Cleveland Punch and Shear Works and the Acme Machinery Company. The city's production of iron and steel forgings, by the way, is over 11 per cent of the whole country's output. The White Sewing Machine Company is given credit for being the father of several important Cleveland industries, one of them being the machine tool industry in its application to interchangeable manufacturing. Another child of the White Sewing Machine is the Cleveland Automatic Machine Company, producing spindle machines. Automatic screw machines, and parts, serving a large Cleveland industry, are produced by the National Acme Company. Other machine tools of many kinds are made by Bardons and Oliver, Cleveland Planer Works, Cleveland Punch and Shear Works, the Foote-Burt Company, the Lees-Bradner Company and the Lucas Machine Tool Company. Then there are varied small tools, accessories to machine tools 786 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS in metal fabrication, utilizing. the new cutting steels and alloys developed in recent years, made by the National Acme Company, the Cowles Tool Company, the Kelley Reamer Company, the National Tool Company and the Standard Tool Company. Cold forming and stamping of steel plates has made continuous progress here from the days of safety bicycle production up to the present time. There has been a remarkable development of cold-rolling machines. Dies have grown vastly in size, accuracy and power. It seems equally easy to press out the hands for a watch, or an automobile body, or a section for one of the new steel houses that Cleveland has been interested in lately. Some of the firms in this line of work are the Globe Machine and Stamping Company, the Geometric Stamping Company, the Midland Steel Products Company, the Perfection Stove Company and the Van Dorn Iron Works. FOUNDRIES After steel works and automotive works, the industrial classification with the largest production value is foundries and machine shops. In 1930, with 113 foundries, Cleveland was second in the country as a foundry center, being surpassed only by Chicago. The industry was 102 years old, dating from the little jobbing foundry established on the lake shore by John Ballard and Company. The Cuyahoga Steam Furnace Company, organized in 1834, was the first chartered company in the gray-iron business. The next notable date was 1852, when William A. Otis joined J. M. Ford in build-ing a plant to make iron castings on Whiskey Island, whose lineal descendant is the present Otis Steel Company. The Cleveland Foundry, established in 1864 by Bowler and Maher, survives as the Bowler Foundry Company. Another old-timer started in 1866 by Hovey Taylor and Sons is now the Taylor and Boggis Foundry Company. The vigor of this industry and its fitness for its environment are shown by the fact that of twenty-five foundry companies in 1880, seven were still operating fifty years later. THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 787 There is history in old castings. Those of 1870 to 1890 went mostly into stoves, railway cars, farm implements and sewing machines. After that, the motor industry took more and more of them. The foundries were, and have remained, mainly jobbing plants, whose product is spread over a broad market. The foundries are divided into four classes—those making gray-iron or "cast-iron," those casting malleable iron, those casting steel, and those casting non-ferrous metals such as brass, bronze and aluminum. Among the many of the first class in 1930 may be mentioned the Ferro Machine and Foundry Company, the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, the Allyne-Ryan Company, the Kilby Manufacturing Company, the Taylor and Boggis Foundry Company, the Forest City-Walworth Run Foundries Company, the Cleveland Co-operative Stove Company, the Bowler Foundry Cornpany and the Johnston and Jennings Company. In the second class there were five : the Lake City Malleable Company, the Eberhard Manufacturing Company, the Fan-ner Manufacturing Company, the Grabler Manufacturing Company and the National Malleable and Steel Castings Company. There were ten steel foundries, among them the West Steel Casting Company, the Crucible Steel Casting Company, and the Ohio Steel Castings Company. Some of the non-ferrous foundries were the Aluminum Company of America, the John Harsch Bronze and Foundry Company, the Gluntz Brass Foundry Company, the Glauber Brass Manufacturing Company and the National Bronze and Aluminum Company. This industry, like others, is being rapidly mechanized, and its product continually improved. Cleveland not only makes castings for itself and much of the rest of the country, but makes a great deal of foundry equipment and supplies. In 1930 there were reported more than fifty companies engaged in this latter industry alone. Three national associations representing the foundry industry had their headquarters here, and the only American trade paper representing the foundry industry was published here. 788 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS PAINT AND VARNISH Here is an industry in which Cleveland's