The Guthrie Daily Leader

STEEL TRUST NOW WHINING
ARROGANT COMBINATION NOW BEGGING FOR FEDERAL FAVOR
LOST BIG NAVY CONTRACT
Midvale Company Won in Open Competition.
NAVY DEPARTMENT MAY DIVIDE CONTRACT, TO PREVENT MONOPOLY.

Special to Daily Leader.
Washington, D. C., July 13.

Talk with officials of the navy department makes it appear that the award to the Midvale company may not be made.

It is pointed out that the object of that company is to put the trust out of business, and that if it succeeds there will then be an absolute monopoly of the armor-plate business, as has existed in the past. The department does not relish such a situation. It will perhaps find a way of dividing the contract so that there will be two competing companies still in the field.

Special to Daily Leader.
Washington, D. C., July 13.-Today, at the navy department, was presented the spectacle of the greatest and most arrogant of the great combinations suing for governmental favor. It was the steel trust and its personal representatives were none other than Charles M. Schwab, President Johnson of the Bethlehem Steel company, and Vice President Schneider. Their appearance and their errand was a direct result of the bidding for armor plate for the two new ironclads of the navy.

When the wires brought to the steel trust magnates the fact that the Midvale Steel company had underbid them on the $2,500,000 armor plate contract for the Michigan and South Carolina, there was great consternation. It was realized that for the independent company to get all of this great contract would be a most severe blow for the trust, which has thus far been able to sell to the government its armor plate at practically its own price, and that price has been a good stiff one

Pleas by the Trust People.

The trust people, through the representatives named, appeared at the navy department this morning and pleaded for a share of the contract.

They represented, to begin with, that if they do not get a part of the contract their great armor-making plant at the Bethlehem works will shut down and throw many men out of employment. They claim, further, that it will remove them from the armor making competitions of the future, as they have now assembled a corps of expert workmen, who, if thrown out of employment, will go to all parts of this and other countries, and can not be reassembled. It is urged that these were induced to go into the armor-plate making business at the direct request and urging of the government, and produce correspondence and documents of congress to establish this claim. They show that the big steel concern was urged to engage in the armor plate business at a time when there was a doubtful prospect of congressional appropriations for the up building of the navy, and that there was an implied, if not open, agreement that if they would go into the business they should be guaranteed a reasonable and continued amount of the government business. They assert that when the government urged them to go into the business they had to send to Germany and France and gather expert workmen at fancy figures.

Royalties on Foreign Processes.

The further assertion is made by the Bethlehem people that they have been obliged to pay continued high royalties to the holders of foreign patents so that the Krupp armor plate could be manufactured in this country

They say that they paid these royalties because the foreign processes are protected with the patent laws of the United States, thus preserving national integrity and the validity of the patent laws of the country. They assert that the independent company, which claims to have a new and secret process, is but pirating the well known foreign process under the cloak which secrecy permits.