A Visit to BMW Welt, Munich

After the American Century

As part of the research for my forthcoming book on the assembly line (MIT Press, 2013), I have visited several factories. Here is my account of a visit to one of them.

It costs €8 to see the BMW plant in Munich, and it is necessary to sign up in advance^. There is room for only two groups of 25 people each hour, one with an English guide. In contrast, the magnificent show room where the tours start, a vast building called “BMW Welt,” attracts much larger crowds. It is a temple where enthusiasts can see all the latest models, pose in the driver’s seat, look at exhibits about how (and of what materials) the car is made, sit on a BMW motorcycle, or go into the gift shop to purchase BMW T-shirts, mugs, jackets, key-chains, model cars, and much more. In the bookstore on the mezzanine level they can also buy books about automobiles, design, and the company history. The building is about consumption and pride of ownership. Its sinuous lines and the profusion of displays create the feeling that one is in a high-end shopping complex. A distinguished stream of customers constantly arrives, to be welcomed and ushered  into elevators to higher floors inaccessible to ordinary visitors. Most BMW buyers enjoy a fine lounge and restaurant where they await the arrival of their new car. A select few go to a more exclusive redoubt of luxury, so rarified that most of those who serve the thronging clientele have never seen it. Most tourists are not buyers. But if they ascend to the second level, seven meters about the ground floor, they can look across at the exclusive area where immaculate cars are driven in and delivered to new owners, who drive down a ramp that circles out into the city traffic. 

BMW Welt

The factory tour lasted two hours and covered three kilometers. Most of the time we walked on concrete floors and metal bridges, surfaces that punish the arches, the knees and the lower back. Fifty years ago such a factory tour would have been noisier and grittier, and one would have sympathized with the workers caught up in that environment every day. But today robots do much of the work. Looking a bit like giant orange insects, they move deliberately, pausing with some delicacy near the end of each maneuver, as sensors guide their pincers to just the right position. First, in the stamping plant they guide sheets of steel into a succession of enormous machines that crunch down over sheets of flat steel transforming it into the hood or roof or trunk, or perhaps a left or right door. In each case, before the die slams down on the smooth steel, the metal is sprayed with a mist of oil to lubricate the process. The massive first stamping creates the basic form, which is refined and completed in the smaller stampings that follow, as ends are trimmed or folded, small holes added, and further indentations made. In 1913 several workers were needed to feed blanks into stamping machines, take out the results, and send them on to the next machine. A century later all this work is done by machines, with only a few people keeping an eye on the process. Our guide declares this technological unemployment is just as well, for the work is boring and yet dangerous, given the tremendous force of the stamping machines. It is endlessly repetitive and also hard on the ears. Some skilled workers are needed because the dies in the machines must be changed at times to make spare parts for older models. A model is usually made for seven years, but after that BMW produces parts for another decade. 

The stamped parts are next transported, automatically, to the body assembly, where the left and right door frames are attached to the car’s floor. Then a roof is added, followed by smaller parts and then the doors. In many cases the stamped panels are first fixed in place with a fast-drying glue that also functions as a thin elastic layer that will cushion shocks and improve the car’s ride. The metal parts are then welded together, again by giant orange robots, eight of them working at once in an almost silent, rapid sequence that has been choreographed and fine-tuned. Hardly a worker has touched it yet, but the welded parts have become a car body, still without wheels, windows, seats, or drive train. 

Before these can be added, the bodies pass on to the paint building, where we trudged after our guide over steel bridges through strange smelling passageways. We had glimpses of machinery at times, and heard an occasional hiss or gurgling sound, until we emerged into a large white room with soft seats where we gladly sat for a five-minute lecture on the steps involved in painting a car. One might imagine that the process was like painting the outside of a house, with a primer and one or two coats of good paint, and indeed that is exactly what Ford did in 1913. Each coat then needed  hours to dry before the next one was applied.  But it was hardly so time-consuming in 2011, even though there are more layers. First, all the residual oil and any dirt are zealously washed off the bodies. Then they are baptized in a thick undercoat, through a total immersion of the whole body in a large pool of paint, which is then pulled up by a robot to drip off before passing through a heating shed, where it is first baked in infrared heat at 150 degrees C, driving off all the liquid in the paint, and then furiously blown over by artificial winds. 

