atliata. Jfeui fork ^.Ak^vi^W-rs-cS-r. Cornell University Library TN703 .B98 1920 Fifty years of Iron and steel olln 3 1924 030 690 998 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030690998 Fifty Years OF Iron and Steel JOSEPH G. BUTLER, Jr. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel BY JOSEPH G. BUTLER, Jr. An address delivered at the Tkirteenth General Meetingf of The American Iron and Steel Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 26, 1917, together with additional data con- cerning the early use of iron and steel, a brief historical reference to the formation and organization of the United States Steel Corporation, and some facts concerning the American Steel Industry and the World War. Embellished with portraits of men who have been and are novi^ most distinguished in the development of American Iron and Steel Industries, and interesting reproductions and illus' trations depicting the earlier conditions in these industries. ^ THE PENTON PRESS CLEVELAND 1920 M y\f f) / 7 ^ Two Hundred copies of this edition have . / been printed of which this — i-l- is number COl'YHIGHT, 1019 JOSEPH G. BUTLER, Jb. Yoiingstown, Ohio vt Author's Note on Fifth Edition The Fourth Edition of this work, issued in 1919, was expected to satisfy the demand for it. This has not been the case, and a Fifth Edition appeared necessary. It is gratifying to find that during the time which the Fourth Edition has been in the hands of its readers, largely persons interested in and familiar with the subject, they have offered no suggestions requiring any changes in the text. This Fifth Edition is, therefore, practically a reprint of the Fourth Edition. It will be limited to 200 copies and will be distributed principally among libraries and persons who have asked for a copy of the book. CONTENTS Page Fifty Years of Iron and Steel 1 Made Iron Without Coke 4 Bessemer Process Begins Era of Steel 6 Mushet's Discovery 10 Furnace Sets Production Mark 17 Old Stacks Picturesque 19 Coal Caused Valley Development 27 Early Development of Coke as Fuel 30 Lake Superior Ores 37 Improvement in Handling Ores 44 Iron and Steel Industry in the South 46 Development of Steel 56 Wellman Developed the Open-Hearth 70 Tariff Plays an Important Part 72 Broad Vision of Leadership 78 The United States Steel Corporation 80 Friends Who Have Made Good 92 The Kaiser Miscalculated -. 97 Supplement (Appendix) 99 Addenda 103 Early History of the Use and Manufacture of Iron and Steel 106 American Steel in the World War 119 The Call to Duty 146 Our Pledge 148 Iron and Steel Industries in War Work and Financing 150 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Joseph G. Butler, Jr Frontispiece James Ward, Builder of First Rolling Mill in Ohio 3 William Kelly, Original Discoverer of Pneumatic Process 7 Kelly Steel Converter 9 Sir Henry Bessemer, For Whom Bessemer Process was Named.. H Hon. David Tod, Civil War Governor of Ohio 13 David Thomas, Inventor of Thomas Hot Blast 15 Old Spearman Furnace at Sharpsville, Pa 16 Furnace Erected in 1830 at Farrandsville, Pa 18 Samuel M. Felton, One of the Founders of the Pennsylvania Steel Co 21 Old Furnace at Baileys, in Pennsylvania 22 An Abandoned Iron Furnace, Easton, Pa 25 First Mill for Rolling Boiler Plates 26 James Kennedy, "Big Jim," an Old Time Furnace Man 29 Henry Clay Frick, Whose Strength of Purpose, Integrity, and Ability Have Been Felt Throughout America's Great Industries 33 John Fritz, Whose Many Inventions During a Long and Useful Life Had Much to do With the Progress of the American Iron & Steel Industries 35 Explosion Caused by Mesaba Ore 36 Capt. Eber B. Ward, Responsible for Construction of First Success- ful Bessemer Converter in America 39 Bill of Lading — First Shipment of Lake Superior Ore 41 Bill of Lading — First Shipment of Mesaba Ore 43 Julian Kennedy, An Engineering Genius 47 James M. Swank, Author and Statistician 49 Sir Lowthian Bell, Eminent English Metallurgical Engineer and Writer 51 Joseph Wharton, Founder of the Bethlehem Steel Co 53 William R. Jones (Captain Bill Jones), a Genius in Blast Furnace Practice 55 James Park, Jr., a Pioneer in the Manufacture of Crucible Steel 57 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS— Continued Page Daniel J. Morrell, Pioneer of the Policy of Protection to American Industries 59 Andrew Wheeler, Treasurer of the American Iron & Steel Associa- tion 61 Benjamin Franklin Jones, Founder of the Jones & Laughhn Steel Co 63 Robert W. Hunt, Who Rolled First Order of Steel Rails 65 J. A. Campbell, President of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. . . 67 Samuel T. Wellman, Pioneer in Steel Manufacture 71 Charles E. Smith, First Statistician of the American Iron Trade. . 73 William McKinley, Twenty-fifth President of the United States . . 75 James A. Farrell, President, United States Steel Corporation 77 Samuel Mather, Leading Spirit in the Development of Lake Superior Ore Industry 79 Hon. Elbert H. Gary, Foremost Figure in the Iron and Steel World Today 81 J. P. Morgan, The Most Eminent Financier of the Nineteenth Cen- tury 83 Andrew Carnegie, For Many Years a Dominant Figure in the Iron and Steel Industries 85 Chas. M. Schwab, A Most Interesting Figure in the American Iron and Steel Industries 87 Westerman Iron Company's Rolling Mills, Sharon, Pa 96 Committee Appointed to Consider Duluth's Claim to be Constituted a Basing Point for Steel Shipments, August, 1918 121 Powell Stackhouse, Who Earned Lligh Reputation by Lifelong Service With the Cambria Iron and Cambria Steel Companies. . 123 Charles A. Otis, St., Founder of the Otis Steel Company — Onetime Mayor of Cleveland — an Aggressive, Able and Practical Steel Manufacturer 127 Alexander Lyman Holley, Eminent Metallurgical Engineer. The Wonderful Development of the Bessemer Steel Process in Ameri- ca Was Largely Due to His Efforts 131 Henry Chisholm, One of the First Manufacturers to Successfully Develop the Bessemer Steel Process 135 J. Leonard Replogle, Whose Rapid Advancement Illustrates How Ability Wins in the Steel Business 145 INTRODUCTION By JOHN A. PENTON TO HAVE lived during a period of over sixty years of the world's greatest accomplishment and to have been an eye-witness especially of the great development in this country's iron and steel industry, should be almost glory enough. To have been, during this period, an active factor in this constructive work, at all times taking a leading part in all of the industry's activities, makes the author of this paper a unique figure among American men of affairs — men who have done things. To have been an eye-witness of iron and steel development from the conversion of the first barrel of Lake Superior ore to a period when over sixty million tons come down the Lakes and other millions are smelted in the Upper Lake region, is something few have experienced. To have been connected with the pig iron industry when only six hundred thousand tons were made a year and be still connected with it when nearly forty million tons have been produced in this same period, is an honor that probably no one else can claim. And to have been in the industry contemporaneous with Sir Henry Bessemer, Andrew Carnegie, John Fritz, Edgar Thomson, and other great pioneers, and active long before the days of James M. Swank, E. H. Gary, Charles E. Schwab, James A. Farrell, Samuel Mather, W. L. Brown and other leaders of the present, and to be interested still in the steel production in a year when over forty-two million tons have been made, is something to talk about. But to be able also to look cheerfully and optimistically into the future and expect to be on the job helping to make a hundred million tons of steel a year and to tell about it in a way to charm and hold the reader as these pages do — why what's the use — there is only one "Uncle Joe" in the steel industry. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel By Joseph G. Butler, Jr. N HONORING me with a place on your program, the Committee evi- dently regarded half a century as long enough for any man to be actively engaged in the iron and steel industries. As a matter of fact my experience in them covers a period of sixty years, for I became shipping clerk and assistant manager at the Iron Rolling Mill of James Ward & Company, Niles, Ohio, in 1857, after having spent three years as a clerk in the store connected with that enterprise, during which time I added to my accomplishments the mus- ical art of speaking Welsh and also acquired the ambition to become an ironmaster. These sixty years cover the greatest progress the world has ever known. They have brought forth so many startling discoveries, so many Fifty Years of Iron and Steel striking inventions, so many achievements en- riching and broadening human life, that merely to mention all of them would be a tedious task. Most of these were the work of American genius. They are the fruits of individual liberty and just reward for individual effort first known to the world after our forefathers had established free- dom in enduring form upon this Continent. The mere contemplation of this progress should serve to remind us of our obligations at this time, when civilization is turning the sharpest corner in its history, and when the right of men to self-government and self-development is threatened as it has never been threatened before. Sixty years ago there was no such thing as the steel business in America. The trifling pro- duction of "bHster" steel, amounting to a few thousand tons per year, was not worthy of that designation, but the iron business had already laid the foundations of its future greatness, and this in spite of the fact that we had then com- paratively no ores, no efiicient fuel, no adequate machinery and very little of the practical and scientific knowledge so widely diffused today. JAMES WARD With William Ward and Thomas Russell, he Built at Niles in 1841, the First Rolling Mill in the State of Ohio. