236 THE PROPELLING MACHINERY OF THE U. S. S. LEVIATHAN. 



blading for the ship and men to reblade ?" I suggested that we get in touch with the West- 

 inghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company and see if they could not help us out. I called 

 up the officials of the company in New York and explained the situation, and then imme- 

 diately got in touch with their Pittsburgh Works. Pittsburgh said: — "We will send you 

 twelve men on a special Pullman; we will take the men ofif our regular work right away." 

 The men left that night and were in New York the day after, but one, coming in with their 

 tools and starting to work. The General Electric Company was notified of the conditions. 

 Mr. Rice called a special meeting of the Board of Directors in New York, and they sent 

 word to Schenectady. Another Pullman car came through with twelve more men. That 

 is the way the work started on reblading these engines. 



The next thing was to get the blading. The Coe Brass Company of Connecticut took 

 a sample of the material of which the blades were made, made an analysis, and then they 

 notified us on the telephone : — "We will shut down the works for two weeks and do noth- 

 ing but make these blades." During that time the tools for boring, blading, and putting the 

 blading into the ship were made in New York Navy Yard under the supervision of Captain 

 Jessup, U. S. N. All the material came to the ship in good shape, and the Coe Brass Com- 

 pany is entitled to the best thanks of the citizens in the country for the work they did in 

 this matter. > 



1 merely mention these facts so that you will understand that every man brought in 

 contact with the undertaking was heart and soul in the work, and every one connected with 

 it did everything he could to make the work a success. The fathers and mothers of the 

 boys taken across are happy that their men were carried across on that ship, and that the 

 vessel arrived safely. 



Mr. Anderson : — It was not an intentional omission on my part that I did not men- 

 tion everyone connected with the work. I found it impossible to refer to all the firms and 

 people who did help to bring this work to a successful issue. I can assure the members 

 that everyone who became connected with carrying out the repairs did ever3d;hing possible, 

 and the final result proved this conclusively. 



Mr. John Platt, Member: — I want to make one remark with regard to the fine work 

 that was done. You saw from the diagrams, and what Mr. Anderson pointed out to you, 

 the extremely complicated system of piping nd valves, and everything else that went with 

 that layout. When the ship was turned over to the United States authorities, the German 

 chief engineer on board the ship made the statement to those in charge : — -"You will never 



run her" and he meant it. He had gone over the whole situation. He had all the draw- 



ino-s with him and the fullest kind of information from the builders, but he had not been 

 able to successfully run the ship himself. On the three round trips she had made they had 

 smashed up the inside of the reversing turbines and done a lot of damage of that kind, and 

 they could not operate the ship. He was of the opinion that the men here would ne\'er be 

 able to do it, and so stated to them. 



I thouo'ht this might be of interest in connection with the complicated work that was 



done. 



Mr. W. L. R. Emmet, Member of Council: — I think it would be interesting if Mr. An- 

 derson would give us an idea how the damage was produced. 



