This will be a lengthy post. I found an article in a 1925 issue of United States Investor, August 15 (volume 36, number 33), pages 2160-2164. What follows is my transcription of the text, followed by a PDF of the original. It takes Mosler to task over its claims and its methods of "proving" Donsteel.
AGAIN: “DONSTEEL”

Including the Story of “What Happened at Donora?”

If Donsteel, this mysterious metal that the Mosler Safe Co. is marketing, actually has the qualities claimed for it, the time has come when this should be proven by absolutely impartial methods. Of course, there is no particular reason why Mr. Donaldson should not continue to use vaudeville show methods, as much as he wishes, for selling the product of his company. If he chooses to clothe himself in asbestos and goggles, and even to add an asbestos screen to the other scenery, while he handles torch or fluxing rod, at his Donsteel demonstrations, that is for him to decide, according to his own tastes. But when the impression is being widely given that these performances are not shows but tests, and when it is claimed that they prove certain facts which bankers ought to heed, then the moment has arrived when tests of a much more conclusive sort ought to be made at once.
A Challenge to Banks

If Donsteel is all that is claimed for it, and if the products of all other manufacturers than Mosler are as obsolete, and therefore as worthless, as the Mosler selling force is alleging, the matter has gone far beyond a mere case of aggressive salesmanship. The much larger question has come to the front, whether our banks are spending their money for worthless equipment, when so many of them are deliberately choosing not to use Donsteel; and whether the other safe and vault companies are willfully selling equipment that they must know to be obsolete, if it really is. The present situation is a challenge to the banks, who are placing their millions of dollars in vaults that Mosler salesmen are declaring to all the world to be obsolete. It is a challenge, also, to the insurance companies, and even to the bank commissioners and the Federal Reserve Board, because they have a responsibility to the public, not to permit the banks of this country to be willfully negligent in any particular.

For what the Mosler Safe Co. claims for Donsteel, in contrast with all other vault door materials, is substantially this: That the materials used by other vault builders, and still strongly recommended by some of the best vault engineers and architects in this country, are fit only for the vaults of a by-gone age; that these materials can be penetrated readily enough by burglars and that wooden doors of the same thickness would offer more resistance than these massive vaults which were built before the present cutting torch was perfected; and that Donsteel is the only metal that cannot be penetrated by the oxy-acetylene torch. Sweeping claims, indeed, and disturbing, too, when you consider that there are four other great vault manufacturers in this country beside Mosler, as well as several smaller ones; that some of these others are responsible concerns with millions of dollars invested in their business and with splendid reputations for square dealing; and that thousands of banks have bought and are still buying safes and vaults from all of them. The matter has become one of utmost seriousness. If these banks without Donsteel in their vaults are living in a fool’s paradise, when they think that their money and securities are safe, and if they are buncoing themselves, when they buy new vault doors without Donsteel in their makeup, then we have a scandalous state of affairs.

Of Utmost Seriousness

These billions of money and securities, that are in the various bank and safe deposit vaults of this country, belong not to the banks but to millions of depositors and box renters, to the whole body of American citizens, to be exact. If the vault companies persist in selling doors without Donsteel when, as experts on vault construction, they must know very well what is the truth about Donsteel, they are engaged in a very reprehensible business, unless these Mosler claims are thoroughly misleading. On the other hand, if these claims are misleading, that is most serious also, because the advertisements and letters and sales talk of the Mosler organization are causing real alarm among small banks, and may easily cause them serious loss, if they take counsel of their fears. They may scrap costly vault doors, which they already own, or they may give up a profitable safety deposit business, through lack of confidence in their vaults. Clearly this subject is one of very great importance.