leadership has long been, and still remains, unquestioned. Cleveland paints, varnishes and lacquers "cover the earth." This eminence is credited largely to the pioneer work of two men, Francis H. Glidden and Henry A. Sherwin. They took up about the same time, separately, the two most obvious branches of their industry, and their work, on the whole, has continued separate. Sherwin was the originator of ready-mixed paint. He was convinced that better paints could be made in quantity, from standard formulas, by experts, than were made by the happy-go-lucky process of individual painters buying the materials and doing their own mixing. So in 1866 he opened a paint store, in association with Truman Dunham and G. O. Griswold, under the name of the Truman Dunham Company, to sell paints and varnishes at retail. The factory was a little room in the rear of the store. The materials used were of high quality and the methods were precise. Little by little customers were won over from the prevalent notion that anyone, or at least any painter, could mix paints. The business grew steadily, but slowly. In 1870 Dunham and Griswold withdrew from the firm. Then Sherwin found his ideal partner in E. P. Williams, who had a little capital and a great deal of enthusiasm and salesmanship. S. P. Fenn joined them as bookkeeper, later becoming treasurer and vice president. The celebrated panic of 1873, which ruined so many business institutions, gave them their opportunity. Unemployed men then, as now, were inclined to "paint up," and there arose a brisk demand among the amateurs for ready-mixed paints. Sherwin and Williams decided to separate their producing and distributing branches. They leased a cooper shop near the river, between the canal and Seneca Street, put in a little steam power plant, a second-hand grinding mill and a putty chaser, employed a workman to help, and began serious production of paste paints, oil colors and putty. Others now were seeing the opportunity. In the same THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 789 year three more firms began manufacturing paint : the Averill Paint Company, the Miller Brothers Paint Company and the Rubber Paint Company. This provided wholesome competition. Clevelanders had their own field pretty much to themselves because outsiders kept out on account of patent litigation. With growing demand came the need of new and better machinery. Sherwin developed an improved type of paint-grinding mill which was so successful that the big mills in the company's modern plants are changed but little from that model. The business grew rapidly now. The factory property was bought and enlarged. Expansion began. In 1880 an office was opened in Chicago. In 1882 the firm dropped its retail business, concentrating on manufacture. In 1883 it was incorporated as the Sherwin-Williams Company. Meanwhile Glidden, who had come to Cleveland in 1867, started manufacturing varnish in 1875, and his little factory was so successful that other Clevelanders began entering that field. Some of them were absorbed before many years by the Glidden interests, as they came into the period of expansion. Paint and varnish manufacturers naturally overlap to a large extent, so that there can be no very clear differentiation. The paint interests absorbed some varnish concerns, and the varnish interests absorbed some paint concerns. The Federal census of 1880 represented Cleveland paint and varnish interests as about equal in capital, with paint production worth nearly twice as much as varnish production, and ten paint plants to four varnish plants. Cleveland was manufacturing paints and varnishes worth $1,900,000 a year, nearly one-sixth of the national production. Fifty years later Cleveland had the largest and most successful paint and varnish establishments anywhere, dominating the world industry. In metropolitan Cleveland there were forty-four manufacturing companies, with their complement of raw material men, jobbers and dealers. The big local companies had become headquarters for organizations with many scattered branches. Their total capitalization was $75,000,000, their yearly sales $115,000,000, their payroll 790 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS over $16,000,000, their employment more than 10,000 men, their production 825,000,000 pounds. Manufacture in this once hit-and-miss industry had attained scientific accuracy and uniformity. Its materials come from all the world, its products go to all the world. And it is the literal truth that no other industry has done so much to brighten up the world. The greatest development has come in the last quarter-century. In this field industrial chemistry has made contributions as important as in metallurgy. The most remarkable and promising of recent innovations have been the color varnishes known as lacquers. These are mainly nitro-cellulose products made by treating cotton linters with chemical solvents. Such products found an immediate and extensive use for automobiles because of their quick drying and durable finish. They are used increasingly for furniture and