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own greatness, is not cutting off the power. On the other hand it is under full headway and gaining faster right now in proportion to its size than any city in the world.

Plans which have been announced for building projects this year and between now and 1919 list something like 40 big buildings that will cost about $40,000,000, and this does not include the activities of Henry Ford and his associates, which may add millions to the total.

hotels Fort Shelby and Morton, $1,000,OCO, each 14 stories; the new Fellowcraft Athletic Club House, Park place and State street, 14 stories, $850,000.

Others are the Traub Brothers Company, on the site of the Detroit Opera House, $1,500,000; the Finance Building, at Fort and Shelby streets, 18 stories, $1,500 000; the First and Old Detroit National Bank Building, 22 stories, at the corner of Griswold and Congress streets, $1,500,000; the new Public Library, $1.500,000; Heyn's

Bazaar, of 12 stories; Firestone Rubber Company, J. L. Hudson addition, Cadillac Motor Sales, the Real Estate Building, the Kresge Store and a number in the $700,000 class.

All of these will be modern structures, adding to the appearance of the city and furnishing quarters for its growing business.

Meanwhile reports show that the war is stimulating business activity here and prosperity is on the increase.

So it looks as though the case of Cleveland, Boston, Pittsburgh and St. Louis is hopeless-they are out of the running for fourth place, and Detroit is headed for third place, so Mr. Philadelphia step aside and let us pass.

Brother Watkins was unfortunate enough to lose his pay check, but he has held three kings so much that he won't miss it.

Brother Mike Mulett is still on the same old stand-Bood Building.

Brother Aikens has a politician's job at the Dodge Brothers Plant. All he has to do is to take the cars off the limits.

We have about six brothers in Akron, O., for the Houghton Elevator Company.

The A. B. See Elevator Company has the new Kresge Elevators and Brother Truse has charge.

The Otis has opened an office in Saginaw, Mich., and Brother Harry Forbes has charge.

Brother Harry Hauthorne has enlisted in the marines.

Brother Hardman is still the Otis State inspector.

Brother Jones is running one of the elevators at the Book Building.

Brother Lahiff and Brother William Mercier are our new city inspectors.

Brother Reinstedt and Casey Williams are in business for themselves under the name of The Elevator Repair Shop, and they are getting lots of work.

Detroit is growing like the East and also has lots of girl operators, and now is where the inspectors will get no more cigars or matches when they run out.

Fraternally yours,
FRANK SNYDER.

Local No. 36.

A Cleveland woman won a prize of $85 for a loaf of bread at a food show. That scarcely paid her for the ingredients.

You're almost exact-but so is the bullet near the bullseye-which like you isn't heard from because it isn't a bellringer.

A New York man complained that he was held prisoner in a powder plant.

And he could have gotten out merely by striking a match.

SPECIAL NOTICE

To Members of the International Union of Elevator Constructors:

We are in receipt of a request for copies of "The Elevator Constructor" of year 1908, for months of January, February, March, September, October. Any brothers having same will oblige by communicating with

THE EDITOR.

Nail-Making Development.

Lafayette, Ind.-Practically up to the nineteenth century the art of nail making was what might be termed a household industry, and, in fact, the early history of this craft discloses evidence showing that even women and children were employed in the manufacturing of nails, especially of the smaller sizes.

Those days a nail was heated on a forge and hammered on an anvil, then cut by a chisel attached to the anvil. The head of the nail was shaped by a bore of countersunk design.

It is said altogether over 3,000 names, surrounding over 300 various types, were given to nails. Some of the names used by the pioneers were: Deck, pail, scupper, mop and hustle, together with many, many others.

Nail making apparently progressed very slowly. As early as 1606 Sir Davis Bulmer obtained leave for a process to cut nails by the aid of water power. Then, in a very short time afterwards, in 1619, Clement Dawbeny, of England, secured a permit to do the same work.

After that a century of idleness in this line passed away when, in 1775, or thereabouts, one Jeremiah Wilkinson, of Cumberland, R. I., cut small slender nails from sheet iron. This was perhaps the first man in this country to put out nails, and his product in description leads one to think it was very similar to the first lath nail ever designed.

Again in 1786 Ezekiel Reed, of Massachusetts was granted a patent on a nail-producing apparatus, a form of the famous cut nail machine. In 1796, during November, Isaac Garretson, of Pennsylvania, and George Chandler, of Maryland, secured patents on cutting and heading machines, at that time said to be ahead of their day. In 1790 an English patent was obtained by Thomas Clif

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In 1810 Albert Gallitin, Secretary of the Treasury, noticed what a mammoth field was open in the line which he later promoted.

