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, Idished 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.
