New-York tribune., 1900-06-14
THE VALUE NOT APPRAISED.

The beginning of proceedings said to be for
the purpose of breaking up the Hoop Trust
formed not long ago, and the report that some
property of the Sheet Trust is to be sold back
again to former owners, turns attention to the
inevitable next phase of this singular develop
ment. For 1t not inevitable that consoli-
dation would result in some cases in dsappoint-
ment? Nobody can have been blind to the fact.
What is a consolidation Of manufacturing
works? Has there ever been discovered a way
of consolidating into man all the different
manufacturers whose many kinds of skill or
force have created those works? Where the
former owner goes on with the work as its
manager, subject to a corporation, is he the
same man? Where he goes out, as in a large
proportion Of cases he does, who brings in the
experience and the technical and practical skill
which have enabled him to hold his own against
the world
Everybody knows for instance, that the Car
nege Steel Works do not consist of certain fur
naces and mills, stoves and rolls and other
machinery Of which descriptions and dimen-
sons can be given. Besides these, there is a
man. The furnaces might be exactly like others,
and the stoves and other machinery from
smallest to greatest though it happens they are
not. But duplication of all the physical
items each In exactly the same place, would
duplicate the works. In greater or less degree
every concern is the product and expression of
one or more minds. Take out of them the mind
which has given them being with all the knowl-
edge, experience and faculties acquired by many
years of use, and the consolidation does not con-
sOlidate. This has been the inevitable result of
the union Of many important manufacturing
concerns into one. Part of the brains, at all
events, has been left out-some Of the creative
power which has built up the business and
made it thing necessary to buy.
When a consolidation takes place men arc
selected and If possible secured. who are sup
posed to be the best for each branch of the
works. But manufacturer has made known
to all his competitors all that he has learned or
known or been, and the best for some works
which they have created might not be the best
for other works which they did not create
Thus the consolidation pushes to the front the
one question which presently sinks all others
into insignihcance. Has the new concern found
to handle each branch department men as
well fitted for that particular part of the manu-
facture and for that particular aggregation Of
machinery as the men who handled it when in
open competition with others? Without the
least hesitation 1t might be asserted that the
thing could not have happened in every case.
and there is a tremendous percentage of proba-
bility that it has not happened in a majority of
cases. Grant that the technical men and ex-
perts, foremen and the best hands in each de-
partment have been retained as far as possible
Some Of them have grown up in personal rela-
tions with former owners, and refused 10 tako
subordinate places under a corporation of which
they knew nothing. Some form at once the
idea that independent works of their own or in
association with others in similar conditions,
may presently be esta blished. The naked fact
is that many have stayed for time, but others
have not.
1t is the personal element In the whole bus-
ness Of consolidation which has not yet been
tested. AT the outset great food of prosper
ity swept all along to the front. Now the ques-
tion comes, How many of the works have
cured such brains in management that they will