144 EDWARD SHERWOOD MEADE 



tinued until November of that year, it became evident that the 

 trade must adjust itself to a smaller margin of profits; and the 

 conflicting forces, which had been held in abeyance during the 

 season of prosperity, became alarmingly active and threaten- 

 ingly evident. The stock capitahzation of the recently formed 

 consolidations was based upon the large profits of 1899. If 

 dividends were to be continued during periods of reduced 

 demand, every effort must be made to strengthen the position 

 of the companies by reducing expenses. 



No sooner were the new companies fairly upon their feet, 

 and had reahzed the necessity of greater economy, than they 

 began a movement which looked toward the attainment of an 

 independence in raw materials similar to that which the Car- 

 negie company had already achieved. 



The Carnegie Steel company owned the most complete, 

 the best equipped, and the best managed steel plant in the 

 United States. No one of its rivals was worthy to be com- 

 pared with it in point of self sufficiency of production. This 

 equipment supplied ore and fuel to the mills which were 

 grouped so closely about Pittsburg that the president of the 

 company was able to visit some department of each mill on 

 successive days. The Edgar Thompson furnaces and mills 

 were at Bessemer, two miles from Pittsburg; the Duquesne 

 furnaces and mills, four miles from Pittsburg; and the Home- 

 stead Steel works, one mile from the city. Besides these larger 

 works, there was located in or immediately adjoining the 

 city the upper and lower Union mills, the Carrie and Lucy 

 furnaces, and the Howard Axle works. All these plants were 

 connected by the Union railway, with thirty nine miles of 

 track, which in turn connected with the Pittsburg, Bessemer 

 & Lake Erie railroad to the north. This arrangement of 

 mines, coke ovens, and mills, was the most favorable that 

 could have been devised for economical production. The 

 mills of the Carnegie Steel company were concentrated at the 

 point of largest present advantage, where materials could be 

 most easily assembled, and from which the largest markets 

 could be most easily reached. It was this fact of concentra- 

 tion, even more than their superior facilities, which gave to the 

 Carnegie company then- most pronounced advantage. 