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel MADE IRON WITHOUT COKE When I entered the iron business, we made iron without coke — a task resembling that of the Hebrews who were compelled to make bricks without straw. We had what would now be considered no ore, for the chief supply was derived from an occasional pocket in the hills or gathered from swamps or the beds of creeks. We had no furnace tops, no blast stoves, no hot blast as we know it now, no metallurgists, and in the light of the present experience, no markets. We knew nothing of the value of gas, natural or manufactured, a fuel indispensable in the manufacture of iron and steel in large quanti- ties, but we did have grit and energy — the de- termination to do our best, and the same pride in doing things that we have now. There were some compensations, of course. The payrolls were not so large and we were not troubled with a shortage of cars to move our product. I recently came across a statement issued by the superintendent of the Ward fur- nace, operated under lease at Youngstown, about the time of my entrance into the iron business. It reads as follows: Fifty Years oj Iron and Steel Youngs town, Ohio, August 25, 1853, Messrs. J ames ' Ward & Company, Gents. Below you have the furnace proceeds for last week: Charges Coal Ore Lime Aug. 13 90 400 480 160 iVi 14 84 a u a 7 15 87 u u u 7J^ 16 87 u tt u 6H 17 84 li u a 7 18 84 « u u 5V2 3300 19 81 a u u GVi 1500 597 118Ji 143 48 47H metal 4800 casting Our next payroll will amount to something like $200. We ought to have at least $20 in cash. Yours, etc., etc. James Cochran, Superintendent. PAID MEN IN GOODS The payroll referred to was for one month. The cash was needed to give some of the men a little money for some special purpose. As a rule, they were paid in store goods. Among some other furnace records of these days I have seen an entry reading: "Paid James Dobson six dollars to git married". At some of the funnaces in that locality it was the custom to give the men a dollar in cash at Christmas and the Fourth of July. At other times they got along without any money. From Fifty Years of Iron and Steel all of which it will be seen that many things, among them getting married and running a blast furnace, were done with less capital than at the present time. There was at that time no thought of making steel at the ordinary iron works. The equip- ment consisted of one or more small heating furnaces, one or two trains of rolls, perhaps a forge fire or two, a few puddling furnaces and occasionally some machinery for making cut nails. The product was usually either simply pig iron, or merchant bars, a commodity which, by the way, has not changed its name in the whole 250 years since iron was first formed by forging into that shape. BESSEMER PROCESS BEGINS ERA OF STEEL The steel business was really born in Ameri- ca when the Bessemer process came into use here, which was not until about 1864. The idea of removing carbon and silicon from blast furnace iron in this way was undoubtedly first con- ceived by an American, although he failed to develop the machinery for its use, and, as a consequence, reaped very little benefit from it. When William Kelly, who first decarburized 6 WILLIAM KELLY Original Discoverer of the Pneumatic Process for Converting Iron Into Steel. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel iron by means of an air blast in a furnace he had erected for that purpose at Eddyville, Ky., about 1850, came to file his claim for a patent in 1856 he found that Henry Bessemer had filed similar claims and been granted patents a few- days previously. Kelly had worked for years on his scheme, which was identical in principle, but he had not yet made it a commercial success and did not attempt to make steel in that man- ner. Nevertheless, his use of the pneumatic process first was not disputed and he was granted an interference as against the Bessemer patent. I can distinctly recall a visit made by this man to Niles while I was a member of the Ward family, being employed in the Ward store, about 1854. He came there to enHst the interest of James Ward, then regarded as an authority on the iron question, in behalf of his experiments, and was a guest at the Ward table on several occasions. How far he succeeded in his errand may be judged by the fact that Mr. Ward said after he left that he was crazy. The invention of the Bessemer process, or rather its perfection and development, is gen- erally regarded as the longest single step in the march of progress that has brought the iron The First Pneumatic Converter Used in the United States. Photographed on the Lawn of the Cambria Steel Company Offices in Johnstown, Pa., Where It is Pre- served as a Curiosity. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel and steel industries to their present stage, but there are other discoveries that seem to me even more important. We cannot make steel with- out iron, and, therefore, of even more moment than this invention were such things as the dis- covery of the Lake Superior ore ranges, the in- vention of the furnace top, the use of coke and its economical manufacture, the development of high blast temperatures, and especially in view of its recent rapid adoption, the Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnace. All of the various steps in these improvements have been made during the time in which I was greatly interested in them and it has been my pleasure and privilege to follow them closely and to know something of the trials and dis- appointments undergone by men who conceived and brought them to perfection, or rather to their present state; for it is entirely probable that future generations will continue the work with the same zest and at least part of the success that has attended it so far. RECALLS MUSHEt's DISCOVERY As has been stated, I met Mr. Kelly when he was trying to make his great discovery 10 SIR HENRY BESSEMER For Whom the Bessemer Steel Process was Named. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel a practical success. I saw him on a number of occasions later, when he was working to unravel the skein of litigation that tied up the Bessemer process and prevented its adoption in this coun- try until ten years after it was patented here. I can recall the announcement in the technical journals of that day of the discovery by Robert Mushet, a Scotchman, that spiegeleisen would recarburize iron blown in a converter and thus produce steel. We did not know of this in America for some time after Mushet's patents were granted in England, which was in the latter part of 1856. Up to that time Kelly did not suspect that he had found a new way to make steel, and had urged his process on iron manu- facturers only as a cheap and rapid method of purifying iron for rolling mills, claiming that it would take the place of puddling — something it has, by the way, never done. Likewise I was privileged to watch every step in the development of the hot blast. At the Ward furnace at Niles, and in other furnaces in the Valley, the blast was heated by passing it through cast iron pipes, and these lasted but a short time, their renewal and replacement keep- ing the local foundries busy and interfering 12 HON. DAVID TOD Pioneer in the Manufacture of Iron and Mining of Coal in the Mahoning Valley. Pioneer Railroad Builder. Civil War Governor of Ohio. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel seriously with continuous operation. We had what we called a hot blast, but it was really only warm in comparison with modern practice. The furnaceman tested its temperature with lead and zinc, strips of which were inserted at the point where it entered the furnace. If the blast melted lead it was not quite hot enough, and if it melted zinc it was too hot, so we believed, and would burn the iron. Between the melt- ing point of lead and that of zinc, as we now know, there is a very considerable difference, so that our wind varied about as much in tempera- ture as it did in pressure. If you reflect that the blast in those days was blown usually by an engine that had been worn out on a Missis- sippi River steamboat, and that it was the usual thing for the men about a furnace to operate the walking beam when the engine broke down, you will have some light on the strength and steadiness of the hot blast of that day. It was about 1868 that the Player hot blast stove was brought from England to this country. It was a decided improvement. This stove in- troduced an innovation in being located on the ground instead of at the tunnel-head. The first stove to employ the regenerative principle was 14 DAVID THOMAS Inventor of the Thomas Hot Blast. Made the First Pig Iron with Anthracite Coal as Fuel. o U en o > 2 O Fifty Years of Iron and Steel the Whitwell stove, and it was lined with fire- brick, also a new idea. Both it and the Player stoves immediately increased the output of furnaces and made larger stacks possible, al- though it was many years before they sup- planted the old Thomas stoves at many Ameri- can furnaces. The use of furnace gas for heating the blast in this country we owe to the Germans, the first eifort to bring these gases down and burn them under stoves and boilers in America hav- ing been made by C. E. Detmold, a German engineer, residing in New York about 1850. The new plan cost a good deal of money and was slowly adopted for that reason. We did not get to it in Ohio for some years after it was used in the East. I recall very distinctly the first furnace top installed at Youngstown. It was thought highly dangerous by the workmen, and there was at first some difficulty in getting them to work around the stack. FURNACE SETS PRODUCTrON MARK With the use of better stoves and the intro- duction of more powerful blowing engines, fur- naces began to grow in size and more attention 17 P^ Fifty Years of Iron and Steel was paid to their lines. It was realized that much improvement could be made in the out- put, and progress in this direction was rapid. By 1875 it was known that blast furnaces could be operated successfully up to eighty feet in height, and, with coke for fuel and proper equip- ment for blowing and heating the blast, could be made to yield much larger product than had been expected up to that time. But it was not until about 1880 that