The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-03-26
THE CARNEGIE PROFITS.

THE 0AHNEGlE PROFITS.
The Pittsburg Dispatch of Saturday gives
some facts regarding the Carnegie iron
combination which should be studied by
those writers who are now asserting tina
the rates of the Dingley tariff have en-
abled that monster combination to realize
so large profits as 1t has the past two
years. AS a matter of fact, the specific
duties on all grades of iron and steel i'm
posed by the Dingley tariff are much lower
than those of the Gorman-Wilson tariff,
based on an ad valorem system. Al the
present price of pig iron in Liverpool the
duty is only 20 per cent. ad valorem, while
there is little difference in the prevailing
prices in England and the United States.
iron and steel rails in Europe. These facts
from the market reports show Tia the
tariff has no more to do with the price OF
iron than it has with the price of wheat.
The statement of the Dispatch shows that
while others must pay 81 a ton for coke in
the vicinity of Pittsburg, the Carnegie
Company supplies itself at SIPS a ton, and
paid last year but S1.35 a ton when it was
worth 50 in the market. Consuming last
year. according TO the statement of Mr..
Prick in his suit. about 2. $50. 900 tons. 1T does
not take a very shrewd person to discover
that the saving of the COMPANY on coke
alone amounts to $1,000, 600 a year. 1t costs
the company but 6 cents to mine its ore
in Minnesota. Under a threat of building
a parallel road to the mines IL the price
of shipping, eighty miles from the mines to
Duluth, Is not reduced, the company gets
a rate of so cents a ton. When lake rates
were low the Carnegie Company made a
contract with the Rockefeller Steamship
Company under which it is now compelled
to carry several million tons of the Car
steamship line organized by the company
carries the rest of the ores at less than
so cents, when lake rates are several times
higher. All the %shipyards on the lakes are
building ore ships for the Carnegie COM
panies. Owning immense docks at the
Cleveland terminus. the Carnegie Company
saves the usual dock charges of 20 cents a
ton for ore. By contracts with the Pitts
burg. Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad,
which will be in force for years, the Car
furnace at So cents a ton. over one local
road the company has a rebate of % per
cent. on every ton of ore that goes to the
Carnegie mills and on every ten tons that
comes away from them. Roads are ope-
rated for rebate purposes from the coke
company's own wells costs but 5 cents a
thousand cubic feet. "Other equal advan-
tages." says the Dispatch. "are enjoyed
In this connection it may be added that
the Carnegie iron companies have always
| made money. The lowest annual earnings
for twenty years were those of 1894, when
| the profit was 1900. 600. That was in 1894.
when it's greatest rival, the Illinois Steel
| Company, now a part of the Federal Steel
| Company, lost 81, 7SO. 900. The Dispatch. at
need not be regarded as a prophet when it
| says:
1t is believed that with all these facilities
Il bound cOn0m1cally under one mead, with
ownership and possession guaranteed for
ever, the new Carnegie Company, with its
immense and economically operated steel
| plants and blast furnaces, will be able 10
| defy the world for an indefinite time on the
| question of price. Pittsburg will remain
| supreme as the steel dictator of the world,
Unquestionably the tariff years ago en-
couraged and protected the limited and
small companies which constitute the mon
ster Carnegie Company of to-day. but as
long ago as 1889 Andrew Carnegie declared
tina the rates of the Gorman-Wilson tariff
law were ample. hat was before the
Mesaba ores were opened up and before the
company had made its contracts as they
now exist with transportation companies
To-day the Carnegie Company does not
care a straw whether there is a duty or
iron or not. The captains of industry, the
Carnegies, the tricks, the Schwabs and
others, with rarer genius to conceive AND
execute. have made the Carnegie Company
as 1T stands now the car of the iron-mak'
ing world. 1t is not a monopoly. Other:
can carry on large operations, but the Car
negies can make the worlds prices.