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.”