one of these larger furnaces reached an output much above 100 tons per day. This was the Isabella, located at Etna, near Pittsburg. During three years — 1881, 1882 and 1883 — this furnace produced an average of 1090 tons per week — the best ever done by a blast furnace up to that time in this or any other country. OLD STACKS PICTURESQUE To those who have had experience only with the present day blast furnace and modern fur- nace practice, it is impossible to portray the conditions surrounding our industry at the time when I first became interested in it. The old stack of those days with its equipment, would be picturesque in the extreme if it could be set in 19 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel the vicinity of a modern steel works. The stack was usually about thirty-five feet in height and built of masonry, lined on the inside with a poor quality of fire-brick. It was square in section, on the outside, the bottom being about twenty- four feet each way and the top somewhat smaller, this depending on the ideas of the man who designed it. The stack was usually located against a bluff, the double purpose being to make construction cheaper by using the hill to reinforce one side and to enable a patient mule to perform the functions of a skip hoist by dragging the ore to the top of the hill. A short bridge connected the stockhouse with the stack and the material charged was wheeled from this point and dumped in at the open top. Only one or two tuyeres were used, and these were often on the same side of the stack, next to the blowing engine. In front was the sand bed, into which the iron was run, and to one side the space reserved for roasting the ores. No water cooling devices were used except at the tuyeres and the opening in front. It was a very small proposition compared with what we are used to at this time, but was, nevertheless, a source of general public interest and regarded 20 SAMUEL M. FELTON A Pioneer in the Manufacture of Steel. One of the Founders of The Pennsylvania Steel Company. > m fi< Fifty Years of Iron and Steel with considerable awe by the uninitiated. I can recall the first furnace in our district whose builders had nerve to locate it away from a hill. They used a hoisting device in which a tank filled with water raised the platform on which two wheelbarrows loaded with ore had been placed. When the barrows were dumped they were wheeled back on the platform, the water was let out of the tank at the other end of the rope, and they came down to be refilled. The blowing engines were of the crudest type and had but little power. There was then no method of gauging the pressure accurately and this was one of the cares of the furnace boss. He was expected also to know when the furnace was ready to cast, the proper color of the iron, and a great many other things. As a rule he did know these things better than might be ex- pected, and these old furnaces made good iron even if they did not make much of it. Even this type of furnace was a great im- provement over those in use in that locality forty years earlier, for they used the "trompe" or water blast, which was, you may be sure, some- what removed from the Gayley Dry Blast. This was a contrivance by which a waterfall was 23 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel made to carry air into a box, compressing it in the top, from which it was carried to the furnace through a small pipe. It is a curious circumstance that the first furnace erected by the Carnegie Steel Company was one torn down at Escanaba and taken to Pittsburg. It had been erected in Michigan to be near the ore fields, but its owners found that the problems of transportation could not be solved in that way alone. Scattered all over the Eastern States can be found the ruins of once ambitious efforts to make iron cheaply by locating furnaces close to the ore. Some of the most pathetic failures, however, were furnaces placed, as their builders believed, close to both ore and fuel, and even to transportation. In the Juniata Valley and the Alleghany Mountains are many of these monuments to the realization that the problems of transportation are of great importance in the iron industry. These old stacks, built to defy the ravages of time, were placed where ore had been found and where wood was abundant for the making of charcoal. Most of them were built after the construction of the Pennsylvania Canal and the Old Portage Railroad, both huge 24 An Abandoned Iron Furnace in Eastern Pennsylvania. The Tree Growing Out of One Side Best Indicates the Age of the Stack. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel enterprises for their day. But the canal has disappeared, the famous old railroad is nothing but a memory, and these hollow structures of stone remain as mute witnesses of the fallibility of human calculations and the certainty of that change which is the seed of all progress and which is continually building on the ruins of the best efforts of men better things than those of which they dream. Huge trees may be seen on the tops of some of these old furnaces and around their bases the forest leaves have buried frag- ments of pig iron, which precious as it was, had to be left behind in the rapid march of progress. COAL CAUSED VALLEY DEVELOPMENT About 1860 coke was regularly used as fuel in the Clinton furnace at Pittsburg, and within a few years it proved so efficient that all other fuels were practically eliminated except for mak- ing special grades of iron. When I first became interested in the furnace business, all the stacks in the Mahoning Valley, as well as those in Hocking Valley, at Canal Dover and at several other points in Ohio, were using raw coal. It was to a rich deposit of black-band ore found underneath the coal at Mineral Ridge, near 27 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel Niles, and the equally important discovery at Brier Hill, in Youngstown, of coal making a fairly good fuel in its raw state, an almost nat- ural coke, that development of the iron business in the Mahoning Valley was due. This coal, very similar to the Scotch coal afterwards found in other parts of Ohio, was rich in carbon and low in ash, and in the hands of those who un- derstood it, made a better blast furnace fuel than had yet been found at itfe low cost. For years it was mined close to the stacks and hauled by mules. All of the ore, usually a mixture of black-band, kidney and bog ores, had to be roasted before charging, and this was done with wood and coal in great heaps near the furnaces. The output of the four furnaces then in opera- tion in that district was certainly not more than two hundred tons per week. From this has grown a business employing fifty blast furnaces and producing, during 1916, 6,923,938 tons of pig iron. From the few small rolling mill plants then in that neighborhood, have been evolved forty-six modern rolling mills, rolling almost four million tons of steel per year. 28 BIG JIM KENNEDY An Old Time Furnaceman Fifty Years of Iron and Steel EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF COKE AS FUEL Owing to the advantage of this natural fuel, known as "Brier Hill" coal, we did not begin the use of coke in furnaces at Youngstown until 1869, at which time the coal began to grow scarce. An Englishman employed about one of the furnaces had some years previously made coke by covering coal in a heap, and this was used on occasions when a furnace went cold, but the raw fuel, the coal, was the main dependence until about the date mentioned, when we began to use bee hive coke. The employment of coke as a blast furnace fuel was an advance of such importance that it is worth while to refer to it somewhat more comprehensively. It was known in Germany and England long before its use anywhere in America, where charcoal was at first relatively low in cost. The date and place where coke was first used in this country are not entirely certain, but it was possibly tried in several places at the beginning of the last century. A para- graph in a history of Fayette County, Pa., re- fers to the use of coke in Alleghany furnace-, Blair County, in 1811. William Firmstone used it for a short time in a furnace in Huntington 30 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel County, Pa., in 1835, but abandoned It later. There seems to be no doubt that he succeeded In making good gray Iron with It at the date mentioned, but why he did not continue has never been recorded. In 1856, there were twenty-one furnaces In Pennsylvania and three In Maryland using coke, but, so far as Is known, none west of these States. The census of 1850 enumerates four furnaces as burning coke, and 1860 twenty-one reported Its use. In the next ten years the census people found only five more plants using coke, but It Is probable there were many that did not report Its use at that time. At any rate, by 1880, the census reports enumerated 149 stacks blowing on that fuel. Coke from that time on rapidly supplanted charcoal and all other fuels. Including anthra- cite coal. It Is now used almost exclusively. Out of 465 blast furnaces now In operation or building In this country, only forty use charcoal the others being fired with coke or. In a few In- stances with coke and coal mixed. The charcoal furnaces are chiefly small and of antiquated type, their output for 1916 having been only 372,411 tons of Iron as compared with 39,062,386 tons produced In coke or In coal and coke driven 31 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel stacks. No new charcoal furnaces were reported building in 1916, but 17 coke furnaces, with an annual capacity of 3,151,000 tons, were under construction at the close of that year. It was my privilege to make the first contract for coke entered into by Mr. H. C. Frick, a man whose name must be always inseparable from the history of the coke industry in America, when he began the coke business on his own account, and I would be ashamed to tell you the price, as I think he would also. I bought the first coke used in the Mahoning Valley for a furnace at Girard then under my management. The exact date has escaped my memory, but it was in the late 60's. This coke was used as a mix- ture with Brier Hill coal, and some coal was still used as a mixture until twenty years later, when we could no longer obtain it in satisfactory quantities. The mixture made what we thought then was a very satisfactory and economical fuel, the coal adding to the sur- plus gas production. I have bought many thousands of tons of good beehive coke at eighty-five cents per ton. The average selling price of the entire output of the country in 1880 was $1.99 per ton at ovens. 