Article February 10, 1912 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

National.

Scientific management at the Watertown (Mass.) arsenal has resulted in a substantial saving of money for the government and increased pay for the employees, and everybody concerned is well satisfied with the working of the new system, according to a statement prepared by General Crozier, chief of the army ordnance bureau. The machinists came in for the largest profit, some of them increasing their pay as much as thirty dollars per month, and the general average increase of the men in the machine shops being twenty-six per cent. Seventy-five per cent of the molders were put to work in December under the new system, with the result that the average pay increased twenty-two per cent, some of the men adding twenty dollars per month to their pay envelopes. The cost to the government of molding elevatirg arms for the six-inch disappearing gun-carriage was reduced from $42.35 to $24.87 each, a reduction of forty-one per cent, yet the molders on this work increased their wages from $3.50 to $5 per day, or forty-two per cent. An extreme case was in the making of plugs for the hydraulic cylinders of the gun-carriages, the cost of which was reduced from sixty-one cents each to nine cents. At the same time the man on this job increased his pay from $2.80 to $4.18 per day, or forty-nine per cent.

Unless unforeseen difficulties are experienced all that is left of the old battleship Maine will be floated out of Havana harbor by March 1 and sunk in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, a few miles off the north coast of Cuba. About a third of the ship has already been dumped into the sea without attracting attention. The metal has been cut up by oxyacetylene jet into half-ton fragments, which were placed in scows and deposited about a mile off shore. The after turret of the ship has been unbolted from the deck and is ready for transfer to the shore. It has been given to the city of Havana and is to be erected as a monument in a public park. One of the masts is now at Governor's island and the other is aboard the collier Justin awaiting transportation to the National cemetery at Arlington, where it will be placed over the graves of the victims of the Maine.

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