Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-05-13
CHATS on BUSINESs.
southern Iron and Coal Discussed-Con-
neIIsville Coke Leads AIl-The Old Iron
and Coal Districts Not Endangered by

sonthern Iron and Coal Discussed-Con-
nelIsville Coke Leads AIl-The Old Iron
and Coal Districts NOT Endangered by
the New.
| During the Centennial exercises in New
| York found an exemplifcatior of the En-
glishman's story that, being in America during
| Presidential election, he was so interested in
seeing thousands of superiorlooking men
marching with lamps and uniforms that he
slipped between the ranks to learn what they
might be talking about with their very steady,
sober faces, and he found that every mortal
one of them was talking about business as he
paraded. So at the New York Centennial,
when men would sit down in the clubs and ho-
tells, even as they looked out upon the parade,
their minds would wander to enterprises and
questions Of material developments. Thus
writes "Gath" in the Cincinnati Enquirer.
A gentleman from Southern Tennessee said
to one group where was sitting: That Ala
bama development in the iron and coal field is
mere scratch compared to what is coming in
the mountain ranges Of Southeastern Kentucky
and Northern Tennessee. North of the Cum
berland mountain is vast coal field. which
runs from the Ohio river upon the line of the
Cumberland river, and has three gaps to get
through the mountain. When the railroads
now opening up are finished, and some of them
wilfbe opened this summer, you will begin to
hear music. We have much better coal for
coking there, the cheapest iron on the globe,
plenty Of labor, both white and black, with
white predominating and iron in profuslon,
superficial and in veins"
There is no coke" said an Ohio man, who
was listening, and who was up in the science Of
iron making. like the ConnellsVille coke. The
coke they make in Alabama will do to make
iron, but it is not such coke as that around
Connellsville. When you get me such coke as
that out of any coal you have in Tennessee or
Kentucky shall use il. They are making a
pretty good coke on the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railroad toward the district you speak Of, but
nothing has yet turned up like Connellsville.
Besides. where are you going to sell your iron
after you make it? You fellows, who are in
fants in iron making seem to think that if you
shut everybody else up you will have plain sail
ing yourself, but you have been fussing about
politics and other matters so many years that
you have allowed the railroad system Of the
United States to be built before you have
opened your furnaces, and now you are
confronted with what the Northern coal and
iron people have been bravely fighting for two
generations. a surfeited, idle market. In Ala
bama you are not making steel because you
have come to one of the defects which worries
other people with more experience; your ore
has too much phosphorus for one system of
iron making, and too little phosphorus for the
other system. This is science compounding
coal and iron ore to produce the high metals.
1t will probably be found that no spot contains
everything in perfection, and that one part of
the country will still be dependent upon an
other part for materials to mix up and make
good product"
Another gentleman, who is interested in both
saotinna and il of vnivad afank said. G:Gaut1a.
men, you cannot all get rich instanter. Tho
coal interest of Pennsylvania for example, is
surely the most valuable yet found in this
land, with its anthracite at one end of the
State and its semi-bituminous and bituminous
and coking coal in the middle and at the west
ern end. They have their railroad systems
completed, and have had an experience going
back for generations at least in every descrip-
tion of the iron and steel business. A few
years ago coal was the best thing to go into in
Pennsylvania. Now the price has been
tSav to sSt they produce SO much
then and take long rest to let consumption
catch up. What is the use OF so much devel-
opment when you can hardly give away your
product At some times. and, it would appear,
The Kentucky man confined his attention to
depreciating the Southern iron interest further
to the west Of him. He made one Of his argu-
was nearer to the great legion of trained
miners and rolling mill men toward Ohio and
Pennsylvania and Western Virginia.
ST take notice." said another gentleman,
'that you have all got something to sell to
somebody else, and when come to query you
about what you are going to do with your huge
riches in the way of iron and coal, you are fall
ing back upon the notion that somebody es-
toHl In fha hY1ai n II, IL
capital, is going to pull up stakes and leavea
ruin behind him In order to take your district
up. The market for all this coal and iron is not
in the South. You do not need coal there
hot weather in March. They burn coal through
out the East and North and West, in millions
of homes, from October to May"
"But we can get work out of doors so much
longer than you can," said a gentleman from
the Southwark. ''We can dig ore on the
surface all winter long. We have cheap labor,
too-plenty of it 81 a day and even less"
"Yes," said the Ohio iron man, "you have got
labor and SO has the world everywhere, plenty
of it. There has not yet been found enough
for the hands of man to do, and in the vicinity
of large cities and in the midst of the greatest
cities the cry for work and for bread has as
cended ever: since steam came into existence.
Undoubtedly you have come to the develop
ment of your material resources since slavery
was taken away from you, much rs you clung
to 1t. But you are in the romantic period of
your material development. 1t is associated
with the booming of real estate and the ex-
plotting of suburbs To lie down and wait for
better times, to go out of blast and hunt all
over the world for a new customer, and when
everything is ready to pitch in and work with
out sleep until the market Is again at q lull, are
matters you will have to learn. You have got
to that primary stage quite necessary for
That was the beginning of the prosperity Of
the North; the extreme poverty Of the far
Eastern States and the certainty Of hard and
hungry old age, without thrift and fore-thought,
caused the Inhabitants of those gravel and
granite coasts to carry the cotton manufacture
1500 miles from the cotton field, and to manu-
facture utensils of iron without either coal or
iron ores. Those people to this day can work
have never been away from their cots and ham,
letsto look at the fields where they invest their
money; they cannot afford to go and see where
they have planted their savings. II you will
give them q return they will send YOU their
money, but the oldest iron industries in the
world, those in England and Germany, are
t1s always s0 sfSsR to
body who has got sure thing
'1n short, what is going on in the Southern
States at present is only the latest chapter of
try from colonial times, The fact that capital
Is going into these new fields, laying railroads
through mountains and so FORTH shows that
everything is exerted at its wits ends to find a
market The railroads are after market
when they enter these infant coal and iron
fields. Money is after market when it boon.s
these distant towns You have got in the first
place to make something, and after you have
made it you have got to sell it."
Comparisons Are Odi0us.
From the Atlanta Constitution
We learn with regret that the P of Wales