The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-02
ALABAMA CAN BEAT THE WORLD IN
 MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL

has, in my opinion, 1,500, ,000,O ,O00 tons, including the recent Hill purchase. The average railroad haul on a ton of ore coal or coke to these companies would be perhaps, i7 Ia cents 10 20 cents, as against the United States Steel Corpor- ation's average haul on a ton of coal coke or ore of $1.5O tos $L7S ton. Considering the fixed charges on a ton of pig iron as a base to arrive at what the proper results should be in the iron and steel business if we were to aa- sume that the Tennessee and the Res public companies should sell their iron and steel in the shape of finished pro- ducts as the United states Steel Cor poration is now doing. that plant on an output of 150,000 tons of finished product per month or I,S00,0 000 per year would show for these companies at the same profit per ton of finished pro duct that the United States Steel Cor poration obtains with the product properly diversified, earnings of $24,- 00O,0Oe per annum net, our fixed charges being only 70 cents per ton against the steel Corporations fixed charges of $7 a ton. It will take several years to improve the Birmingham properties to state of efficiency that will pro- duce the above results, but with in- telligent management there is no req son why within three or four years from this date we can not sell every pound of iron manufactured by these two companies in the~ shape of finished product"
 The furnace plant of the Republic Company is being overhauled and put in shape to produce 800 tons of foundry or basic iron per day. The Tennessee plant at Ensley is being remodeled by the rebuilding of che furnace atfer an- other until that plant will have an output of 1,S00 to 2,000 tons per day, s,IV fF v1Fbf xryF1 ha fnH hU basic process into steel and 10000 to 45,000 tons a month go into basic steel rails which are acknowledged to be the best steel rails rolled in the world" The other seven furnaces of the Ten nessee Company will be rebuilt as rap- ly as possible, and when this work has been completed the output of the two companies should be from 5000 to $500 tons of pig iron day.
 Reviewing the marvellous expansion of the iron and steel industry of the country, Mir, Gates says:
 T see no reason why Birmingham should not have 100000 people twen- ty years hence. It will certainly be the largest city in America not on navigable waters. Pittsburg, or what Is practically Pittsburg, being Pitts burg and vicinity, has population to- day of over 100000. If Mir. Andrew Carnegie had started out in Birming-
  would today be the iron and steel cen tre of America instead of Pittsburg, in my opinion,
 Reviewing the general outlook for the south. as he sees it, Mr. Gates says:
 "A new era has come over the South and 1t has come to stay, in my opinion manufactured of cotton told me that thsy could pay 12 cents to l5 cents g 1 pound for cotton and manufacture goods and still make a profit of 10 pei | cent to 12 per cent. There is praeti' calIy no place in the world where cot ton can be purchased except in thu | Southern States. and this means thai | hundreds of millions of dollars will b' l spent in the South in the erection oi | factories, the building of large business blocks In the cities. the erection of fin' | plantation homes and the building o southern railroads and my opinion ii | that the South will enjoy in the nex' | twenty years what the Northwest has l enjoyed in the past twenty years, that is, the greatest period of success 1T her history"