Business: Steel: Rise in Price

For a month steelmen anxiously waited for U.S. Steel, the industry's pace setter, to raise its prices to match the automatic July 1 wage increase (cost: 26¢ an hour). But Big Steel, which led the industry in eleven of the twelve boosts since World War II, this time plainly intended to let someone else lead the way—and take the political walloping that was sure to follow. Moreover, Big Steel probably needed a raise least, because of increased efficiency in its operations (see below). Last week Armco Steel's President R. L. Gray finally took the...