In the course of a few minutes one sees a few iron carloads of ore that
was a month before lying in the earth beyond Superior transformed into a
girder for a bridge, a steel rail, a bit of armor-plate, a beam for a sky-
scraper--and all in utter human silence, with the calm pushing and pulling
of a few levers, the accurate shovelling by a few hands, the deliberate
testing by a few pairs of experienced eyes.
Here is the new Fort Duquesne that is holding the place of the confluence
of the rivers and trails just beyond the Alleghanies, and this is the
ammunition with which that begrimed but strong-faced garrison defends the
valley to-day, supports the city on the environing hills and the
convoluted plateau back of the point, spans streams the world around,
builds the skeletons of new cities and protects the coasts of their
country.
There are many others in that garrison, but these makers of steel are the
core of that city, in which "the modern world," to use the words of one of
our first economists, "achieves its grandest triumph and faces its gravest
problem" [Footnote: John R.
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