CHAPTER V

MEN WHO MADE UNITED STATES STEEL ELBERT H. GARY A year or so before these words were written the big office buildings and apartment houses of New York City were tied up by a strike of elevator operators. The Empire Building, at 71 Broadway, purchased shortly before the strike by the Steel Corporation, however, was not affected. Every man was at his post. And it was perhaps the only big building in the city that showed no sign of the strike. A newspaper man, visiting the building, asked one of the starters the reason, and he was told: “As soon as the Corporation bought this building our wages were raised. We are getting as much as or more than the unions are demanding. Judge Gary has treated us white. And you can just bet your life we are going to stick by him, strike or no strike!” This is only a little incident. But it serves to illustrate the most important characteristic of the head of United States Steel: His sense of justice, the supreme passion of his life. Judge Gary treats everyone “white.” Judge Gary is not a “glad hand artist.” He is, if anything, too reserved, and hence he does not win popularity quickly with chance acquaintances. But those who know him intimately or have business dealings with him admire, sometimes even reverence him, for they know he not only preaches but practises in every relation of his life the square deal, and when there is any question of what is fair between himself and another, leans over backward and gives the other the advantage. In the pages of this history the Steel Corporation’s policy of “the square deal” to all has been emphasized time and again. It is the Corporation’s policy because it was first Gary’s. He impressed it on the Corporation, sometimes after a hard fight. To-day it is the foremost policy of the big company as it is the guiding spirit of Gary’s life. Elbert H. Gary, chief executive officer of the United States Steel Corporation, was born on his father’s farm near Wheaton, Illinois. He was descended from old New England stock on one side, his father, Erastus Gary, having sprung from the hardy Puritans who settled in Massachusetts, while his mother, Abiah Vallette Gary, was a descendant of one of the daring spirits who sailed from France as an officer in the Army of LaFayette and fought with him for the freedom of the American colonies. The future head of the greatest industrial organization in the world was brought up frugally. He was full of spirits and fond of play, but his Puritan father was a believer in the discipline of hard work, and the youthful Elbert had little time except for his lessons and for work on the farm. “My father didn’t believe much in play,” he once remarked to the writer; “we boys had our choice of working or studying, and the time was divided about equally between the two during each year.” But although Erastus Gary may have been stern and uncompromising he was obviously also a fond and kindly parent. Asked what had been the dominating influence of his life, Judge Gary replied: “My parents. Whatever worth while I may have done I owe to their teaching and example.” [Illustration: Bee-hive Coke Ovens] When Gary was fourteen the Civil War broke out. The story is told that the news came to the farm one evening that the Union had been attacked and Erastus Gary and his boys sat around the fire discussing the situation and what their course of action should be. But their mother had no such doubts. Walking to the fireplace the old lady took therefrom a rifle and handed it without a word to her eldest son. [Illustration: Mouth of Coal Mine--Coke Ovens in Background] The Judge himself remembers nothing of the incident and it may be a fabrication pure and simple. However this may be, the fact is that soon after the young Elbert ran away from home and joined the Union ranks. He never had the desired opportunity to fight for the Union as his father discovered his whereabouts--this was probably not difficult as he knew the boy’s spirit--and got him sent back home. Among the friends of the elder Gary, and frequent visitors at the Wheaton farm, were Col. Henry F. Vallette, an uncle, and Judge Hiram H. Cody, members of the Illinois bar and of the firm of Vallette and Cody, of Naperville, a neighboring town. They had both noticed Elbert Gary’s ability and studious habits, and when the boy was about eighteen years of age Vallette one day asked him: “Elbert, how would you like to become a lawyer?” Needless to say Gary did not wait to be asked twice. He entered the firm’s office in 1865 and while working there began to read law. Later he took a regular course in a law school at Chicago and was soon admitted to the bar of his state, where his success was rapid and pronounced. In course of time he became Judge of Du Page County and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. Meanwhile, he had formed, with his brother Noah and one of his former chiefs, the firm of Gary, Cody & Gary. Gary became one of the leaders of the Chicago bar, and his ability in handling difficult cases soon attracted to him a number of wealthy clients, among whom were several large corporations, and it was through his connections with one of these corporations that he eventually connected himself exclusively with the steel industry, in which he has since risen to be the most important figure. In 1898 Gary, as general counsel for and a director of the Illinois Steel Co., was called on to take charge of the organization of the Federal Steel Co., a merger of the Illinois and other companies. It was he who