Antioch College - Towers Yearbook (Yellow Springs, OH)

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,aefaaa af , Low1NG furnaces flaming chimneys the crash of the '3' l J a drop forge! . . . The fascination of industry! . . . To make one's way during the dark early morning l Q' ' e' ! hours among a group of laborers as they hurry to the shop, to punch in with them, stand at the bench beside them, labor throughout the morning and, when noon comes, have lunch with them .... Thousands of them! Hundreds of thousands of them! Immense factories! Roar of machinery! Smoke, soot, grease! Mass production! . . . They struggle at their various tiny operations . . . simple tasks, perhaps just the movement of a hand. Beneath the flare of blue mercury lights, in the haze of steam and smoke with the odor of fresh-cut steel and hot motors! So simple! . . . yes! Day in and day out, year in and year out they labor. Pushed when products are needed most, laid off when the company deems it unwise to produce further 3 . . . as cogs in a great machine, tools in the hands of a world throbbing with the life and convenience they themselves make possible. But do tl1ey mind? Were it not for their prod- ucts the world would be at a standstill. Were it not for the wor1d's use of their products they would be at a standstill. Thus they are drawn into this vast whorl of industry, merely to eke out an existence. . . . . An Antioch freshman sees industry. 209

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'rf P H A N T A S Y RI skeletal framework of a skyscraper, silhouetted against a dull gray sky, attracted my attention. The girders, beams, and columns fascinated me,-their I unbelievable strength amazed me,-the implicit faith placed in them by the engineers frightened me. How like a house made of straws placed end on end! My eyes wandered slowly toward the top. My amazement was increased,-fright changed to terror as I watched a der- rick perched on the topmost Hoor of the uncompleted building. It was a derrick that might have been designed by a drunkard or a dope addict, whose mind was cluttered with the unreal, the fantastic, the absurd. It was a derrick whose innumerable parts would have made it the realization of an engineer's dream. It looked like a human hand with the power to grab and to lift all that might be brought forth. Its unreal dimen- sions superimposed on the building gave it a masterful touch. I watched with awe as it slowly lifted a huge column to its place. Suddenly there was a quiver in its gigantic boom that seemed to rock the entire building to its basic caissons. Then came the din of cracking and bending steel, of rivets being ripped from their places, and the pitiful whining of steel cable rushing madly on through pulleys was overwhelm- mg. 2II