CARL STOKES —PROMISES NOW SADLY FADED by Roldo Bartimole July 10, 2017

CARL STOKES —PROMISES NOW SADLY FADED
July 10th, 2017

We are getting close to the 50th anniversary of the election of Carl Stokes as the first black mayor of a major American city. It’s hard to imagine that so much time has passed.

We need the thrust of those days of dissent against the imbalance of today’s Cleveland. The difference we endure between prosperity and despair.

The first time I met Carl Stokes must have been in 1965, my first year at the Plain Dealer. I was a general assignment reporter and had to cover an event where Stokes was appearing. It was, I remember a Sunday and likely the reason I got the assignment. I talked with him before or after his meeting. I don’t remember any content, but 50 years does that to you.

I do remember the impression he left. The first impression of Carl Stokes remains clear 50 years on. Here was a man who didn’t like reporters. Likely didn’t trust them. His manner sent the message.

I can’t tell you what he said. I only remember the cool manner. I talked to him only a few minutes. It was all very perfunctory. The man was going to run for mayor and he should be covered. I guess that was the reason anyone was assigned to him that day.

I’m sure he had his reasons for disliking reporters.

He made it clear many times.

He once said at a press conference, “There is hardly a place in this community where two or more persons join that their disgust in the two newspapers is not expressed. Rich people, poor people, black and white people. There is a serious erosion of confidence in the truthfulness, the integrity and the sincerity of the newspapers. And yet, what recourse do the people have as a source of news? None, really.”

A lot of people agreed with that. I do with experience from inside. That is why I’ve used that quote more than once or twice.

Carl Stokes was the best politician I ever covered. He had charm. He had great political instincts. He carried himself with confidence and distinction. And good looks never left him. Never hurt him either.

He decided not to run for a third term, in my opinion, because he had become sick of the Cleveland plutocracy. His press secretary Dick Murway told me that bluntly. Stokes, he said, was tired of being their “house nigger.”

He had had it with the racism and in particular with the corporate community. Business interests after his election ran a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal. It was putting a brave face on its nervousness in having the first black mayor of a major U. S. city at a time of civil unrest. The ad bragged of an old blue chip city having bright new leadership.

In 1989 Fortune magazine described how Cleveland’s corporate leaders engineered a coup by dumping Mayor Dennis Kucinich. It was only the start of a takeover of city government. It has become the model for control and dominance. Limited to specific prized areas of the city.

Mayor Frank Jackson, now seeking a fourth term, comfortably represents the present Cleveland establishment. He totally lacks the political instincts of a Stokes. But this is an amazingly different time in Cleveland. Instead of civil rights and uprisings with hope, we have sporadic convulsions fed by a depressing succession of social disease caused by poverty and the lack of concern that spurred actions in the 1960s. We have a community illness lacking a spark of hope. Hopelessness breeds social disintegration. This may be Jackson’s legacy. His and corporate fear is that resistance has taken hold.

That’s why Jackson has begun to act as if he cares. And corporate interests are starting to strike back. Out of fear. It may be too late for them. Many citizens see the duplicity.

A first sign has been the formation of a church grouping to draw attention to a number of social issues that have gone unattended here. This is a crucial event. The latest attack against the groups indicates this realization. It was noticed. Not with pleasure.

The media play of the four of 43 religious organizations that left the Greater Cleveland Congregations organization because of its opposition to a multi-million gift to Dan Gilbert has the smell of Cleveland corporate politics at work. No one could convince me this isn’t Jackson/corporates string pulling. No doubt the PD won’t examine the elites and connections of the four dissenting church groups. The media will let it ride.

But it is the most relevant action in years.

In 1968, a kind of payoff program run by some business leaders—paying black militants to keep peace during Stokes’ primary run—provided resources that led to the purchase of guns used in the 1968 Glenville shootout with police.

That ended any real cooperation with Stokes from the business people.

Stokes wrote about the establishment in his Promises of Power, a perfect title for his political career.

He related his experience with the established corporates in his memoir of the times:

In the Spring and Summer of 1967, when the same power structure was grooming me as the man to back in the mayor’s race, I was invited to the most exclusive clubs in Cleveland to talk to them about myself and what I hoped to do for Cleveland. It became clear after a couple of these lunches that these men had two things on their minds—the fear of another riot and the possibility of an alliance between Stokes and Cyrus Eaton.

Eaton was an unconventional corporate leader and a worry to Cleveland’s top business leadership. When I started Point Of Viəw in 1968 there was a silly rumor that he was financing me. Never met him. I never heard from him.

Stokes said one thing he learned from Eaton a Cleveland unwritten code. It was unstated “but hard as a rigid fist—against getting involved publicly on issues. That is the rule for the power structure, the business community, those very private men at the top of our businesses and industries. They couldn’t afford to fight Eaton in the public area because they do too many things the public must not know; their deceptions, their intrigues, their dealings with each other must remain private.”

Quite a telling truism. Backed by experience.

Of course, you could never forget the problems Stokes had with the Cleveland police. They refused to accept a black mayor. He blamed the media, particularly the Plain Dealer, for allowing the police to spew hatred. The Western Reserve University Civil Violence Center labeled the PD effort as “effectively keeping the vendetta going between the races.”

Calling the police department “blatantly anti-Stokes” in his book, he charged the PD with permitting them “to spew out their hostilities toward me on the front page.” (I remember writing that what the PD did was “print the ugly rumor from fact,” while promising to separate “ugly rumor from fact.” Chief among the PD reporters was Doris O’Donnell, a favorite of the cops.)

However, the police remained a significant problem for Stokes.

There is a police-corporate connection via Bluecoats. Wealthy Bluecoat donors provide help to officer’s families if killed on duty. At one Bluecoat meeting Fred Crawford, boss of TRW, Inc. made a racial joke about Stokes. The PD reporter cited it in his coverage but it was removed before publication. Someone sent the original copy to me and it appeared in POV.

Stokes may have thought he had a surprising solution. He believed he had found an answer in Gen. Benjamin Davis. Davis was retiring as an Air Force three star general. (He got a 4th star from President Bill Clinton). Stokes had had trouble with naming a Safety Director. So Stokes met with him secretly and asked him to come to Cleveland as Safety Director. The police would have to respect him, thought Stokes. He writes that he allowed himself “to be carried into the greatest personal debacle of my career.”

However, I believe the result revealed Stokes’s incredible political talent when his choice became a critical mistake. Davis was loved by the police and by the Cleveland business and media establishments. They thought of him as Stokes’s replacement.

I put the Davis situation in clear, simple language, noting that he was supposed to “bridge the gap between the police and the Stokes Administration.”

But I noted instead, “He joined the cops.”

Stokes put it another way in his book, “Jim Stanton (Stokes bitter rival and Council President) love him, the newspapers loved him, the white community loved him. And … the police fell madly in love with him.”

It didn’t work that way.