first suggested this amalgamation. Here he was for the first time brought in touch with the late J. Pierpont Morgan, whose financial assistance in the formation of the new company was being sought. The business ability of the lawyer so impressed the New York banker that he and others interested with him insisted that Gary should head Federal Steel. The future head of United States Steel hesitated, for his practice was lucrative and he had become financially independent, but he finally yielded and gave up his legal business, then located at Chicago, and moved to New York, devoting himself thenceforward entirely to steel. Speaking of the reasons for Morgan’s choice in this matter an old business associate of the Judge’s said: “Legal judgment and business acumen are seldom found in combination. Gary had both these qualities and a higher degree than any man I have ever known. And it was this happy combination that impressed the great banker.” But more than this, Gary was, and is, a statesman in business. He has the broad vision that distinguishes the statesman from the mere politician and the really great business leader from the average run of executives. He saw beyond immediate effects into the distant future and based his course on this vision. In writing of the vast majority of men who have achieved success in one line or another it is easy to select some prominent characteristic which particularly distinguishes them. But there are a few who owe their eminence to a variety of well-blended attributes, and Gary is one of these chosen few. This renders it difficult for the chronicler to decide where the heaviest stress should be laid. A prominent Chicago lawyer who in his youth had worked for years under Gary was appealed to in this regard. And this is what he said: “Judge Gary had the ability and courage to, whenever necessary, abandon the old precedents which, by reason of changed times and conditions, had been relegated to the scrap heap of progress. He was one of the few attorneys who could, with almost prophetic vision, see the positions which the courts of appeal must eventually be obliged to take with reference to questions of public policy and the great industrial organizations just then in their infancy.” The lawyer then went on to tell an anecdote illustrating the fact that the Judge though a member of the legal profession did not believe in recourse to litigation when it could be avoided. He said: “I recall that on one occasion a client called on the Judge in an irate mood and asserted his intention of prosecuting a neighbor for slander. He told Gary what the neighbor had said and asked his opinion and advice. And this was the reply he received: ‘If you are guilty of what he charges perhaps you had better sue; but if you are not--why, go home and forget it.’” Nor did Gary’s prophetic vision “extend only as regards the position which the courts must take” but to the trend of human events generally. There is nothing uncanny about this foresight or sixth sense. It is due entirely to the fact that its possessor has a mind peculiarly capable of estimating and sizing up the relative values of known causes and deducting from them the natural, in fact, the inevitable results. No better exemplification of this can be given than is afforded by the policies which he advocated for the Corporation, and which were gradually adopted and put into practice. He saw plainly, long before any one else did, how subject to criticism was the gigantic organization which he had helped to form, and of which he was the head; he realized that its very size contained an element of weakness in that it attracted enmity, and made it the subject of attack. And in the face of powerful opposition, not only from some of his fellow directors at first--an opposition that gradually diminished and eventually vanished, or was converted into admiration and hearty coöperation--but from subordinate executives of the subsidiary companies who could not accustom themselves immediately to new business methods, he insisted that the big company should so deal with all with whom it came in contact, its competitors, its customers, its workmen, as to make all of these its friends. Such a consummation was regarded in the beginning as an impracticable dream by nearly everyone of his colleagues, who could not realize that a new industrial era was dawning, but Gary persisted and won out. The good will he gained for the Corporation from those who otherwise would have been its enemies proved a strong bulwark of defence in the Government’s suit for the dissolution of the “Steel Trust.” Had Gary’s early recommendations on questions of policy been overruled by his associates it is a moral certainty that the Corporation would have been dissolved instead of emerging victorious from the suit. It is difficult to see how any one who had the opportunity to listen to or read the evidence presented in this litigation could fail to have been impressed with the fact that Gary seemed to have anticipated every possible point of attack and to have taken steps to eliminate, or at least to minimize, the danger therefrom. Whatever may have been the differences of opinion in the beginning, for many years the policies advocated by Judge Gary have been endorsed by all of his fellow-directors on the Steel Corporation’s Board; particularly by the members of the Finance Committee, who were more closely associated with him, had a better opportunity of absorbing his viewpoint, and who stood behind him solidly in carrying out his