What I learned from rereading Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America by Les Standiford.
One of Americas wealthiest men, his holdings, valued at more than $100 billion in todays dollars, sat up in his sick bed in his Manhattan home and called to one of his caregivers for a pen and paper.
Andrew Carnegie, 83, once the mightiest industrialist in all the world, was now an influenza ravaged man.
He took up his pen and began to write as if possessed.
When he was finished, he summoned to his chambers his longtime personal secretary, James Bridge.
Take this to Frick, Carnegie said as he handed the letter to his old confidant.
It would have been enough to snap bridge upright.
Surprised enough to hear Carnegie mention that name, much less hand over a letter to that person.
True, Henry Clay Frick was a fellow giant of industry and he and Andrew Carnegie had been partners once.
Frick had been the man Carnegie trusted above all others to manage the affairs of Carnegie Steele.
But the two men had not exchanged a word in nearly 20 years.
Not since Carnegie drove Frick out of the business.
And Frick successfully pressed a monumental lawsuit against his former partner, the first in a long string of vengeful acts.
Had Carnegie divulged the contents of this letter, the secretarys expression would have likely turned to outright astonishment.
Bridge left Carnegie and made his way down Fifth Avenue from the awe inspiring 64 room mansion across from Central park to an even more imposing structure some 20 blocks south.
Bridge arrived at the Frick mansion, a modern day palace that its owner had vowed would make Carnegie's place look like a hovel.
Though Frick, like Carnegie, was white bearded by now as well, he would have never been mistaken for Santa Claus.
Frick's countenance was intimidating.
You see that his head is there, placed on that body for his triumph and your defeat, one of his contemporaries observed.
Thus why Carnegie had gone to great pains to portray himself as a benevolent friend to his workers.
He had delegated the job of holding the line on wages and other demands.