This is just the beginning, as four more layers will be applied, including one that is a bit rubbery, to make the surface more resistant to flying gravel or hailstones. The next to last layers are the paint proper that give the car its distinctive color. Ninety percent of all BMW buyers want their vehicle to be black, silver, or white. The other eleven colors are seldom used. New avatars of the same orange robots, made in Augsburg just an hour away from the plant, apply these layers. They spray the paint evenly, and digital cameras record the results. During each new round of coatings the car is given an electrical charge that attracts the tiny droplets to its surface. Not much paint sails wide of the mark, but any waste falls into a continuously rushing stream, a mini-Niagara under each painting station. The paint is extracted from the water, which is reused. Indeed, the water usage of the BMW plant has been reduced 90 percent in recent decades.

Once the BMW bodies have been repeatedly painted and baked, they pass into a room with six levels of shelves on each side where they are carefully stored. In the passageway between the shelves a machine that is both an elevator and a powerful robot lifts one body at a time, lowers it to ground level and sends it on its way to the final assembly plant. More than half of the shelf space is empty, for the factory makes only cars that have been ordered. It produces each body just in time for final assembly.

The guide next takes us to the other great tributary stream to the final assembly, the engine manufacturing plant. Most of the engines made here are powerful 4 cylinder 2.0 liter affairs that get 16 kilometers to the liter (or more than 30 mpg). Half the labor that goes into them is human, half robotic. The V8 engine for larger BMWs is 80% made by human beings, and the top of the line engine for the Rolls Royce is 100% man-made. (To be precise, 95% of the workers at the Munich BMW plant are men, and the few women are clustered in certain jobs.) In the motor plant the guide does not show us the casting of engine blocks or their precision drilling. Once the work of extremely skilled labor, this too has been progressively automated. Already in 1913 Ford had a purpose built machine that simultaneously drilled forty-five holes in an engine block, from four directions. A century later, the early stages of engine production have few workers. We see obviously skilled men building parts into these blocks as they pass down the line. Inspections also are continuous, until motors are complete and they can be harnessed to the drive train. 

At this point the two streams of work come together. The bodies meet the engine and drive trains they are destined to mate with, or “marry” as the workers put it. The bodies gently fall down as the engines rise up, with a brief pause before the last centimeters of drop and the two become one.  Final assembly can then begin. This part of automobile production still attracts the most public attention, as hundreds of parts and pre-assembled units like the dashboard are put in, typically with no more than a minute for each operation. Painting, by comparison, is repetitive and not as interesting to watch, and not even shown on many assembly line tours. Final assembly is much faster. One man unbundles and lays out a car’s electrical wiring and secures it in position, and a moment later another worker is covering the wires and the entire bottom of the car with a perfectly cut felt-like layer. Visitors walk much faster than the crawling line, and to them each task seems to take considerably less than a minute. One man with the help of a robot lifts and puts in the dashboard. The back and front seats, the emergency brake, the headlights and many small details are quickly and expertly installed. The windshield goes in. In half an hour one has traversed much of the line, and the cars are nearing completion. The doors, earlier removed to allow easier access to the interior, are reinstalled. At the end of the line some gasoline is pumped in, and each car is started, tested, and driven out of the factory. 

The BMW tour in Munich is by no means unusual. The industrial tourist can visit similar factories in all parts of the world. The newest are often designed as tourist sites. Visitors have been coming to see such marvels of assembly since Ford's managers first created the line in 1913. For a century, the public has remained enchanted. When I visited BMW the tours were sold out, but the factory's  “romance of production” was less central to the public than the “romance of consumption” in the showroom. In both places the car was treated as an almost enchanted “thing in itself,” an icon of modernity. For many it has become the ultimate consumer product, especially because now the assembly line can produce individualized automobiles, made to the consumer’s specifications. Henry Ford made his cars identical. But today, using the computer to keep track of the entire process from ordering to delivery, the assembly line produces individualized objects. Paradoxically, an assembly line with many robots and far fewer workers than in 1913 makes a more highly differentiated line of automobiles.