ideas. Gary himself was emphatic on this point in his testimony in the Government suit. The part played by Gary in bringing about the formation of the U. S. Steel Corporation and in guiding its policies was clearly brought out by the late Robert Bacon, one of the partners in the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., in his testimony in the suit in question. Mr. Bacon, speaking of the organization of the big company, said: “Judge Gary, of course, directed it all.” And later, in discussing the policies of the Corporation: “The facts are that the policy of the company from the beginning has been to change the old methods of dealing with competitors. Judge Gary, who has done more for the U. S. Steel Corporation in its development and the benefits it has brought all hands than any one man since its formation, has made it a cardinal point of his policy, and has tried his best to inculcate it upon all the sub-companies, that there was a new order of things come, that there were new rules of the game dealing with competitors, as well as in other human relations. Judge Gary has talked from the very first and has tried to compel the actions of all the others in the Corporation toward dealing fairly and decently with competitors, as being the only way in which any kind of stability of prices or of conditions could be maintained. He has from the beginning preached and practised the fairest kind of dealing with his competitors, keeping them informed, as far as he legitimately could, of all the conditions of the Steel Corporation, and by doing so has gradually acquired a degree of confidence that, in my opinion, has never existed before amongst competitors. The old conditions have changed; the old destructive and ruinous and ruthless warfare of the early days of the iron and steel industry has disappeared, and in its place, by reason of the attitude of Judge Gary, more than any one else, a condition has been produced among competitors in the iron and steel business, and I believe in many other industries, that never before existed.” Judge Gary’s intense desire for doing justice to all, and his sincere interest in the well-being of the worker, have already been referred to. He is not a reformer in the ordinarily accepted sense of the term. He does not prate about helping the working man, but in guiding the big Corporation he has always seen to it that the man who labors shall be given an opportunity for clean living and self-respect. And it is significant that in arranging wage increases the Corporation has always provided more generously for the lower-paid employee. As a mass, the men who work for the Corporation recognize Judge Gary’s attitude and appreciate it fully. And he sets a higher valuation on this recognition and appreciation than on all the honors that have come to him. Some years ago Gary, in urging on the subsidiary companies the promotion of safety and welfare work for the Corporation’s employees, said to the casualty managers of the different subsidiary companies: “We (the Finance Committee) shall not hesitate to make the necessary appropriations of money to carry into effect every suggestion that seems to be practicable for the improvement of conditions at our mills.” Later he wrote, repeating his former promise that all needed money would be forthcoming and saying: “The safety and welfare of the workmen is of the greatest concern.” This promise has been kept sacredly. The writer has visited at one time or another practically all the Corporation’s plants--some of them several times. At each one he has always asked those who devote themselves to welfare work this question: “Have you any difficulty in getting appropriations from the Corporation for welfare work you consider advisable?” And the reply has invariably been the same: “We are never refused.” In the vast organization that is the United States Steel Corporation there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of men who have never set eyes upon its head, who have no idea what he is like to look upon. But there is probably hardly a man who does not feel his influence, and there are few who do not look up to him with respect and often with something like reverence. His personality has permeated this huge mass of men. Another attribute of this great business leader is a broad and real tolerance of the opinions of those who do not agree with him. He has built up a vast and wonderfully efficient organization founded on what he conceives to be principles of justice and fair dealing, but his attitude toward those who criticize the structure he has erected is not one of irritation, as might be expected, or of impatience. Rather he endeavors, sincerely and patiently, to disarm criticism by a policy of open dealing. On one occasion, when certain acts of his had been criticized as constituting a possible violation of the law, he, although believing implicitly that he had not offended, forthwith abandoned the continuance of these acts, so as to leave no shadow of doubt of his intent to obey the law. He explained at the time that though every citizen had the right to criticize legislation, and should seek to have changed such laws as he deemed unjust or uneconomic, he was bound to obey these laws so long as they remained on the statute books. In physical stature Judge Gary is of medium height. He carries his years well and appears yet in his prime. The impression he gives the observer is that of a statesman rather than a man of affairs, an impression heightened by his deliberate speech and