Like a crapehanger whose predicted misfortune has finally come to pass, U.S. steelmen felt a certain grim satisfaction. When President Truman demanded expansion of steel capacity five months ago (TIME, Jan. 17), steelmen answered that the proposal was nonsense. The postwar demand for steel, they said, would soon overtake itself. Last week it began to look as if it had.
U.S. Steel's biggest subsidiary, Carnegie-Illinois Corp., shut down five of its Pittsburgh open-hearth furnaces for lack of orders. In Cleveland, Republic Steel Corp. closed one of its blast furnaces. As orders for specialty steels slacked off, Lukens Steel Co. laid...
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