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Arundel Cotter has just written the industrial, economic and social history, captivating as a novel of the greatest company in the whole world. Its capital amounted, last January, to more than a billion and a half dollars. Born in 1901 from the merger of ten of the most important metallurgical companies in the United States - including the Carnegie Company - and representing, at its beginning, two-thirds of the production faculties of its country, the Steel Corporation, which employs 375,000 workers, has continued to grow and has doubled its production of steel and cast iron. She built her cities, created by it to allow the exploitation of certain mines, launched a fleet whose tonnage is considerable, imagined a tool which is the first in the world. Such an enterprise had to to succeed, to ensure the conquest of external markets. It did not fail to do so, for the greater benefit, moreover, of the United States, whose trade in iron and steel, with foreign countries, is currently about twenty times greater than in 1903.
With incredible tenacity, the metallurgical factories annexed the coal factories, acquired the mines or iron ore mines, bought and exploited quarries and lime kilns to be sure to always be supplied with raw materials and fuels. Huge technical advances facilitate cheaper production. Since the enterprises are under the same management, air carriers are installed from the mines to the blast furnaces. On the other hand, to produce rails, joists, plates and profiles smoothly, the Corporation has entered into agreements or secured the upper hand over processing establishments, commercial enterprises and transportation routes. It has joined forces with a number of mechanical and electrical construction companies, shipyards and maritime and river transport companies. Such a gigantic attempt provoked mistrust and even hostility from the public authorities and worried competitors. But by appointing directors or common administrators, remarkable for their moderation and their skill, in the boards of directors of the companies thus absorbed, the first fusion was obtained which, step by step, by successive amalgamations succeeded in bringing to the United States, almost the entire steel industry in the hands of a single gigantic trust: there Steel Corporation.
The part taken by the large Company in the armament of the Allies during the war was immense. At present, its leaders are seeking better use of labor and making attempts, moreover crowned with success, to bring more harmony into the relations between capital and labour. They achieve this by directly improving the well-being of workers, increasing wages and above all profit-sharing, thanks to the organization of a plan to subscribe to shares in the great Company reserved for workers and employees. interested, therefore personally, in its prosperity.
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