his appreciation of the finer meanings of words. Most of his portraits represent him sitting straight up, just a little stiffly, but when interested in a conversation, the Judge invariably stands, or rather paces deliberately back and forth, his hands stuck in the waistband of his trousers, and his head bent forward at an angle of deep thought. And as he warms to his subject, he now and then gesticulates slightly, or, turning to his listener, drives home some argument with pointed forefinger. At the remembrance of some amusing incident his twinkling eyes light up what is usually a decidedly serious countenance. All those who during the World War were in touch with what was being done by the Government to meet the enormous new manufacturing needs created by the war know that the Steel Corporation, in the great emergency, invariably put patriotism above profits and that its hearty coöperation helped materially in bringing about the desired end. Judge Gary was responsible for the Corporation’s attitude in this as in other matters. Honors have been showered upon the head of the Steel Corporation by universities and colleges, and the American, French, Belgian, and Italian governments, and the late Pope Pius X presented a gold medal containing his profile portrait to Judge Gary in recognition of his efforts for improving working conditions. But beyond all these honors he values the esteem of the men under him, and the good will of his competitors. It would be hard to find a more suitable ending for this brief study of the leading figure in the industrial world than the quotation applied to him by the principal steel makers of the United States and Canada on the occasion of a dinner given in his honor in October, 1909. Here were men who had fought with him and against him, who had had every opportunity to estimate him both as friend and foe, and who, after the trying times of the 1907 panic, declared that he had “played the game and played it fair”: “Moderate, resolute, whole in himself, a common good.” JOHN PIERPONT MORGAN “The greatest banker the world has ever seen.” Thus the head of the Deutsche Bank called the late J. P. Morgan during his lifetime, and as the years pass students of finance are becoming more and more satisfied that the German, himself a banker of no mean repute or ability, spoke truly. Without J. Pierpont Morgan the organization of the United States Steel Corporation would, in all probability, have been an impossibility. The carrying through of so vast a project required a financier of his prestige and of his financial courage. There was no other banker big enough or bold enough to undertake such a task, and no history of the Corporation would be complete unless it contained a résumé of the work of the former money wizard. So large did Morgan loom in the public eye during his lifetime and so much has been said and written of him since that it would be difficult to say anything of him with which the reader is not already familiar. But it has perhaps not been generally realized that Morgan was a patriot of the right type. He was, to use a financial term, “a bull on America.” His confidence in his country’s future was unbounded, and he had the courage of his convictions to put his great fortune into the development of American enterprises. John Pierpont Morgan was the son of Junius Spencer and Juliet Morgan. He was born on April 17, 1837, and educated at the English High School of Boston and the University of Gottingen. He entered the banking business at the age of twenty, with the firm of Duncan, Sherman & Co., and later, from 1864 to 1871, was a member of the banking house of Dabney, Morgan & Co. Still later he helped to form the firm of Morgan, Drexel & Co., which afterward became J. P. Morgan & Co. He died in Rome within a few weeks of the close of his 76th year, on March 31, 1913. Having a peculiar genius for financial organization and arriving at the heyday of his power at the period when vast consolidations of capital and industry were the order of the day it was natural that he should have figured prominently in the carrying through of many of these. Among the large concerns with the organization of which he was closely identified was the International Harvester Co., and he took a prominent part in the reorganization and refinancing of several large railroad enterprises, notably the Erie, Reading, Santa Fe, and Northern Pacific. He has generally been blamed for the New Haven débâcle and there is no doubt that he occupied an important position in managing its affairs; in fact, according to the former president of that system, he dictated its policies and actions. But the financing of the United States Steel Corporation was beyond all question his _magnum opus_. So great was Morgan’s influence in the management of most of the companies with which he was connected that it was said of him, as of the McGregor, that “where he sat was the head of the table.” But so far as the Steel Corporation was concerned at least, it seems to be fairly well established that, keen as was his interest and great as was his pride in the big company, he never assumed an attitude in the least dictatorial. He was the Corporation’s banker--nothing more. Questions of operation and policy he left entirely to those having direct charge of them. This was particularly true in the last six or eight years of his life, by which time, other directors of the Corporation have stated, he had come to place such implicit reliance on the judgment of Judge Gary that he always accepted