While all of the Roeblings have possessed, in a great degree, the qualities of leadership, yet they have always recognized the necessity of surrounding themselves with a strong organization capable of carrying on this great industry after they had ceased their earthly activities.
It was particularly under the regime of Karl Roebling that the strong foundation was laid for the present powerful organization--each department highly specialized and in charge of experienced well-trained heads, ably aided by a corps of competent assistants, all functioning smoothly like a well-balanced machine. Karl left this as his heritage to the business. He never did things by halves. His working day was long and intense, but to one so constituted it could not be otherwise. During the world war and its aftermath the added responsibilities he so cheerfully assumed, contributed largely toward bringing to an end a life full of early accomplishments.
Ferdinand W. Roebling, Jr., the remaining son, now vice-president and treasurer, is an able engineer. His early training with the company was entirely in the manufacturing and engineering side of the business. In more recent years, however, he has devoted his attention to its financial affairs. His close contact with his father and brother, his thorough knowledge of the company's policies, have well fitted him to sustain the Roebling name and all it represents in the business world.
The main or first plant of the company centers around the site of the original buildings. Its structures, yards and tracks cover more than thirty-five acres of ground about a mile from the center of the city. The Delaware and Raritan Canal and the Trenton Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad pass along its western boundary and directly before the door of the offices. The office building was erected in 1857 by John A. Roebling as a residence and later, as manufacture crowded in around, it was given over to business uses. The spur tracks of the Pennsylvania traverse the company enclosure.
Nearest to the office building are some of the structures that Mr. Roebling built in the first periods of business expansion, among them the old rope shop, where by methods of his own devising he strove to meet the growing demands for rope. Some of the machinery he built is still in service in production of standard lines, showing how swiftly and how far, from crude beginnings, his active mind advanced along the road to better production, and how efficient management can prolong the life of a mechanism that is honestly built in the beginning.