Davis, apparently taken by all the adulation he was receiving, struck at Stokes in a devastating way.

He wrote a letter of resignation, claiming Stokes was supporting “enemies of law enforcement.”

The hit was where Stokes was most vulnerable—on community safety.

“I find it necessary and desirable to resign as director of public safety,” Davis wrote in a letter to Stokes.

“The reasons are simple: I am not receiving from you and your administration the support my programs require. And the enemies of law enforcement continue to receive support and comfort from you and your administration. I request your acceptance of my resignation at your earliest convenience.”

It was a news bombshell. It became a news media frenzy.

I wrote at the time that Tom Guthrie, an assistant to PD publisher Tom Vail and someone reporters felt was intolerant of blacks, rarely wrote anything. But here he couldn’t resist, blessing Davis with “absolute integrity.” He apparently learned this reporting that Davis’s golf shots were “right down the middle,” revealing himself as a golf partner of the General.

Not only did Davis say enemies of law were ascended but Stokes was supporting them.

“This damn hero,” said Stokes, “was accusing me of harboring criminals; suddenly all the racist rumor about me were confirmed,” Stokes wrote.

The charge, however, lacked political shrewdness on Davis’s part. He was a straight-laced commander, not a politician.

He excited the news media. However, he wouldn’t name any “enemies of law enforcement.” He remained silent.

Stokes, shocked by the press favorable response to the Davis charges, called upon Davis to name the names of these “enemies of the law.”

Davis stood his ground. After all, he was the General. His word was The Word.

Stokes, at a packed press conference, put out the names himself. He had gotten them privately from the General.

It blew a giant hole in the General’s and media’s damning story.

As I’ve written before the “enemies” list included the Council of Churches, the Call & Post, a black community newspaper, and a settlement house.

None were on anyone’s “wanted” list. It was a blunder by Davis, He didn’t understand Cleveland.

Stokes had set the political trap for Gen. Davis. His reluctance to name names did him in. Further, Stokes had more ammo.

At the time there had been attacks on blacks in the Tremont area. Police did little or nothing to suppress the violence. Davis ignored it. I had written about the issue two weeks before. Neither its councilman, Dennis Kucinich at the time, nor Davis moved to quell the violence.

Davis apparently thought he was headed for greater things in Cleveland.

I wrote in July 1970: “Davis began getting tacit support from parts of the media and the Democratic and Republican parties looking for a candidate in 1969.

Stokes, of course, not only survived the crisis but went on to win the election in 1969.

I had a young man in Stokes’s office that provided me with information. I was able to print that Davis tried to order 30,000 Remington 38 special, 125 grain hollow point bullets. At the City Club about this time, Davis charged that black nationalists were “out to get police and out to get us.” I then noted that it appeared he got it backwards.

After Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in July of 1968, Stokes walked the streets of Cleveland. Cleveland had no rioting that night as other cities exploded.

So the corporate community joined with Stokes in a program supposedly to attend to some of the urban problems. It was called Cleveland Now but was not heavily funded. The media played it up as a serious attack on poverty. It was a phony program.

In 1993 I was given a celebratory night marking 25 years of publishing the newsletter. I walked in and could see Carl Stokes standing in front of the stage. He was reading it. The headline on Vol. 1 No. 1 was:

Cleveland Now:
another gimmick

It started:

Just ask yourself: Is the answer to the massive physical and social problems of American cities to be found in 55 cent contributions of widows, 10 cent donations of welfare children, or one hour’s wages of laborers.

Cleveland Now creates the illusion that it is. Therefore, it’s a pornographic answer to the city’s ills. It is a diversion.

I quickly walked up and said, “You don’t want to read that Carl.” He said, I believe amused, “It’s the only thing up there.”

When he left office, Stokes went off to New York City, where if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. He became an anchor at the local NBC TV station.

But he returned in the late 1970s. First to bolster Dennis Kucinich’s run against George Voinovich, the corporate darling who claimed to like “Fat Cats” and did. “I want as many in Cleveland as I can get,” he told the New York Times.

But his return had to be part of a deal. The United Auto Workers were big backers of Kucinich. The steel union became a Stokes law client. A major client he lost with a change in national union leadership.

I remember at the time meeting him on the street downtown. He invited me up to see his new offices. The office was being reconstructed.

I remember him telling me, “You didn’t think I came back to be a Councilman, did you?” Hadn’t even thought of that.

But I figured he came back to resume his place as the town’s major powerbroker, particularly in the black community. But it was too late. George Forbes had consolidated power and wasn’t about to share. Forbes had made his deal with the white Democrats and the white business community. And they with him.

He was their guy.

My personal remembrances of Stokes were mostly good.

When he was mayor WKYC-TV had televised press conferences with city hall reporters questioning Mayor Stokes. I pushed my way in. At one point Channel 3 management tried to bar me. Stokes essentially said I was in or he was out. They couldn’t so easily dismiss me, thanks to Stokes. The show went on for a time. It’s shameful that today there is no real live coverage of the mayor or the county executive. A weekly press conference would produce news.

One experience wasn’t good. That’s when he sent me a threatening letter. He threatened to sue me. I believe I know the reason. It had to do with that power thing. I ran the headline on his threat: STOKES: POV LIES [Page 3, JH].

He was right. I had inadvertently made a mistake. Indeed, I had called him about an organization I was to write about. He told me he didn’t really know much and that he wasn’t a member. His brother Lou Stokes was, he said.

When I ran the list of members I erroneously typed in both Lou and Carl Stokes. This was early 1982.

I apologized after running his entire letter of complaint. I never heard anything else about it.

I believe he was sending a shot across the bow. He worried about any criticism of him at that time, especially that someone would write negatively about him. I would have been a minor possible hazard but he knew Point Of Viəw did have limited but readership among politicians, media and corporate types.

Stokes did invite me to speak to a class he was teaching at Case-Western Reserve University. Most mayors seem to get teaching positions at local universities after serving.

Following the class with Stokes he asked me to dinner at the now gone Boarding House on Euclid near Mayfield Road. We had dinner upstairs.

When we finished and were coming down the stairs, a young black man playing pool looked up. He said, “Hey aren’t you….” and anyone could finish that sentence: “Carl Stokes, right?” But instead he continued, “Roldo?” I was recognized because The Edition, a classy alternative, used a caricature of me with a column I wrote. More people recognize me from that drawing than from any photo of me.

I couldn’t believe that Carl Stokes would go unrecognized. It didn’t upset him but it reveals how easily we forget our history.

As we left the restaurant, Stokes said something to the effect that “wouldn’t Dick Feagler make a story of that.”

Feagler was a favorite of Stokes. He could write the touchy-feely columns that just aren’t done here anymore.

I always regret that the last time I saw Stokes he was picking up something from my home. We didn’t talk long. I regret that I didn’t ask him to sit and share some time with him.

He died not long after.