interior decoration. There is a suitable finish for every surface. There are many new colors. Innovations have been made in clear varnish, too, as regards hardness, toughness and quick-drying. In many instances chemical compounds seem to be displacing natural materials. Old methods of cooking natural gums and oils are greatly improved. Paint manufacture gains efficiency from the "pebble mill" somewhat as steel manufacture did half a century ago from the Bessemer converter. A large cast-iron cylinder lined with burrstone, steel or porcelain is half filled with Danish pebbles, steel balls or porcelain balls. The paint materials poured into this cylinder are thoroughly mixed and uniformly ground in one continuous operation, without supervision. In recent years there is a strong tendency toward metal paints using aluminum, bronze, etc. The filling and labelling of containers is automatic. Methods of application by consumers change as much as methods of manufacture. Many finishes are applied by dipping. With paints, as with lacquers, the spray machine tends to replace the brush. Among the leaders in the local paint industry in recent THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 791 years have been Adrian D. Joyce, R. H. Horsburgh, R. W. Levenhagen, George A. Martin, C. G. Bull and R. B. Robin-ette. Leading firms are the Glidden Company, the Sherwin-Williams Company, the Patterson-Sargent Company, the Ohio Varnish Company, the Ferbert-Schorndorfer Company, the Tropical Paint and Oil Company, the Arco Company and the Acorn Refining' Company. CHEMICALS It is time to let engineers speak. In presenting' this difficult and important branch of Cleveland industry, the historian takes the liberty of abridging an illuminating article written by Dr. W. R. Veazey of Case School of Applied Science for the Golden Anniversary Book of the Cleveland Engineering Society, published for its members in 1930. The raw materials for the mechanical and chemical groups of industries are largely the finished products of chemical manufacture, and during the last half-century the output of chemical industry has averaged about twenty per cent of the total manufactures of the United States. A large amount of engineering' has been necessary in order to put natural resources into useful forms. Through the chemical engineer, cheap raw materials and by-products are made to pour out a wealth of wholly new things. Chem-ical industries arose naturally in every locality as the cities of the Middle West emerged from their agricultural beginnings. Such familiar necessaries as sugar, soap, salt and baking powder are products of chemical engineering. Historically the development of the chemical industry in Cleveland falls into three distinct periods : the first, from 1800 to 1860; the second, 1860 to 1900; the third, 1900 to the present time. In the first period we find such chemical enterprises as the following. In 1801 David Bryant set up a still. In 1810. Elias Cozad built a tannery. In 1833 the Austin Powder Company made black powder for the rifles of Cleveland's early citizens in a plant near Akron, whence it moved to Cleveland in 1866. The principal chemical products of 792 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Cleveland in 1840 were 113 tons of potash from wood ashes, 56.5 tons of soap, 42 tons of tallow candles and 80,000 gallons of whiskey. In 1849 came an artificial gas plant, lighting the city streets with a chemical product. The second period began with refining of petroleum in Cleveland for the production of coal oil, the story of which has been told in a previous chapter. This development gave Cleveland its first forward push toward becoming a great industrial center, and was responsible for creating one of the nation's greatest chemical industries here. For without the sulphuric acid of Grasselli the refined oils of Rockefeller would not have been possible. In 1866 Eugene Grasselli transferred his activities from Cincinnati to Cleveland and began the building of an acid plant to take care of the needs of the oil refiners. No better illustration could be found of the dependence of general in-dustry on chemical manufacture than this interrelation of the Standard Oil Company and the Grasselli Chemical Company. As other industries came to Cleveland, chemicals were needed in wider variety, and in meeting this demand, Grasselli branched out into other lines of heavy chemicals. Today his company is active in all parts of the United States and many foreign countries, having become a part of the great du Pont interests. The present Barrett Company, refiners of coal tar, had its beginning in 1873 as the Forest City Chemical Company. The big United States Rubber Company began as the Cleve-land Rubber Company, founded in 1872 by Charles H. Tucker. Other illustrations might be given of the varied and substantial growth of chemical industry during this part of Cleveland's history. In 1890 there were ten manufacturers of chemicals, exclusive of iron, steel, cement, paint, rubber and many other products which might properly come under a chemical engineering