The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-03
GGIron and SteeIo

To the Editor of the Journal and Courier:
 A few days ago there appeared in your valuable columns an article under the heading Iron and Steel" taken mostly from one Of the Tacoma, Wash ington dailies. Later inquiries have elIcited many additional interesting facts relative to the company referred to in that article. For example, while the main purpose of the company, as indi- cated in that article, is the production of finished iron and steel, yet that is not its only purpose, for. in addition to vast iron ore deposits 1t owns very large and very rich deposits of copper ore also from which it has been netting several thousand dollars clear profit every month since it organization, and from which it will very soon derive a much larger income. It also holds sev- eral acres of excellent coal land which it proposes to develop to supply the gen. SA dh uSiidiu dS NCh aS Lo 5upply us own smelters, furnaces, barges. town and rolling mill with coal and coke It plant on Texada Island, near its iron mine and one of it's copper mines, which, for many years, has been SUD- plying the cities and towns of the Pa cific coast and the Hawaiian Islands with lime of the finest quality. The company is also preparing to convert its vast forests into lumber and paper pulp for which there is great demand. And, as the company is to be a large employer of labor, 1t is a part of its plan to house it's own laborers. With that in mind it secured at an early date in it's history fine townsite embracing over twelve hundred acres which 1t pro- poses to cover with dwellings, stores, shops, and school houses as fast as the exigencies of the case require Finally, as it's iron and copper mines lime plant, furnaces, smelters, rolling mill and town are all to be at tide-water, the company will engage in the transporta-
 
 only it's own raw materials and finished products, but those of the general pub lie as well. The company is practically a consolidation of half dozen or more kindred industries under one manage ment at one of the finest harbors in the world where it can assemble all its raw materials at a minimum cost, and where it can convert them into iron, steel, copper ingots, lumber, paper pulp, coke, etc., etc, at minimum cost, and where it will always be. in touch, by ocean communication, with the best markets of the world for the profitable disposition of its finished products.
 As regards iron and steel, the com pany Is particularly fortunate. The quality of it's ores is all that can be de- sired. Samples of 1t were sent some time ago to Henderson & Trego, Cleve- land. Ohio. to be thoroughly tested. A part of their report runs as follows: This is one of the finest samples of ore ever produced, both as to quantity or iron contained and it's very low phos- phorus. This ore will make the finest kind of Bessemer iron, and will bring more than the average price on account of its low phosphorus, and will yield seventy (70) per centsof iron in a blast furnace, and could ba used alone. We do not think it would do to mix 1t with other ore but is they have any quantity like this sample anywhere near mark ct, would think they had a fortune" " Well, they have practically an inex- haustible quantity of it, and that too, where 1t can be run direct from the mine to the barges, and delivered at the company's furnace at an outlay of only about $200 per ton!
 As to market for its products, the company is no less fortunate for it en- joys double protection: It is protected against all foreign competitors by the provisions of the tariff, like other com- panies East and West, North and South, and 1t Is protected against it's giant competitors in Pennsylvania and other Atlantic States by difference of from s1O to SIS per ton freight carges which they would have to pay In order to hold or capture the iron and steel trade of the Pacific coast. This puts the iron and steel trade of the Pacific slope in the keeping of the Tacoma Co. and others like it. J.