And corporations, manufacturing and other, responded loyally for the most part. A few, a very few, put profit above patriotism and haggled over prices and percentages, but the great mass of American business men showed by their actions that they regarded themselves as soldiers of the United States and put their resources and their organizations without question at the service of the Government. They were the men behind the men behind the guns. From among so many who did their duty, and more than their duty, it would be invidious to pick out for particular praise or commendation a single one. The war work done by such concerns as American Can, American Car & Foundry, American Brake Shoe & Foundry, Dodge Bros. Manufacturing Co., T. H. Symington Co., and many others must be a matter of deep satisfaction not only to their managements but to all who believe that American business men are not swayed solely by the desire to gather in dollars. And among those concerns whose managements asked themselves in regard to war activities not what profit there was in them but how best they could serve their country and help win the war, none was more ready and loyal than the United States Steel Corporation. From the date of the entrance of the United States into the war until the armistice the Steel Corporation spent more than $200,000,000 for war plant, and from the beginning of the war in 1914 more than $300,000,000 for plant and other properties for war purposes. Most of these expenditures were made at the request of representatives of the Government at a time when business caution would have advised against them and at a cost estimated at about $103,000,000 above pre-war cost. Some of the plants erected during the conflict will never be profitable in peace times and others will not be for a long time. But profit was not in question. And the Corporation shipped for war purposes nearly 18,500,000 tons of steel, nearly 28,000,000 gallons of benzol, and more than 21,000,000 pounds of ammonia sulphate and liquor intended directly for war uses. Much of its other output unquestionably went into war material in one shape or another, but indirectly, and so cannot be checked up. Perhaps the most interesting single feature of the Corporation’s war activities was the contract which it undertook early in May, 1918, to erect for the Government the largest big gun plant in the world on Neville Island, in the Ohio River, near Pittsburgh. This plant was to have a capacity to forge fifteen 14-inch guns, and to machine and finish twelve a month. Part of its capacity was to be devoted to the manufacture of even larger cannon--up to 18-inch. The estimated cost of the plant and equipment was $150,000,000, this figure not including the cost of the guns.