classification. In 1886 A. H. and E. H. Cowles of Cleveland made public their process for the reduction of aluminum ores with carbon and copper, and in the same year C. M. Hall of Oberlin dis-covered the electrolytic method which is now in use. It was about this time that H. H. Dow and Albert W. Smith, while THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 793 students at Case School of Applied Science, worked out the fundamentals of processes for recovery of bromine from natural brines and new methods for manufacturing chloro-form, which led to the establishment of a large chemical industry in a neighboring state. Dr. Charles Mabery, world-renowned for his researches in petroleum, did most of his work at Case School of Applied Science during this same period. The third period from 1900 to 1930 is difficult to characterize because Cleveland has become a city of extremely diversified industrial interests, with the result that almost every variety of chemical process is to be found in or near Greater Cleveland. Although steel, oil and acids are still most commonly thought about by the public, yet there is a host of other interesting' chemical manufactures. Pharmaceuticals, soap, candles, glass, refractories, cement, clay products, paint, varnish, lacquers, rubber, enamels, ceramic materials, beverages, peanut products, rayon, tar products, carbon, asphalt, waxes, fats, greases, liquefied and compressed gases, salt, soda, barium salts, dental supplies, disinfectants, fertilizers, leather, rare gases, rare metals, waterproofing compounds, asbestos goods, ink, storage batteries, dry batteries, chemical warfare gases, cosmetics—these and many others are made in Cleveland and demand the daily attention of hundreds of chemists and chemical engineers. In the midst of all this activity we can clearly see a new trend in engineering. No longer does the mechanical, electrical or civil engineer say, "I have no need of the chemist," neither does the chemical engineer assert his self-sufficiency. Each branch of engineering is seeing its dependence upon the others, and cooperative endeavor is rapidly displacing the haphazard individualistic efforts of earlier days with carefully planned and systematically co-ordinated team work. This is the reason for the astonishing progress which has been made since the World war. Engineering is getting the thing done in the best possible way at the least cost in the shortest time. It is no longer mechanical, electrical, civil or chemical, but is a comprehensive whole made up of several parts fitly joined together. 794 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS "May Cleveland organize her engineering forces even more completely," says Dr. Veazey, "and be prepared to reap the greatest industrial harvest of the future !" CLOTHING The clothing industry employs more men and women than any other in Cleveland except the three big metal industries —iron and steel, foundries and motor vehicles and bodies. What is no less important, Cleveland has the reputation of treating its clothing workers better than any other city. One clothing manufacturer here has the largest business in the country. Cleveland ranks fifth, coming after New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The clothing industry in the United States produces garments worth $3,000,000,000 a year, employs 400,000 wage earners and pays them $500,000,000 a year. The industry in Cleveland produces in a normal year $50,000,000 worth of goods, employs about 8,000 people and pays them $10,000,000 a year. There are about 100 factories here, large and small, making suits, overcoats, overalls, neckwear, shirts, cloth caps for men, wash suits, blouses, pajamas, knickers for boys, coats, suits, dresses of silk, wool and cot-ton, smocks, aprons, lingerie, negligees for women, dresses and middies for girls, and men's women's and children's raincoats. This is a comparatively new industry. All clothing was made to order until about a century ago. The first ready-to-wear garments are said to have been made in New Bedford, Massachusetts, for sailors, all of one size—the large or small man was out of luck. That was a sporadic enterprise on the part of a merchant. The first clothing factory was started in New York in 1830 by George Updyke, a former mayor. The men's clothing industry got its real start during the California gold rush. It found a bigger stimulus in the Civil war, when the government standardized sizes and had uniforms made to fit its soldiers. After the war the same methods were used for civilians. Cleveland started its clothing manufacture in 1846, the year of the first sewing machine. At first there was only a warehouse where garments were cut from materials stored THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 795 there and given out in bundles to contractors, to be finished at home or in small shops. They were paid for by the piece. Thus two groups of employers developed—the clothing house or firm proper, and the contractor, operating respectively the "inside" and "outside"shops. The large inside shop had its own