the latter’s ideas upon all matters connected with the welfare of the great enterprise. Morgan himself regarded the amalgamation of many of the country’s leading steel concerns into United States Steel as the crowning achievement of his career. He took a personal pride in his connection with the Corporation’s organization--and who shall say it was not a worthy pride? He lived to see it firmly established and exerting an influence for good on the steel trade and on industry generally; to see it gain the confidence of the public as evidenced by the growth that was, even before his death, taking place in the number of its stockholders, many of whom held only a share or two and regarded them almost as gold bonds; to see it earn the good will of its competitors and the loyalty of its--at the time--two hundred thousand odd employees. But unfortunately he also lived to see it attacked by the Government. No doubt this was a sore grief to the great financier. And its vindication did not come until several years after his death. To those who knew him by sight only Morgan appeared a solitary, stern figure, perhaps a little too much inclined toward impressing his own will on others. Those who enjoyed intimacy with him declare that under his cold exterior beat a heart as tender as a woman’s, that he took the keenest interest in all things human and that, while never figuring publicly as a philanthropist, the list of his private benefactions was enormous. Newspaper men, who perforce had often to seek an interview with the great banker, found him rather unapproachable. But when he consented to talk his statements could be relied on absolutely. And he was not without a subtle sense of humor. On one occasion a financial writer who had been assigned to get Morgan to talk by hook or by crook invaded his private yacht and was only saved from being ejected by the banker himself who invited his visitor to the saloon and treated him like an honored guest. He discussed in the fullest detail the subject on which the writer wished to interview him but--at the end, when his self-invited guest was taking his leave, Morgan said with a shadow of a smile: “Of course, you understand all I have told you is in confidence. You have been my guest and I rely on you not to violate that confidence.” Needless to say the interview was never printed. The scribe reported to his office that the banker refused to be interviewed. When Morgan died the leading business men of the country united in testifying to his ability and character. Judge Gary, who had been closely associated with him for years, said: “As a constructive force in financial matters he had no equal. With keenest perception, with indomitable courage, and with unbounded confidence in the future he was a natural leader and as such was called upon in times of financial stress to lend his influence to avert a threatened storm or to overcome an existing difficulty. And he never failed. His character was such that the greatest men of this country and of other countries trusted him and followed his lead.” Shortly before he last sailed from his home shores Morgan remarked to a friend that his work was done. The utterance was prophetic. And posterity is beginning to realize how great that work was. In these difficult days of world reconstruction, more than ever before, is his financial genius and particularly his faith and courage missed. CHARLES M. SCHWAB Perhaps of no other man in industry are as many anecdotes related as of Charles M. Schwab, the first president of the United States Steel Corporation, and now head of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the second largest steel organization in America. Schwab is the Peter Pan of American industry. His is the spirit of perennial youth, his the philosophy of laughter. “I try,” he says, “to be like Schulz. He was a foreman under me during the Homestead strike. He stuck by the company and one day came into my office dripping mud and water. To my inquiries he replied that some strikers had thrown him into the creek. “‘What did you do then, Schulz?’ I asked. “‘Oh, I shust laff.’” One of the old Carnegie “boys,” Schwab is like the former iron master in his wonderful ability to infuse into those who work with him some of the enthusiasm with which he is so richly endowed, and to get from them loyalty and devotion. To this attribute, as much as to anything else, Schwab owes his great success. It is impossible to get an accurate concept of Schwab’s personality without coming directly into contact with him. Many men have declared that “C. M.,” as he is known to his friends, is “the best salesman that ever stepped in shoe leather.” And this is not an exaggeration. There is something about him--fascination, personal magnetism, call it what you will--that captivates almost everyone with whom he comes in contact. His infectious laugh disarms hostility and criticism. His great ability compels admiration. Numerous anecdotes illustrating Schwab’s magnetism are told in the steel trade; the following is typical: Several years ago, when Bethlehem Steel was a little known company, its head visited a prominent New York banker to seek his aid in putting out a bond issue. He told the banker all about the great future in store for Bethlehem as he saw it--prophetically, as it has turned out--and his hearer was fired with enthusiasm regarding the proposed issue. He asked Schwab to go back to his office and dictate to a stenographer the statements he had made regarding the security behind the bonds and