See also the blog on America's Assembly Line

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Election 2012: Why Ohio is the Key Swing State

After the American Century

There is a certain justice to the fact that Ohio has become so important in elections, because in many ways it is a microcosm of the country. Ohio is an important agricultural state, but it also has three large cities (Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati). It has been an industrial powerhouse, but suffered a great deal from the outsourcing of factory jobs to Latin America and China. It has suffered greatly since the 2008 financial crisis, with large numbers of home foreclosures. But it has also been bouncing back economically, albeit slowly. It contains many minority groups, and a good cross section of the churches. It gets back from Washington almost precisely the same amount as it pays in federal taxes (unlike New York which gets back only 79 cents on the dollar, or Mississippi which gets back almost twice what it pays in.) Ohio can be seen as the end of the Eastern states and the beginning of the Middle West. Its southeastern region much resembles Appalachia, while its northeastern quarter seems an extension of industrial New York.  It has generally been a moderate state, politically. But while Ohio therefore is in many ways a good representative state, that is not why it has become so important in elections.

In elections, states are not created equal. The American states are unequal in population, and this means that a few of them have an enormous impact in presidential elections, because all of their electoral votes will go to one candidate or the other. Obama can expect to win the largest state, California and its 55 electoral votes, and the Republican nominee can expect to win Texas, the second largest, with 38. The Democrats generally have won the third largest, New York State (29), too. But precisely because these states are somewhat predictable, the focus is on the "swing states" that are not reliably behind one party in national elections. Most important of all are swing states with a large number of electors, notably Florida (29), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20), Virginia (13), Indiana (11), and Missouri (19). (Pennsylvania leans perhaps a bit too much to the Democrats to be a true swing state, but it is moderate.) The smaller swing states can also prove crucial, notably Colorado (9), New Mexico (5), Iowa (6), and New Hampshire (4).

Note that the swing states are not randomly distributed, but are largely in a band just above the middle of the country. They are all marked in yellow on the following map, and as a group they have 96 electoral votes. A candidate needs to win 270.

The Swing States

Here is a map of what well may happen in the 2012 election. It is a prognosis based on how the states voted in 2000, 2004, and 2008, plus my sense of what is going on in the various states, hunches, you might say.  It is based on the supposition that Obama fails to win Florida, North Carolina, New

Hypothetical map of 2012 election, with the electoral vote evenly split. Ohio and Indiana are in yellow.

Mexico, or Virginia. In terms of delegates, this map shows the red states with 254 electoral votes and the blue states with 255. The two yellow states are Indiana and Ohio. Indiana tends to go Republican, but its electoral votes are not enough. If either party gets Ohio's 18 electoral votes, it moves into the White House. (In this example, you could substitute for Indiana Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire or Virginia, and the result would be the same. None of these states has Ohio's electoral clout.

This is not a far-fetched scenario. In 2000, when Gore lost to Bush in a much disputed election, here is what the map looked like:

2000 Presidential election

The final tally in that election was 271 (Bush) to 267 (Gore). If Gore had won Ohio, he wold have won the election easily, without Florida. That particular election was so close that Gore could have won by taking any additional state, but it is the swing states that matter, and Ohio was close.

How about the next election, in 2004?  Here again Ohio proved crucial to Bush's victory:

2004 Presidential Election

If Kerry had won Ohio and Indiana (or Ohio + Iowa), he would have been elected president.

No Republican has become president without winning Ohio. That is why the state is so important.

Update. After Obama led in Ohio during September, Romney won back some of its voters and he is much closer to winning the state - primarily due to his strong performance in the presidential debates. By the last week of October, it seems that Obama is likely to win Nevada and Iowa, while Romney seems likely to win Florida and North Carolina, with Virginia a toss-up.  Current polls still suggest that Obama will win, but the difference is narrow. After the second debate Obama seemed to regain momentum again, but in the meantime he lost ground in several swing states. In short, Ohio once again looks like the key battleground. The candidate who wins there will almost certainly win it all.

