GOVERNMENT: Bethlehem Buys

One of the biggest postwar bugaboos to U.S. business has been: How will the U.S. dispose of its more than $15,000,000,000 worth of Federally owned war plants? Last week, Bethlehem Steel Corp. took action to banish its own bugaboo, by purchasing all Government-built steelmaking facilities on Bethlehem property. These were mainly coke ovens and blast furnaces at Lackawanna, Bethlehem, Steelton and Sparrows Point. Shipbuilding facilities were not included.

The price was $22,000,000. Significantly, this was the actual construction cost, although many estimate that some war plants might be worth as little as 25% of cost to private industry, because of sky-high wartime construction prices and reconversion costs. But the Bethlehem purchase will set no real price precedent. There will be little, if any, reconversion cost for coke ovens and blast furnaces. As Bethlehem’s President Eugene G. Grace explained the purchase: “We like to be our own landlord.”