Blackfoot News

FLAGS FOR UNCLE SAM.

For more than thirty years the flags
which our ships and men-of-war have
flaunted all over the world have been
made in one suite of rooms at the
Brooklyn navy yard.
It is the boast of the department that
the workers turn out flags better made
than those obtainable in any other portion of the globe. Not only are American flags made but flags of all nations, for each warship is required to be fitted out with a flag of every nation which sends ships upon the sea. James Crimmins, the foreman, knows more about flags than any one else in the world. He weighs the bunting, tests the colors, measures the stripes, cuts the cloth, carves out the stars and inspects the sewing.
The department reserved for the measurement of the flags resembles a gigantic tennis court, only in place of white lines the floor is inlaid with strips and plates of brass. The measurements of the flags must be perfect. The floor is so good and so large that the semi-monthly balls of the officers stationed at the Brooklyn yards are held in the room.
Some of the women who sew the flags together have worked for fifteen years. Machinery and electricity have done away with the necessity of sewing the flags by hand, but the women who sew on stars are expert needlewomen. A certain number of stitches is allowed to one inch and only careful hands can do the work. Cutting out the white stars is interesting to watch. The foreman folds the cloth twenty times, places a metal star on the pile and marks the pattern. Then with chisel and mallet he cuts out a whole shower of stars at once.
The flags used by the navy have to endure frost and snow, rain storms and blazing suns, and therefore great care is exercised in the choice of goods and coloring and many testing devices are used before choice is made of cloth.