See also posting on Oct 11, on the four crucial swing states in the 2012 election. "Can Romney Win: Four Swing States Hold the Key"

Election 2012: Super Tuesday Probably Will Not Settle the Normination

After the American Century

Once upon a time there were real party conventions, where the nomination was not a coronation that had been scripted in detail for television. There was, for example, the magnificent competition between seven Democrats for the 1960 nomination, which was not settled on the first ballot, as usually happens today. John F. Kennedy emerged as the candidate then. Almost as exciting have been the wide open primary battles, like that in 1992, when the at first unlikely Bill Clinton emerged as the candidate.

The question to be answered tomorrow is whether we might be in for a wide open convention, or whether the nomination is more likely to be wrapped up sooner. Super Tuesday, with its many simultaneous elections, is at the least intended to narrow down the field. In short, will Gingrich or Paul decide later in the week that they should step aside? Or will all four candidates continue to battle for delegates?

Right now, Santorum and Romney are in a dead heat in the all-important Ohio Primary. Each has almost exactly one third of the votes, with the other third divided between Gingrich and Paul. Romney and Santorum are also running neck and neck in Tennessee.  Santorum is further ahead in North Carolina, but I have not seen enough polls for that state yet.

In contrast, some states are walkovers. Santorum seems certain to win by a wide margin in Oklahoma. Gingrich seems certain to win his home state of Georgia, with none of the other candidates coming within 20 points of his c. 44%.  Romney seems equally certain to run away with a victory in Massachusetts, his home state. Romney will also win Virginia in a walk because neither Gingrich nor Santorum  got on the ballot.

There are other states involved too, but the pattern seems clear. Right now it looks as though both Romney and Santorum will win some states, while Gingrich will only take Georgia. Ron Paul will not win any states at all, but he will pick up some delegates nevertheless. When the dust settles on Wednesday morning, it seems unlikely that Romney will suddenly be in a commanding position, though he will probably remain in the lead in terms of convention delegates.

If something like this is the result, then Super Tuesday will not decide anything. Romney will remain determined to grind down his opponents through superior organization and negative advertising. It has defeated all the challengers so far.  Santorum can say, "Well, of course Romney won his home state, and he won Virginia, where I was not on the ballot, but take that away and we ran about even." And Gingrich can say to himself, "Let Romney and Santorum keep hammering each other, and I will emerge as the least bloodied, most experienced candidate." And Paul? He does not seem to be in this contest to win it, but to have influence at the Convention. The less decisive Tuesday is, the better for him.

It looks like Romney will have to slug it out with Santorum for quite a while yet, and the longer it takes, the less excited the Republicans are likely to be about either of them, or about their chances in the fall. (Unless, of course, they become more civil and centrist, an unlikely development.) 

George Will, the usually level-headed and reasonable conservative columnist has already given up on the possibility of retaking the White House. He has just put out a column saying that the Republicans should focus on winning seats in Congress, instead.

What can be done about Syrian Atrocities?

After the American Century

Paul Conroy, a British photographer covered recent events in Syria. He says, "I'm an ex-artillery gunner so I can kind of follow the patterns - they are systematically moving through neighborhoods with munitions that are used for battlefields. It's not a war, it's a massacre, an indiscriminate massacre of men, woman and children."

For weeks the Syrian government has been slaughtering, imprisoning, and torturing its own citizens. At least 5000 people have been killed. For weeks China and Russia have blocked the UN from taking any action. For weeks we have seen the Syrian people suffer, as their dictatorship refuses to allow the Red Cross to evacuate women, children, the aged and the wounded. This is one of the most scandalous abuses of state power in recent memory.

In today's paper (Politiken, Denmark) I see that people are going to raise money for the victims. This is close to being pathetic nonsense. We watch while the Syrian government slaughters its own citizens. It has used artillery and it has posted snipers on rooftops to kill anyone moving around in Homs and some of its other cities. We watch their barbaric acts on YouTube, and hear the voices of the victims calling for help. And now we are asked to give money, to help people whose government for weeks would not allow the Red Cross access to them. 

The fund-raisers are well intentioned, but they are confused. They have made a category mistake. This is not a natural disaster, like the earthquake in Haiti. It is not like a drought in Africa. The catastrophe is the Syrian dictatorship itself. There is no point in raising and sending money when the government blocks the aid. Sending aid presupposes a government that is glad to get it and cooperative in getting the air distributed.

