Business: Best in Three Years

For the nation's steelmakers it was the best week in years. Output was up to a scheduled 2,212,000 net tons (from 2,056,000 the week before and 1,459,000 a year ago), and orders were piling in so fast that many companies had to start allocating steel and reopen marginal facilities. U.S. Steel's Chairman Roger Blough reported that orders were being received at a faster rate than at any time in 1958, as Big Steel fired up seven of 14 open-hearth furnaces idled at its Pennsylvania Homestead Works last March. Equally cheering, Blough told stockholders that...