Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-06-04
Tin Plate Manufactured Here as
Thoroughly Domestic as the
Wales Article is Welsh.
Pans Made from Southern Steel
and Tin Mined in the Black
Hills.
Tame Endeavor Of a British Jour
nal to Cast Redicule on Our
Industrial Efforts.

Some time ago samples of American
tin plate were sent to certain English
journals, asking them to notice this new
American industry IN their columns It
was thought that it would be a matter of
interest to them and their readers to
know that we were already making tin
plate, although the new duty would not go
into effect for months to come. A recent
mail brings the London Financial Times
with a notice" in the shape of column
of labored caroasm sand feigned doubt as
to whether the sample sent was really
American tin plate. 1t is a significant
fact that the London Financial Times
raises the same question that our New
Times and other journals which echo Brit
ISL sentiment have raised. We have al
ready fully answered; our home papers,
but for the benefit of our English contem-
poraries we will repeat. The piece of tin
sent to the Financial Times was made at
Demler, Pa, by the United States Iron
and Tin Plate company, and this is what
Mr.. W. G. Cronemeyer, the president of
that company, says of it:
1.-The material used for those plates
which we sent you has been produced from
American iron ore, was first turned into
pig metal in American blast furnaces,
American steel works converted the pig
metal into steel bilIets; the steel billets
were rolled into thin sheets of steel, the
latter were picked, or cleaned Of scale
Aith American acid, and all the work per-
formed was done by American workmen,
THAT is, workmen either born in this
country or who have, by their own free
will, chosen America as their home(.
1.-The only ingredient contained IN those
plates which is of foreign origin is the
tin used for coating from 215 to pounds
of foreign tin to every 100 pounds of
American steel plates.
During the last ten years the explana-
ton that the so-called tin plates are not
made from tin ore, but from iron ore, and
only washed with light coating of tin,
has been so often made by the American
press generally that any person who yet
6alks about the impossibility of making
tin plate for want of tin ore reveals gross
ignorance. The bulk Of the tin used by
English manufactures is imported by them
from the Dutch East indies or from Aus
tralia and we can import it from there as
well,
Yes sir, the tin plates we have sent
you, are as genuinely American as the tin
plates imported from Wales are Welsh.
This showing is good enough in itself,
but we can go still further. In the city of
Chattanooga few weeks ago they were
celebrating the successful manufacture in
the south OF basic steel from their ores and
from their coal, and on the banquet table
for one or the courses every guest had tin
plate made oat of their basic steel and
coated with tie tin ores that came from
the Black Hills. made in American shops
In st. Louis by American workmen, and
it was as good as,ean be made anywhere in
the world. Neither the London Financial
Times, the New York Times, nor any
other journal at home or abroad, which de-
votes columns in trying to belittle Ameri-
can industries, can question any longer
that we are making tin plate, all of which
is American material and labor We do
not claim to be supplying the market. 1t
IS over a month yet before the new duty On
tin plates will go into effect, and 20
months before our bar tin will be protect
ed. We do claim, however, that we will
soon be making so much American tin
plate that the S20,000,000 which we have
been annually sending to Great Britain will
remain at home, ant; our workmen will be
eonespondingly benefited. We advise
our free-trade contemporaries to drop the
tin-plate question and try to PROFOUND
some harder problem.