Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-04-16
AMERICAN TARIFF LAWS.
Steel and the Tariff
BY FREDERIC. j. HASKIN

profits were vast. The output was
nearly doubled, and the price OF iron
jumped from less than $40 to more
than $13 ton. To meet this demand
all furnaces ran at full capacity all
the time and many a new one sprang
up to reap the harvest of gold from a
sowing of iron. OF the three billion
dollars the war cost the United States
government, goodly share went to the
iron men.
During the twenty-five years follow
ing the civil war the American iron
manufacturer found the government
ready to give him about all the pro-
lection he asked for. And he fourlshed
under 1t. Andrew Carnegie once mad
quarrel with his partners, and during
that period of bad blood the people
were for the first time given an oppor-
tunity to see what the profits mad
been. In 1881 their profits We're ~ per
cent In 1883 they were 20 per cent. In
1887 they were 50 per cent. During the
eight years beginning with 1881 the
statement shows that the profits were
SIG, 000 900, on an investment of $4,000,
900, approximately 40 per cent a year.
In 1890 Carroll d. Wright lnvesti-
gated the cost of making steel rails.
He found that the cost averaged $1l.2i
ton. At that time they were selling
at $31.78 ton. In 1885, when steel rails
reached the lowest price In the history
of their manufacture-an average OF
$17.62 a ton, the Carnegie company still
managed to clear eleven and a hair
million dollars. In 1899 1t cleared over
$25, 000, 000--more than the capital stock
of the company had been up to the
previous year. In 1900 Andrew Car
negie was getting ready to retire, and
he ordered every man in his service
to get down to the last possible ounce
81 In Inn
obeyed, the price of rails advanced to
sS2, and the years profits footed up
100000, 900. The profits of this one cor
poration during the last twenty-five
years of the nineteenth century reach
ed the enormous total of $f33,00Q,0O0.
And most of it was made in the way
described by H. C. Prick to illustrate
Henry Phipps' part in the steel bust
ness. Frick said boy had been out
of work for awhile. He went to neigh
boris hennery and surreptitiously hor-
rowed one of his laying hens. He soon
had a setting of fresh eggs and IN
three weeks a lot of little chickens
After the hen had raised the brood and
begun to lay again, the boy returned
her and the dozen eggs to the neigh-
boris poultry yard, SO that he was on a
firm business basis now and the neigh
Dor had lost nothing more than the
use of a hen for a short time. Phipps
was taken into the Carnegie company
and his share of the earnings allowed
to pay for his share of the stock. In
| twenty-eight years the Carnegie COM
pany cleared an amount equal to sOt
! times it's first investment.
/ There are those who assert that the
Wilson German tariff law was the in
| direct result of the Homestead strike
They declare that the shoutings of the
| Democratic press that slavery had Its
Legree, protection its Frick," die
much to elect Grover Cleveland In
| 1892 The day before the Homestead
mills closed down in 1892 the Carnegie
properties were organized into the
| Carnegie Steel company, with a capt.
talization of twenty million dollars
double its former capitalization. The
men declared 1t was millions for them
and PInkertons for u.s." referring te
| the Pinkefton detective force that was
employed against them.
| Can iron stand alone? Carnegie says
| it can. Schwab once wrote a letter t
Prick in which he said he could make
rails for less than $12 a ton, while the
best England could do was $40 a ton
Recently he said he was driving bar
gain when he made that statement
Senator Stephen B. Elkins is a heavy
buyer of steel rails. He says he would
rather pay a home enterprise $2S a
ton than to get foreign rails at $40
that it means more work for everybody
and better business for everybody
Congress will hardly take the view that
the industry can stand alone. It's voice
probably will be the voice of Elkins.
Copyright 1903. by Frederic ]. Hasktn)
! Tomorrow-American Tariff Laws.
XX-Tho Tinplate Industry.