factory building, the small inside shop was usually in a loft, the small outside shop was usually a home workshop. Elias Howe's sewing machine replaced primitive machines which had used the tambour or chain stitch. Howe introduced the lock stitch, using a shuttle and a needle with its eye in the point, which imitated hand sewing and would make 400 stitches a minute. That was wonderful for the time. Now power machines make 5,000 stitches a minute. There was much opposition to those machines. Clevelanders objected that they would throw people out of work. Their merits, however, were soon recognized, not the least among them being. the benefits to the working classes themselves. They still had work, and everybody had cheaper clothing. The power at first came from a crank turned by hand, later from a foot treadle, which is now driven out by the electric motor. Machines grew steadily lighter and faster. There is now one for every kind of sewing. At first only coarse, cheap materials were used, and few sizes. The tailor's trade was subdivided into cutting, operating (the sewing machine), finishing and pressing. The tailor often took home the garments cut up in the factory, and was helped by members of his family in putting them together. Thus arose the family system. The pay went to father. The "task system" came from tailors making contracts with manufacturers for so many garments at a certain price, and employing men in their own neighborhoods to make them. Thus the "team" replaced the family as a working unit. A team consisted of operator, baster and finisher. The presser was an outsider. A girl was hired by the week to sew on buttons and tack pockets. At first eight or nine coats made a task or day's work for a team. The size of the task kept increasing, so that there were longer hours at the same pay, and at last it was often impossible to finish the task in a day. 796 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS That was the "sweating" system which made so much hardship in the clothing industry for many years. Homework itself became sweating, under the pressure for more and more production. Garment-making was inter-mingled with housework. Women and children worked early and late in unsanitary rooms. It was bad for them and bad for the people who bought the clothing. Cleveland is now virtually free from sweatshops, and nearly all clothing is made under sanitary conditions. The first factories made only men's clothing. In the fifties a few shops turned out women's cloaks, capes and mantillas. Manufacture of muslin underwear was started in the early seventies by a local drygoods house. In 1875 a local firm began making women's suits, coats and skirts, pricing. them by the yardage of cloth. Real growth along. this line came in the 'eighties. Eventually more women's clothing was made in Cleveland than men's, but lately the situation has been reversed, with women's garments made more largely in New York. The first tailors and skilled workers were English. Later came German tailors, then Irish, succeeded in the 'seventies by Jews from Hungary, Germany and Austria, and in the 'eighties by Russian Jews. Latterly there are many Italians, the men doing pressing mainly, and the women hand-finishing. Methods have changed. It is no longer necessary to know the tailor's trade. Some factories prefer to take young men and women without shop experience and train them. The work grows steadily more mechanical and automatic. As an example of the industry, and as the foremost manufacturer of men's suits in America, the Richman Brothers Company deserves special mention. This family institution springs from Henry Richman, who began making men's clothing in Portsmouth, Ohio—the other terminus of our old Ohio Canal—in 1863. In 1879 the family came to Cleveland and the three sons, Nathan G., Henry C. and Charles L., established a factory here. At first they were only manufacturers. Later they adopted the direct selling method, con-trolling retail prices and sharing the middleman's profit with THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 797 the consumer. In this undertaking they have been remarkably successful. Their distribution system grew from fourteen stores in 1923 to more than sixty in 1931. The Cleveland factory on East Fifty-fifth Street has grown to seventeen acres of floor space, and a second plant at Lorain has three acres under its roof. Nearly all of the employees are stockholders in the company and have a stake in its success. Much has been done to regularize work in a highly seasonal business. Machines have displaced men less than in most industries ; forty per cent of the work in the plant is still hand work. The time clock has been abolished, along with checkers and task setters, and the employees have an honor system, with shop committees of their own to audit piece work operations. No foreman has authority to employ or discharge ; only the management can do that. Many facilities are provided for the employees' convenience and comfort. SALT This product is mentioned here not so much for its industrial importance as for its