By walking out on the
old bridge we could survey the extreme end of the new one, which was
being extended farther and farther, daily, by the addition of new steel
sections. There were then about 100 journeymen bridgemen on the
work--these being workmen of the class that erects steel skyscraper
frames--with some fifty apprentices and carpenters, and about twenty
common laborers. Bridgemen are among the highest paid of all workmen. In
New York, at that time, their wage was $6 for eight hours' work. Here it
was $4.50. Very few of the men had families with them in Memphis. They
are the soldiers of fortune among wage-earners, a wild, reckless, fine
looking lot of fellows, with good complexions like those of men in
training, and eyes like the eyes of aviators. No class of men in the
world, I suppose, have steadier nerves, think quicker, or react more
rapidly from stimulus to action, whether through sight or sound. They
have to be like that. For where other workmen pay for a mistake by loss
of a job, these men pay with life. Yet they will tell you that their
work is not dangerous. It is "just as safe as any other kind of
job"--that, although four of their number had already been lost from
this bridge alone. One went off the end of the structure with a derrick,
the boom of which he lowered before the anchor-bolts had been placed.
Pages:
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559