By Roldo Bartimole…
The story originally ran on July 10, 2017 and the link is here

 

Theodore Burton from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

The link is here

BURTON, THEODORE ELIJAH (20 Dec. 1851-28 Oct. 1929) served as a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives (1889-91, 1895-1909, 1921-28) and U.S. Senate (1909-15, 1928-29). Born in Jefferson, Ohio, to Rev. Wm. and Elizabeth Grant Burton, he attended Grinnell Academy & College in Iowa 2 years before returning to Ohio, earning an A.B. from Oberlin College (1872), studying law with Lyman Trumbull in Chicago, and coming to Cleveland to practice law after being admitted to the Ohio bar in 1875. He served on city council (1886-88) before being elected to Congress. Defeated for reelection by Democrat TOM L. JOHNSON† in 1890, he resumed law practice, being elected again to Congress in 1894, serving 7 terms.

With Cleveland improving the CUYAHOGA RIVER and its harbor, Burton promoted development of the Great Lakes waterways, serving and later chairing the Rivers & Harbors Committee in the House of Representatives.

In 1907 Burton returned to Cleveland challenging Tom L. Johnson in the mayoral election. After his defeat, Burton returned to Congress and chaired the new Inland Waterways Commission and its successor the Natl. Waterways Commission, (1908-12). From 1908-12 he also studied worldwide banking systems on the Natl. Monetary Commission. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1909, Burton retired in 1915, becoming president of Merchants’ Natl. Bank in New York City (1917-19). He was again elected to the House of Representatives in 1921 and served on the World War Foreign Debt Commission which restructured payments of wartime loans made to foreign countries. Burton was active in the peace movement, was president of the American Peace Society for many years, and gave up his seat in the House in 1928 to pursue this cause before being elected to the U.S. Senate. Never married, Burton died in Washington, and was buried in Cleveland in LAKE VIEW CEMETERY.

Burton authored several books. On 16 Apr. 1928, the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce awarded him the Cleveland Public Service Medal in recognition of his service.

 

Carl Stokes: Reflections of a veteran political observer by Brent Larkin 11/4/2007

Carl Stokes: Reflections of a veteran political observer

By Brent Larkin, The Plain Dealer November 04, 2007 at 5:52 AM, updated November 04, 2007 at 6:06 AM

The pdf is here

By midnight, all seemed lost. And the mood inside Carl B. Stokes’ downtown headquarters had turned decidedly gloomy.

Destiny was about to deny Stokes what he wanted most — to be the first black elected mayor of a major American city. With 70 percent of the vote counted, Republican Seth Taft had built what seemed an insurmountable lead. As Election Day turned to Wednesday, Taft had pulled in front by 20,000 votes.

It seemed that Stokes, a 40-year-old state representative who had handily defeated incumbent Mayor Ralph Locher in the Democratic primary, would lose the general election to a Republican — in a city with a minuscule Republican population.

Cleveland Press reporter Dick Feagler would write that women wept during this “tense, trying period” when defeat seemed certain.

“A Dixieland band played ‘S’Wonderful,’ but it wasn’t,” described Feagler, adding that for “four hours it appeared Seth Taft had won.”

“There was really a sense of despair,” recalled Anne Bloomberg, at the time a 26-year-old civil rights activist and campaign volunteer. “Our hopes were so high going in, and it looked like it would all be for naught.”

But then it all began to change. Votes from predominantly black, East Side neighborhoods were the last to be counted. Slowly, but inexorably, Taft’s lead began to shrink.

“We had ward-watchers in the neighborhoods and we knew Carl would come back,” recalled Ann Felber Kiggen, Stokes’ campaign scheduler. “When it began to happen, I remember this incredible feeling that swept through the headquarters. People were dancing and holding hands. It was uncontained joy.”

It was 3 a.m. when, with nearly 900 of the city’s 903 precincts reporting, Stokes took the lead for the first time. Out of 250,000 votes cast, he won by 2,500.

Then, as the mayor-elect appeared before about 400 jubilant supports, the room grew quiet when he declared, “I can say to all of you that never before have I known the full meaning of the words, ‘God Bless America.’ ”

In his autobiography, “Promises of Power,” Stokes would later marvel at the magnitude of what happened that night.

In a race for high office, the grandson of a slave had defeated the grandson of a president.

That had never happened before. And it hasn’t happened since.

The Cleveland that elected Carl B. Stokes mayor was a far cry from than the one that chose Michael R. White as the city’s second black mayor 22 years later — and light years removed from the one that elected Frank Jackson in 2005.

In 1967, Cleveland was still a top-10 city, with a population north of 750,000 — nearly 300,000 more than today. Because race was as much a factor in city politics then as it is now, Stokes’ election was all the more remarkable; the city’s black population was only about 35 percent then. Today, that figure surpasses 53 percent.

To defeat Seth Taft, a decent man with a magic name who would later serve with distinction as a Cuyahoga County commissioner, Stokes needed white votes — lots of them.

“We knew we had to broaden our base on the west and south sides,” recalled Charlie Butts, Stokes’ brainy, 25-year-old campaign manager fresh out of Oberlin College. “But we had to be careful not to give the appearance of running different campaigns in different parts of town.”

To give his campaign legitimacy, Stokes desperately needed support from whites in corporate boardrooms and city neighborhoods. He got it from this newspaper, which endorsed him on the front page.

He got it from people like Bob Bry, a vice president of Otis Elevator who organized a group of business leaders to take out newspaper ads on Stokes’ behalf.

“I was a registered Republican, but my sympathies were with what Carl was trying to do,” said Bry, now 84 and living in Florida. “Some business leaders were bothered by it. But no one ever said anything to my face.”

He got it from people like Ann and Joe McManamon — and hundreds of others like them — who paid a price for welcoming Stokes into their living rooms and churches.

“There were recriminations,” remembered Ann McManamon. “We got some very hateful phone calls. It got a quite nasty. But our friends stuck with us and were supportive.”

Nearly one in five whites voted for Stokes — which meant he needed nearly nine out of every 10 black votes.

To win those votes, Stokes built a political organization that, to this day, serves as a model for black candidates across the country. It was a base that relied heavily on churches, ward leaders and a grass-roots field operation that extensively schooled street captains on how to maximize turnout.

That same base later enabled Stokes’ brother, Lou, to become an institution in Congress. It helped make former City Council President George Forbes powerful and wealthy. And it twice brought Arnold Pinkney to the brink of becoming Cleveland’s second black mayor.

It was a base built to last — and last it did.

“All around the country — in places like Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago — black candidates copied what Carl was able to achieve in Cleveland,” said his brother. “What made it special was that it was done so well and had never been done before.”

There was no blueprint for electing a black mayor of a major American city. So Stokes drew his own.

“He had a plan on how to win, and he never strayed from it,” said Forbes. “In his prime, there was none better — none.”