In 1828, or the year following, Mr. Edward Hancorne, of London, England, had a machine capable of putting out nails at the then astounding rate of over a million a week.

Some time in 1829 the New Jersey Iron Manufacturing Company was chartered by the legislature for making nails and metal working outlines.

There were only about fifteen firms making nails up to as late as 1886, and in 1890 the export trade amounted to only a few thousand dollars. Thus it will be seen what a remarkable contrast in which it stood with the tremendous output of the present day. WALTER H. HAMEL.

HERE IS THE BRILLIANT SAYING. "Give us, O give us the man who sings at his work! He will do more in the same time-he will do it bet ter he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joy

ous, a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright."-Carlyle.

Here is the prosaic comment:

Give us, O give us, also the employer who makes it possible for his workingmen to sing.

Singing at your work is easy when care, poverty, long hours and small pay are not singing close by.

Workers will sing quickly enough if you'll give them the kind of work that makes singing possible.

To Carlyle's fine lines might be added these by Henry Ward Beecher:

"It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the

blade. It is not the revolution that de stroys the machinery, but the friction."

A pessimist pays in advance for misfortunes that aren't delivered.

UNTIMELY PEACE PLAN

OPPOSED BY A. F. OF L. Washington.-The A. F. of L. Executive Council has declined the invitation to have American trade unionism represented at "an international conference of trade unions" on September 17, in Switzerland to discuss "the demands of peace of the trade unions."

This conference was agreed to at a meeting on June 8, in Stockholm, of Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria trade unionists. In answer to the invitation to attend the Switzerland conference, forwarded by President Lindquist, of the Stockholm conference, President Gompers forwarded the following cablegram:

"The Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, in session after due deliberation upon invita tion received from you and from Oudegeest, of Amsterdam, Holland, to

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send delegates to a conference proposed to be held at Stockholm September 17, decided that we regard all such conferences as premature and untimely and can lead to no good purpose. We apprehend that a conference such as is contemplated would rather place obstacles in the way to democratize the institutions of the world and hazard the liberties and opportunities for freedom of all peoples. Therefore, the American Federation of Labor with its 2,500,000 members cannot accept invitation to participate in such a conference. If an international trade union coference is to be held it should be at a more opportune time than the present or the immediate future, and in any event the proposals of the American Federation of Labor for international conference should receive further and more sympathetic consideration. Shall be glad to continue correspondence."

The Gompers' cablegram was also transmitted to the French federation of labor, to the British trades union congress and to the federation of labor of Holland.

CONSCRIPT EXEMPTIONS. Washington.-President Wilson has announced the regulations to govern the selection of the conscript army. The following classes of persons will be exempted from the draft by local exemption boards:

Officers of the United States and of the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia.

Regularly ordained ministers of religion.

All students of divinty preparing for the ministry on May 18, 1917.

Persons in the military or naval service of the United States.

Subjects of Germany residing in this country.

All other resident aliens who have not taken out their first papers.

The following persons will be discharged by local exemption boards upon investigation:

County and municipal officers.

Customs house clerks.

Persons employed in the transmission of the mails.

Workmen employed in the arsenals, navy yards, and armories of the United States.

Persons employed by the United States designated as exempts by the President.

Steamship pilots.

Mariners actually employed in sea service of any citizen or merchant within the United States.

Any married man whose wife or child is solely dependent upon his labor for support.

Any son of a widow solely dependent upon his labor for support.

Father of a motherless child or children under sixteen years of age solely dependent upon his labor for support.

Brother of a child or children under sixteen years of age who has or have neither father nor mother and is or are solely dependent upon his labor for support.

Any person who is a member of a well-recognized religious sect organized or extisting May 18, 1917, whose creed forbids its members to participate in war.

All persons morally deficient, such as criminals.

All claims for exemption must be supported by affidavit.

HUGE PROFITS IN COAL. New York. An illustration of what a middleman can do to the price of coal came out during the trial before Judge Grubb, of the Federal District Court, where 51 soft coal operators are charged with violating the Sherman anti-trust law.

Boden Covel, president of the Northern Coal Company, Boston, admitted that coal for which he paid only $1.35 a ton at the mine was sold to the English Government at any price up to $8 a ton. Freight charges from the mine to tidewater are $1.40 a ton, and the middleman received more than the operator and the carrier combined.

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