Between 1904 and 1912 the Corporation’s exports increased 1,262,600 tons, and the exports of the country 1,687,057 tons, the Corporation’s increase in shipments accounting for approximately 75 per cent. of the total gain shown by the United States.
During the years of the World War the country’s annual exportations of iron and steel products were greatly increased as compared with the largest pre-war year. During the same period the Corporation’s exports were only slightly increased. The reason for this was that the Corporation’s operations were largely confined to commercial products and not to war munitions. Large quantities of steel were, however, produced and delivered to the government and to government agencies for use in the manufacture of munitions and for other purposes in carrying on the war.
Government records show that the exports of the United States in 1900, the year before the Corporation was organized, were 1,154,284 tons, and in 1901, 942,689 tons, these figures falling to 372,399 tons in 1902, and 326,590 tons in 1903. Hence, it has been urged that the immediate effect of the Corporation’s organization was adverse to exports. But the government figures include a large number of items such as subsidiaries of the Corporation do not manufacture, or such as they do not now export--for instance, many articles manufactured of steel, and steel scrap. As a matter of fact, the companies merged into the Corporation exported 291,000 tons of steel products in 1901. In the following year, the big company shipped more than 300,000 net tons.
To-day the Corporation’s products and agents penetrate into almost every part of the known globe. Its ships plow nearly every sea. The goods it sells to the world range all the way from wire nails and watch springs to the steel frames for great buildings. In Buenos Aires, for instance, the Corporation maintains its own force of erectors, and nearly all the big modern buildings of the Argentine capital have had their skeletons put together by the “Steel Trust” riggers, the men whom Farrell once described as working with one hand for their job and holding their lives in the other. The bulk of the steel used in the construction of the Panama Canal, about 175,000 tons, was supplied by subsidiaries of the great company.