Instead, all efforts should be focused on removing the Syrian Asad government, and on pressuring the Chinese and the Russians to stop supporting that government. Raising aid money for victims in this situation is not going to help. Why send money to a place where the government will try to steal it, subvert its use, or prevent the aid from reaching those who need it? No fund raising is gong to help in this situation, unless it is for refugees from Syrian who have fled to other nations.

What would help? 

(1) Petitions to the Russian and Chinese governments would help. 

(2) Boycotts of Chinese and Russian goods would help. 

(3) Refusals to take vacations or attend conferences in China and Russia would help. So long as these two members of the UN Security Council keep supporting the ruthless Syrian regime, no amount of aid is going to make any difference.

(4) Taking the Syrian government's leaders and its generals to court for crimes against humanity will help. These shameless leaders must be held accountable, and the case against them must be prepared in detail.

(5) Protests outside Syrian embassies would help.

(6) Freezing of all Syrian assets in European and American banks, pending resolution of the crisis, would help.

This is not a complete list, but it suggests the kinds of actions that need to be taken. Raising money for the victims is not going to help very much, because there will continue to be more victims as long as the Syrians are ruled by a vicious regime.

Politiken is right about one thing. We are not helpless. But it is wrong to tell people that giving money to the victims is the solution, As if we had any access to the victims. The considerable danger is that the Syrian state itself will get that aid or prevent it from ever reaching those who need it.

Election 2012: Santorum and Romney battle before crucial primaries

After the American Century

Santorum's recent surge has subsided somewhat. The latest polls suggest that Romney will probably win Arizona next week. But in Michigan Santorum trails only by a 2 points in the average of all  polls (i.e. inside the margin of error), and in one of them he leads. The overall trend line is against him, however, as Romney has been gaining back ground in Michigan while Santorum has been falling, from an average of 37.8 down to 34.8. Romney, on the back of many radio and TV advertisements, has clawed his way from 28.5 to 36.8. The strategy in these advertisements has been to depict Santorum as a Washington insider who has not voted consistently for Conservative issues. Meanwhile, however, Romney revealed in off the cuff remarks that he and his wife own two Cadillacs and several other cars, parked at his homes in different parts of the country. Way to connect with the average American!

Curiously, Romney might be doing Santorum a favor, not just in his gaffe about his fleet of cars, but in terms of how his opponent is perceived by voters. For Romney is trying to look more right-wing while presenting Santorum as too moderate, too willing to compromise. Moderate and independent voters might thereby find him more attractive, however, and this would help Santorum if he became the nominee. This could happen if he manages to win either Arizona or Michigan and follows it up with what appears right now to be a certain win in the very important Ohio Primary a week later. Moreover, polls showing him running just as well as (or as badly as) Romney against Obama - which is to say that they both lose by more than 7 points.

By comparison with the two front-runners, Gingrich and Paul are far off the pace, picking up between them about 20% of the votes in Michigan and 25% in Arizona. Both are surely looking forward to Super Tuesday, a week later, when Gingrich seems certain to win his home state of Georgia and to do well in several other states. Paul can also hope for a stronger showing on Super Tuesday in the most conservative states such as Alaska, North Dakota, and Idaho.

Overall, the situation remains volatile. Romney keeps grinding away with his money and organization, but Santorum continues to make a strong challenge, arguably stronger than that of the others who briefly rose in the polls during the fall and early winter. The next ten days will tell us whether Romney can at least break out of the pack or whether Santorum is keep matters uncertain. Moreover, the longer Gingrich and Paul remain in the competition, the less certain anyone can wrap up the nomination before the Convention.

Denmark: Kickstarting the Economy?

After the American Century

A few words on the depressing state of Danish politics. For weeks there seem to be two stories. The first is that the ruling coalition is unable to define and put through its pet project, one of no interest to the majority of the country outside Copenhagen, namely to charge drivers tolls when they drive in and out of the city. This should not be a national issue. It should not be a headline every day, as it has been. It should not clog the radio waves. But the government did not have a clear plan when it began,  the coalition is not united, and the government is so myopic, it takes an enormous interest in all things to do with Copenhagen. Even worse, it now appears that after months of wrangling, nothing will be done except to find a new tax somewhere, no doubt paid by all Danes not just those in Copenhagen, so the city's bus fares can be reduced instead. Pathetic politics. Disturbing lack of perspective.