curiosity. Cleveland classifies as a mining city. It has a salt mine, and a considerable salt production, in the heart of it. The city rests on a bed of salt, 2,000 feet beneath its surface, left by the drying up of an ancient sea millions of years before Lake Erie was born. From it the Union Salt Company at the foot of East Sixty-fifth Street mines 75,000 tons of salt a year—worth about half a million dollars—plenty to flavor the city's food, and plenty left over as raw material for industrial use. Here is quite a change from the laborious packing in of this essen-tial commodity by horse and wagon trail over the Alleghanies or from the old salt spring at Warren. And the mining method is interesting. It is hydraulic. The new lake and the old sea strangely meet and blend. There are six wells on the very edge of Lake Erie reaching down for a third of a mile, where the salt deposits lie between their layers of shale and limestone. These wells are drilling holes each containing two concentric steel tubes, a four-inch pipe inside of a six-inch pipe. Through these shafts fresh 798 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS water is sent down to the salt beds. There it absorbs enough salt to make a strong brine, and then is forced up by the pres-sure of more fresh water, aided by the air pressure below in the "salt dome." From 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 gallons of Lake Erie water a day are thus poured into the salt beds and drawn up with their freight of sodium chloride. In the salt works the brine is evaporated in huge, steam-heated pans and further reduced by vacuum cookers. There results a product of many grades—fine table salt, the coarse-grained salt used for making- ice cream, pressed blocks for horses and cattle, and other forms for industrial purposes. It is surprising how many uses salt has as an industrial material. Here are a few of them : Curing hides, glazing tile, setting dyes in fabric manufacture, preserving wood, making chemicals and medicines, bleaching paper, softening water, refrigeration, processing tobacco, clarifying glass, cleaning the scale from hot steel plates in the mills. Cleveland's salt was discovered by accident when a driller in Newburgh struck salt instead of gas. The United Salt Company, and then the Union Salt Company, operated those Newburgh beds for some years. The Cleveland Salt Company's wells on Central Avenue were abandoned in 1920, after producing 60,000 tons a year for twenty years. The local salt formations are extensive, and could be worked far more widely. There is no shortage of this basic material in sight, by land or sea. FIGURES It is impossible here to tell of Cleveland's great lumber yards, of her brick and tile and limestone and sandstone and other materials, of her extensive building industry, of her meat packing and baking and related food industries and many more which really belong in the story. We can only add here a few general facts and figures, to be followed by detailed lists of Cleveland products. The city's population growth in the last fifty years is as follows. Starting from 160,146 in 1880, it was 261,353 in 1890, 381,768 in 1900, 560,663 in 1910, 796,841 in 1920, and 901,482 in 1930. THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 799 The population of Metropolitan Cleveland, co-extensive with Cuyahoga County, has grown from 439,120 in 1900 to 637,425 in 1910, 943,495 in 1920 and 1,202,838 in 1930. This increase is mainly due to industry. The city is fifth among American cities in the value of its manufactured products, which before the recent depression had arisen to more than $1,100,000,000 a year, with $216,000,000 paid for wages and salaries in Metropolitan Cleveland in 1929. The city's freight receipts in that year exceeded 35,000,000 tons, of which over 20,000,000 came by rail and nearly 15,000,000 by water. Freight forwarded from Cleveland was 15,000,000 tons by rail and 2,700,000 tons by water. Foreign exports from the city were between $150,000,000 and $200,000,000. The average daily consumption of water by Cleveland and its suburbs was 173,000,000 gallons—largely for industrial purposes, all from Lake Erie, and plenty more available. The industrial output has increased fourfold in two decades. Factory workers produce more goods per wage earner than in competing cities. Cleveland is credited with a larger percentage of home-owners than any other big industrial city—about 35 per cent, as against 28 per cent in Chicago and 131/2 per cent in New York. CROSSROADS The dominant reason for Cleveland's progress and eminence in industry aside from the character of its people, has been its location. This fact has been strikingly shown in an article entitled "The Crossroads of Commerce," written by Earle Martin, formerly Industrial Commissioner for the Chamber of Commerce, and published in the Union Trust Company's "Trade Winds." He paints a vivid picture. The crossing. is the intersection of the "main axis of steel" which extends from Pittsburgh to Detroit, and the "main axis of transportation" which extends from New York to