1
Trouble in Introducing Steel
"Strange as it now seems," said one of Carnegie's "young men," now the vice-president of a large and prosperous corporation in New York, "in the early days of the steel industry we had the greatest difficulty in the world in weaning the old manufacturers away from the use of wrought iron, though they admitted the superiority of steel. They would look at it, test it, and agree that it seemed to possess all the desirable qualities claimed for it, but it was more or less untried by time, and they preferred to stick to the old wrought iron, with which they were familiar.
"I remember one old chap with whom I had wrestled long, but in vain, coming into my office and picking up a long, soft steel rivet, which had been bent double and hammered flat.
"'How many did you break in making this?' he asked, picking it up and examining it curiously.
"'That's the first one we hammered over, and, what is more to the point, we can do it with all steel of that type,' I replied.
"The polite incredulity in his face stirred my professional pride, and I said, 'If I let you go to the mills, pick out a dozen of those rivets just as they come from the rolls, and hammer them with your own hands, will you use that steel hereafter, if it comes up to the test?'
"He said he would, and the rest was easy, for it is much easier not to break than to break that kind of steel. Before long the old man came back with perspiration dripping from the end of his nose but with the light of conviction shining in his eye. The firm had a new customer."
2
Conservation
Leslie M. Shaw, former Secretary of the Treasury, was in New York, attending a meeting of a board of which he is a member. Something was said about the present-day discussion of money power, and Shaw said that it reminded him of a speech he had made in Seattle in the campaign of 1896.
"I was speaking to a filled hall and had almost finished," said Shaw, "when a long-whiskered man arose about the middle of the hall and held up his hand, saying he wanted to ask a question.