32 HENRY CLAY FRICK Whose Strength of Purpose, Integrity and Ability have been Felt Throughout America's Great Industries. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel There were then 12,372 beehive ovens in oper- ation, and the production was 3,338,300 tons. During 1916, according to the estimates at hand — the exact figures not being available, the country's entire production of coke was 54,325,000 tons and of this 35.35 per cent was made in by-product ovens. Some coke was sold in 1917 as high as $15 per ton, surely a war price. Hardly less important for the country than the addition to furnace output resulting from the use of coke is the rapid development of the by-product industry. It has grown from 5.41 per cent in 1901 to 35.35 per cent in 1916. No other single development has done so much to conserve the natural resources of America and none has more effectively indicated the energy, wisdom and public-spirit of the men at the head of our iron and steel plants. The erection of by-product plants involves huge expenditure, but they make large profits and save for future generations incalculable natural wealth. It is safe to predict that the wasteful beehive oven will soon take its place in the limbo of great mistakes, among the dust of ignorance, with many other things that were once hailed as 34 JOHN FRITZ Whose Many Inventions During a Long and useful Life Had Much to Do With the Progress of the American Iron and Steel Industries. w u a. < Fifty Years of Iron and Steel great discoveries and thought to be the Hmit of human knowledge. LAKE SUPERIOR ORES The development of the Lake Superior ore deposits "has exercised on the iron and steel in- dustries of the world an influence more far- reaching than any other incident in their his- tory. Previous to that time furnaces and iron; works had been located in many places where ore and fuel could be found. But the time had come when such resources were inadequate to meet the growing needs of the country. Per- haps it would be more accurate to say that the time had come when the further progress of civilization demanded iron ore in quantities and at a cost hitherto undreamed of. There is no question that, from the time of the discovery of the Mesaba Range, civilization and progress received a tremendous impulse from the cheaper iron and steel it made possible. From this time it became evident that the production of these commodities had to be on an enormous scale, and that the day of the small furnace was at an end. It became evident also, that hence- forth the industries must be confined to those 37 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel localities where ore and fuel could be assembled in vast tonnages at low cost, and markets reached with the greatest facility. The first effect of this discovery was to practically limit the pro- duction of iron and steel in large tonnages to regions most accessible to great ore and fuel deposits. The Pittsburg and Youngstown dis- tricts had no rival in this respect except, per- haps, the Atlantic coast district, where the rich ores of Cuba and South America were available at equal distance from the Connellsville coke field. Even this district is now suffering from the accidental dislocation of ocean freight serv- ice and is glad to get ores from Lake Superior, which have no equal in low cost and purity. Unfortunately I am not able to give the cost of ore at the furnaces of early days. The rec- ords then kept were imperfect in this respect and the dollar did not mean the same thing as it does now. But it was very high, in spite of the exceedingly low price of other commodities, and must have varied greatly at different fur- naces, depending on whether it was mined from rich deposits or from those where it was poor in quality and limited in quantity. The honor of discovering the ore deposits near Lake Superior is variously claimed. Some :5S CAPT. EBER B. WARD Chief Owner of the Plant at Wyandotte, Mich., and sponsible for the Construction of the First Suc- cessful Bessemer Converter in America. Re- Fifty Years of Iron and Steel writers credit it to Government engineers who noticed a variation of the magnetic needle and investigated the cause. Others state that the Indians had found the ores and reported large masses of "iron stone" in that locality. I am inclined to think the honor belongs to Philo M. Everett who, in 1845, located the Marquette Range in company with Indian guides. The various ranges were opened for shipment of ore in the following order: Marquette 1850 Menominee 1870 Gogebic 1884 Vermilion 1884 Mesaba 1892 Michipicoten 1900 Baraboo 1904 Cuyuna 1911 The first regular shipments in cargo down the lakes began somewhat later than the dates mentioned for all these ranges. That from the Marquette was in 1856, the opening of the Sault Ste. Marie Canal in that year having made possi- ble cargoes large enough for that day, although they would seem insignificant at this time. The total shipments by water from this region in 1856 were only 7,000 tons, about half enough 40 "©Bfeadi*!*!**, itiri Sl)ip()ca, J,g„/.,i j;,//. ,,(,1 ,„•/, «» Clfeewi 'ifti i a'l ^j . •- ■^"•'-' '"/^■f-,. .■"■/ >^ '^ Reproduction of Bill of Lading First Shipment of Lake Superior Ore. Loaned by Oglebay, Norton & Co. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel to make a cargo for a modern ore boat. This ore was valued at $28,000. In 1856 first-class "specular" or "hard" ore from the Marquette Range brought S7 per ton on the docks at Cleve- land. Up to 1908 all the ranges in the Lake Supe- rior region had produced a total of 407,060,116 tons of ore. In 1912 their output had increased to 48,221,546 tons for that year alone, and in 1916 it reached the grand total of 66,658,466 tons — or 11,000,000 tons more than the entire production of the United States in 1915, ac- cording to the figures of the United States Geological Survey. In 1916 the Mesaba Range alone produced 42,525,612 tons or almost 64 per cent, achieving a record as the greatest source of iron ore on the globe. The Mesaba Range has led in production since 1895, and its development has revolu- tionized the iron and steel industries of America. Because the ore on this range can be mined with great economy, and because of its close proximity to the Lakes, it can furnish ore at a lower cost per ton of iron than any other part of the world where there are furnaces to smelt it. Equally rich and accessible deposits may 42 i; :^6UmH- 7)\a,„, 7% V n"^ /?f* ,1- t-) <^ 11 ^■ i a /n (\i-.ii '• c \ ii !_,, '1 Wx,,,. tt U , (SA l^^^> /J ji^ 'I'" ''>• o ^ . '-■iff'. 4 ...V J^< (<-<' ' ' A?'... VC..!^>v (la./-f. CX(jf,--./^„,pj3 U. ('<'o hiJ ffig /,. 3 ;t U'lint{^ 1- CW'3-i^w i" ' ,. C^y 'T.J!71^:^xdiid \., 6' Kmji (j: JJo.^ t^'Sl '..s f '('■:. 'n l-iC ^ ywlSJ, iin-lr^'ff^lit*'-^' <^- TM:^ cu-i-yj^^ ''y~i-'< VJ Reproduction of Bill Lading First Shipment of Mesaba Ore. Loaned by Oglebay, Norton & Co. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel exist in India and South America, but it must be remembered that the tropics are not suited to the manufacture of iron, and it is not Hkely that anything equal to this range will be found within the temperate zones. Because of the conditions on the Mesaba Range we have learned to mine ore by stripping, even at a depth of 300 feet, and this of itself has been a long step toward economy in the cost of production. IMPROVEMENT IN HANDLING ORES Following the development of the Mesaba Range came astounding improvements in the mining and transportation of ore which, together with the tremendous supply of the Lake Superior region, have had much to do with the phenom- enal growth of our iron and steel industries. When we began to use Lake Superior ores the ordinary cargo of a lake boat was 500 tons. It required several days to load and unload this cargo at every point where it had to be handled — four in all. The ore cars then in use carried only ten tons. When their capacity was in- creased to twenty-five tons and boats were built that would carry 1,000 tons, we thought our problems were solved. Now we have vessels 44 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel loading as high as 12,000 tons at the upper ports in one or two hours with one or two men on the dock, and unloading their cargo directly into fifty-ton cars in about the same time, with practically no manual labor. In the old days men with shovels loaded the ore at the mines into small cars, from which it was transferred to railroad cars. They handled it again the same way four times before it reached the furnace, for even the hopper car had not then been invented. Aside from being the most laborious task to which a human back was ever bent, this was extremely costly and slow beyond your belief. Now we handle this vast tonnage entirely by machinery. Steam shovels mine the ore; it flows by gravity into great vessels; huge unloaders transfer it to rail- road cars, and car dumpers empty it under ore bridges — all the work being done by power and at a speed little short of miraculous. These things were all unknown a half-century ago. They are the product of the tireless brains and the unflagging energy of the men who have built our industries to their present colossal proportions. The improvements in blast furnace construc- tion and practice referred to in previous para- 45 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel graphs had much of their inspiration from these changes in the method of handling ores. With them came changes in size, lines and equipment. These changes were most marked during the period between 1860 and 1890. In 1850 there were few furnaces in the country that could produce 150 tons of iron in a week, and the aver- age did not reach that figure until about 1865. In 1890 a furnace at the Edgar Thomson Works built under the design of Julian Kennedy and operated under the direction of Captain Bill Jones, startled the world by yielding 502 tons of iron in one day and 2,462 tons in one week. That was then believed to be the limit of production, but it is now quite usual for stacks to exceed this figure, and there are a few producing 600 tons per day. In 1860 the total output of pig iron in the United States was 821,223 tons. In 1890 it had risen to 9,202,703 tons. During 1916 there were made in America 39,434,797 tons of furnace iron of all grades. THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTH The remarkable growth of Iron and Steel manufacture in the South deserves almost a 46 JULIAN KENNEDY To Whose Engineering Genius the World's Progress Owes Much. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel separate paper, but I understand it must only be a feature of my address. The subject has been treated by many writers: the late James M. Swank, E. A. Smith, Miss Armes of Birmingham and others. A paper read by James Bowron, at the long to be remembered meeting of the Institute in Birm- ingham, Alabama, is quite complete and should be read by everyone desiring to be thoroughly familiar with the Southern industry. It is somewhat difficult to differentiate the South metallurgically. Mason & Dixon's line and all East of the Mississippi, except Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana, would probably in- clude it. Before the Civil War no iron was made in the South with mineral fuel, but charcoal fur- naces were quite common, as well as forges. As early as 1725 a furnace was built in Virginia on property owned by Captain Washington, brother of George Washington. The ruins of this furnace can still be seen. Small furnaces were in operation through the Eighteenth and Nine- teenth centuries. Ship-plates of exceptionally good quality were made in the South before the war from charcoal blooms. The war practi- 4S JAMES M. SWANK Author and Statistician. For More than Forty Years the Faithful Secretary and Guiding Spirit of The American Iron and Steel Association. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel cally stopped all the manufacture of material. Some of the plants were taken over by the Fed- eral Government. Dating from the close of the Civil War a great deal of capital was invested in Alabama and Georgia, principally English money. Sir Lowthian Bell, a world-wide authority, visited this country with the British Iron and Steel Institute in 1890, and he said: "I will not say that Birmingham will furnish the world with iron, but I will say that she will eventually dic- tate to the world what the price of iron shall be". Incidentally I might add that it was my good fortune to know Sir Lowthian Bell, he having visited the United States on several occasions. His work "Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelt- ing", is a classic and should be in the library of every iron manufacturer today. To go into details of the developments through the South would occupy too much time. I think it safe to say, however, that the first real prosperity in the Southern industry as a whole, dates from the acquisition of the prop- erty of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company by the United States Steel Corpora- tion. It is believed by many in position to know 50 SIR LOWTHIAN BELL An Eminent English Metallurgical Engineer and Writer. Author of "The Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelting." Father of Sir Hugh Bell. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel that the purchase of this property at the time when it was acquired saved the nation from a most disastrous panic, or rather minimized the panic then in existence and eventually stopped it. The Roane Iron Co. built blast furnaces at Rockwood, Tenn., fully a half century ago and they are still in successful operation. This same company undertook the manufacture of Bessemer steel rails at Chattanooga but the ex- periment was a failure. Now that Open-hearth rails have practically supplanted Bessemer steel rails, it is interesting to report that the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company is one of the largest manufacturers of Open-hearth steel rails in the United States. The Southern ore supply is practically with- out limit. Its iron contents are much lower than the Lake Superior ores but the South has the advantage of the coal, ore and flux being all in close proximity. It is interesting to note that General Sher- man, whose well known characterization of war has become fixed and emphasized in the minds of the whole world, built a rolling mill at Chatta- nooga in 1864 for the U. S. Government. This was used for rolling iron rails. Steel rails were 52 JOSEPH WHARTON A Pioneer in the Manufacture of Iron and Steel in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Founder of The Bethlehem Steel Company. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel then unknown. Iron rails from all the roads In the South which were accessible to the North- ern armies were brought to this mill, cut up and made into piles with new puddle iron for heads, and rerolled into sections of from fifty to sixty-five pounds per yard. The manufacture of iron and open-hearth steel, and more partic- ularly pig iron, is today in a very prosperous condition throughout the South and I predict for the industries in that section increased prosperity. An additional word about Captain "Bill" Jones will not be out of place in this connection, since he was, in a sense, the Southi's most nota- ble contribution to the progress of Arnerican iroii and steel industries. Captain Jones was ior a time one of the most important practi- cal men in the Carnegie plants. He was an inventor, and a manager of great ability. When the Civil War broke out he was employed at Chattanooga, Tenn., but , on account of his Northern sympathies felt obliged to leave that section. He worked his way to Johnstown, going up the river on a steamboat. He was killed in a gas explosion at one of the Carnegie furnaces. Had it not been for his untimely death he might have become one of 54 WM. R. JONES (Capt. Bill Jones) A Genius in Blast Furnace Practice. A Martyr to His Zeal. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel the country's foremost steel men, as negotia- tions were under way at that time looking to his going to Youngstown as a partner in a steel plant being organized there. Captain Jones was not only an able practi- cal steel man, but he was also a gallant soldier, having served with distinction in the Civil War, from which he emerged as captain. DEVELOPMENT OF STEEL Naturally, the rapid development of the iron industry was closely followed by an equally impressive growth in the production of steel, and this was characterized by the same aston- ishing increase In the efficiency of machinery and methods for fabricating the product into the countless forms in which it is marketed today. It is uncertain when the first "blister" steel was made in America, but we know that up to 1831 the annual output had been less than 2,000 tons, and that little crucible steel had been made here. In 1860 we were still dependent on Europe for practically all of our steel requirements. The Bessemer process was then known, but as a dis- pute had arisen over its invention and an "in- terference" with the Bessemer patents had been 56 JAMES PARK JR. A Pioneer in the Manufacture of Crucible Steel. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel granted to William Kelly, the process was not put into general use in this country until after 1860. I have referred to Mr. Kelly's visits to James Ward at Niles in connection with his invention. These occurred while I was a member of the Ward household, and the matter was discussed at the Ward table. On one of these visits Mr. Kelly was much exercised over the fact that he had neglected to patent his discovery, but still had great hopes that he would yet be able to reap the rewards of it, in spite of the fact that Besse- mer had been granted a patent a few days be- fore his application was filed. I cannot recall the date of this occurrence, but it must have been in 1857, as the patents were granted in this country in 1856. As a matter of fact, neither Bessemer nor Kelly is entitled to the honor of inventing the Bessemer steel process. Kelly had, years before Bessemer began his experiments, conceived the idea of decarburizing iron by a blast of air, and had actually used the process in the making of iron which he used and sold in place of that produced in the refinery and run out fires then, employed. Sir Henry Bessemer conceived the 58 DANIEL J. MORRELL Pioneer of the Policy of Protection to American Industries. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel same idea and carried it out with a much more efficient mechanical appHance, which has been changed but little in general design to this day; but neither of these men were able to make steel. All they accomplished was to remove from pig iron the silicon and carbon. Robert Mushet was the man who first found out how to make Bessemer steel by recarburizing the iron after it has been blown in a converter. Kelly reaped very little benefit, also, but he will al- ways be regarded by Americans as the actual discoverer of the fundamental element in this great process, and the little converter which he had made at the Cambria Iron Works and used there with more or less success in 1861 and 1862 is an enduring monument to the spirit of discovery and the persistent efforts which have made the steel business what it is. The manufacture of Bessemer steel did not attain any headway in this country until 1867, but when it did finally start, its results were tremendous/. It built the railroads of the United States, as well as most of our sky- scrapers, bridges and ships, yet in spite of this fact, it now seems destined to give place to an older and more expensive process, that of the 60 ANDREW WHEELER Treasurer of The American Iron and Steel Association. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel open-hearth; and this in turn, will probably yield supremacy to the electric furnace, so rapid are the changes and so eager the industry to keep pace with modern knowledge and invention. No less remarkable are the changes that sixty years have witnessed in the fabrication of iron and steel. When I first entered the business the plant of my employer consisted of a small blast furnace, a refinery forge or two, and a mill upon which we rolled iron bars for various purposes. After the pig iron had been refined in the furnace — a process somewhat like that of puddling, it was rolled into muck bar. This was then made up into bundles, reheated and rolled on a primitive form of bar mill. My first contribution to the efficiency of the plant was a plan to regulate the size of these bundles so that they would produce a bar of the size and length desired and thus eliminate excessive waste from scrap as each piece was rolled. It was recognized as a new idea and Mr. Ward complimented me highly. ; The first bar iron rolled in the United States was produced at Plumsock, Fayette County, Pa.^ in 1817. The first puddling in this country wa^ done, at the Boston Iron Works in 1825. The .,,,.. 62 . . BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JONES Founder of The Jones & Laughlin Steel Company. Pioneer in the Development of Iron and Steel Manufacture in Pittsburgh. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel first successful American blast furnace of which there is record was built at Lynn, Mass., in 1645. The first successful iron working plant in America seems to have been established at Lynn about the same time the first furnace was built. Only cast iron articles were produced at first, but a forge was started in 1648, or three years later. The first iron works in New York State were built at Ancram Creek about 1740. Soon after- wards a blast furnace was erected in the Ramapo Mountains, and before the Revolution this had been consolidated with a forge and operated under the name of the Sterling Iron Works. It was here that the anchors were forged for the first ships to fiy the American flag, and here also that a great chain was made and stretched across the Hudson River to prevent British gunboats from passing West Point, in 1788. That chain still holds the honor of being the largest ever forged, a fact which shows that our ancestors could rise to great efforts when inspired by patriotism, even as we are doing today. I occasionally go into the blooming mills at the Brier Hill plant, where we break down a steel ingot in less than a minute, and m entally 64 ROBERT W. HUNT A Noted Mechanical Engineer, who Rolled the First Com- mercial Order of Steel Rails Filled in this Country at Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel compare the massive machinery in use in mod- ern steel plants with the equipment of those days. Still we had achieved a good deal even then. The first successful rolling mill in this country was about as primitive compared with the equipment of sixty years ago as was the old Ward mill when compared with a modern rolling mill. The pioneers started with nothing. We had at least something to work with. Both they and we of this generation have made the best of our opportunities, and the result is the ma- jestic industry which today stands without a rival in the efficiency of its processes, in the zeal of its operatives, and in its far-reaching effect on human happiness and welfare. Much of this great progress has been un- doubtedly due to the men who have been en- gaged in the iron and steel business. In justice they must be given credit with a degree of enterprise found in no other industry. They have been willing at all times to face ruin for the sake of adventure into new and more prom- ising fields. They have rewarded courage, vision and genius as no other industry has re- warded these things. They have constantly 66 J. A. CAMPBELL President of The Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company. Commanding Figure Among Executives who Have More Recently Achieved National Reputation. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel looked forward to higher achievements, scorning the contentment that sometimes brings stagna- tion to a great industry. / All of this progress, however, cannot be (/ / / credited to the men of the industry. Some of it was undoubtedly due to the greatness of the country, the magnificence of our natural re- sources, and the enterprise of our people as a whole. In no other country, in the world, for instance, could there have been a demand for railroad expansion such as to require 500,000 miles of steel rails in less than twenty years, as was the case in this country between 1865 and 1885. The first steel rail rolled in America from American steel was made at the North Chicago Rolling Mill on May 24, 1865, from steel ingots made at Wyandotte, Mich. The ingots were made under the direction of William F. Durfee who had built the first successful Bessemer converter at Wyandotte. Steel made in this converter was used in rolling the rail referred to. I was attending a meeting of the American Iron and Steel Association in Chicago at the time and went with the party that visited the works to see the operation repeated the following day. 68 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel Three rails were rolled on each bccasion, and a part of one of them was cut off and sent to the meeting, where it naturally attracted much atten- tion. By 1890 more than 19,000,000 tons of steel rails had been rolled in this country, practically all of them from Bessemer steel. In 1916, which, as you all know, was not a good year for the rail business, the output was 2,854,518 tons. Of this production in 1916, 2,269,600 tons were rolled from open-hearth steel, showing the great development of that process during the intervening years. Although Mr. Durfee deserves the honor of having built the first successful Bessemer con- verter in this country, the steel made in it was actually an infringement on the Bessemer pat- ents, which were then in dispute. These patents were afterward bought by the firm of Winslow, Griswold and Holley, who built the first com- mercial plant for making Bessemer steel at Troy. Mr. Holley helped to develop the original con- verter at Wyandotte until it was on a commercial basis. He later assisted in the building of a plant at the Cambria Iron Works and next built the Bessemer plant at the Pennsylvania Steel Works, which was erected and operated 69 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel under the combined patents of Bessemer and Kelly, who had in the meantime, reached an agreement. There were only thirteen plants built in this country down to 1881, but from that time the growth of the manufacture of Bessemer Steel in America was very rapid. The first com- mercial order of steel rails filled in this country was rolled by the Cambria Iron Company in 1867, under the direction of Mr. Robert W. Hunt. WELLMAN DEVELOPED THE OPEN-HEARTH There has been an impression that William F. Durfee had much to do with the early develop- ment of the open-hearth process in this country, but this seems to be an error. He was largely occupied with the Bessemer process, but the credit of building the first successful open- hearth of the Siemens-Martin type is due to Mr. Samuel T. Wellman, of the Wellman- Seaver-Morgan Company. Mr. Wellman built the first really successful American open-hearth furnace at the Bay State Iron Works, South Boston, in the latter part of 1869. He had been assistant engineer for Mr. J. T. Potts, who had been sent to this country by C. W. Siemens to assist in the starting of an open-hearth furnace at Trenton for Cooper, Hewitt & Company, who 70 SAMUEL T. WELLMAN Pioneer in Steel Manufacture. First to Successfully Operate the Open-Hearth Furnace in America. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel had bought the Siemens rights. This furnace had not been successful, owing to trouble with the gas producers and other difficulties, and was finally abandoned. In working on this furnace Mr. Wellman acquired experience that made it possible for him to correct errors in design that had proven fatal to the Cooper-Hewitt experi- ment. It was at South Boston that the first ferro-manganese was made in this country. A full account of this interesting stage in the de- velopment of the Siemens-Martin regenerative furnace was given by Mr. Wellman in a paper read before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1901, at which time he was Presi- dent of that body. Like almost all great im- provements the open-hearth furnace involved much costly experiment and many heart-break- ing failures. The first open-hearth furnaces had a capacity of only five or six tons at a heat, and they had none of the mechanical appliances for pouring or for casting ingots now in use. Devel- opment both as to size and mechanical operation has been gradual, and but little change has been made in the method of pre-heating the fuel gases. TARIFF PLAYS AN IMPORTANT PART To one who can recall the early years of iron and steel manufacture there is nothing more 72 CHARLES E. SMITH First Statistician of the American Iron Trade. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel inspiring than the ceaseless effort of men engaged in the industry to find better and more economi- cal methods of producing iron and steel. To this must be ascribed in large part the phenome- nal advances made in America, which has led the world in the perfection of metallurgical processes and the adaptation of mechanical appliances for these processes. In like manner there is no question that a part of the development was due to the tariff policy which for a great portion of this period encouraged enterprise by protecting the strug- gling iron and steel industries against compe- tition from abroad and assuring reward for energy and ability expended in this direction. You will pardon me if I claim a small part in this, for it was my privilege to be consulted freely by William McKinley during the period in which he labored so faithfully and effectively for wise tariff-legislation, as well as to enjoy his personal friendship and confidence during his lifetime as well as during his administration. One of the most gratifying tasks of my life has been the effort to repay in some small measure the debt owed by the industries in America to this statesman, whose broad vision had so much 74 WILLIAM McKINLEY The Most Prominent Advocate of the Policy of Protection to American Industries. Twenty-fifth President of the United States. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel to do with our national growth, by conceiving, planning, and, with the help of rny friends in these industries, erecting to his memory at Niles, Ohio, on the spot where he was born and where we played together as boys, one of the noblest and most beautiful memorials on the American continent. This structure was dedicated on October 5th, 1917, and I hope you will permit me at this time, although it may seem foreign to my subject, to extend to every member of the Institute an invitation to visit it. It has cost approximately half a million dollars and is ar- tistically worthy of its purpose. I have had the honor to be consulted by the men who framed every tariff bill passed by a Republican Congress since 1875, and have tried to consult with the framers of every Demo- cratic tariff bill during the same period. In preparing data for this paper I came across a voluminous report on industrial conditions prepared by me in 1912 at the special request of William H. Taft, then President of the United States, for the use of the Ways and Means committee at work on the tariff changes contem- plated at that time. This document, was sub- mitted to Mr. James A. Farrell, and It was thor- 76 JAMES A. FARRELL President of The United States Steel Corporation. An American Who Thinks in International Terms. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel oughly endorsed by him, so it must have had some merit. You may rest assured that in these activities, whether they were solicited, or, as was sometimes the case, not over-enthu- siastically received, I always had in mind the welfare of the country through its industries, and I am sure that these did not suffer from anything I said or wrote upon the subject. BROAD VISION OF LEADERSHIP Still more helpful was the influence of the organizations created and fostered by men of vision in the two industries. These men saw,' long before it came to be generally realized, that: the true basis of success in manufacturing enter-; prises was not so much unreasoning competition as sensible co-operation, and they early put, their views into effect by the organization of such associations as the American Pig Iron Associa- tion and the Bessemer Pig Iron Association, both of which it was my privilege for many years to serve as president, together with The American Iron and Steel Association and our own great Association, The American Iron and Steel' Institute. It would be hard for anyone to estimate what has been accomplished by these organiza-, tions toward the stimulation of progress and the conservation of resources in these two lines. 78 SAMUEL MATHER Director and one of the Founders of The United States Steel Corporation. Leading Spirit in the Develop- ment of Lake Superior Ore Industry. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel Even those least friendly to the iron and steel interests must acknowledge that they have led all others in this country in the way of advanced ideas along sociological lines. This has been particularly true of The American Iron and Steel Institute under the able administration of Judge Gary. We have been the first to realize the great truth that business success depends upon co-operation rather than upon competi- tion, a truth now generally admitted. We have been the most generous of all the industries in dividing with labor the rewards of business. We have led all other industries in the matter of safety, sanitation and welfare work, and we have done more than any other to establish in the public mind the fact that the interests of labor and capital are identical, the prosperity of one involving the prosperity of the other, and that both owe to the public duties equal to those they owe to themselves. THE UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION The history of the American iron and steel industry has known no incident of more far- reaching importance than the organization of the United States Steel Corporation. It is the so HON. ELBERT H. GARY The Foremost Figure in the Iron and Stee! World of Today. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel greatest industrial and financial aggregation in the world, producing a larger tonnage of steel and iron than any single country on the globe except the United States. The United States Steel Corporation was formed as the result of a growing conviction among men engaged in the manufacture of iron and steel that some method would have to be de- vised whereby greater efficiency could be obtained as well as more stable market conditions secured if the remarkable progress of this country along these lines was to be maintained and the competi- tion of foreign countries successfully met. History relates it was conceived in the brain of Elbert H. Gary, who was then President of the Federal Steel Company, but it was a long time in being born. As production mounted during the years between 1870 and 1890, conditions became exceedingly bad. Ruthless competition was the order of the day. Price-cutting, unfair methods of business, and all the evils attendant on the desire to secure markets became so prevalent that an effort was made to reach some sort of stability by the famous "pools", which many of you will remember with amusement, because their only effect was to show that agreements of 82 J. p. MORGAN The Most Eminent Financier of the Nineteenth Century. Prominent in the Formation of The United States Steel Corporation. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel this kind without the proper spirit behind them are even less than "scraps of paper". The first serious effort to improve conditions was the com- bination of a number of companies producing different hnes of finished steel. Several of these came into being in the late nineties, but they went after one another in precisely the same spirit that the original companies manifested, and the only result was competition fiercer and more relentless than before. Judge Gary had tried to organize a great combination, and had turned for financial assis- tance to the late J. P. Morgan, then the only man in the United States who could influence the necessary capital. Morgan was unresponsive and nothing was done. Finally, however Judge Gary succeeded in interesting Andrew Carnegie, then a commanding figure in the steel world. Carnegie doubtless realized the fact that the policies followed up to that time were unwhole- some, and he was willing to sell out to such a combination, because he felt that, sooner or later, his great company would find a rival, or combination of rivals, that would be its equal, and then would come a battle royal in which he might suffer with the rest. 84 ANDREW CARNEGIE For Many Years a Dominant Figure in the Iron and Steel Industries. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel On the evening of December 12, 1900, two New York men, both warm friends of Carnegie, arranged a dinner in New York. To this they invited Morgan and others among whom was Charles M. Schwab, then President of the Carne- gie Steel Company. Schwab made at that dinner the speech of his life. He painted the possi- bilities of such a corporation as Judge Gary had been trying to form, and painted them in such vivid colors that, after the dinner was over, Morgan took him to one side and spent the greater part of the evening in talking over the matter. The result was that the financier's hesitation vanished and he asked Schwab to learn Carnegie's price. This price was slightly more than $492,000,000 the largest sum that had ever been paid for anything bought in the world up to that time. The Steel Corporation was chartered early in 1901. It began business with twelve of the larg- est companies then in existence. It had a capital of $1,404,000,000. Its properties consisted of 161 separate plants, comprising 73 blast furnaces, steel works and rolling mills, vast holdings of ore lands, coal and limestone, 112 steamships, and 1,000 miles of railroads. Its productive 86 CHARLES M. SCHWAB A Most Interesting Figure in the American Steel and Iron Industries. Author, Orator, Musician— A Genius in Steel. Fifty Years of Iron and Steel capacity was estimated at 7,400,000 tons of pig iron, 9,400,000 tons of steel ingots, and 7,900,000 tons of finished steel per annum. Its board of directors included practically all of the very wealthy men then in the United States, and it had on its hands the biggest problem of industrial operation ever undertaken by any set of men. ^. The Steel Corporation was regarded pessi- mistically by most of the practical steel men of that time. It was believed to be top-heavy and in the light of our experience and methods of business, most of the independents were much afraid of it. We did not then appreciate the high ideals of the man who first conceived it. Nor did we understand that part of his dream, now realized, was an entirely new principle in business conduct. The idea of co-operation, rather than competition, in business was then untried and most of us thought that it was impractical. We have seen it worked out, and we now know that this idea is basically sound. We have had opportunity to learn by experience that the United States Steel Corporation, man- aged as it has been, has been a most excellent thing for the iron and steel industries in this country and the world, and, so far as I am aware, Fifty Years of Iron and Steel there is not an independent steel company which has not benefited by the broad poHcy it inau- gurated and made possible for all of us. The effect of the corporation's activities and its policy has been good from every point of view. It has benefited its workingmen, the public and its stockholders. Many new com- panies which have been started since it began business have found it an actual aid toward their success. So far as results are concerned, the Steel Corporation must be regarded as one of the most successful enterprises in American history. It has decreased the number of steel works under its management by dismantling several that were unprofitable in operation, so that it now operates 146 plants, instead of 149, as at the beginning; but it has increased its productive capacity fully 100 per cent. At the same time, owing to the phenomenal growth of the industry during this period, it now controls a far less proportion of production in this country than at the time of its entrance into the business, its production being only about 45 per cent of the whole of 1916. 