The second political topic is more general, namely that so many Danes are unemployed or otherwise living on some form of state subsidy. Before the election, the now governing coalition proclaimed that they would "kickstart" the economy by spending more money on all sorts of wonderful projects. Most of them would be projects that needed to be done anyway in the next decade, but they would be moved forward. Kickstart! We heard that word every day during the campaign. Once they got elected, however, the new government discovered that they could not spend more money without creating a larger deficit than was acceptable to the EU. This was awkward with Greece tottering on the edge of bankruptcy, especially as Denmark took over as temporary leader of the EU from January to June of 2012. So instead, the government has been busy kicking various groups in the face. They have not kicked them literally, of course, but one group after another is being blamed for draining the public coffers. The government has attacked the old for retiring too soon, the young who are not getting an education, the unemployed (even though more than 150,000 jobs have disappeared), the hospitals for being inefficient, and so on. 

The real meaning of "kickstart"

The new target is the universities. It is suddenly their fault that the young are not working. They are accused, rather vaguely, of not training people in the right fields. The rather absurd argument is that new graduates - who began their university education in 2006 during a world-wide boom and cannot find jobs today during a European bust - would have gotten jobs if the universities had done something (what exactly is not clear) differently. In 2006 the former government pressed universities to take in as many people as possible. The headlines then insisted that there would soon be an acute shortage of labor as the baby boomers began to retire. One "expert" after another proclaimed that there would be a dire need for highly trained people. Denmark would not have enough school teachers, gymnasium teachers, university lecturers, and researchers. It would need to import thousands of people from abroad to staff its hospitals and to keep its industries competitive, And so on.

The students who began in 2006 are emerging with their MA degrees into a much different economic situation than the one predicted. The government is forcing older people to work longer before they retire. It is firing hundreds of school teachers. It is firing lawyers and economists from the ministries. It is generally cutting budgets, like most other European countries. And in this situation the new graduates are not finding work. But it is more than absurd, it is hypocritical and beneath contempt for the government to blame the universities for unemployment. They have trained people as they were asked to do. It takes 5 or 6 years to do the job. During those years the world was convulsed by an economic contraction. Jobs disappeared, but the Danish universities were not responsible for that.

More generally, the government got itself elected by sounding as though they would adopt a Keynesian economic policy. It claimed it would kickstart the economy through deficit spending, as Roosevelt did in the United States during the New Deal or Kennedy did in the early 1960s. But once in power the new government proved to have quite a different economic policy. They are in fact going to run the Danish economy more according to the Chicago School, or the Milton Friedman brand of economics. I wish they would listen to Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist whose articles in the New York Times continually have criticized the EU for adopting cutbacks as a "cure" for weak economies. This policy resembles the ancient practice of bleeding patients who are ill.

Deficit spending therefore is not on the Danish agenda. Instead of a kickstart, apparently it is time to cut the budget and kick the victims. So, blame the unemployed, blame the young, blame the pensioners, blame the universities, and believe it or not, to some extent even blame the handicapped and the mentally ill. 

This is a socialist government in name only.

Historical Document, 1863: Mississippi Steamboat"The Ruth" Burns, 1863

How the New York Observer Story looked

After the American Century

 

Here are two accounts of a steamboat accident, the first from the New York Observer and Chronicle, August 13, 1863, the second an eye-witness account from The Philadelphia Inquirer  which supplements the first story in many interesting ways. The disaster occurred in the midst of the Civil War, just five weeks after the North won the battle of Vicksburg and thereby gained control over the entire Mississippi Valley.

Steamer Burned and Great Loss of Life

from the New York Observer and Chronicle, August 13, 1863,

 

A despatch from Cairo dated Cairo Wednesday August 5: The steamer Ruth, valued at $10,000, was burned last night at midnight at the foot of Island No. 1  She was bound for Helena [Arkansas], and had on board eight paymasters and their clerks, with $2,600,000 in "greenbacks" to pay General Grant's army. There were about 200 persons on board, of whom 30 were lost. The captain, the first and second officers, and all the rest of the crew were saved. The papers and all the books of the boat were lost. Thirty-one soldiers of company I, North Wisconsin, acted as a guard to the paymasters, under the command of Lieut. Courrier. Of these one corporal and four privates were lost, and three kills by a stage plank falling on them while in the water. The boat had aboard 99 head of beef cattle, 120 mules, 400 tons of commissary and settlers' stores, and about 100 tons of private freight, which were lost.