the future of Bethlehem Steel for the purpose of making up a prospectus. With that, he declared, the bonds would sell like hot cakes. When the banker received the typewritten prospectus he was dissatisfied and rang Schwab up on the ’phone. The steel man’s arguments were not nearly so convincing in black and white as when given in his inimitable style, and the money magnate declared that the other had not included in the written statement the facts related in the conversation. So Schwab paid him another visit and went all over the matter again. The banker said: “Yes. You’ve got it all down here. But it doesn’t sound the same. I tell you what we’ll do. You talk the bonds into a phonograph and we’ll use the records to sell them.” And here is another Schwab anecdote told by himself: “On one occasion, when Bethlehem was still a struggling company, I went to see a Philadelphia banker whom I knew very well and told him I needed a great deal of money. He said: “‘I can let you have half a million.’ “‘Why,’ I replied, ‘I can get at least a million from bankers in New York who don’t even know me!’ “‘That’s the reason they lend you,’ he gravely returned.” Charles M. Schwab was born at Williamsburg, Pa., on February 18, 1862, and educated at St. Francis College at Loretto in the same state. His father owned a livery stable at Cresson Springs, where Carnegie had a summer bungalow. One day the little Scotsman, who loved music, heard the boy singing, and told Schwab, Senior, to bring the lad to him when he was ready to go to work. At the age of eighteen Schwab entered the employment of the Carnegie Company as a junior in the drafting room. Schwab attributes his success largely to the interest which Carnegie took in him. Carnegie, on the other hand, declared that Schwab was one of the two men to whom he owed the bulk of his fortune, the other being Captain William R. Jones, who was superintendent of the big Braddock plant when Schwab enlisted in the steel army. At the age of twenty-four Schwab was appointed superintendent of the Homestead plant, which had just been acquired by Carnegie. When he arrived there, the organization was in a terrible condition. The long series of strikes which the original owners had had to contend with had not only caused them to give up the plant in despair and to accept Carnegie’s offer, but had resulted in bitter feeling on the part of the workmen. But Schwab’s smile and good nature soon won them over, and in a few months the organization had been restored and Homestead was making money for Carnegie. In 1889 Schwab returned to Braddock on the death of Captain Jones, as his successor. Three years later occurred the bloody strike at Homestead, and Schwab was again sent back there to take charge. When the strike was over he was put in charge of both plants. He was the only man that ever managed two plants for Carnegie. One day Carnegie told Schwab that it had been decided to make him vice-president of the Carnegie Company. But the young man replied: “No, Mr. Carnegie, I am no good at carrying out another man’s orders, and that’s about all a vice-president has to do. As superintendent I am boss of the plants I manage; I prefer to remain that way.” Next day Carnegie again sought out his superintendent. “Well, if you won’t be vice-president, I suppose we’ll have to make you president,” he said, and so he did. Like Gary, Schwab was satisfied that the next step in steel making, one that must come sooner or later, was the integration of the different departments of steel making into one big, harmonious whole. How he assisted in making this possible we have already seen. In 1901, on the organization of the United States Steel Corporation, Schwab became its president, with a salary of $100,000 a year and about $15,000,000 of its stock. After the Corporation had taken over Carnegie Steel, Morgan, the story goes, found a contract among its papers pledging Schwab a salary of $1,000,000 a year. He had not been aware of the existence of this contract and asked Schwab what could be arranged on the matter. Schwab replied: “Let me have that paper a second, Mr. Morgan,” and taking it from the banker, he tore it into small pieces and threw them into the wastebasket. But Schwab did not long remain president of the great steel merger. Long accustomed to being “boss” he found the new conditions disagreeable. Bred in the old steel school he was out of sympathy with the policies of the Corporation as inaugurated by Gary. There was no open breach between them, but the situation was obviously galling to the younger man and so he resigned, his resignation probably being hastened by the fact that he had been for some time in poor health, a victim of neuritis. It was in 1903 that Schwab severed his connection with the Steel Corporation and sailed for Europe intending, at the time, to give up business permanently. But this was not to be. Although he returned from Europe in 1904 Schwab did not actively engage in business again until 1907. He was, in a sense, pitchforked back into the manufacturing arena by the failure of the United States Shipbuilding Co. a year or two before and its reorganization as the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Schwab, who had been the principal bondholder of the shipbuilding company, became the controlling interest in the reorganization and eventually assumed personal charge of its activities to protect his own investment as well as that of others. Once in harness again Schwab threw himself heart and soul into the steel battle. He