Frankly, we are not convinced by all of this advertising and sales talk and articles in the trade papers in behalf of Donsteel, and we even remain unimpressed by all these asbestos-sceneried, vaudeville-like torch attacks. We doubt, for one thing, whether these exhibitions, attended by open-mouthed reporters, and by non-expert though perfectly well-meaning guests from the banks, prove anything that is conclusive and practical. Apparently we are not alone in our skeptical feeling. These public demonstrations have been numerous and widely advertised. We question whether there is any important insurance company, or any large bank, that has not heard a great deal about them. That means, of course, that these insurance companies and banks have been put on notice, as the bright young bank clerk likes to express it. They cannot say that they have not been warned, that the real worth of all other metals than Donsteel has been publicly challenged, or that the absolute impenetrability of Donsteel itself is being boldly asserted. So when insurance companies permit the use of other metals without any protest, and when banks continue to purchase these other metals, both of them assume a certain responsibility. And yet, in the face of all these claims, and at whatever peril this does involve for them, these insurance companies, and most of these big representative banks, continue to remain unconvinced and indifferent. Their attitude appears to be the same as our own.

Insurance Companies Challenged

Take the case of the insurance companies first. If any group in this whole country has reason to become excited, over a great discovery in bank vault building, when such discovery really occurs, it is the insurance companies. They insure the banks against loss through burglars’ attacks. Consider what that means. Nothing less than that the insurance company must pay back to any bank every dollar covered by insurance, that burglars get away from it, even though this loss shall run up into the millions. The capital and surplus of the insurance company, every penny that it has in the world, stands behind this policy that it issues to the bank. Let burglars cut through the doors of some of these great vaults that competitors of Mosler have sold to the Federal Reserve banks and to numerous New York, Cleveland or Chicago banks, for instance, and make off with even part of the contents, and the insurance world will get such a jolt as it has not received since the San Francisco fire. The insurance companies have the most urgent of reasons for desiring banks to have only the strongest of vault doors.

Big Banks Unconvinced

Take the case of big banks. They refuse to become excited over the claims made for Donsteel, and the criticism of all other vault door material. The banks of Ohio present a peculiarly interesting case in this connection. The Union Trust Co. of Cleveland, for example, is occupying a brand-new building, in which the safety deposit vault is one of the great features. Not only was Donsteel not used, although the Mosler Safe Co. is an Ohio institution, but you cannot convince the officials of this great bank that the material in their safety deposit vault door is obsolete. You might have a rather strenuous quarter of an hour with them, if you even hinted at any suspicion. The Brotherhood of Engineers’ National Bank of Cleveland, which has many millions of dollars of deposits, and feels a peculiar responsibility because these are largely the entire savings of wage earners, also turned its back upon Donsteel, recently, under circumstances that we shall mention later on, in this article. Meantime, a modest little building and loan association in Cleveland, not a bank at all, has been advertising that it has the only door in Cleveland that contains Donsteel, and we have not heard its bold claim disputed.

Thus, in the biggest city of the Mosler Co.’s own state, with its great banks that rank among the most important of America, there would seem to be plenty of evidence that the banks are unconvinced, whatever may be the opinion of one modest little building and loan association. If we go outside of Ohio, of course, the case is much the same. We have not heard that any of the Federal Reserve banks have become alarmed in all this clamor. When you consider that back of those reserve bank doors is more money than in any other spot in all America, outside of the Treasure at Washington, which likewise does not use Donsteel for its big vault, this situation is thought-provoking. Neither have we learned that the First National Bank of Boston, with a vault that is regarded as the last word in safe construction, is disturbed because there is no Donsteel in its doors. Indeed, that case calls for some consideration, because this bank bought its doors from Mosler, at a time when Donsteel was well on the market, and yet it did not buy Donsteel. Another case that calls for some consideration is that of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. In the Mosler Safe Co.’s own monograph on Donsteel, published in December, 1923, it speaks on page 53 of tests made on Donsteel for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Why, then, was Donsteel not bought for the St. Louis Federal Reserve branch banks at Little Rock and Louisville, both of which were purchased after these tests.

