AMERICA'S PRIHACY IN IRON AND STEEL 

 PRODUCTION. 



BY JOHN FRANKLIN CROWELL. 



[John Franklin Crowell, expert agent of the United States industrial commission and 

 expert on internal commerce; born Nov. 1, 1857, at York, Pa.; was graduated from 

 Yale in 1SS3; he was principal of Schuylkill seminary, Fredericksburg, Pa., in 1883-4 

 and 18S6-S7, in 1887 becoming president of Trinity college. North Carolina, remaining 

 there until 1894; in 1900 he accepted his present government position, and in 1903 

 was the lecturer on international trade and commercial geography at the Columbian 

 university; he is the author of The True Function of the American College, The Iron 

 and Steel Trade in the United States, in addition to economic and social studies pub- 

 lished in the reviews.] 



When Abram S. Hewett went to England to receive the 

 Bessemer medal in honor of his contributions to the art of 

 iron and steel making, he took occasion to point out some 

 of the effects produced upon English social institutions by 

 Bessemer's renowned discovery. At that time, it had hardly 

 entered into the minds of men that a still more revolu- 

 tionary discovery was dawning upon western society, the 

 apprehension of the fact that the primacy among modern 

 nations in the production of iron and steel was rapidly and 

 permanently passing to the United States. Primacy in pro- 

 duction has changed the relation of every other nation to the 

 world market. The progress of the United States from being 

 a supplier for domestic consumption to the role of a com- 

 petitor for contracts everywhere, has forced the whole ques- 

 tion of the industrial and commerical strength of nations into 

 the arena of international debate, in which European nations, 

 without exception, have put themselves upon the defensive. 



The chief reason for this apprehensive feeling toward the 

 United States is to be sought in the radical, yet inevitable, 

 change in our relation to the world market. Within the last 

 few years, apparently, the United States has ceased to be 

 merely a purveyor of raw materials, and has assumed the rank 

 of a world power. As long as our breadstuffs and provisions 

 ministered to the material needs of Europe, there was no un- 

 easiness. As long as our raw cotton clothed our neighbors 

 across the Atlantic and their customers, nobody thought of 

 economic alliances against the United States. But the mo- 



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