Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1909-01-06

'>'sANS 6Vhiao, llOI vi OiC mem, Due
of scores--some of them mere work
upon it. Improve
ments were continually introduced.
Year by year it's efficiency increased.
The output of this one furnace rose
from $1,000 tons in 1873 to 10000
tons in 1S97-the year in which Con-
gress put duty Of four dollars a
ton on pig iron to protect American
workmen whose output per man was
the wonder of the foreign steel world.
Perhaps you never heard of William
r. Jones, A. L. Holley, Julian Kenne-
dy, or of any other among the men
whose names would half fill this col
umn. whose brains devised and whose
hands shaped the numberless i'm
provements in steel-making that have
put the United States far ahead of
the rest of the world in that indus
try. You have, of course, heard of
Mr.. Carnegie, who bagged SO much
of the profits. Nearly all of these
men, to whom our supremacy in steel
is really due, came up from thel
ranks. 1t was the suggestion of al
German workman, imported to help
break strike, that evolved into the
modern slabbing mill which turns out
thousand tons day. "This little
idea of the German workman" says
Mr.. Bridge, historian of the Carnegie
Steel Company, "has been worth mil
lions of dollars 10 the firm that i'm
ported him to take the place of a
striker" In only two years, by var
ious inventions and Improvements,
the output of Bessemer unit (two
converters) was raised from fifteen
hundred to eight thousand tons a
month. Five years later its output
was fourteen thousand tons month.
Guess what that meant in the mat
ter of reducing labor-cost. One of
Jones' ideas reduced the number of
men required to operate train of
rolls from fifteen to five and doubled
the output. Again, by putting in two
bent pieces Of old rail SO as to throw
bloom, at a certain stage, upon a
moving bed, he saved the labor OF
dozen men. When the new Du-
quesne furnaces were put in blast in
ls96-97 the improvements embodied
lin them reduced the labor-cost by
so per cent. Mr.. Bridges tables show
that between January, 1876, and the
close of 1879 the cost of producing q
ten of rails at the Carnegie mills
dropped from $53.19 to $35.S4. Twen
1t, years later it was down to $12.
4 This shop.cost, of course, is tn.
|only thing that concerns labor. Al
tier the product is finished labor cal
|ftget no more out OF 1t. And whii'
the manufacturing cost, including the
llabor-cost, was thus rapidly declin
ling, the manufacturer insisted that h
must have high duty to protect his
workmen. He got $7.S4 ton in the
Dingley law.
What steel Workers Get From Pro
lection.
To the United States Steel Corpol
alton must be given credit for pub
fishing annual reports that discios
its operations in considerable detail
The credit should be all the create
because it is the only trust to adop
ltliis practice. Taking the report 70
1902, we find that the average nun
ber Of employees in the ore-minin
:. department was 1886 and the ou
put 16,O63,179 tons, or about 119
lions per man. In 1906 the averag
! number Of employees was 1888 an
1.-THE output 2O,645,14s tons, or abo,
-|1434 tons per man. In 1907-a trad
: reaction occurring in the last quartz
el-it was down to 1861 tons per maj
The total number Of employees
a 1907 was 21O,18O and total salarie
S and wages $16O,s25,S22, or an ave
t. age of more than $765 man-inclu
cling all the high-priced executive
% The average number of employees
D. tie manufacturing department WI
6 151 $40 and 13,O99,54 tons of steel !
d nots were produced. The duty {
IL ignots is $6.7O ton, which, null
I'd piled by last years output, wou
x give $3.50 for each employee in tn
II department. This, according to t
n protectionist theory, is the differen
M between wages paid to American al
IL foreign workmen. Would the Ste
r Corporation, then, be paying or
IS s1s5 a year, or SIS month, to
IN workmen if it weren't for the tarii
e. And in 1906, with its larger soutpl
ly the duty on the ignots made amom
r. ed to $615 for each employee in t
lie manufacturing department, with t
<; average pay of all employees OF
n S.29.
st It has been the policy of the c.
H. poration to hold prices steady-aft
TN having taken care to fix them hi
SIS enough. The average wholesale pr
ke of the big products-pig iron, ST.
atbillets and rails-was, in fact,
lis 1906, fractionally lower than in 1s
and no higher in 1907. Also, 1t op
Of iates some railroads and the price
Or II ansportation has not increas
les Meanwhile, between 1902 and ~
M the corporation raised wages.
by furnishes an instructive examI
Ir. then, Of very big eoncern VIII
en- has raised wages but has not rais
est the price of its products. In Is
gle total salaries and wages amour
veto 21.5 per cent. of gross sales
IAN plants and earnings Of railroads wi
lst in the last. two years total salar
I'VE and wages averaged 21.2 per cent.
the that gross. In word, in spite
ase the conditions mentioned above,
ad- Steel Corporations labor.cost
avg mt incraased And the labOr-(