Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1917-11-25
GARY, Ind, 1917.

I'M I'M Superior on vessel loaded
US ~ IN with ore to the great steel
GMESXSSn plants here at the foot OF
Lake Michigan My steamer had cargo
OF $4,000 tons She unloaded this in less
than five hours and the ore is already on
its way to the furnace. By the time this
letter is published it will have been made
into steel, and will have gone out with other
sister cargoes into steel rails, big guns and
shells and the thousand and one other forms
in which Uncle Sam is using steel in our
fight with the Germans. Cast year. when
we were still out of the war, we sold to Eng
land and France four or five million tons
Of steel shells and 766,0OO,0O0 pounds OF
barbed wire for entanglements That steel
would have filled train of flfty-ton cars
as long as from New York to Chicago, and
the barbed wire would have been enough to
build nine-strand hog-tight fence around
the world on the line of the equator. Those
were the sales OF one year and OF only two
items They were made when we had not
yet begun to fight. Now, we are in the
struggle with every atom OF muscle and
every bit of machinery can command.
The government is taking the produce OF
all the steel plants, and the output will be
greater than ever before. The plants are
now backed by more than four, billions OF
capital Every worker in steel and iron has
been drafted into the industrial army and
we have today more than million such
men in the ranks.
Away down here at the foot Of Lake
Michigan are two of the biggest camps OF
this army of iron and steel Although Of
fcered by the United States Steel Corpora
ton, they are now under the government
and they are fighting the battle after the
most improved methods Of modern eff
fciency. 1t is to show you something of
what they are doing that | have come here
to South Chicago and Gary. But first let
me show you how strategically the two
camps are located and how we'll they are
fitted for waging the war. They are stuat-
ed on the deep waters of Lake Michigan,
where the ore from the mountains OF Lake
Superior can be shot from the ships almost
into the furnaces, where coal and limestone
can be cheaply secured and where the steel
products can be rapidly transported to any
part of the world
The South Chicago plant is part of the
city of Chicago This section has about
eighty thousand inhabitants, and the most
OF them are supported by the steel works,
The town of Gary is just across the Indiana
boundary, about thirty miles from Chicago.
1t has fifty-fve thousand inhabitants, and
there are about twelve thousand men at
work in the mills and the furnaces.
The South Chicago plant is that of the
Illinois Steel Company. It's buildings al
ready cover about four hundred acres, and
it has more than twice as much more land
adjoining it which will eventually be used
for the works. The Gary plant belongs to
of the United States Steel Corporation II
is already three miles long and mile and
quarter in width, and this whole territory
is covered with structures that are very
mountains of steel The towers and tur.
refs of its furnaces stand out like mighty
castles against the sky and its huge build
ings are willed with masses of machiner,
that seem to move on ball bearings. A net
work of railroad tracks runs in and ou
through the works. and great pipes of steel
some of them SO large that Pullman trair
could pass through them without touching
the walls of the pipe, wind in and out, clos,
to the ground and high above it, CARRYING
millions of feet of gas to the various part
+. of the works. | do not know the cost of tn,
South Chicago plant, but it has run far III
into the tens OF millions of dollars TIL,
machinery of the Gary plant alone has cos
more than one hundred and forty millions
A and the United States Steel Corporation i