STATE OF BUSINESS: Hellzapoppin'

"There's going to be hellzapoppin' in the steel industry all the rest of the year." So said Bethlehem Steel's Chairman Eugene G. Grace last week as the steel strike ended (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) and he took a good look at piled-up demand. Like other steelmen, Grace reported that his company had "never been so low in working inventories of semi-finished steel," while its orders for structural steel were "greater than we've ever seen before." The unleashed steel demand was piling atop an economy already operating "at a record rate, well above the same period a year ago," according to...