The absorption of this entirely solvent and “going” competitor has been criticized on the allegation that its only purpose could have been to strengthen the larger company’s supposed control of the industry, and to eliminate competition. The reasons for the purchase, testified to by Judge Gary, in the Government suit were twofold. The Union Steel Co., he said, owned blast and open-hearth furnaces the securing of which obviated the necessity of the Corporation building others in the same territory, which it needed, and its wire mill was particularly well located for export business, a prime consideration with the Steel Corporation; and perhaps a more cogent reason was to be found in the desire of the Corporation’s management to centre the interests of H. C. Frick in the Corporation. Mr. Frick was heavily interested in the Union-Sharon concern and on this account, although a director of the Corporation, he did not take a prominent part in the big company’s affairs. His experience and ability made his full coöperation in the directorship desirable and this had a great deal to do with the purchase. Seventeen months later, in May, 1904, the Clairton Steel Co., which operated three blast and fifty open-hearth furnaces, a rolling mill, billet mill, and blooming mill at Clairton, Pa., was absorbed. The company, controlled by the Crucible Steel Co., was then in the hands of a receiver and its stock was acquired by the payment to the owners of $1,000,000 in U. S. Steel bonds (bought in the open market and costing the Corporation $813,850), and the guaranteeing of bonds to the amount of $10,230,000 outstanding against the Clairton company and its subsidiaries. The purchase also brought to the Corporation a half interest in one ore mine and a lease of another in the Mesaba Range, about 20,000 acres of mineral lands in the Marquette Range, 2,644 acres of coking coal lands, and working assets of nearly $3,000,000. Smaller acquisitions by the Corporation in the early years of its existence included the Troy Steel Products Co., which owned works at Troy, N. Y., with a capacity of about 200,000 tons of slabs and skelp a year, and the Trenton Iron Co., operating a rod mill with a capacity of some 18,000 tons. The Troy company was bought in 1902 and operated a very short time, it having proved unprofitable.