Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1891 — CIGANTIC CONTRACTS. [ARTICLE]

CIGANTIC CONTRACTS.

Nearly 912,000,000 te Be Paid for Four New War Ship*. The shipyards of the Cramps in Philadelphia have entered upon the sxecution of the largest contracts that have ever been let to any one establishment by this Government at any nne time. Their contract covers sll,955,090, and their bonds are 15 per cent, of that amount. The contract calls for one armed crusier of 8,100 tons displacement and 14.000 horse-power, to cost $2,990,000; two battle-ships, each of which will carry 14,000 tons, have 14,000 horsepower. and cost $3,120,000; one protected crusier, capable of carrying 7,500 tons, of 21,000 horse-power, to cost $2,725,000. The two battle-ships will weigh 20,000 tons. Of the total weight of these two vessels it is safe to say that 75 per cent, will be made up of hulls, machinery, and armor, amounting to 15,000 tons of manufactured steel. In the crusiers the relative weight of steel will be less, but of the 15,000 tons in tbo.-e vessels, at least 10,000 tons will be manufactured steel. In other words, there will be used during the next three or four years in the Cramps’ shipyard 25,000 tons of manufactured steel, the cost of which will be in the neighborhood of $4,000,000. Nearly the whole of this sum of $4,000,000 will be expended in the steel plants of Pennsylvania. What this expenditure will mean to the employes of this great industry in Pennsylvania can only be left to the imagination to depict. This great fraction of the enormous total of these contracts will be widely distributed. The major portion of the vast reward fpr the labor thus employed upon the new navy will, however, be distributed in Philadelphia. The shipyards of the Cramps, when running at their fullest capacity on these contracts, will employ every working day in the week from 3,000 to 4,000 men. The number employed will vary between these figures according to the readiness with which material for their work is supplied. Assuming that only 3,600 men are emploved on the average during every day for the next four years, their payroll, calculated upon the average wages paid at the yard of the Cramps, will amount to about $40,000 a week, including piece work. This means $2,100,000 a year, or somewhere between $6,250,000 and $6,500,000 in the next three years.