Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-05-21

try. The high duties then necessary for
revenue purposes, the high ocean freight
rates because of the war perils of naviga-
ton, and the vast demand for iron and
steel products, all served to send prices
up to point they had never before reach
ed. The profits were vast. The output was
nearly doubled, and the price Of iron
jumped from less than nineteen dollars TO
more than seventy-three dollars per 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 BIZ
lion dollars the war cost the United States
government a goodly share went to tho
iron men.
During the twenty-five years following
the civil war the American iron manu-
facturer found the government ready to
give him about all the protection he ask
ed for. And ne fiourished under 1t. An
drew Carnegie once had a quarrel with
his partners, and during that period OF
bad blood the people were for the first
time given an opportunity TO see what
the profits had been. In 1881 their profits
were 40 per cent. In 1883 they were 20 per
cent In 1887 they were SO per cent. Dur
ing the eight years beginning with 1881
the statement shows that the profits were
SIC, O00, 900. on an investment of S. 1000, 00Os
~ cent a year.
In 1880 Carroll D. Wright investigated
the cost of making steel rails. He found
that the cost averaged $11.2 ton. At
that time they were selling at ssl7s per
ton. In 1898, when steel rails reached the
lowest price in the history of their man
ufacture-an average of $17.62 per ton, the
Carnegie company still managed to clear
eleven and a half million dollars In 1899
1t cleared over SIS, O00. 000-more than the
capital stock of the company had been
up to the previous year. In 1900 andrew
Carnegie was getting ready to retire, and
he ordered every man in his service 10
get down to the last possible ounce of en-
ergy in him. The orders were obeyed, the
price of rails advanced to thirty-two dol
lars. and the years profits footed up s40.-
OO0,0O0 The profits of this one corpora
ton during the last twenty-five years OF
the nineteenth century reached the enorm-s
Gus total of $780, 900, 900. And most Of il
made in the way described by II. G.
Frick to illustrate Henry Phipp's part In
the steel business. Prick said boy had
been out of work for awhile.
He went to a neighbours hennery and
surreptitiously borrowed one of his lay
ing hens. He soon had 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
neighbours poultry yard, so that he was.
on a firm business basis now and the
nelighbor 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 TWEEN
ty-eight years the Carnegie company
cleared an amount equal to eight hum
dred times it's first investment
There are those who assert that the
Wilson-Gorman tariff law was the Indirect
result of the Homestead strike. They de-
clare that the shoutings Of the Demo-
cratic press that Slavery had its Legree.
protection its Frick," did much 10 elect
Grover Cleveland in 1892. The day be-
fore the Homestead mills closed down in
1892 the Carnegie properties were organ
ICED into the Carnegie Steel company,
with a capitalization Of twenty million
dollars-double its former capitalization.
The men declared it was Millions for
them and PInkertons for u.s." referring
TO the PinkeTton detective force that was
employed against them.
Can iron stand alone? Carnegie says Il
can. Schwab once wrote a letter to F1ick
in which he said he could make rails for
less than twelve dollars ton, while the
best England could do was nineteen dol
lars a ton. Recently he said he was
driving a bargain when he made that
statement. Senator Stephen B. Eikins is
heavy buyer of steel rails. He says he
would rather pay a home enterprise
twenty-eight dollars a ton than to get
foreign rails at twenty-thas It means
mere work Tor everybody, and better BUSH
ness for veTybody. Congress will hardly
take the lew that the industry car stand
alone.