What Mosler Claims

We think, therefore, that the banks and insurance companies labor under the same questionings as we do, where Donsteel is concerned. We turn now to the biggest stumbling block of all, so far as our faith in Donsteel is concerned. We refer to these public demonstrations. Either Donsteel does present “complete resistance to welding torches and the fluxing rod”, and is “impenetrable”, as the Mosler Safe Co. assert, or it is not. Either “it cannot be penetrated by torches in whatever form applied,” as the Mosler Safe Co. literature says, with a judicious use of red ink to emphasize the assertion, or it can be penetrated. Either the “deadly fluxing rod chatters harmlessly against its metal surface”, as the booklet declares, or the combination of fluxing rod and torch can penetrate Donsteel. Those are questions of fact, not fancy. The official Donsteel booklet declares that the Mosler Company is prepared to prove all of these assertions, “by demonstration to the satisfaction of any interested party, upon any proper occasion.” We do not believe that these public demonstrations are proving any such thing.

We will not quibble over the words “interested party”. Almost anyone would say, to be sure, that the competitors of Mosler come clearly within that class. For our own part, we should agree with that idea. The customers of these competitors are being told that the doors which they build are valueless. If a competitor of yours and mine were telling our customers that our output was valueless, and were promising to prove this to the satisfaction of any interested party, we should think that we were very much an interested party. The policy followed by the Mosler organization at these public demonstrations shows rather clearly, however, that competitors are not to be allowed to establish the truth about Donsteel. On the contrary, they are to be kept, if possible, from making any tests upon Donsteel that will give any conclusive proof whether it is impenetrable or not. We have a word to say on this subject, further along, and we pass from it now, only because we regard the banks as the most interested party to the whole discussion. After all, we can let the competitors of Mosler fight their own battles. They appear to be quite competent to do so.

The banks that are most peculiarly interested are those who are urged by Mosler salesmen to turn away from other types of vault construction, such as are furnished by their rivals, and to take Mosler construction including Donsteel, instead. Those banks are fairly entitled, under the promise quoted above, to tests that shall prove to their satisfaction that “Donsteel presents complete resistance to welding torches and the fluxing rod”, that the deadly fluxing rod chatters harmlessly against the metal surface”, that “Donsteel cannot be penetrated by torches in whatever form applied”, that, in short, it really is “impenetrable.” Well, there are a number of banks that are not satisfied with what has happened, when they have expressed a readiness to see a real test of Donsteel. There is the Portland Savings Bank, at Portland, Maine, for example, that was offered a door with Donsteel included, for a very low price, by a Mosler salesman, and was tempted by the offer. Yet, after waiting patiently for weeks, while the Mosler people quibbled over the terms of the test, the bank became disgusted, and cheerfully paid a higher price to another concern, for a vault door that does not contain Donsteel. We related the details of this case in another article, and do not need to relate them again now.

Some of the “Tests”

Then there is the case of the Brotherhood of Engineers’ National Bank in Cleveland. Mosler salesmen made a great battle for that job. There was going to be a great exhibit of the superiority of Donsteel over other vault material. Even the Portland people were invited to be present at that test. But the test never came through, and the Engineers’ bank bought its door from another manufacturer. Then there is the case at Oshkosh, where a test started, but was stopped by the Mosler people, when the local bank brought some experts on the scene, rather well equipped to give Donsteel a very business-like testing. And there the case at Alliance, Ohio, where the bank desired to have Donsteel tested, for its benefit, at the plant of the Morgan Engineering Company, using that plant’s own men and equipment, and the Mosler representative would not permit this test to be made. There is the case at Plainfield, New Jersey, where a competitor of Mosler posted a certified check for $500 and shipped its plate for a comparative test against Donsteel, but could not get such a comparative test made. And there is the testimony from La Grange, Illinois, that the local bank would have purchased a Donsteel door if a fair test had shown it to be what was being claimed for it, but the representative of the bank was unable to bring about a fair test, for the purpose of deciding on the merits of the metal.