The fire broke out in the aft part of the boat; some say between the decks others in the nursery rooms. As soon as the fire was discovered the boat was headed for the shore on the Missouri side, and struck the bank with full force, the fire having driven the engineers from their posts, and the engines, consequently, continued to work. As soon as she struck, a number jumped ashore, but her stern soon swung round down stream, and as the engines were still working her bow was burned from the shore and she again started down the river. When she left the shore about thirty persons were aboard, nearly all of whom must have perished. The soldiers are said to have acted heroically, and to have stood by the boxes containing the money until it was certain that all was consumed. The boxes were bound and too heavy to be removed, besides, the flames spread all over the boat in less than five minutes.

This image from The Police Gazette, 1888, does not depict the disaster described but a similar incident.

THE DISASTER ON THE MISSISSIPPI.; Destruction of the Steamer Ruth.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer August 14, 1863

CAIRO, Ill., Aug. 5, 1863.

I am one of the sixteen members of our department who left St. Louis on the evening of the 3d inst. in the ill-fated steamer Ruth for Vicksburgh, and now, through the blessing of Almighty God, am able to write you this brief statement of the dreadful termination of our voyage. Our trip was a quiet one and peculiarly pleasant -- as so many of us were familiarly acquainted with each other, and the boat was not crowded, having but a few passengers -- in comparison to my experience on former journeys on this river. Under the Major's charge was the sum of two millions six hundred thousand dollars, and the corps of paymasters.

As a guard, we had a company of the Ninth Wisconsin infantry, under command of Lieut. COURIER. We reached Cairo at 9 P.M., and most of us remained conversing upon the front deck until the boat departed, which was at 11 o'clock. Feeling fatigued, I retired to my state-room at this hour, but not to sleep long, for I was suddenly wakened by the Major at 12 o'clock, who stated that the boat was on fire, imploring me to get up immediately. I sprang from my berth, took my watch from under my pillow, placed it on a chair, and hurriedly drew on my pants. Looking from my state-room door upon the guards. I saw that the fire was in the stern of the boat, which was making rapid progress to the shore. I therefore thought that the advance of the flames would be slow. Vain conceit! I had only time to throw on my vest and coat, draw on my socks and one boot, having the other partially on, when the fire burst into my stateroom door. I seized my watch in one hand, and my carpetsack (which was by the chair) in the other, and dashed through the smoke and fire for the front of the boat. At this moment there was a terrible crash and jar, rolling the smoke in blinding clouds, and spurting the flames through the entire vessel. I knew we had struck the shore, and felt I was safe. Seeing the front portion of the cabin free from fire. I took a rapid glance of our money and property stored there, and went to the head of the stairs on the outer deck, which I found filled with men struggling to get precedence -- among them four of our guard with one of our smaller boxes. I will here leave myself and tell you of Maj. BRINTON's movements. Upon leaving me, he informs me, he went to the front upper deck, and there gave directions to the guard, who were cool and obedient. He leaned over the railing, as the soldiers were on the the deck below, not being aware that the boat was close to shore, when she struck. The blow had all the force that two powerful engines could give it, and the boat felt to me like a telescope that was being closed up. As the vessel struck, the Major was precipitated head-foremost to the deck below, but, fortunately for him, struck some one beneath with his shoulder, which broke the fall, and he was only severely bruised. Some poor fellow, name unknown, came down with him, but he struck solidly upon deck and never stirred afterward. For a second the Major was unable to move, but upon recovering found that the boat had not remained upon the bank, but was rapidly receding to the middle of the river; the gang plank had been shoved on shore and was just falling when he sprang upon it and reached the shore as it fell. It was fortunate he did so, as he was too severely hurt to swim. In the fall of the plank three of the soldiers I had seen carrying the box of money were struck beneath the water, never to rise again.

