Evening star., 1933-03-12

able. Add steel curbing and steel road
guards. Add steel dams-one was
urged for the Colorado River. Add
H-section piling for buildings, bridges
and piers. Add swimming pools and
welded machine bases. airport hangers
and runways, ferry-slip guides, farm
buildings and other farm structures.
Add up all these and We will have
in such new or newly emphasized mar
kets potential tonnage, the American
Steel Construction Institute insists, OF
around 10000 900 tons In a normal year
"a figure Of no little significance.
Meanwhile. elevated steel highways
are coming into larger acceptance and
pipe lines now proposed for gasoline as
well as oil and gas, have place in the
picture. Also the demand for steel in
q larger range Of miscellaneous uses, in
Guiding containers, such as tin" cans,
refrigerators and new products, Is prom
ising.
Industry End Of Cycle.
As Mr.. Taylor has indicated, obviously
our steel industry has reached the end
of cycle. Nearly all Of our industries
have The Nation has! Every one
nearly everywhere has!
In the case Of steel, this conclusion Is
fortified by many facts some of them
| full Of promise to the industry since
| they have bearing on new domestic and
even foreign demands for steel Of vari-
GUS kinds that are not available any
where else in the world. A quick glimpse
at some Of these factors may be full Of
AReaning
The last decades have witnessed the
discovery or larger use Of not few new
materials and the improvement of many
old competitive materials. Thus the So
| called white metals have come into
large acceptance and cement has made
progress.
These competing materials, new or
new in application, are SO numerous
that they suggest the picture Of almost
numberless little and large industries
striving together to shoot at and put
dent in the armor Of steel.
In the iron-and-steel industry itself,
research and invention since the World
War have been energiZing numerous
betterments in cast iron. cheaper ma
terial and some of these have bearing on
steel; Wrought iron meanwhile. thanks
to the Aston process which eliminates
expensive manipulating, has staged a
comeback. has been put on a mass pro-
duction basis and promises to extend its
lines beyond pipe in which alone it has
had much competitive meaning during
the last half century. Aluminium and
aluminium alloys, used ror structural
purposes in Office equipment, in furni-
| ture, in automobile, bus, truck, trolley
and railroad car bodies and in numer-
Gus other instances, is continuous
threat because Of its ightness and its
price. To this invasion add the other
invasions. more or less significant, by
nickel, by zinc, by stainless steels, which
Cfr I'd fNt t1yy ~ rtn na1e
of nickel chromium and iron.
But, though too big and busy to be
bothered at first by the changing scene
in which more progress has been made
in metallurgy in three decades than in
all the centuries before, the steel In
dustry itself has resorted, although in
general tardily. to laboratory research.
1t has taken to itself the manufacture
Of the increasing family Of stainless
steels with their infinitude Of uses. It has
embraced numerous Of the white and
other metals as alloying elements, put
them to work, married them in ordeals
Of fire to iron or steel and thus squared
around to offer an incredible and in
creasing progeny of alloy steels-already
numbering, II each variation produced
be counted, some 5000 Many Of those
already In use. for example those Of the
stainless family. are essentially new
metals. each with its special merits and
uses. And not only do new metals make
new products possible; they also bring
refnements in existing products and
therefore make new industries and new
jobs.
Ninety Metal Specifications.
For example: A pioneer Of the present
large family OF vanadium steels made
it possible to build the Model T Ford
with adequate strength but minimum
weight and cost. AS matter of fact
some our finest cars today contain as
many as 80 different specifications Of
metals, mainly alloy steels.
The steel industry thus has COM
pleted cycle; it has rounded out an
early and exploitive and pioneering
phase paralleling like phase in our
national development in which there
was Unsuitable demand for steel and
more steel-plain carbon steel-with
which to span the country with rib
bons called rails. to build bridges and
tunnels, skyscrapers and cities them
selves. Through most Of a decade 1t
has been. and still Is, emerging from
this cycle, entering new one, an era
Of readjustment, of consolidation, of
intensive and competitive refinement of
only one Of many straws in the wind,
only one ton of alloy steel was made
for each 1915 tons Of total steel, where
as In 1928 there was one ton Of alloy
steel produced in the United States
for each 16 tons total; and that, too,
in a time when all steel production
was in rapid ascendency.
But the steadily increasing use ton
nages, does not mean smaller profits.
On the contrary, alloy steels bring much
larger reward for manufacturing skill
than ordinary common steel.
Thus steel is in transition.
I'VE are always in transition, always
learning" says Mr.. Taylor, "and I for
one like to feel that the lessons are at
least in some measure worth their cost.
What have we learned? we have
learned, among other things, that, as
have said publicity before, the false gods
Of bigness and speed have proven pow
erless to help us; that bigness has af-
forded us no lasting happiness, speed
no economic security, hastily gained
knowledge no serenity. Now I would
add that nationally, industrially and
in all directions, 1t would seem that
we have reached the end Of q cycle
an era Of consolidation, of revision
Of many industrial practices, an era in
| Wn1cn we can and must reamrm our
faith at the altars Of simplicity, sobriety
and q better human understanding.
Better Production Control.
II expect that as a result Of the de-
preston we shall find that better con-
troll of production, therefore of en-
ployment, will come automatically. ]
anticipate better, because more In
telligent and dependable, distribution
Of work and the giving to each worker
Of as great q portion Of such work a.
is available. That Is a new and i'm
portant and flexible rule involving pro-
duction which has come to stay be-
cause 1t implies social advance on
one hand and no lack Of economic op-
Grafton on the other hand. It Is a
discovery-one Of the fruits Of the de-
pression-that will influence produc-
five onerations for all time