Piggott

When glum pre-Prohibition workers of Pacific Coast Steel Co. first read upon their checks "These pay checks are made non-negotiable so that employes cannot cash them in saloons" they knew it was the work of William (Pigiron) Piggott, president of the company, bitter and active campaigner against liquor.* Mr. Piggott by the time of his death (TIME, July 29) had built up his Pacific Coast Steel Co. and its subsidiary, Southern California Iron & Steel Co., to an annual capacity of 380,000 tons--40,000 more than Columbia Steel, only complete steel unit west of the Rockies, managed then by San Francisco's powerful Fleishhacker-SIoss interests.

Last month United States Steel Corp. absorbed Columbia (TIME, Nov. 11). Last week Bethlehem Steel's Eugene Gifford Grace, then in San Francisco, announced his company would acquire Pacific Coast Steel and its subsidiary.

Already entrenched on the Pacific Coast through Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp.'s plants in San Francisco, Alameda and Los Angeles, the purchase will bring Bethlehem into closer competition with its five-times greater rival, U. S. Steel. Open to the competitors lie not only the rich Pacific Coast but the Far East.

*Other Piggott campaigning methods included a "Sermon Against Booze" on each pay statement. Typical of these was: "To the married man who thinks he cannot get along without his drinks the following is suggested as a solution to the bondage of the habit: "1. Start a saloon in your own house. "2. Be the only customer and you will have no license to pay. Give your wife $2 to buy a gallon of whiskey and remember that there are 69 drinks to the gallon. "3. Buy your drinks from no one but your wife. By the time the first gallon is gone she will have $8 to put in the bank and $2 to start business again. "Should you live 10 years and continue to buy booze from her and then die with snakes in your boots, she will have money enough to bury you decently, educate your children, buy a house and lot, marry a decent man and quit thinking about you."

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