Within the past few weeks the independents, who for a year or more had been quoting prices greatly in excess of those charged by the big company, reduced their prices to an average several dollars a ton below the Corporation’s, with an accompanying, and substantial, cut in wages (20% to 30%). The Corporation at the time this is written (February 18, 1921) is “still doing business at the old stand” both as regards prices and wages and is thus safeguarding the interests of both its customers and its employees.
We have now followed the Corporation’s fortunes through practically twenty years, seeing it grow stronger and more firmly established both as a manufacturing entity and financially, as well as with the public and particularly with the investor, from year to year. What of the future?
There are, of course, uncertainties at present, and there will be from time to time as the years go by. The history of business has been one of prosperity and depression periodically, and the Corporation is not exempt from the effect of these. But its immense accumulated financial strength, its huge working capital, the good will it has erected among consumers, employees, and the public generally, combined with the fact that it has come scatheless and with increased honor through a bitter attack by the Government, give ample justification for the belief that it will grow and expand along healthy lines and to the increasing financial benefit of stockholders as the years roll on. The Corporation, in the past, has proven itself strong enough to weather business depressions and it is now many times as strong financially and in every other respect as it has ever been.
Conditions in the steel trade are not encouraging for the immediate future. The industry is apparently going through the period of deflation from a war to a peace basis just as are other industries all over the world, but while the immediate future is somewhat cloudy, the outlook for steel, if one looks ahead several years, is unquestionably bright. The world shortage of the metal caused by the war was by no means filled during the period of activity that lasted from October, 1919, to September, 1920. There is every reason to believe that the world still needs steel in immense quantities for the myriad uses in which the metal is employed, not only for future expansion but for replacement which should have occurred during the war years. As soon as the economic and financial difficulties from which the world is now suffering have been overcome—and the signs on the sky are that these clouds are already being dissipated—a great demand for steel can be prognosticated.
And United States Steel with its twenty-two million odd tons of capacity, its great resources, its good will, and its wonderful organization, will undoubtedly share generously in this anticipated trade revival. For it and for its stockholders the future holds a bright and glowing promise.
Perhaps no better conclusion for this volume can be found than the remark recently made to the writer by one of the leading independent steel makers. He said:
“United States Steel is a remarkable organization. Nothing like it exists or ever existed. It is in a class by itself.”