could make steel more cheaply than any other country. Foreign
observers have offered several explanations for this achievement.
American makers had an endless 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