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3, 1905. table gives the half-yearly production in the last your years in gross tons. The production of 1904 was 1,512,219 tons less than that of 1903. The production in the second half of 1904 was 150,157 tons more than that of the first half. The causes of the decline in production in 1904 as compared with 1903 are so well known that they need not be dwelt upon in this connection, but it is worthy of mention that the last four months of 1904 showed great and steadily increasing activity in production. This rate of production was continued and exceeded in January of the present year.

The production of Bessemer and low-phosphorus pig iron in 1904 was 9,098,659 tons, against 9,989,908 tons in 1903, a decrease of 891,249 tons. The production of basic pig iron in 1904, not including charcoal of basic quality, was 2,483,104 tons, against 2,040,726 tons in 1903, an increase of 442,378 tons. The production of charcoal pig iron in 1904 was 337,529 tons, against 504,757 tons in 1903 and 378,504 tons in 1902. The production in 1904 was 167,228 tons less than in

1903 and 40,975 tons less than in 1902. The production of spiegeleisen and ferromanganese in 1904 was 219,446 tons, against 192,661 tons in 1903. The production of ferromanganese alone in 1904 amounted to 56,076 tons. One company produced 946 tons of ferrophosphorus in 1904. A significant feature of the above statistics is the increased production of basic pig iron in a year of generally reduced production.

The stocks of pig iron which were unsold in the hands of manufacturers or which were under their control in warrant yards and elsewhere at the close of 1904, and were not intended for their own consumption, amounted to 408,792 tons, against 623,254 tons on June 30, 1904, and 591,438 tons on Dec. 31, 1903. The American Pig Iron Storage Warrant Company held 55,350 tons of pig iron in its yards on Dec. 31, 1904, of which 17,700, tons, included above, were reported to us as being still controlled by the makers, leaving 37,650 tons in other hands. Adding this 37,650 tons to the 408,792 tons noted above gives us a total of 446,442 tons that were on the market at the close of 1904.

The whole number of furnaces in blast on Dec. 31, 1904, was 261, against 216 on June 30, 1904, and 182 on Dec. 31, 1903. The number of furnaces in blast at the end of 1904 was 45 larger than on June 30 of the same year and 79 larger than on Dec. 31, 1903.

With the death of ex-, of the New Haven, there passes away almost the last of the old-fashioned railroad presidents who lived so late as to be in charge of a great railroad system. It was a type of railroad administration that stood by itself, marked by integrity, economy, conservatism and fidelity to its tasks, but not by progressiveness and keen forecast. In the case of ex-President Hall the personality was the more vivid because he stood between two contrasted administrations, those of Presidents C. P. Clark and C. S. Mellen, each, in its way radical, even dramatic.

Ex-President Hall was born in Willimantic, Conn., Oct. 16, 1841, in a family that struck back its roots to rich Puritan stock. He received a public school education, tried business but dropped it to secure a liberal education, passed through Yale in the class of 1866 with high literary honors, studied law at Columbia and practiced it at Willimantic, served five terms in the Connecticut legislature and was appointed Judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut in 1889. He was eloquent in speech, well versed in law and, as a Republican party leader, was classed as a “practical” politician; but on the bench he threw politics behind and in the Connecticut deadlock of 1890–2 rendered a decision directly adverse to his party’s interest. President Clark, immersed in large schemes of expansion, needed a man in his company who knew Connecticut law, men, politics and affairs. And, in 1893, he induced Judge Hall to surrender what was sure promotion to the supreme bench of the state for the more arduous and responsible but also much higher paid duties of First Vice-President of the New Haven Company. He remained vice-president until 1899, somewhat specializing his work on state legislation, and late in that year succeeded President Clark, continuing in office until the succession of President Mellen in 1903.

The four years’ administration of President Hall spanned a transition period in the history of the New Haven corporation. President Clark, with what was called radicalism then but has lost that title now, had carried through consolidation and created a territorial monopoly in southern New England; but the problem of operation had yet to be worked out and was to wait for President Mellen. The gap between the two President Hall was called upon to fill. It needed a trained railroad operator of the up-to-date stamp and that President Hall was not. He worked faithfully, gave vigilant attention to details, was zealous for the interests of the road and was a close and rigid economist. In the cause of economy he even one year declared independence of the Connecticut lobby whose bills for a preceding session of the legislature he had remorselessly pared down; but an initial defeat at the state capital on an important measure brought his corporation to its knees. It was not until near the close of his administration that he awoke to the needs of his company in the direction of new equipment and the development of through freight business. Then, with the aid of the new Vice-President, Mr. Todd, he made the first important beginnings in the purchase of new locomotives and cars, the development of coal traffic, acquirement of water frontage at Boston and the exchange of high class westward freight from non-competitive points for long hauls of eastward freight to competitive stations.

In one direction, however, the administration of President Hall was advanced, not to say radical. Believing in the policy of acquiring electric roads he pushed still further the theory and practice of President Clark. The main features of his electric policy were the electrification of lines of his system east of Providence in competition with the trolleys; and, more novel, the self parallelism of the Norwich & Worcester division by connected electric railways almost reaching between the two cities. The scheme has not, in itself, yet proved a financial success. But with its liberal charter and under its new title of “Consolidated Railway Company” it has become the basic holding corporation in which most of the electric properties of the New Haven Company have been merged.

The trying labor troubles of the New Haven Company two years ago fell upon President Hall when in poor health, hastened his retirement, and, undoubtedly, his death. He withdrew from the presidency a few months later after a comparatively brief tenure of office not marked by great achievement but by tireless industry, single