United States Steel Corporation
an immense company engaged chiefly in the manufacture of iron products. In 1862 Andrew Carnegie organized the Keystone Iron Works of Pittsburg. He built the first iron bridge across the Ohio. Seeing that his profits would be greater if he could furnish his own iron, he organized the Union Iron Mills in 1868. In 1888 he got control of the business of his leading competitor, the Homestead Steel Works of Pittsburg. The next year he united these three large enterprises and a dozen smaller ones in the Carnegie Steel Company. In 1901 J. Pierpont Morgan proposed the organization of the United States Steel Corporation. Mr. Carnegie turned in his vast corporation at a valuation of $500,000,000 and retired from active business. The entire capital was listed in 1908 at $1,018,809,300. There are, it is said, a hundred thousand small holders of stock, but, with Messrs. Morgan and Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and a few other wealthy financiers retain enough stock to control the corporation and elect the board of directors.
It is the policy of the Steel Trust, as it is called, not to own the earth exactly, but to own all such portions of the earth, in the way of iron mines, coal mines, gas fields, railroads, steamers, barges, docks, smelters, plants, real estate, offices, and yards, as are in any way needed to carry on the largest iron and steel business in the world. The corporation has nothing to buy but labor. It is difficult for rival companies to compete. If necessary to get rid of a competitor, the Steel people can make low prices--give away more steel than a small company is worth and never feel it.
In 1908 Frank A. Munsey inventoried the properties of the United States Steel Corporation. The exhibit is stupendous. It may be read in the May issue of Munsey's Magazine for that year. The groups of property are the following:
| Lake Superior iron and timber properties | $738,866,017 |
| Coal and coke properties in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois | 142,839,779 |
| Limestone quarries | 2,619,529 |
| Gas fields, Pennsylvania and West Virginia | 10,360,940 |
| Railways, rolling stock, or docks, steamers, and barges | 162,703,975 |
| Furnaces, mills, and factories (145 in all) | 382,248,897 |
| Work on new plant at Gary, Indiana | 24,063,388 |
| Real estate and buildings | 6,694,973 |
| Tennessee Coal and Iron Company | 50,000,000 |
| Cash and book accounts (net) | 261,789,885 |
| Total | $1,782,187,383 |
| Bonds outstanding | 602,320,511 |
Net value of corporation . . . . . $1,179,866,872
The task of getting at the property value of such a corporation is difficult. The various groups of interests are managed by companies to all intents and purposes independent of each other. The exact facts can be ascertained only by examining the books of half a hundred offices. Mr. Munsey has been conservative, however. Messabe iron is reckoned at 60 cents a ton; limestone at 3 cents a ton; Tennessee coal at 10 cents a ton. It is unlikely that a controlling interest in the corporation could be bought at double the valuation given.