Stokes won re-election in 1969, but did not seek a third term in 1971, leaving soon after for New York, where he was a television anchor and later a reporter for NBC. Over the years, Stokes gave various reasons for his decision not to seek a third term, but he was clearly tired of the constant struggles involved in leading a big city with mounting problems.

Stokes record as mayor was decidedly mixed. He brought a sense of fairness to the city’s hiring practices, helped raise the level of social services, and aggressively fought to improve housing conditions. But Stokes fought repeatedly with City Council, and revelations that some funds from a poverty-fighting program he founded went to nationalists involved in the killing of police in the Glenville riots significantly eroded his popularity.

Upon his return to Cleveland in 1980, Stokes found that the new political stars were his brother and Forbes. In 1983, he became a Municipal Court judge — an important position that lacked the high profile of a powerful congressman and council president. There were also some troubling and embarrassing moments. Stokes engaged in some high-profile political fights with onetime allies and was twice accused of shoplifting — he paid restitution on one charge and was acquited of another.

But none of what happened later detracts from the significance of what Stokes achieved in 1967.

Many black leaders in the ’60s aspired to be Cleveland’s mayor, but only one ever stood a chance.

“Only one person could have built that base,” said Pinkney. “Only one person had the charisma, the experience and the drive to win. Back then, it took a special talent for a black to be elected mayor. And only Carl had that talent. ”

Stokes was not a civil rights leader. He was a politician. And four decades later, Pinkney and others still speak with a sense of awe of Stokes’ political gifts. Charles Butts thinks Stokes was born with “an intellect, understanding and chemistry that allowed him to connect to voters” in ways almost unprecedented. Forbes volunteers that Stokes “had the whole package — looks, the charm and one of the sharpest political minds I’ve ever seen.” Ann Felber Kiggen says he was “the most charismatic man anyone could hope to ever meet.”

In his book, Stokes wrote that he considered the 1965 campaign for mayor, in which he narrowly lost to Locher in the Democratic primary, “the high point of my career.”

He was mistaken. The 1965 campaign energized Stokes’ base. And it set the table for what would follow. But it paled, compared to what would happen two years later.

For all his winning ways, Stokes was also the most complex politician I ever dealt with. He could be warm and witty one day, your enemy the next.

On Jan. 30, 1996, we visited over lunch at an East Side restaurant. He knew by then that his fight with cancer of the esophagus was one he couldn’t win.

As Stokes picked at food he could barely swallow, he spoke with no rancor as he reminisced about those days of glory that landed him on the cover of Time magazine. He wasn’t finished looking ahead, either: He eagerly agreed to meet with a group of young journalists at this newspaper to talk about how the political process affects minorities, and we chose a date in February.

But when the day came, he was too ill. By early April, he was gone.

He had long before kept the date that mattered most, though. That was the one back in 1967 that made him, in the sense of history, immortal.

Brent Larkin is director of The Plain Dealer’s editorial pages

Eliot Ness in Cleveland From the Cleveland Police Museum

The link is here

Eliot Ness

In December of 1935, Cleveland’s Mayor Harold Burton recruited Eliot Ness to serve as the city’s new Safety Director. That very year, Cleveland was the fifth largest metro area in the nation, and was considered to be the most dangerous city in the United States. Ness went on to spearhead a campaign that nearly eliminated corruption in the police department, brought the fire department up to modern standards, and instituted the latest traffic technologies, bringing national safety awards to Cleveland by 1939. He was also faced with one of the strangest serial murder cases in all of U.S. history.

Ness’ Youth and his Chicago Years
Eliot Ness was born in the year 1902 to a Norwegian immigrant couple, Peter (1850-1931) and Emma (King) Ness (1863-1937). His parents came from an area near Stavanger, Norway. Peter grew up in very poor conditions, losing both his parents at the age of 14. Peter and Emma married in Chicago April 2, 1886. They had five children:  Clara, Effie, Nina and Charles before Eliot was born as the youngest.(1) There was a 10 year gap in age between the fourth child and Eliot, so it was said he was given lots of family attention. His parents owned a bakery.

As Eliot grew up, he played with his little nieces and nephews and enjoyed going to school. It was said that he took school so seriously that he dressed nicer than most children. This earned him a nickname of “elegant mess” on the playground. He was an avid reader and was fond of the stories of Sherlock Holmes. When he was graduated from Fenger High School, on the south side of Chicago, he spent a year working in the Pullman plant before going to college at the University of Chicago.(2) In 1925 he earned a diploma with a major in political science, commerce and business administration, earning a place in the top 10% of his graduating class.

From the years 1925 to 1927 Ness served as an investigator for the Retail Credit Company in Chicago. He longed for a job that was a bit more exciting, and returned to the university for postgraduate course work with August Vollmer. His oldest brother-in-law, Alexander Jamie, worked for the Prohibition Bureau and brought Ness in as an agent with the U.S. Treasury Department. In 1928 he was transferred to the Justice Department to work for Prohibition. Alexander Jamie eventually became head of Chicago’s Department of the F.B.I.

Ness and his task force were then assigned to close down the bootlegging operations of Al Capone. The ten men he handpicked from around the country were nicknamed the “Untouchables” because they wouldn’t take a bribe. Albert Wolff was said to be the last surviving member of the Untouchables. He passed away in Mason, OH at the age of 95 in 1998. In an article in People Magazine, July 1987, Mr. Wolff said he was nicknamed “Wallpaper” because he “took everything but.” He also said that “We were all tough guys, I guess. Eliot Ness was young like me when I first met him. He became a tough guy with class. He was naïve when he started, but he learned. He got a little tougher because it got a little more dangerous.” Wolff was asked to serve as an adviser on the set of the “Untouchables” movie that starred Kevin Costner:

I was asked to show Costner how to act like Ness. I told him Ness was passive. I told him how to walk. Ness walked slowly. I said, “When you take the gun out, be ready to use it, because it’s your life or their life.”(3)

Ness was known to rarely carry a weapon.

In addition to Kevin Costner, Robert Stack was another actor who portrayed Ness during his Chicago days. He played Eliot Ness on the TV series “The Untouchables for many years. It is said to be the longest running TV series ever. In a note Mr. Stack sent in response to being invited to attend the recognition of Ness’ 100th birthday in April 2002, he wrote “While I met Mrs. Ness (Elisabeth) and the boy (their adopted son Robert) on “This I Your Life” I’ve never involved myself in events dealing with the gentleman I portrayed on TV. I think at this point in time some might think an actor was trying to garner publicity on a dead hero’s reputation – why don’t we let the famous centenarian rest in peace.”(4)

Ness comes to Cleveland 
In 1933, when Prohibition was repealed, Ness was assigned to the Cincinnati enforcement division of the Treasury Department’s Alcohol Tax Unit. In 1934 he was transferred to Cleveland where he led the Cleveland Regional Office (located in the Standard Building) of that same department, leading 30 men under his command. The Plain Dealer, September 21, 1934, featured a long story about Ness written by Charles Lawrence. It was headlined “Gangs Here Face Capone Waterloo.”

