CHAPTER XIV. BOILING DOWN THE PIGS

An iron puddler is a “pig boiler.” The pig boiling must be done at a

certain temperature (the pig is iron) just as a farmer butchering hogs

must scald the carcasses at a certain temperature. If the farmer's water

is too hot it will set the hair, that is, fix the bristles so they will

never come out; if the water is not hot enough it will fail to loosen

the bristles. So the farmer has to be an expert, and when the water in

his barrel is just hot enough, he souses the porker in it, holding it in

the hot bath the right length of time, then pulling it out and scraping

off the hair. Farmers learned this art by experience long before the

days of book farming.

And so the metal “pig boiler” ages ago learned by experience how to make

the proper “heat” to boil the impurities out of pig-iron, or forge iron,

and change it into that finer product, wrought iron. Pig-iron contains

silicon, sulphur and phosphorus, and these impurities make it brittle so

that a cast iron teakettle will break at a blow, like a china cup. Armor

of this kind would have been no good for our iron-clad ancestors. When a

knight in iron clothes tried to whip a leather-clad peasant, the peasant

could have cracked him with a stone and his clothes would have fallen

off like plaster from the ceiling. So those early iron workers learned

to puddle forge iron and make it into wrought iron which is tough and

leathery and can not be broken by a blow. This process was handed down

from father to son, and in the course of time came to my father and so

to me. None of us ever went to school and learned the chemistry of it

from books. We learned the trick by doing it, standing with our faces

in the scorching heat while our hands puddled the metal in its glaring

bath.

And that is the way the farmer's son has learned hog scalding from the

time when our ancient fathers got tired of eating bristles and decided

to take their pork clean shaven. To-day there are books telling just

how many degrees of heat make the water right for scalding hogs, and the

metallurgists have written down the chemical formula for puddling

iron. But the man who learns it from a book can not do it. The mental

knowledge is not enough; it requires great muscular skill like that of

the heavyweight wrestler, besides great physical endurance to withstand

the terrific heat. The worker's body is in perfect physical shape and

the work does not injure him but only exhilarates him. No iron worker

can be a communist, for communists all have inferior bodies. The iron

worker knows that his body is superior, and no sour philosophy could

stay in him, because he would sweat it out of his pores as he sweats out

all other poisons.

The old man that I worked with when I first entered the rolling mill was

gray with his sixty years of toil. Yet his eye was clear and his

back was straight and when he went to the table he ate like a

sixteen-year-old and his sleep was dreamless. A man so old must conserve

his strength, and he made use of his husky helper whenever he could to

save his own muscles and lengthen his endurance. My business was to do

the little chores and save time for the helper. I teased up the furnace,

I leveled the fire, I dished the cinders in to thicken the heat, and I

watched the cobbles. During the melting of the pig-iron the furnace had

to be kept as hot as coal could make it.

Before the use of coal was discovered, the ancient iron makers used

charcoal. So iron could only be made where there were forests to give

fuel. Even as late as 1840 the iron smelters in Pennsylvania were using

wood in their furnaces. Our forefathers did not know that coal would

burn. And yet here lay the coal, the ore and the limestone side by side,

which meant that Pittsburgh was to be the iron capital of the world. But

Americans will not long sleep in the presence of such an opportunity.

Other races will. The Chinese have slumbered for five thousand years

above a treasure trove of oil, coal and iron. They never discovered

its uses. Instead of oil they lit themselves to bed with mutton tallow.

Instead of burning coal they put on two pairs of pants when winter came.

In place of steel plows drawn by oil-burning tractors they scratched

the ground with a wooden stick, and when the crop failed they starved to

death by millions. With our steel ships we send bread to China to

save them. If they had the wit to use their resources they could save

themselves. In man's fight against the hostile forces of nature, his

safety lies in applying his wit to the resources that nature gave him.

The Americans can do that. There are others that can not.

I was riding on a train in Indiana when a gypsy-looking youth came in

and sat beside me. His hair was black, his skin was yellow and he was

dressed in flashy American clothes. He had a cock-sure air about him

that attracted my attention. I have seldom seen a young man more pleased

with himself. He was entirely too cocky for me. He began talking. He

said he was a Syrian and was worth a thousand dollars. Soon he would be

worth a million, he said. He was already putting on his million-dollar

airs.

While selling bananas and ginger pop, he told me, “I made some money

and learned the American ways. I have a brother in South Bend who has

made some money shining shoes. I am going to get my brother and we will

go back to the old home in Asia Minor. The hills where we were born are

full of coal. The people call it black stone. They do not know that it

will burn. We will go back there with our American knowledge and set the

world on fire.”

There is a people who have been kicking coal around for five thousand

years and have not yet learned that it will burn. Those hills produced

gypsies who travel around cheating, dickering and selling gewgaws that

are worth nothing. They come among a people who have used their heads.

From these people they learned to heat a banana stand with a little coal

stove. Having mastered that coal-stove principle, they are going back to

their native hills with black magic up their sleeves.

“What a superior man am I,” thought that young tribesman swollen with

vanity, although he had done nothing.

This taught me that some of these thick-headed tribes can be all swelled

up with pride when they have little to be proud of.