Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1891-05-19
TIE TIN PLATE LIARS AGAIN.

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country, in a letter dated May IA, and re
ceived this morning, from JAMES Nj.
SwANK. General Manager of the American
Iron and Steel Association, l am informed
as follows: We are to-day making tin
plate at St. Louis, at Chicago, at Demmler
and Apollo, Pa, in commercial quantities,
and not eXperimentally. In Brooklyn and
Cleveland tin plate plants are now IN
course of erection You can give tnese
statements on my authority The st
Louis Stamping Company says under date
Of April Is: we are making twenty-five
to forty boxes daily, but by July our new
works will be ready, with daily output OF
five hundred boxes The Chicago manu-
facturers are Norton Bros, the Demmler
manufacturers are the United States Iron
and Tin Plate Company, the Brooklyn
people are SOmmerS Bros, and the CleVe-
land people the Britton Rolling Mill com
pany.
In the first place a serious mistake is
made in calling Mr.. JAMES NJ. SwANK
General Manager of the American
Iron and Steel Association He is
General Manager of the American Iron
and Steel RooferS' Association, through
whose efforts the duty on tin plate was
showed up. They wished to shut ont
tin as a competitor and so raise the
price of their roofing material. That
was openly acknowledged in almost so
many words al the last tariff lOve-feaSt
of the Association.
Several firms are spoken of who are
making tin plate" 1t has been proven
time and again that no firm in this
country is making tin plate" and not a
pound of So-called American tin-plate is
on the market. The firms mentioned
which are turning out few boxes of
alleged American tin-plate are max
it mostly. or entirely, Of foreign
material. One Shrewd roofng-tin
firm in Philadelphia is simply import
ing tin-plate and ''redipping" it to keep
up the American. tin-plate flake. -
OF this latter firm a high protection
trade organ recently said:
The y. & G.. Taylor Co, of Philadelphia,
long an important tin-plate importing
house. announce that under the changed
conditions produced by the Mckinley Dill
they are now able TO offer in the market
the same brands of roofing tin which they
have imported in the past, made in the city
of Philadelphia at their own works, and
that they are rapidly increasing the facili-
ties of manufacture entirely with Welsh
manufacturers
The New York Erenmg Post commits
stoned two persons TO investigate this
tin plate factory and to buy some of this
American" tin plate. Not one box nor
even one sheet could be bought. From
a Philadelphia banker the Post learned
that the company had hired small
room and had put in two dipping pots,
in which imported tin plate was dipped
and coated with tin a second time.
From a merchant it learned that one of
his statesmen had gained admission TO
this room and found there three solder
pots and three other pots in which plates
could be dipped. There were in the
room about twenty-five boxes of i'm
ported tin plate, which appeared to
have been placed there in order that
the plates might be recoated with tin.
The working force, he stated, consisted
OF an old man and one boy.
That is specimen or our Ameri-
can tin plate factories.
Suppose, as Mr.. SwANK says, there
are four American concerns now max
ing tin plate in commercial quantities
though it is strange that none of it
has yet found its way to mGrket-what
would that amount to, even supposing
each Of these four mills was as large as
the largest concern in Wales, where
there are 40 mills? 1t would not be
drop In the bucket, for of the total
product OF these 40 foreign mills the
United States consume fully three
fourthS. If there was such thing
known as American tin plate made Of
American material, or the possibility of
there ever being any, there might be some
faint shadow of excuse for the imposi
tion OF this enormous tariff. The firms
that are making" tin plate
here, such as the NORTON Bros, of Chi
cago, and the st. Louis Stamping Com
pany, are turning out about one-tenth
OF the amount they use in their own
business. All of it they use themselves.
The st. Louis firm, we are informed,
are branching out. They have put in
500, 600 worth of machinery, we are told.
They are the largest producers of what
our high tariff friends call american
tin plate" Those who know anything
about it know that tin plate factory
must have regular rolling mill outfit,
and where is the rolling mill that cost
bat $50, 900?
There are but seventy sheet mills in
the country to-day, which have more
than they can do already; 100000 tons
Of black iron" were imported last year,