It was December 11, 1935 that a 33 year old Ness was sworn in to serve as Cleveland’s youngest-ever Safety Director. O ess’ first day the Plain Dealerheadlined “Facts First, Then Talk, Says Ness.” The article reported that Ness “considers his first duty to be one of fact finding” and that he intended to be “as conservative as possible until (he) is fully informed of certain trends and conditions in the police and fire departments – especially the police.” The paper also predicted that when Mayor Burton hired Ness there would be “a tremendous explosion with after-effects to last for years.” (5)

Within a week of being appointed Safety Director, he was known to the underworld as the “boy scout” or “college cop.” “He has a dimpled chin, a round face, parts his hair down the middle and blushes easily. His voice is mild and his manner hesitant. He keeps a cat, hates to be out late at night, likes to walk around the house in his stocking feet, and sits on the floor for complete relaxation.” The article further states:

No one had any doubts about the size of the job that he had undertaken. For 20 years the underworld had operated in alliance with officials of the police department. Organized labor was victimized by gangster leaders.” Ness would have none of this. He swiftly investigated the protection scams and bribery and found eight officers who were immediately indicted for bribery. Ness was met with a wave of police resignations which he gladly accepted. “He filled the vacancies with men of his own choosing – more than half of them college graduates.(6)

Eliot Ness marries
Ness was married in 1929 to Edna Staley of Chicago. She had formerly worked in the office of Alexander Jamie as a stenographer. While she and Eliot were married, and as he settled into the job of Safety Director, they moved into a cottage on Lake Erie in Bay Village, a suburb west of Cleveland. The cottage was owned by Robert Chamberlain, a Cleveland lawyer who eventually became an assistant Safety Director for Ness. Although Edna and Eliot weren’t able to have children, friends had said that Eliot would often knock on the Chamberlain’s door to play with their small children. Eliot would sit on the floor and contentedly play for hours. Eliot was dedicated to his job and would rarely come home before 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. This didn’t help their relationship, which eventually dissolved. Eliot and Edna were divorced in January 1939,and Edna returned to Chicago where she moved in with family. She never remarried, and kept the name Ness.

Ness Combats Crime and Modernizes the Police Force
Eliot Ness’ name became synonymous with one of the strangest serial murder cases in U.S. history, but that is not all he is known for in Cleveland, not by a long shot.

In his first year as Safety Director, Ness didn’t take any time at all to become fully immersed in the job:

With an innocent smile, this scientific sleuth recently rounded up 100 witnesses, convicted two police captains of taking bribes and indicted seven other guardians of the law. (He has) personally led raids on gangsters, gamblers, and vice barons, and brings back industries driven from Cleveland by racketeers. He has ousted incompetents and political hangers-on from the police, fire and building departments and taught the ‘boys’ that it’s dynamite to mess with Ness-men.” said an article in American Magazine. “(Ness) runs a police training school modeled after J. Edgar Hoover’s and demands unqualified efficiency and honesty. (7)

When influential reformers had pressed Mayor Harold Burton into appointing the mild-mannered federal agent, Burton at first demurred. One look at the special agent’s record convinced him that Cleveland could expect fireworks,” said an article in Newsweek magazine.

As chief of the Federal alcohol-tax unit for northern Ohio, Ness had closed an average of one still a day. In Cleveland, Ness started his cleanup with characteristic verve. He first slapped five high police department officials in the penitentiary for bribery and graft, then instituted a scientific “rookie” training school for policemen. Revising the traffic control system, he cut auto accident deaths in half. During Ness’ first eighteen months on the job, Cleveland’s total crimes dropped 25%; its juvenile crime dropped 80% (credited with his starting numerous Boy Scout troops all over the city) and at the same time arrests and convictions increased by approximately 20%. When Ness took on the mob and sent two high-ranking mob figures to the pen, the papers said that “Director Ness . . . lifted fear from the hearts of honest men . . Cleveland is a better, cleaner, more wholesome place . . . a safer place in which to do business.” (8)

Ness knew there were troubles in the police department, so he instituted procedures to make certain that the officers he hired would do their job well. Once he started his police training academy, all potential officers had to take a revised civil service test that was made a little more difficult to pass. He insisted on character investigations and finger printing for all prospective police. He gave every cadet mandatory two year probation and tested their temperament as well as physical prowess. He didn’t ask anything of his officers that he didn’t demand of his own self. He knew the law well and kept himself in good physical shape.

In the fall of 1938, with the police department rejuvenated, big-time racketeers ensconced in the state penitentiary and crime dropping, Ness was “offered several times his annual employment ($9000) to go into private practice. “Some day,” he said “I may take one of those jobs. Right now, I want to prove what an honest police force with intelligence and civic pride can do.’” (6)

Motorcycles were ordered for traffic control. This was organized as a separate department in order to free those police officers from other duties and focus on the traffic problems rampant across the city. The mounted force was enhanced and modernized as well. With these measures, along with establishing Cleveland’s EMS unit and adding accident prevention patrol cars, Cleveland was recognized with winning the American Legion’s National Safety Award in 1939.

Not only was Ness concerned with the efficiency of the police officers on the street and traffic concerns, he also knew that more modern equipment was need for the police force. In an article that Ness wrote for American City Magazine he wrote that “the centralization and intensive utilization of two-way radio, radio-telegraph, teletype and the teletypewriter increased the speed and efficiency of police communication beyond anything believed possible.”

Ness Ready to Marry Again
In the fall of that year, Ness had fallen in love and was ready to marry again. After being single for only 10 months, in October 1939 he married Evaline McAndrews. A well liked and a very popular socialite around Cleveland, Evaline had a career as a fashion artist. After their marriage they moved into a boathouse in the Clifton Lagoons that was owned by the Stouffer brothers. The third floor had windows on all sides and afforded Evaline a comfortable place to work on her sketches for the major department stores in Cleveland. She eventually began illustrating and authoring children’s books. “Yeck, Eck” was one of the popular storybooks she wrote for youths. Ironically, it is the story of a little girl, “Tana Jones (who) had everything in the world except the thing she wanted most – a real live baby to take care of.” Evaline and Ness also wanted children, but weren’t able to have them. Much later, in 1967, she earned the Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book with “Sam, Bangs and Moonshine.” Evaline had developed her own career, and friends have related that her husband’s long work hours didn’t bother her all that much. She was proud that Ness was so devoted to his job as Safety Director.

Mr. and Mrs. Ness enjoyed dining and dancing at the popular hotel ballrooms of Cleveland. Here he met many of the artistic personalities of Cleveland, including artist and designer Viktor Schreckengost. In an interview, Schreckengost said that he enjoyed the Ness’ parties, but invariably “Eliot would receive a phone call pulling him away from the party and back to the line of duty as Safety Director. Those were exciting times.” Mr. Schreckengost added that he noticed Ness never wore a gun, although he did wear the shoulder holster empty – perhaps to give the criminals the impression that he might be armed.

