Foreign nations target U.S. steel: steel is the backbone and sinews of modern society. Without a robust domestic steel industry, we will not prosper in peace--or survive in war.(American Industry)(Cover Story)

Kim Haws is the kind of entrepreneur who Republicans and Democrats both hold up as the exemplar of the American inventor-manufacturer we want to keep in this country. Mr. Haws is the owner of Agri-Trac manufacturing in Mesa, Washington, a small rural town near the Columbia River in the state's southeastern corner. Haws developed an ingenious hexagonal steel boot, the Agri-Trac, for the tires of center pivot irrigation systems. The Agri-Trac provides five times as much ground surface area as unshod tires and can reduce wheel rut depths by 80 percent. This means the farmers' rotating sprinkler systems are far less likely to get stuck in the mud.

The Agri-Trac has ...