All this time I was unconscious of the boat's movements, and when I found the stairs clear and had reached the deck, I discovered, to my dismay, that we were some distance from the shore. A group of men stood with me on the receding vessel, debating upon the chances of a jump and swim for life. Every one seemed calm, and I heard men speaking, but not a sound of excitement could be defected in their voices. Major JAMESON and Major WHITE were standing talking with poor LAMSON, who was lost, (Maj. JAMESON's clerk, the only child of a Boston clergyman,) persuading him to jump with a shutter, he being unable to swim. I went to the bow of the boat, put my watch in my pocket, took off my coat, vest and boots and laid them on my valise. While doing this, Maj. JAMESON had jumped overboard with his trunk, which was light and buoyant, and saved his life. Maj. WHITE followed immediately after, and struck out for shore. As I was taking off my last boot the steam drum burst with a terrible explosion, and the next instant I was under water, and soon engaged in the most terrible struggle for life that I have ever dreamed of. It will give you some idea of my position when I tell you I was nearly as far from the shore as from Market to Chestnut-street, an easy distance fur one to swim who was prepared for it; but with heavy clothing, and muscles relaxed from sickness, I found it a dreadful task. The engine of the starboard wheel had stopped, but that of the larboard was in motion, and this gradually threw the stern of the boat round, so I was obliged to swim with all my power against a strong current to avoid the burning stern. I passed it, but my head felt as if it was being toasted, and I several times went under water to avoid its intensity.

After this I swam more slowly, but felt my strength was almost gone; the shore seemed dark and distant, I looked back at the boat; just then some poor fellow sprang for his life; as he touched the water a bullock (the boat was loaded with them) jumped upon him; the bullock swam away; the man never rose again. I was now near the shore, but had not strength to reach it. Mr. GREVES, seeing me, and how exhausted I was, caught a cotton-wood tree, which is long and slim, and held it to me. I used my only remaining strength, and, reaching, seized it, and was drawn to shore. I cannot express what my feelings were when I reached that beach. I saw but a few men scattered here and there out of two hundred we started with, and Maj. BRINTOM not among them. My strength was gone. I thought I was dying. When I recovered a little. I found those who came off the boat first had clambered up the bank, which was very steep and overgrown with cotton-wood. The heat of the burning vessel was too severe for any to remain below.

Among those thus saved was the Major. You may imagine my delight. This takes some time to relate, but you will scarcely credit it, when I assure you, that from the breaking out of the fire up to the time when I jumped overboard was three minutes, and then the fire was bursting from the windows of the office in the front of the boat. Not a soul could have lived five minutes from its commencement. The boat was a new one, and had the most perfect apparatus for subduing fire of any on the Western waters, but so rapid was the progress of the flames that it was impossible to make use of it.

I need not tell you that I saved nothing but what I swam to shore in, and found myself without coat, vest, boots and hat. We kindled a fire, and, having arrayed myself like Adam in Paradise, I dried the few clothes that remained to me, and was soon again comfortable. I am thankful to several unknown persons for acts of kindness. At four in the morning the steamer Shinglis came from Columbus, and took all that remained to Cairo, where we were soon comfortably located, but will proceed by next train to St. Louis. The loss by this disaster is greater than any that ever occurred in river navigation, not only a large amount of money being destroyed, but a very valuable cargo and vessel. To the members of the Pay Department it is irreparable, as all the papers accumulated since entering service are destroyed. I arrived at Cairo at 6 o'clock, and after writing some letters and sending telegrams, I went with Maj. BRINTON on board the Ravina, to view the wreck and see if we could find any trace of bodies or valuables. We found it three miles below where she first struck, in deep water -- only a few timbers, pieces of the machinery, and the side of a wheelhouse being left to mark its resting-place. Floating on the surface of the water, tied to timber, were the charred and swollen remains of cattle and mules.

We found no trace of any of the lost, and returned to Cairo too late for to-day's train. I start for St. Louis to-morrow, and will again write. We seem to be reaping nothing but sorrow in this district. I have just learned of the death of Maj. M.K. HAZELTON, at Memphis. He was a gentleman and a fine officer, and as great a loss to the Government as to his friends. Nine others are very ill; we can't stand the climate. HARRY.