Ness Earns Acclaim
The first four years of Ness’ career in Cleveland were referred to as the “Burton – Ness Regime.” It seemed that along with Mayor Burton, nothing was impossible to achieve. In 1939 Burton overwhelmingly was returned to the office of Mayor. By this time, Ness had either ousted or jailed the big-time racketeers, the city hadn’t had a gang murder in two years, traffic accidents were cut by 50% and juvenile crime was curbed with the formation of Boy Scout troops with Ness and his officers serving as troop leaders. Ness also founded Cleveland Boys Town and established a Welfare Department within the police department for families of officers in need. It’s no wonder that Eliot Ness was recognized with the Veterans of Foreign Wars medal for Outstanding Citizen of Cuyahoga county for 1940. Ness remained incorruptible at a time in the nation’s history when virtually anyone could be bought. He demanded honesty above everything else and expected it in others. Alvin Silverman of the Plain Dealer said that even though Eliot wouldn’t sit in a restaurant without his back to a wall, he “was as devoid of fear as anyone who ever lived.”

In another Plain Dealer report, Clarence Douglas wrote that “changes in the police department since Eliot Ness became Safety Director – both in personnel and methods – have been the most drastic in the department’s history.” Zone cars that were equipped with two-way radios took the place of the beat patrolman. With regard to traffic, “13 yellow accident prevention cars – lent by the Studebaker Corp., since the city could not afford to buy its own – are constant reminders that the long-heralded reform is at hand.” (9)

Ness Gives up the Badge
In 1940, Ness lost an important ally when Mayor Burton was elected to the U.S. Senate; Burton later became a United States Supreme Court justice. Although Ness remained Cleveland’s Safety Director, with the initiation of a peace-time draft in 1940 and large-scale military mobilization, the government sought a high-profile spokesperson to warn recruits about the dangers of venereal disease. Ness agreed to accept the part-time position as a consultant to the Federal Social Protection Program. Critics chided Ness for his long absences as he traveled to government offices in New York and Washington, as well as military bases around the country, preaching abstinence and safe sex.” April 30, 1942 Ness stepped down as Safety Director to become the National Director for the Federal Social Protection Program.(10)

After the war ended in 1945, he became chairman of the Board for the Diebold Safe and Lock Company in Canton. He also formed an import-export business with his friend Dan Tyler Moore, Jr., former director of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  His travels almost paralleled those of his wife because Evaline was equally busy traveling to Washington and New York to meet with her publishers. The distance between them grew to be too much and they were quietly divorced November 17, 1945.

Ness wasn’t alone for long. Another woman, and a friend of Evaline’s from their days at the Cleveland Institute of Art, captured his heart. On January 31, 1946, Ness married the former Elisabeth Anderson Seaver. Elisabeth had once been a very popular artist at the Cowan Pottery Studios which had gone under during the Depression. Even today, many of her pieces are displayed in significant art museums around the country as well as the Cowan Pottery Museum in the Rocky River Public Library. Like Eliot, Elisabeth was also of Norwegian ancestry which is why her name was spelled with an “s” instead of the more popular “z.” Ness, now 44 years old, still hoped for a family. He and Elisabeth decided to adopt. They welcomed a 3 year old toddler, Robert, from an orphanage near Ashtabula, OH.

Ness Still In the Public Eye 
In 1947 Ness was talked into running an unsuccessful campaign for mayor against the incumbent, Thomas Burke. Apparently, his days of crime-fighting glory had fade, and. Ness boosters underestimated the power of organized labor. Ness depleted his savings on the campaign.

In 1955 Ness joined the Cleveland-based North Ridge Industrial Corporation, a new company “marketing a promising method of watermarking commercial and personal checks to prevent forgery.” The company wanted an identifiable figure to show potential investors that the North Ridge businesses would be profitable,’ said William Ayers, one of the original partners.” Ness moved his wife and son to Coudersport, PA, about 6 hours east of Cleveland, to manage the Guarantee Paper and Fidelity Company of the North Ridge Corporation. Ness worked hard and invested all he had into the company because he believed in the concept of watermarking to prevent forgery. The watermarked checks never caught on, and the free-spending habits of the company’s founder led to the company’s quick demise.(11)

In this same year of 1955, when traveling to New York City, Ness became acquainted with Oscar Fraley, a sportswriter who took an interest in the stories of Ness’ days in Chicago. Fraley persuaded Ness to work with him on an account of his experiences battling Chicago’s bootleggers. The Western Reserve Historical Society library in Cleveland has the 21 page, double spaced, memoirs that Eliot Ness typed and sent to Oscar Fraley. When Ness saw the galley edition of the book, his pride wouldn’t agree to the text Fraley submitted. Ness signed off on all rights to the book, thinking that it wouldn’t be the success that Fraley thought it would. In a telephone conversation with the author in 1998, an aging Fraley said that he knew the book would be a best seller. When asked why he went ahead with the book knowing Eliot Ness didn’t approve, he said “Tough! I knew it would be a success and if he didn’t like it he could sign off on it – and he did.”

On May 16, 1957 at 5:15 p.m. Eliot Ness died in his home in Coudersport from a heart attack. His estate showed over $8000 in debt. Ness never knew how popular his story would become and that Desilu Productions would buy the rights to air the TV series that starred Robert Stack in the lead role. His widow, Elisabeth, could only afford to have Eliot cremated and brought back to Cleveland where she lived in Cleveland Heights. A memorial service was held for him at the Church of the Covenant on Euclid Avenue. His ashes were kept by his son, Robert who was only ten years old when Eliot died.

Elisabeth died in 1977 after suffering from cancer of the throat for several years. She had lived in San Juan Capistrano, CA with a cousin when she passed away. Robert Ness passed away a year sooner, August 31, 1976, of leukemia. He was only 29 years old and left a widow. Both Elisabeth and Robert’s ashes, as well as those of Eliot Ness, were kept by Robert’s widow until 1998 when they were united in a formal funeral ceremony. The ashes of all three Ness family members were dispersed on Wade Lake in Lake View Cemetery on the east side of Cleveland. The funeral was held September 10, 1998 with many hundreds of people and international media in attendance. Eliot Ness can be remembered for the impact he had on Cleveland. Ness restored a sense of hope and pride to a city that had been beaten down for a long time. It can easily be said that Eliot Ness’ integrity was sincere and his sense if justice was inflexible. His life was never easy, but he didn’t allow fear to guide him.

by Rebecca McFarland, Museum Trustee, January 2012
(editing by Mark Wade Stone)

Footnotes –

  1. Information about Eliot Ness’ Norwegian ancestry provided from a retired police officer in Norway, Bjarne Jormeland. June 2011
  1. Information about his career shared by author, Max Allen Collins in a letter, August 10, 1988 to Rebecca McFarland
  1. People Magazine, July 1987, p. 56, 57
  1. Personal letter sent to Rebecca McFarland on a holiday card dated December 2001
  1. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 12, 1935
  1. Current History, October 1938
  1. American Magazine, May 1937
  1. Newsweek, March 21, 1938
  1. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 21, 1939
  1. Timeline, March/April 1998, p. 23
  1. Timeline, March/April, p. 30

 

History of Ohio Steelmaking

History of Ohio Steelmaking

From the Ohio Steel Council

The link is here

THE HISTORY OF STEEL IN OHIO

Ohio has a proud tradition of steelmaking. Its access to the Great Lakes, network of navigable rivers, and rich deposits of coal and iron literally helped to build a nation.

