The Owyhee nugget. ([Silver City], Idaho) 1905-1984, 1909-01-22

-SsS- - 'AS ~N'tN PSA SoH VIZ SoSo
looks like this:
Ore in the ground, cost. =. 8 30
Profit on ore ......... s 40
Mining cost ......... 8 70
Mining profit ............. sl82
Transportation cost. ... s so
Transportation profit .....- s 80
Total actual cost ....... $1.9S
Total profits charged as Cost. s2.77
Total "cost" by trust method. $4.7O
On the amount of ore that goes into
ton of pig iron, the real cost, on this
basis is IS 81 and the profit figured as
part Of the ''costp is s5.OS and makes
up the balance of the Judges 1892.
The alleged "cost" is 40 per cent real
cost and 60 per cent profits.
The same method of computation APP
plies in the estimate of the coke cost.
There is profit figured in that also,
perhaps several profits. Presumably,
also, there are individual step by step
profits in the other items of the Judges
estimate, all more or less concealed by
bookkeeping.
But" says Mr.. Standpatter, leach
of these operations is by different
corporation and each must have
profit"
Yes-subsidary corporations, owned
by the trust and preserved by it as indi-
vidual corporations mainly for the pur-
pose of receiving and dividing, and thus
concealing the magnitude of the trust
profits, and at stated times paying the
money over to the great corporation, as
brigands bring booty to their chief
The trust owns them all, and capital
lied itself generously to take them over
And you, MIR. Standpatter, with the
rest Of US, have to foot the bills to pay
interest and dividends on that capital
ization. These subsidiary corporations
mine, transport, or manufacture, as
the case may be, all the products. The
trust, itself doesn't make anything but
money: that is, it doesn't produce. Its
business is to GET profits and pay
dividends.
As he figured the cost of pig iron,
Judge Gary figured also the cost of steel
rails. Taking the cost of pig iron at
$3.50, adding the cost of conversion
Of the pig iron into ingots and of the
ingots into rails, and further items OF
depreciation, administrative expenses
and taxes, he computes an average
cost ~ of s22.23 per ton for rails. The
rails sell at about $29 per ton, leaving
the poor old trust only about five dol
lars ton profit. Therefore, says the
charitable Judge, while the trust might
be able to worry along and make rails
without tariff protection, its indepen-
dent competitors (who wouldn't dream
of competing) might be driven out of
business, for it costs them two dollars
a ton more to make rails than it costs
the trust. This solicitude for the well
fare of business rivals is indeed touch
ing.
But now comes Mr.. Andrew Carnegie
to testify. He has spent more than an
average lifetime in iron and steel.
He refuses to be drawn into maze of
figures.
"As for figures he say, 81 know they
lie." He invites the committee to exer-
else their collective Intelligence upon a
couple of facts. Use your brains," he
adjures them.
1st. The steel trust, whose most ex-
cellent bonds he owns to the comfort
able sum of four hundred million dol |
lars, is, he says, exporting iron and
steel to every country on earth. Ad-
mitted
End. The steel trust by its last re
port averages profit of fifteen dollars
on every ton of iron and steel it sells
CONSERVATION, in the faces of Hon.
Dalzell, Payne, and other Standpatters
of the committed It is computed for