The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-13
THISCOLLEGE MAN. WAS NOT AFRAID OF MANUALLABOR
Eugene Grace Proved To Be Chas. M. Schwab's
 Greatest Find

NEW YORK, July 12.-Steel is the foundation of American aseendancy in many fields. It is also the basis of many tremendous American fortunes. It has made possible the development of American railroading. American steel undoubtedly won the World war and maintained the ascendancy of de- mocracy. Its background is the most impressive of all industries, and though men still sweat and toil to make steel. its history is the history of emancipa- tion from human drudgery.-
 Into this industry. with imagina- ton fired by its possibilities not only for fortune and power but for human progress. stepped Eugene G. Grace, des- tined to become head of the second in size of the worlds greatest steel-mak- ing corporations. He was fresh from college and carried the tag of an cleo trical engineer, but he started work with the Bethlehem Steel corporation at the rate of $1-S0 q day for long day of sweat and drudgery. His fel- low. workers were the "hunkies" of the open hearth furnaces, the broad backed, squat Hungarians and Poles, who are even today the basis of most of that tremendous superstructure of steel that has been erected in this coun- try.
 Other men have gone from colleges into "soft" berths, especially when they. had ,techpical training. But not young Grace, whose ambition 1t was to learn the steel industry from the bof- tom up. He began in the place of all places where that most essential ingre- dient of steel-the human factor-was to be analysed. For it is one of the commonplaces of the industry that steel making is not to be learned in Tech" OF in books, but that it must be learned where it is made-in the furnaces and mills, in the sweat of the brow and the strain of muscles. Hence his ap- plication of keen, college-trained in tellect to the humdrum basic processes which have netted such remarkable dividends in power, position and wealth.
 Is Executive Head
 Eugene Grace is today president of the Bethlehem Steel corpora tion and its active executive head. Charles M. Schwab, the man who was discovered in the mills by Andrew Carnegie and who made himself one of the country's most powerful steel magnates. took a leaf from the book of his illustrious chief and did some discovering on his own account. His most remarkable find was young Grace. In the last few years MT. Schwab, who is chairman of the directors of the $500, 900 900 cor poration, has been withdrawing from the details of active direction and the burden has fallen more and more upon Grace, his first lieutenant.
 So it is that the young man who was willing to forego a relatively easy ca- reer in one of the technical proFes- sions has become one of the industrial giants of the country. The Bethlehem Steel corporation at the height of the war was a greater ordnance producer than even the Krupps of Germany. To- day, when peace demands have super seded those of war and the huge plants have had to be converted into produ~ cers of industrial steel, it is still the second. of the worlds steel makers, surpassed only by the United States Steel corporation, the greatest indus trial organization in the world.
 As far back as 1915 Charles Schwab declared that Eugene Grace is the greatest steel man in the country, far surpassing himself. He used to relate that on a trip through the mills he watched an unusually energetic young ster operating one of the big cranes, with precipitation pouring from him in riyulets. He made inquiries and learn ed that he was college man. Now, the Charlie" Sehwab of those days had no particular reverence for a college education as such, but he was always a strong believer in judiciOus mix ture of brains and hard muscular la