Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-02


FIoated---A Talk With the Originator of
the Scheme---Some of the Med ern Mill
ionaires.
Especial Telegram to the GLOBE.
PITTSBURGH, Pa, Dec. 1.--SOme days
ago l referred to the Standard Coal d
Iron company, which has been successfully
placed upon the public market here by
w. D. Lee. He is native of Vermont, but
has lived some years at Newark, O. Mr..
Lee has become householder in New
York city, where the main office of the
Standard company will be placed, and
Columbus, O.. will be the home Office.
Said L: did you not find 1t difficult to
put upon the market in a period like the
present an enterprise with capital of
$25 ,0OO,O0O?"
eyes, it took application. but the intrin
sic merits of the scheme recommended it
to men accustomed to large affairs. It is
true that did not make any small or cap
tivating proposition. I laid plain bust
ness thing, though of large COM
pass, before men who would
rather consider something
above than under size. I associated with
me at the beginning men better known
than myself, who had public as well as a
business character. am not a practical
iron man, but saw with busi1 tss mans
mind an opportunity to get the greatest
results in the most economical manner out
of the iron trade. 1 did not propose any
thing new, but merely the application of
comprehensive business principles to
properties we'll known without any remarks
of mine to be separately strong and
healthy
''Now give me an idea, Mr.. Lee, in a
sentence of what this Standard Coal and
Iron company is"
'1t is simply an aggregation of land I'M
derlaid with coal, and of furnaces already
built, and of communications, under
a corporation powerful enough
not to be the victim of
railroads nor of its own poverty. The
Hooking valley, of Ohio, was opened by
railroads about eleven years ago. The
city of Columbus has attained much of
its growth from the proximity of that
| important coal field. Other railroads have
since been run in there, and the region
was assuming an important relation to
the production of coal and iron, yet a
large portion of the best lands had not
been takens up, and the furnaces already
built were more or less disconnected. The
individual iron makers were at the mercy,
SO to speak, of their infancy, IN the pres
ence of the problem of transportation.
| The idea came to me that by making COM
binations sufficiently large, we could not
only dictate, to a great extent, the
price of our freights, but we could cheap
en- the manufacture of iron without injury
to the laborer. I conceived plan of con-
! trolling the resources and the instruments
of the iron manufacture, and then apply
ing in more systematic manner than has
been done in this country those economies
which lie at the life of the successful pros
ecution of the iron trade.'' -~
SWELL, sir, what are the results?''
'The results are these" said Mr.. Lee,
I'VE own "a 900 acres of the coal lands in
the Hooking valley, and we have options
]
want to. The coal under this land is
practically inexhaustible. The Hooking
coal field, of course, has its
limit in the far future, like every other de
post in nature, but not within the ratio of
a business proportion. We have also nine
furnaces now in our hands, and options
for five more, making fourteen furnaces
and $4,000 acres. You see, it required
money to make such purchases as these.
have bought land at $l2O an acre, which
is now almost within sight of towns of
5000 inhabitants apiece.
"Where is the land, Mr.. Lee?"
The protector took down map of the
Hooking valley and showed me where the
railroad, starting out from about Athens,
O., crossed the middle section of southern
Ohio, and dividing in hilly region,
sent two long arms to the
northwest and the northeast, rising in a
table land and ridge, through which the
parallel lines of railroad from west to east
had not yet pierced and would be required
| to tunnel. He pointed out the new towns
which had sprung up there, such as
| Grafton and Shawnee. and also the loca-
ton of the new town of Bessemer. which
is to be, if correctly understand, the CEN
trail market of the Standard company's
property, and there it is ultimately ex-
pected that they will go into the manufac-
ture of steel by mixing the hard ores of
Lake Superior, which are landed at Cleve-
land and Toledo, with the ores in vogue on
this great pre-empted tract.
'Have you disposed of S25,OOO,OOO of
bonds?"
Eyes, we practically have got all our Sc
curities taken. Offers were made to US to sell
some of them abroad, but ..the merits -of
the proposition, the absence of all vapor
and romance from it, the omission of the
fEelement of chance altogether, which is the
weak element in many recent schemes.
lEglye US the best financial support of the
laimes.r
'Where have you sold most of these
flantis:''
Boston has been the best center for their
sale. Throughout eastern Massachusetts.
and indeed eastern New England, we have
brought it the best names and fortunes.
There has also been large sale of the