THE 1800s

Ohio‘s iron and steelmaking roots go back to 1802, the same year the state was admitted to the Union. In this year, the first blast furnace west of the Alleghenies was erected in Poland Township, near Youngstown. It averaged only two tons of iron a day.

During the first decades of the 19th century, ironmaking was a decentralized activity throughout the state. The abundance of low-grade iron ore in many regions of Ohio made the establishment of iron furnaces a relatively common occurrence, and there was a ready demand for the product by local blacksmiths, who turned the pig iron into farm and home utensils. Early furnaces used charcoal as fuel.


By mid-century, however, the picture had changed. The location of ironmaking furnaces became concentrated in southern Ohio, in Vinton, Jackson, Sciota and Lawrence counties. Of the 48 blast furnaces operating in the state at the time, 35 were located in this region. A secondary concentration of nine furnaces was found in the Mahoning Valley.

The iron industry had slowly switched its fuel source from charcoal to coke, a purified form of bituminous coal. The burning coke, when exposed to blasts of air (hence the name “blast furnace”), creates the high temperatures needed to melt iron ore for processing into ingots. These ingots originally were named “pigs” because of the molds’ resemblance to nursing piglets, and the name has stuck ever since.

Deposits of block coal, discovered near Youngstown in 1845, could be used in iron furnaces without being converted to coke. These coal deposits were a major catalyst for the growth of the iron industry in northeastern Ohio.

In 1850, Ohio was essentially rural, even though its major metropolis, Cincinnati, had become the nation’s third most important manufacturing city. But in these changing years, the roar of machinery and the smoke of the factory announced the coming of the Industrial Revolution. Cities grew, and railroads reached to the most isolated counties. Cincinnati, not well located with respect to iron ore and coke, watched as places like Akron and Cleveland became the industrial cities of the future. By 1853, Cleveland had rail connections with most eastern cities as well as with Cincinnati and Chicago. This technological advancement, combined with its coal and iron ore resources, transformed Cleveland into the third-largest iron and steel city in the country.

Yet, by 1880, more significant for the state’s industrial future was the rapid growth of little cities in the Cuyahoga and Mahoning valleys, like Akron, Canton and Youngstown. The Mahoning Valley was becoming one of the great iron and steel areas of the nation. Youngstown was a convenient meeting place for individuals looking for ore and coke. The first of the modern iron-clad blast furnaces was erected in Struthers in 1871, greatly expanding production.

 

STEEL: AN EMERGING INDUSTRY

The nation’s westward expansion increased demand for iron and guaranteed that Ohio’s iron furnaces would stay busy. Within the next decade, however, processes became widely available to produce large quantities of a new, superior product – steel. Steel is stronger and more flexible, making it better suited than iron for rails, beams and other products. The building of a vast national rail system after the Civil War made steel much more valuable than iron.

Ohio continued to be a pioneer in this emerging steel industry. The first Bessemer converter – the new device for steel manufacturers – was purchased by the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, which eventually was absorbed by U.S. Steel Corporation. In 1875, the first open-hearth furnace built exclusively for the production of steel was constructed by the Otis Steel Company in Cleveland, which became Jones & Laughlin Steel Company in 1942. During the 1870s and continuing into the 1880s, steel replaced iron as the primary metal produced in Ohio. By 1892, Ohio ranked as the second-largest steel-producing state behind Pennsylvania.

 

THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

In 1901, open-hearth furnaces began to overtake Bessemer converters as the primary method of making steel. The molten steel was poured into ingots, which were fabricated into rails, bars, wire, pipes, plates and sheets. Also, steel was structurally shaped in specialized rolling mills, often in separate establishments or forge shops.

Most steel companies in 1901 were not completely integrated, a term used to describe a steel producer that has ironmaking and steelmaking capabilities and can process finished and semi-finished steel products. Many companies operated only blast furnaces and sold their pig iron on the open market. Others combined ironmaking and steelmaking capabilities, but supplied fabricators that produced a single range of finished products.

 

TURNING POINT: U.S. STEEL

The formation of the United States Steel Corporation in February 1901 capped a merger wave in the 1890s. In Ohio, mergers included the creation of Republic Iron and Steel Company, a “rolling mill trust” formed by combining 34 small companies in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Alabama.

U.S. Steel, created by combining J.P. Morgan’s Federal Steel with Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Steel, was the first billion-dollar company in American corporate history. It consisted of eight major and many smaller firms and some 200 plants. The situation forced competitors to build or acquire mills and mines in order to become integrated steelmakers.


Armco also began integrating in this period, incorporating in 1899 as the American Rolling Mill Company of Middletown, Ohio. Youngstown Sheet & Tube was created in late 1900, with the vision of a large, integrated steel producer.

In 1910, Elbert Gary, who ran U.S. Steel, redefined the goals, behavior and attitudes of the steel industry. Fears of antitrust action by the government in response to U.S. Steel’s stranglehold on the market led to a search for stability. One of these elements was a pricing formula that eliminated the advantages of geography. This and other initiatives of Gary – and the American Iron and Steel Institute, which he formed – helped Ohio steel to remain competitive.

Within Ohio, the Mahoning Valley was the leading pig iron production region, with 39 percent of the Ohio total and 9 percent of the national total in 1920.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Like other American industries, Ohio steel was devastated by the Great Depression. Markets shrunk precipitously, except for light-rolled sheet products used in automobiles and home appliances. This shift hit producers of primarily heavy structural shapes, like pipe and rails, especially hard.

Youngstown Sheet & Tube was poorly situated in the light flat-rolled market because it had delayed improvements during the 1920s. The company did not build hot-strip mills until 1935 and 1939, and it struggled through the decade. Armco struggled against geography, paying higher transportation costs for ore and coal because its Marion mill was not located on the lakes or the Ohio River. However, Armco at least was strong in light-rolled steel. Another asset was its research laboratory, which introduced a new galvanizing technique in 1937 that permitted shaping the steel after the tin coating had been applied.

Republic Steel shared Armco’s disadvantages, but managed to do better because of the company’s light-steel capacity. After 1935, Republic’s management turned aggressive and acquired several new firms.