In all or nearly all of these cases, there has been a marked disinclination on the part of Mosler representatives to let competitors attack Donsteel. This is difficult to understand. If it be true that burglars, armed with torch and fluxing rod, simply cannot go through Donsteel, why should there be hesitancy in letting competitors make the try? These competitors are declaring that they can puncture Donsteel. They even say that they can do it within a comparatively short time. They are ready to post certified checks, as forfeit.

The Mosler Company have claimed that Donsteel cannot be punctured. If these rivals of Donsteel know a way by which it really can be punctured, then the banks of the country are entitled to know it too, because burglars are sure to discover the same method of puncturing Donsteel presently. If it cannot be punctured, then all the noise and boastings of these competitors will react upon themselves. The banks of this country should not be asked to buy a door, whose composition is a secret that is kept from even the customer who is risking his millions of dollars behind it, and then be denied all knowledge as to whether these rivals really do know how to puncture it. Buying a Donsteel door, under such conditions, is nothing more nor less than a gamble, on the part of the bank, that burglars will no discover what these rivals of the Mosler Company believe is a successful way of attacking Donsteel.

At Donora

But the most disturbing experience, in connection with these tests and demonstrations, was that which occurred at Donora, Pa., recently. “What happened at Donora?” may presently be as much a topic of discussion, among those who buy and sell vaults, as the questions, “Who wrote the Federal Reserve Act?” or “What shall be done with the McFadden Bill?” The story is substantially as follows. The bank at Donora began the construction of a new building. It engaged an architect of excellent standing of New York City, and authorized him to prepare specifications for the new vault as well as for the building itself. These specifications were submitted to vault manufacturers for bids. The Mosler Safe Company sales staff insisted that a vault so constructed would not give proper protection and suggested the use of Donsteel instead. They offered to have a demonstration, contrasting a door, built according to the specifications, with a door containing Donsteel. The day and the terms were arranged. A considerable body of guests were present, including many bankers from the vicinity. The first part of the exhibition ran according to custom. With his equipment, the Mosler man punctured the door that the architect had specified and made no impression on the Donsteel. Then the test was turned over to parties selected by the bank.

What happened next can be told briefly, or in detail. Briefly, one very prompt occurrence, after these others had had their try, was that the bank at Donora decided to follow the specifications of the architect, rather than to take the Mosler plans including the Donsteel door. Obviously the bank was not impressed, either by the attack of the Mosler representative upon the door material specified by the architect, or by the way in which Donsteel stood up, under the less friendly test. A banker from Pittsburgh also went away with the feeling that he preferred not to use Donsteel in the building he is erecting for his own bank, and he has so stated, with some emphasis, to those who have seen him. In the conservative language of one who saw the test of Donsteel on this occasion, the results were “not satisfactory.”

Made Two Holes

Told in more detail, the fact appears to be that these local parties first attacked the Donsteel sample, which was about 4 feet square and 4 inches thick, a little way in from the edge, and made a hole of considerable depth. The Mosler representative present declared that the core did not extend so far toward the edge as this. The attackers then chose a spot nearer the center of the sample, and the metal of the sample began to flow, indicating that a hole was being made in the metal. They continued their attack, until they had gone 3 inches deep into the 4 inch thick plate of Donsteel. They were confident they would have gone completely through it, when they were stopped by the Mosler representative. They had consumed some little time, while they were getting on to the problem, so to speak, and they were hampered by having less complete equipment for their attack than Mosler representative had used. They appear to have believed that they would have completely punctured the material, if the extra time had been allowed them, which they asked from the Mosler representative. As it was, the time they consumed, in making the hole in the sample of Donsteel was much less than an hour, and therefore was well within the time that a burglar would have at his disposal. Moreover, as is always the case, the attackers would benefit from the first experience and be able to do more rapid work upon a second attack, if allowed to try again.