89 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel Perhaps the greatest service rendered to the steel industry of America by this great corporation has been the extension of our export trade. Under the able direction of President Farrell this branch of the market, formerly neg- lected, has been studiously cultivated, with marked advantage to the reputation of American iron and steel products in all parts of the world. The story of the United States Steel Cor- poration forms one of the most interesting chap- ters in the history of the iron and steel business of America and will always be one of the im- portant happenings in the industrial and finan- cial history of the world. It has established the fame of Elbert H. Gary, Chairman of its Board of Directors, since the beginning; J. P. Morgan, whose financial genius and power made it possi- ble; Geo. W. Perkins, who, as chairman of its finance committee, found arduous tasks in its first years; Chas. M. Schwab, who, as its first president, piloted it through the troublesome period of its organization; William Ellis Corey, who was its president for 3"ears; James A. Far- rell, now occupying that responsible position; and many others. 90 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel Among those who have done most to make it a success without any effort to claim credit is Henry Clay Frick. Even before Mr. Frick be- gan to actively devote his attention to the corporation he was on its board of directors and was recognized as the most forceful individ- ual in the trade. He had, in his relations with Andrew Carnegie, done inestimable service in blazing the way for a better understanding of business honor and rectitude. These relations and their outcome form an incident so striking that I should like to say something further con- cerning them. However, to those familiar with the matter it will be sufficient to say that they probably had indirectly a good deal to do with the formation of the Steel Corporation, and that their outcome illustrates the fact that, in the steel business, as in other walks of life, ability usually wins. Mr. Frick remains one of the most important figures in the industry, and his work on the Finance Committee of the Corporation has added to the universal esteem and respect in which he is held by all who are. familiar with the industrial and finan- cial history of our country. 91 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel One of the things of which the iron and steel industries have a just right to be proud is the present attitude of our government toward them. In times of peace Washington has shown a dis- position to amuse itself and entertain the public with efforts to regulate these corporations, but in time of war it turns to them without hesi- tation, finding them eager to render every serv- ice. At this time the government, through the War Industries Board, has prescribed cer- tain basic prices for steel products, but at the same time it has shown its faith in the manufac- turers themselves by asking them, through the Iron and Steel Institute, to arrange the details by which these prices may be made an actual fact. Under these circumstances, the fixing of prices has actually been done by patriotic man- ufacturers themselves, rather than by the gov- ernment, and the manner in which the interests of the nation have been given preference is a striking testimonial to the high ideals existing among these men. FRIENDS WHO HAVE MADE GOOD It has been my privilege to enjoy the per- sonal acquaintance and friendship of almost every man who has been prominent in iron 92 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel and steel in America, as well as of many of those who have achieved fame abroad. Among these are some who have closed long and honorable careers, and others who are still in the heyday of their usefulness; but, even more gratifying to me is the fact that in my experience it has been my pleasure to have in a certain sense been tutor and friend to many young men who have since proven their ability and energy by reach- ing positions of high usefulness and reputation. Julian Kennedy, whose career as an engineer has benefited the iron and steel industries in all parts of the world, came to the Mahoning Valley as a young man just out of college, and, while we thought he was rather too fond of rowing a boat on the little river there, he was evidently not wasting his time in fishing while doing so. Mr. C. A. Meissner, who is known to most of you as chairman of the coke committee of the corporation, was our first chemist at Brier Hill, and the first chemist, for that matter, em- ployed at any of the furnaces in that locality. While with us he distinguished himself by mak- ing first-class "Scotch" pig iron out of Lake Superior ores, and while we had at first to keep a little imported Scotch pig around for the 93 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel benefit of doubting Thomases, it was not long until "Brier Hill Scotch" was in strong demand all over the country. Mr. W. B. Schiller, Mr. F. B. Richards and the late Jasper Sheadle, are also Brier Hill by-products. I would like, also, to claim credit for our young friend, Charlie Schwab, but Carnegie got hold of him first, and Andy always knew a good thing when he found it. Nevertheless, I wish to pay the compliment to Mr. Schwab of saying that he could hardly have done very much better had he been educated at Brier Hill. He has built up in the Bethlehem Steel Company, an institution which is a Krupp and a Creusot combined, with some advantages over both. So long as we have young men coming on with the brains and energy of those who are to be found in the various iron and steel organiza- tions, the future of these industries in America is safe, and the country is safe also. It has been said that: "Youth longs and man- hood strives, but age remembers", and this is my excuse for indulging in reminiscences before a body of busy men intensely interested in the present and the future. To me it seems that this future can be gauged accurately from the 94 Fifty Years of Iron and Steel present and the past. The early days of iron making in this country are radiant with the spirit of progress and of patriotism. This spirit had no small part in making America monarch of all the forges, and it has not died out. We can depend on it to still preserve the wonderful lead we have attained in production, and to maintain the institutions to which we owe so much of all that is good for us and for the world. It is as true today as it ever was that the civilization of a people may be told by their progress in the use of iron and steel, and I hope the time will never come when America will no longer lead all other nations in this respect. I hope also that the time will never come when men in our industry will show less public spirit or less patriotism than in the past. In the present crisis of our national life we need the high purpose and the unselfish devotion to country that our members have shown. We need the courage and vision of Judge Gary, our President, and we need the energy and ability of our younger manufacturers as never before. 95 3 O Merged American Tin Plate Co. American Sheet Steel Co. American Steel & Wire Co. American Bridge Co. Federal Steel Co. Illinois Steel Co. Lorain Steel Co. Merged Clairton Steel Co. .National Tube Co. The National Tube Co. .American Sheet & Tin Plate Co. American Steel & Wire Co. Union Steel Co. American Bridge Co. Federal Steel Co. Illinois Steel Co. Lorain Steel Co. Indiana Steel Co. Minnesota Steel Co. U. S. Steel Products Co. Universal Portlarid Cement Co. Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. R. Co. 101 **■ S ^ n 5 ■- c tS £ 8-3 S S s ^ WOWCu M ° o ol si s| ^11" II IS^^ &i i^lsi-S-S -Aio " r c o a5 E g «-» iH jr:;^ ^^ .11 o n, Ui O 1 t5 1 A. B. Wide s H. Reed, y C. Frick, m Edenbor eral dates \ cally unclia "5 ci. H 5 o i: E .:: o OS O fW^^:^ .52 s .2 S s S -S b .ilil a l"! S2* V- -or 3 Ci-J - m Ui o ji G c '3 d H o: > w p- CO D >- (d ci fc < [d 3 Z X Z D o < u c^ o z < > CI. c S u o <; u z t. o Q CO H u O w <: >< o q Z w s w [i cd a o z ^ <: o C/D 3: c W fc o ^-( H t. CO o z u m W f-. P CO Z O 1-1 1 & .2 > ' "D O TJ >^ J3 J3 ■5 ° 6 « : 5 ° 1 'a u 3 « "-•^^ S"^ '^ " o'H S. iE " oi o cj y s ^-= E ° o *j _2 ^ H "-^ ~ fe -S nj ^ 1) W w +^ O U > to - >i '5) 0.2.2 oj'n a 3 ||5l « o*E I n >. ■" c ° rt >.. iJ 'J c i- « rt g ^ o >. o 3.1 •S'S 'QU I ° 5j "a t-. a; Q. ^lE-2 aj ^ 21 ■S ^ 5f 155 2 <: P-, o u . x> U CO [_, op CO en U Z U " ^^ 9 u D Z Z < ^Z CO o w S yz fe u s^ >-■ w < w oE ,-1 H fc b u :> Sq -J w g^ ^ w S 2: gz O o u CO m E3 OH $ 63,442,050 135,945,200 139,032,687 221,701,850 114,234,400 17,108,948 120,617 lO OS Amount Subscribed Unclassified as to Company or Employees. ot~ : : : : :g3 : • : : :>-'o . '. , . .^ a& c 3. S 111 S 20,915,610 37,562,810 52,062,487 92,390,180 41,698,050 667,648 See total oo to E b t= S 42,526,440 98,382,450 86,970,200 129,311,670 72,536,350 2,043,500 See total o to o I-. 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