Anaconda's Troubles

Many were the signs, last week, of the new strength in the U. S. copper industry. One pound of metal, which cost 13 -c- "a year ago and 15-c- a month ago, last week brought producers 16-c-. On the Manhattan stock exchange, copper stocks went to new post-war highs. Anaconda stood at 89 3/4, as against a January low of 54. Granby Consolidated rose from 43-c- 1 to over 78. Kennecott reached 124 1/4 a new high for all time.

It was permissible, therefore, to point with prosperous pride to the industry as a whole. And. as everyone knows the greatest single unit in the copper industry is the mammoth Anaconda Copper Mining Co. Chief of producers, chief (through the controlled American Brass Co.) of manufacturers, Anaconda's assets top $500,000,000. With prices mounting to profit-making levels, with an effective Copper Export Association to relate supply to demand. Anaconda looked, last week, towards record sales, record profits.

So happily did Anaconda appear to be sitting on the top of the copper heap that few observers were conscious, last week, of Anaconda's troubles. But Chairman of the Board John D. Ryan and President Cornelius F. Kelly knew that, prosperity or no prosperity, two thorns remained in the side of Anaconda to irritate, exasperate. One thorn was George Campbell Carson. The other was William A. Clark Jr.

Thorn Carson. Twenty-two years ago, copper smelting furnaces were loaded from the top and by hand. Each furnace, filled to capacity, held only 240 tons. These facts, known to all miners, were particularly familiar to a vagabond prospector, George Carson, called the "Desert Rat." For 23 years, he had wandered from mine to mine, pursuing an idea. The idea was a smelter which men could load from the side, which might hold twice or three times as much ore as the old top-charging furnace.

In 1906, while working as a chemist in Denver, the Desert Rat captured his idea. He applied for a patent for a side-charging, reverberating furnace. That the patent was delayed did not prevent his peddling the idea to any and all engineers. He showed drawings, explained results. Copper companies, indifferent, rejected both.

Just nine years later, the U. S. granted the Carson patents. But the Desert Rat, discouraged, had little hope of selling them to the big companies. One night in 1915, he sat in a Manhattan auditorium, listening to the papers read to the American Society of Mining Engineers. One speaker started to explain a new copper reduction process, already in operation in the West. The Desert Rat rose in his seat eyes blazing. He was listening to a description of his own furnace.

Long and expensive ($300,000) was the contest in the courts. Alone, Inventor Carson could not have financed it. But to his aid came many a friendly Westerner. Rudolph Spreckels, San Francisco sugar and gas tycoon, organized the Carson Investment Co. to fight the Desert Rat's battle. And in February, 1925, Tycoon Spreckels went down to the waterfront boardinghouse to tell the Desert Rat he was worth $5,000,000, perhaps $20,000,000. He became a national celebrity over night. Hundreds of newspapers carried his story; hundreds of women found matrimony desirable.

The Desert Rat never touched his for tune. At once, the American Smelting & Refining Co. asked a retrial, and 18 months passed before it was denied. Carson, ill in a San Francisco hospital, again reached the front pages: "No, I will not be a philanthropist. It would only create an other army of grafters. Perhaps I will raise trees. Even if I'm rich now, I don't believe any woman is going to get me" In March, 1927, while the case was on appeal, he became the fifth husband of Mrs. Hersee Gross. At the Fairmont Hotel. San Francisco, he "wasn't so stuck on the highfalutin suite of rooms." But the Desert Rat was temporarily in funds.

It was the mighty Anaconda itself which carried the Carson case, last August, to the U. S. Supreme Court. Chief Counsel Charles Evans Hughes argued earnestly that side-charging furnaces had been used before the Desert Rat won his patents. Dubious, the Magna Copper Co. of Ari zona did not wait for the decision, settled last fortnight with Carson's backers for $75,000 and an arrangement for future use of the patents. And last week, the Supreme Court briefly denied Anaconda's petition. Holding the battle at length won. the Carson Investment Co. announced that only the labor of accounting separated the Desert Rat from his vast fortune.

Thorn Clark. Montana copper wars, kindled 50 years ago, are not extinguished. Bitter enemy of Anaconda is short, florid William A. Clark Jr., son of the late, short florid Senator who was the most colorful of the copper kings. Last summer. Ana conda bought the Clark interests in Mon tana for some $6,000,000. Included was the Butte Miner, personal organ of young; Clark. But Anaconda could not buy Clark's silence. He sent for a complete newspaper plant, founded the Montana Free Press (TIME, Sept. 3). Anaconda merged the Miner with the Butte edition of the Anaconda Standard to form the Montana Standard. In 96-point headlines, flaming red and frankly unrestrained, Free Press and Standard, Clark and Anaconda, war over Montana politics.

The battle for the governorship was the chief issue, last week, between the two factions. Clark is supporting Republican Wellington D. Rankin. Anaconda aids the campaign for re-election of Governor John E. Erickson, Democrat. Clark's Free Press exulted, last week, when Candidate Rankin spurned the "Aid of a Kept Press as Kiss of Death." Anaconda's Standard headlined: MUNCHAUSEN A PILLAR OF TRUTH COMPARED TO CLARK. Listed in the story were 6 "major, frenzied, malicious Clark lies." The sixth was "the statement made daily by the Clark newspaper that it is devoted solely to the interests of the people of Montana."