Naturally, he fact that the Mosler representative made no impression with his torch and fluxing rod upon Donsteel sample, while the other attackers made very substantial impressions at both points, came in for considerable discussion among those present. Was the Mosler representative really trying with all his might to put his Donsteel sample to a thorough test, or was he rather tender of it? The vigor and thoroughness of equipment, with which he attacked the sample erected according to the architect’s specifications, could not be questioned. Did he go at his own sample with equal vigor, and was his equipment keyed up to equal efficiency? Certainly a thorough test of Donsteel requires that the vigor and efficiency of equipment shall be the same in both cases.

Attack Was Stopped!

Then, the unwillingness to let the attack go on came in for comment. The visitors were not favorably impressed with that. The claims made by the Mosler Safe Company for Donsteel have never specified that the metal is “impenetrable within thirty minutes or an hour”. The only time limit they have ever claimed or implied for the metal is such limit as the very skilfull bank burglar would face. So far as he is concerned, they have classified the metal as absolutely “impenetrable.” Now, we cannot believe they would claim that the burglar will be so generous as to stop after an hour or less. If he can use the torch and fluxing rod at all, he will use all the time that he needs, from the hour when the last watchman has left the scene, or has been removed, until the next watchman would appear, hours later. If Donsteel shall ever come under burglarious attack, the Mosler Company will not find the burglar so considerate of Mosler feelings, as the attackers were obliged to be, on this occasion. The test should have been allowed to go on. There were those present who feel that further attack would have carried the puncture completely through the metal.

We have referred to this Donora occurrence in detail for only one reason. This is that the Mosler Safe Company itself sets great importance upon torch and fluxing rod attacks. Read their literature and you will gather the impression that this, of all tests, is the one that shows most clearly the true worth of a bank vault and its material. Page after page have they devoted to teaching just that idea in their expensive monograph. For our own part, all of this torch and fluxing rod business seems of much less importance. We have not a particle of doubt that Donsteel can be punctured, in much less time than the five or six hours that are theoretically set as the measure of the bank burglar’s opportunity. We know several vault experts that are ready to undertake to prove this, if the Mosler Safe Company desires to have the fact proven, once and for all, whether Donsteel really is impenetrable or not. They are likewise of the opinion that a little experimenting on their part will enable them to do this puncturing within comparatively short time.

Can Competitors Puncture?

Why, then, do we set small store upon torch and fluxing rod attack? Because, we think it highly unlikely, and indeed highly improbable, that attacks of this sort will be made upon any of our best bank vaults, whether these contain Donsteel in the door, or are built without Donsteel but according to the specifications of any first class vault engineer. How many men in this country know how to handle fluxing rod and torch? A very good authority doubts that there are more than an insignificant number of individuals in this entire nation of more than 100,000,000 people. It is not a process that is used in the business world; there is no occasion for its use there. Therefore, the opportunity to learn how to make such an attack is limited to those who work for safe companies. Perish the thought that out of this group should come bank burglars! It is quite improbable.

But so long as the Mosler Safe Company insists that trial by torch and fluxing rod is valid, it should not shrink from the consequences of its own demand. It declares that Donsteel cannot be penetrated in such a trial. So far, it has been unwilling to allow its competitors to show whether they can penetrate Donsteel or not. They boldly declare that they can, and are willing to stake substantial sums of money upon their being able to do so. One thing is certain. If these competitors can penetrate Donsteel at an open and above-board public trial, such as they are clamoring for, then the professional bank burglar, reckless and ingenious operator that he is, can penetrate the metal also. Until competitors have been allowed their chance in such open and above-board public trial, the case for Donsteel remains quite unproven. Why should the Mosler Safe Company ask the bankers of America to stake their millions upon the protection which Donsteel is alleged to give, while the company itself continues to shield its metal from trial by its competitors, just as a fond and suspicious mother tries to protect her tender offspring from the harsh world that it must some time face?

Again Donsteel.pdf