found Bethlehem Steel in a rundown condition and for years he poured into it his personal fortune and all the money he could borrow. Although himself the largest stockholder he steadfastly refused to consider dividends until the company was firmly established financially and the result was that, before the European war broke out, Bethlehem was solidly on its feet and showing large earnings. These were enormously enhanced during the war years, when the stock sold as high as $700 a share. To-day Bethlehem is the second biggest steel company in the world, its plants having a capacity of 3,250,000 tons of steel annually. Although for many years a competitor of the Corporation of which he was once president Schwab is still a firm believer in the future of United States Steel and the value of its securities. On one occasion he told the writer: “It is a wonderful concern. There isn’t anything like it in the world, nor could its plants and organization be duplicated at any cost. The future will show how well, how securely, its foundations were laid.” GEORGE W. PERKINS George Walbridge Perkins, chairman of the Finance Committee of the United States Steel Corporation from November, 1901, to February, 1907, and an active member of that committee and of the Corporation’s directorate till the day of his death, June 18, 1920, was an unusual figure in American business--a man who, working his way from the bottom of the ladder to an eminent position while still comparatively young, gave up active money making while still under fifty and devoted his life to the betterment of social conditions. The world does not know how to judge Perkins. There are many who believed that his withdrawal from active business and his self-submergence in social work was a cloak, and this belief was undoubtedly strengthened by the fact that Perkins, in appearance, was a typical, cold-blooded financier. His was neither the look nor the manner of an idealist, a reformer. But the record of his life from 1911, when he resigned from a partnership in the great House of Morgan, is ample answer to all doubts of his sincerity. Perkins’ friends and admirers can point with confidence to this record in the impartial court of history. Perkins was born at Chicago in January, 1862. He began his business career in the humblest capacity, that of office boy, in the branch of the New York Life Insurance Co. in his home town. Later he became bookkeeper, then solicitor, manager of agencies and, still later, vice-president. Finally, when only thirty-eight, he was elected chairman of the Finance Committee of the company. Perkins was one of the first exponents of corporate publicity. He saw its virtues when publicity to most corporation men was anathema. When vice-president of New York Life he urged that the best way to earn the confidence of the public was to give it your own, and he prevailed upon the trustees of the New York Life to publish annually a full list of the securities in which the policyholders’ money was invested. This innovation was heralded with a storm of ridicule by the managements of competing concerns. But so powerful a means of getting new business did these security lists prove, so great was the increase of insurance written by the agents armed with them, that other insurance companies were soon forced to follow, and the practice became general in the insurance world. Perkins’ next step was to extend the business of his company to European fields previously closed to all American insurance concerns, which, in fact, were not permitted to operate in many European countries because of the unenviable reputation they bore. Perkins was determined that New York Life should lift these legislative handicaps and do business anywhere and everywhere it wanted to and so he made one trip after the other to Europe, each time extending his company’s field of operations. What he said in effect to the various European governments was: “The New York Life is ready to meet any reasonable demand for the safeguarding of the interests of its policyholders,” and he backed up his assertion. The result was not only to give the company a bigger field abroad but to strengthen the arguments of its agents at home. This achievement and the fact that he was instrumental in bringing to America the first Russian loan ever placed here, brought Perkins to the notice of New York financiers. Early in 1901 he called on the elder Morgan seeking a subscription to the Palisades Park project, one of Perkins’ pet hobbies until the day of his death and a project that has enabled thousands of poor children from the New York slums to get a chance for fresh air and outdoor enjoyment. Morgan, on his second meeting with the insurance man, pointed in his usual abrupt manner to a desk near his own: “How would you like to occupy that?” he asked. At first Perkins refused, but later accepted, and he became a partner in Morgan’s in 1901, continuing with the great banking house until 1911. Soon after the Steel Corporation was organized Perkins was elected a member of the Board of Directors, and later, on the resignation of Robert Bacon, became chairman of the Finance Committee. His experience with the New York Life had peculiarly fitted him for the position he now held, for Perkins was first and last an organizer--a worker with men, not with money. Although a member of the largest private banking house of the country he was not a banker. “In the ten years I was with Morgan’s I never went behind the counter or examined into the bookkeeping end of the