"Competition is always welcome and desirable. It is a necessary force for the health of our economy. Competition has been responsible for our present industrial growth. And that growth is the cause of our present standard of living; that growth has thrust us into the role of world leadership. In the process we have learned the hard way that our very survival depends on our ability to compete. We know that our industry must be competitive or die."

Benjamin F. Fairless
President, U.S. Steel Corp.
1959

"If we are to survive as a prosperous people there must be more to the leadership of American business than the creation of wealth, and the production and distribution of goods and services. If we as a nation are to continue our progress, American business must assume a leadership which like all true leadership must be based on the principles which are most basic to human welfare; the same principles which we admire in individuals-strength, vigor, courage, honesty, tolerance, understanding, humility and high moral character."

Ben Morrell
Chairman, Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.
1952

"The balance of economic power in the world is being realigned. Economic competion and integration are the order of the day. America's industry is experiencing only the first wave of foreign competion. We cannot maintain the 'status quo.' It is wholly inadequate in today's economic environment. Continuation of the 'status quo' can only result in the loss of our position of economic preeminence."

William J. Stephen
C.E.O., Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.
1971

"I am afraid that some of us have been inclined to take our freedoms and high standards of living too much for granted. Too many of us want something for nothing. Too often people try to get help and security from the government instead of trying hard to solve their problems themselves. History has shown that some fine civilizations lost out to more aggressive people. We must heed the lessons of history or we may condemn ourselves to the mistakes of the past."

Francis M. Rich
Vice President, Inland Steel Corporation.
1959

"We forget that our policies, our way of life, our capitalistic system, our civic rights are more revolutionary than communism ever was or ever will be. As modern capitalists we are in the vanguard of progress. It will be of little comfort to us or to the poor if we fail to sell the American public that the preservation of a strong, profitable steel industry is indispensable to the continuation of personal freedom for our citizenry at large and to the prosperity of the 300 communities in which steel operates throughout the land."

John P. Roche
President, American Iron & Steel Institute
1964

"I believe the time has come to speak up loud and clear in defense of American business. It has been and is the goose that is laying the golden eggs. It is the source And the machine for the development of capital that provides the necessary means for the affluent life, and that makes the essential base for our culture, our art, our educational institutions. Without it America would be an inchoate giant. Without it we would have no voice or influence in shaping the world. Without it we would all have a tough time with out food or clothing, and our shelter."

George Stimson
C.E.O., National Steel Corp.
1971

"I hold that business progress has been the handmaiden of constructive social change. The environmental conditions in which people work, play, and bring about social progress are for the most part a direct product of the increasing opportunities which occur when people, working in business, become more productive and more proficient. Social change thrives on business progress. Business progress reflects the process of change. It makes continuing social change inevitable and it enables social change to become social progress.

Roger M. Blough
President, U.S. Steel Corp.
1968

"Historically the strength of America has resided primarily in two areas. First of course are the personal and economic freedoms which the founders of this country wisely delegated to all who are citizens of the land. And second the strength of America has come from the application of those freedoms to the development and production of a constantly expanding array of goods and services for the benefit of our own people and for sale throughout the world. This has been and continues to be the American way."

Edwin Gott
Chairman, U.S. Steel Corp.
1971

"It is our free enterprise that provides the jobs that make the goods and the wages and income by which we have gained the most satisfactory standard of living in man's history. It is from these jobs and goods and income that we draw our taxes to support our government, to defend our nation, to educate ourselves and to maintain the entire material fabric of our cultural and spiritual life."

George Humphrey
President, National Steel Corp.
1959

"A nation cannot go on continuously spending what it does not have any more than can a business or family. This is now being driven home as an axiom just as applicable to a rich and powerful nation as to one of lesser economic consequence. We are being forced to learn that our economy is not impregnable; that its resources are not without limit."

Robert M. Blough
President, U.S. Steel Corp.
1968