The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-06-14
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

w nat or this multimtlllonaire!
 His parents were quiet plodding,
 Swiss-Germans, who made the least pos
 sible amount of money by doing the
 greatest possible amount of work { In the winters he had learned to read
 and write at the schoolhouse In the
 summers he had carried buttermilk to the pigs and oat meal water to his l father
 For years l had been interested in the
 career of the man born in the United
 States who got his first job as errand- boy in Village store at Mount Pleas
 ant, 40 miles from Pittsburg. It was the l year in which Vicksburg surrendered to | General Grant, a time of tremendous ex- l citement and anxiety.
 ] In picking up these and some other de- | tails, principally from Casson who seems
 to have had unusual opportunities for | getting at the salient facts of the life of
 the man who today is one of the great | est financial forces in America, l became
 interested in the great iron magnate. I
 | Henry Clay Prick is a totally differ ent looking man from what I had pie | tured him to be. His career has been | stormy one I expected to see a buster
 ing, fighting type of man. but found l him to have quiet manner and sin l gularly benevolent face.
 l Now I'm not going to try and open here or settle the great Homestead strike. It's history and men read about
 it with varying viewpoints. I am merely 1 recording my personal impressions of
 MT. Prick, one of the chief actors. | As talked with the soft spoken and modest man, it seemed hard to realize | that it was Henry Clay Prick, the man who. when during the Homestead strike Russian anarchist broke into his of- l fee and inflicted serious wounds upon him with pistol and dagger, said: Don't | kill him. as he rose bleeding from the | floor,
 | I saw picture of hiyn taken when he l was young man. It had a serious | cast, for at IS he had become man, | for he had had few privileges of child | hood, the few dollars he earned being spent for his board and clothes. l Prick, the great industrial leader, at l 19 years of age was bookkeeper, but strange new trade was just beginning
 near Mount Pleasant, where he was working. It was called coke making.
 Henry, the progressive and far-seeing youngster, got his grandfather and uncle to buy some coke ovens.
 The panic of 1873 put the coke business out of the running. Half of the opera tors went broke, but young Prick, now 24 years old saw his chance. He not only put all of his savings into coal lands, but borrowed every dollar he could. He brought order out of chaos in the coke business and got his first start to- ward wealth as coke king. Now, can't write the story of his life
 It would call for history of big busi- l ness for half of a century. I merely give the few glimpses to show that many foreigner has come to this land of freedom and opportunity and given his children the chance to make good. Mr. Carnegie, that great picker of capa- ble men, began to watch Prick, and when his growing company needed an organ zer, in 1889, he appointed Prick comman- der-in-chief of all his forces Without l the investment of dollar, Prick became
  I am not able to be arbiter in the fa- | nous Carnegie-Frick quarrel. Those who know both men wonder that they agreed 1 for 1S years. It's amusing when mighty steel kings call each other names Ike a couple of schoolboys. Grownups, when they get mad, act like children. You did" T didn't You got mad first" 1 You pushed me in the hole" Well, 1t was you who dug the hole" You are another" etc. The papers were full of
 the row and the public feasted on the
 squabble of the millionaires. It is said Carnegie represented one school of steel
 makers; Prick represented another. Here
 is the difference between the two, sized 1 up py d iHdH WHO hHeW potH men, cor
 rect or not, it's Illuminating, not merely
 in it's bearing on the fuss, but on the con-
 duct of big business.
 Carnegie stood for the patriarchial sys- ! tenn of industry, for one-man power and
 the promotion of those only who proved loyal and obedient. Prick stood for the corporation system of industry, for the
 rule of the directors for the building up
 of an industrial system which should be
 interdependent and not competitive, for the socialization of commerce.
 Carnegie was a Napoleon; Prick Is a
 Won Moltke," said Pittsburger, who has
 known both men for more than 20 years.
 Like Napoleon, Carnegie won his vic- tories through an army that was quick, loyal and enthusiastic. Like Won
 Moltke Prick won by following out vast
 plans that cut off all possibility of mis- hap or accident. Carnegie fully trusted
 only those whom he had promoted from
 trary, prefers to cooperate with his
 equals.'
 !. I believe in the Prick system. I be- lieve it's in keeping with twentieth cen
 tury progress. It is said in the old days
 in speaking of Carnegie who had been
 his best friend and his worst enemy