business,” he declared; “my job was to assist in the physical organization of the great industrial combines which Mr. Morgan was then engaged in financing.” Like Gary, head of the Steel Corporation, Perkins looked rather to the ultimate results of an action or a policy than to its immediate effects. Like Gary, moreover, he was a believer in corporation publicity and in the square deal to the worker, so it was natural that he should have favored these ideas in the Corporation. Perkins at the beginning, it is true, did not fully endorse all Gary’s policies but he early became an ardent supporter of them, and his assistance in the turbulent early years was a great help to the Judge in his efforts to have his policies endorsed by the Corporation’s board. Perkins was particularly identified with the Corporation’s bond conversion plan, explained in an earlier chapter. It was largely his idea. When the subject of raising more working capital came up after the organization of the big company it was he who suggested the scheme by which the cost of securing the new capital needed would be paid back in a few years by savings in interest charges, one which would also eventually reduce the Corporation’s fixed charges materially. He believed that the Corporation should build for the future and that it was a matter of small moment if the immediate cost of a course of action was high if the ultimate results were toward economy. And when the plan was opposed in the courts by some of the stockholders it was an affidavit presented by Perkins that did more than anything else to induce a favorable decision and to make it possible to proceed with the conversion. In 1911 Perkins retired from the Morgan firm, at the same time retiring from all active business except his directorship in various companies, chief among which were the Steel Corporation and the International Harvester Co., of which latter he was chairman of the Finance Committee. After that time he devoted his energies until his death to semi-public work. Especially did he devote himself to the solution of the problems growing out of the relationship between capital and labor. He was prominent in the profit-sharing plan which is now in vogue in the Steel Corporation and which has been so largely followed by many other industrial concerns in the past seventeen years. He also gave much of his time to spreading the gospel of coöperation in the business world. As long ago as February, 1908, he began making public addresses on the necessity for such coöperation, claiming that the many modern improvements in inter-communication and the enlightenment of the people through our broad system of education had brought us to a point where the old destructive, competitive methods in business had to be abandoned and a more humane and enlightened order of things take their place. He delivered many addresses throughout the country on these two favorite themes, profit-sharing and coöperation. As already suggested Perkins’ course in breaking off his business career apparently at its zenith and devoting the prime of his life to the betterment of the lot of the worker with his hands and the general welfare of the community was regarded with suspicion by many, and his motives were questioned. Of the influence that guided his course let him speak for himself. “My father,” he said, “was deeply interested in social service and settlement work, and, as a boy, my Sundays were spent not in merely going to Sunday-school but in rounding up the poor boys of the neighborhood for classes, etc. Later, my experience selling life insurance brought me closely in touch with the needs of the people, and even when I became affiliated with the Morgan firm my work as an organizer was the human end of the job. My inheritance from my father and my own life work both kept me in touch with “all things human.” Isn’t it only natural that I should take a deep interest in what you might call human work? “I don’t claim credit for this. In fact, I don’t see how, with my experience, it could have been otherwise. It became, if you will, my hobby which I gratified as soon as I was able to. “When a man approaches fifty years of age and finds he has enough money to meet his wants for the rest of his life and to take care of those for whom he should naturally provide, the question that presents itself is: what am I going to do with the remainder of my life? Whatever I do in the way of work will have to be left behind me in the world. Shall I work to accumulate more money and leave that, or shall I work for certain definite objects that I believe are worth while, and leave the results of that work behind me? I simply chose the latter course.” OTHER “MEN OF THE CORPORATION” Many other men, of course, have done their share in making the Corporation what it is to-day. In the success of the great company men like Richard Trimble, its secretary, and William J. Filbert, its comptroller, who have been with it since incorporation and seem almost as integral parts of its structure as Judge Gary himself, have done their part, as have the presidents of the various subsidiary companies. All these are men of unusually high ability, nearly all of whom have worked their way to their present positions from the bottom of the ladder. They have for years devoted all their energies to building up, each in his own sphere, the business and resources of the big company and may justly and proudly claim the right to be reckoned with Gary, Morgan, and the others, as “Men who made United States Steel.”