Ohio remained one of the major focal points of the steel industry. Most of the national steel corporations operated facilities in Ohio during the 1930-1970 period. These included Armco, Cyclops, Jones & Laughlin, National, Pittsburgh, Republic, Sharon, U.S. Steel, Wheeling and Youngstown Sheet & Tube. Three of these firms – Armco, Republic and Youngstown Sheet & Tube – had their national corporate headquarters in Ohio.

THE STEEL INDUSTRY AT WAR (1940-45)

One of the more amazing chapters in American industrial history was the performance of the steel industry during World War II. Firms that had struggled through the Depression operated at full capacity by 1942. Several major steel producers actually exceeded average annual capacities as the industry set new production records. Republic Steel hit 100.4 percent of its capacity in 1942. As a whole, the American steel industry produced almost 90 million tons of finished steel during the peak year of 1944, and 427 million tons from 1941 through 1945. 

THE POSTWAR ERA

Equally significant, however, was the opportunity that the steel industry faced in the immediate postwar period. U.S. producers had no real rivals and enjoyed unprecedented superiority. Almost two-thirds of the world’s steel production in 1945 came from the United States. Because steelmakers confronted so few competitors in world markets, quantity became the driving concern. The industry’s self-assurance also manifested itself in a reluctance to invest in innovation and new technology.

But many of the roots of steel’s later problems were not created by the industry itself. American mills located in the Ohio and Mahoning river valleys paid the penalty of higher transportation costs compared to mills on the Great Lakes. Government policies were also partly responsible for the industry’s later problems. When the country did not sink back into depression after the war, steel executives hoped to discard wartime controls quickly. The government did not agree.

Nevertheless, a massive steel expansion program in the 1950s pushed capacity from 100 million ingot-tons in 1950 to 148.5 million in 1960. The revenue from this increase mostly bought existing technology for established plants. Blast furnaces grew taller and output was increased. Ohio companies followed this trend.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES, NEW COMPETITORS

Two new technologies pioneered in the 1950s were the basic oxygen process and the continuous caster. Both innovations offered major economic benefits over existing processes. The basic oxygen furnace (BOF) uses a process that injects oxygen from the top into a vessel filled with molten iron and scrap, producing steel much more quickly than an open-hearth furnace. Continuous casting developed more slowly. Traditionally, steel ingots were transformed into shapes in several steps – first rolled into slabs or blooms, which were then rolled into beams, bars, pipe, wire, plates or sheets. A continuous caster produces slabs, blooms or billets directly from molten steel, saving time and energy. Republic Steel explored this process as early as the mid-1940s. But the industry as a whole was cautious and slow to integrate new technology, uncertain about the viability of the new procedures.

Smaller companies moved first to install both of these key innovations. “Big Steel,” for the most part, waited until the technologies were better developed. For oxygen furnaces, this had happened by 1963; continuous casting was proved by the end of the decade. In 1968, the first vertical caster in Ohio was constructed at Republic Steel in Canton.

The combination of limited profits, intense pressure for new technology and less-than-optimal installations was dangerous enough. But two other developments further complicated the Ohio steel picture. Foreign competitors began shipping significant quantities of steel to the United States. Imports rose from 5.4 million tons in 1963 to 18 million tons in 1968. This flood of imported steel prevented the industry from earning the capital necessary for investments in modernization.

In addition, another competitor had appeared on the domestic scene: the mini-mill. Initially, mini-mills were facilities with electric furnaces that melted scrap and produced up to 250,000 tons of steel a year. But the technological developments of the 1960s opened other avenues for enterprising small firms. By adding continuous casters and small bar mills to the electric furnaces, the mini-mills could produce reinforcing rods, small diameter bars and angles far less expensively than large firms could, using traditional technology.

THE 1970s AND 1980s

The mid-1970s and early 1980s represented a period of substantial change. Through the 1970s, the industry struggled. It has been argued that excessive wage hikes were a central factor in the loss of competitiveness by American steel. Certainly, foreign competitors had the advantage of cheaper labor. They also, in many cases, had more modern, efficient facilities than their U.S. counterparts. But foreign companies were often subsidized by their governments. In addition, foreign-produced finished consumer products made from steel were being imported at a substantial increase, which shut out a market that had been open to U.S. producers. Finally, the period saw the introduction of new materials that served as substitutes for steel – namely aluminum, plastic and composites.

Voluntary import restrictions worked for a few years; but, after 1973, a surge in demand permitted foreign industry to ignore the system. And in 1977, imported steel totaled 21 million tons.

U.S. steel found its production capacity well beyond the demand for domestic steel. Consequently, the most inefficient mills were closed. Mergers of existing firms took place, and new investors entered the industry to purchase selected operations. In 1977, Youngstown Sheet & Tube was merged with Jones & Laughlin Steel Company, a harbinger of things to come.

Double-digit inflation hit the industry hard. However, the problems of the 1970s paled against the difficulties caused by a recession in 1982. In 1975, 20 fully integrated steel companies operated 47 full-scale mills. By 1985, only 14 companies remained, with 23 mills.

During the 1980s, both employment and raw steel production in Ohio fell to roughly one-half their respective highest years of the 1970s. However, new investment continued, a trend that continued in the 1990s and paid off handsomely in increases in Ohio employment and production.

THE REVITALIZATION OF STEEL

Today’s Ohio steel industry has undergone more than 30 years of restructuring. During this period, many companies have closed or merged with other companies; union contracts and work rules have been revamped; and new technologies have been introduced as a result of millions of dollars that steel companies have invested in their facilities.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Ohio mills invested in quality and cost improvement. During this period, the industry began reaping the benefits of increased continuous casting capabilities, high-tech galvanizing lines, revamped hot-strip mills and continuous processing lines.

By the late 1980s, the news media was reporting exciting rejuvenation in the industry. In the 1990s, the steel market was stronger than it had been in decades.

However, at the dawn of the 21st century, the steel industry again faced significant challenges. The most recent period of upheaval occurred between 1998 and 2003 when, in the wake of a flood of unfairly traded steel imports from Asia, Russia and Brazil, many companies were forced into bankruptcy and many steelworkers were laid off.

In response to this crisis, the steel industry consolidated and union contracts were renegotiated to allow greater flexibility in response to trends in the market place.

Today, steelworkers are trained to work in a number of positions, and they have greater latitude and authority in responding to the needs of the steelmaking facility. In addition, there are fewer steel companies in the U.S., which enables the industry to respond swiftly to market changes. Larger companies are able to shift resources from one operation to the next quickly and efficiently in response to demand. At the same time, smaller steel companies still do very well by focusing on niche markets and specialties.

As a result of these changes, Ohio’s revitalized steel industry has returned to profitability. In fact, Ohio steel companies today produce as much steel as they did before the imports crisis of 1998, even though they employ fewer people. Technology and a more versatile and highly skilled workforce have made up the difference.

 

Teaching Cleveland Digital