The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-04-21
Steel Boom In U. s. Aided By World Arms Race
 As Scrap Metal Exports Undergo Closer Scrutiny
Rise In Steel Prices Already Forcing US To Pay Part Of Military Costs
 As Potential NezO Ties Are Made
BY WILLIS THORNTON NEA Service Stan Correspondent

NEA Service Stan Correspondent
 Cleveland, April 21 = The Amer ican steel industry today is mak- ing more steel than in the days when it was breaking all its own records in the 1929 boom.
 Production of steel ingotS ap- breaches practical capacity. Blast furnaces in operation increased by 56 from March 1, 1886, to March l, 1897. Despite the auto strikes, de- Inand for steel scarcely abated, and consumers today are fighting over delivery rather than over rising prices.
 Scrap steel has been rapidly rising in price until ic is almost as high as pig iron. It was as low as $4 ton during the depression; recently it went almost to $24.
 This boom in steel so far exceeds that in general business that the president himself noted it in a re- cent speech. It recalls. to many steel men, the days of 1915 and 1916, when European war orders forced expansion of the American steel in- dustry to a point where depression was inevitable when the war orders were cut off.
 PUBLIC PAYING
 Are world war preparations at the bottom of today's boom in steel? And is there the same chance of terrible letdown if such orders should suddenly fail?
 Such situation is suggested in the business bulletin of the Cleve- land Trust Company. It stresses that the whole world now is producing more iron and steel than ever be- fore, and suggests grimly: Tt may be that the nations are already in conflict through this industry, and that this time the war demands are being experienced in anticipation of, hostilities, or in the hope of avoid ing them, instead of becoming ur- gent after their outbreak :"
 In other words, so far as steel is concerned, the next World War al- ready has begun.
 Whats more a committe of small independent steel men, organized to combat rising prices for scrap iron and steel, suggests that Americans are already paying the fare without taking the ride:
 ''The increase in price of scrap, is undoubtedly due in the major part to the rearmament program of foreign nations, with the result that the American public is in effect being forced to pay part of the cost of world aearmament."
 To understand that, you must recall that this crap metal being sent aboard is not just junk no longer needed here. It is an import ant ingredient of all domestic steel making. U. s. steel makers bought 13, 500, ,000 tons of it last year.
 Now they must pay a price for it that is being jacked up by the eager demand from foreign arma- rnent makers. That adds to the cost of American-made steel, and tends to hamper the revival of building and other expansion.
 SHIPMENTS JANIMED
 So critical has been this rise in the cost of scrap steel that Senator Schwellenbach of Washington has introduced a bill for regulation of scrap exports.
 Schwellenbach, seeing the ship loads of scrap leaving his Pacific northwest practically every day, never to come back except perhaps as exploding shells, became concern ed. He remembers wartime days, when scrap reached $40 ton, and the federal government had to step in.
 Hearings on the bill are expect ed soon, with the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel opposing restriction. The scrap business is now almost as well-organized as steel itself.
 How much of the exports of scrap metal and finished steel actually, goes directly into armament can not be told. But all importing countries are feveriShly engaged in the arms race.
 Scrap exports have reached a point where shipments are actually congested in several eastern ports. Several railroads actually had to de- clare an embargo on scrap ship ments to the seaboard, halting car movements to the piers until there are ships there ready to load.
 Countries like Japan, Italy and