ss supply
of cheap and high-grade ore, cheaper coke, cheaper transportation, and
workmen of a superior skill. We must give due consideration to the fact
that their organization was more flexible than those of older
countries, and that it regulated promotion exclusively by merit and gave
exceptional opportunities to young men. American steel makers also
had scrap heaps whose size astounded the foreign observers; they never
hesitated to discard the most expensive plants if by so doing they could
reduce the cost of steel rails by a dollar a ton. Machinery for steel
making had a more extensive development in this country than in
England or Germany. Mr. Carnegie also enjoyed the advantages of a high
protective tariff, though about 1900 he discovered that his extremely
healthy infant no longer demanded this form of coddling. But probably
the Carnegie Company's greatest achievement was the abolition of the
middleman. In a few years it assembled all the essential elements of
steel making in its own hands. Frick's entrance into the combination
gave the concern an unlimited supply of the highest grade of coking
coal. In a few years, the Carnegie interests had acquired great holdings
in the Minnesota ore regions.

At first glance, the Pittsburgh region seems hardly the ideal place for
the making of steel. Fortune first placed the industry there because
all the raw materials, especially iron ore and coal, seemed to exist
in abundance. But the discovery of the Minnesota ore field, which alone
could supply this essential product in the amounts which the furnaces
demanded, immediately deprived the Pittsburgh region of its chief
advantage. As a result of this sudden development, the manufacturers of
Pittsburgh awoke one morning and discovered that their ore was located a
thousand miles away. To bring it to their converters necessitated a long
voyage by water and rail, with several reloadings. They overcame these
obstacles by developing machinery for handling ore and by acquiring the
raw materials and the connecting links of transportation. Ore which had
been lying in the wilds of Minnesota on Monday morning was thus brought
to Pittsburgh and made into steel rails or bridges or structural shapes
by Saturday night. The Carnegie Company first acquired sufficient
mineral lands to furnish ore for several generations and organized an
ore fleet which transported the products of the mines through the lakes
to ports on Lake Erie, particularly A