The Washington times., 1919-12-02
H. c. FR|CK D|ESAT
new YORK HOME
Financier ConvaIescing From
Poisoning When Mystery
MaIady Set In.
CONTINUED from First Pege.)

\ work at the comparatively early age
or sixty-two. II was reported at that
| time he was the wealthiest man, with
the sole exception Of Rockefeller. in
the United States, and probably in the
world.
Frick had the reputation Of being
| silent enough to deserve the name
sphinx. He was extremely successful
In avoiding publicity, although the
guiding genius in q score Of great
| industrial, railroad and financial or
ganixations
The United States Steel Corpora
TONS success in preventing union
ization OF its labor was attributed
| largely to Frick's untiring fight
against organization of the steel in
dustry by the American Federation of
Labor. The attitude OF Judge Ebert
| Gary in refusing to treat with union
representatives recently was said to
be merely q following out of the
early policy instituted by Frick.
Financial Power.
For many years--from the time Of
the formation of the United States
Steel Corporation and before-Henry
| Clay Frick was one of the powers of
first magnitude in the group of men
4
financial destinies Of the country. He
was born at West Overton. West
morelaud county. Pa. December 10.
ls4o. HIS father, John w. Frick
whose ancestors had come TO Penn
sylvania from switzerland more than
| century ago, was a farmer in West
! moreiand county, when he married
Elizabeth Overholt, the daughter Of
the largest Hill owner and distiller in
the county.
He had a few years OF common
school education at West Overton, q
| short term at Chester Military Acad-
| emy, and a few months at Otterbein
University, Ohio. At the age of six
! teen he began business life as a clerk
| In the store of White, Orr & Co., mer-
chants, and later he became book
keeper in his grandfaather's dis
| tfilery. His next post was with
| nrm of coke dealers, and when he
was twenty-one he went as their
agent to Pittsburgh. Next he Joined a
| company to build a railway into the
Connellsville coke region. That road.
opened In 1871, has been called the
basis of the Frick fortune.
Gets Start In Ceal.
II was in 1871. also, that Frick
organised, with the help OF one of his
grandfather's partners, Abraham o.
Tintsman, the corporation of Frick &
Co., which bought 300 acres of soft
coal lands and fifty-one coke ovens
in the Connellsvilie section. and the
next year acquired $50 additional
ovens. One year later came the panic
of 1873, and with IL men began to
draw in the lines Of their business,
and Frick's partners were eager to
get out of the concern.
Frick saw his opportunity. The
uses Of coke at that time were few,
but he believed there was q great
future for it, and he had the courage
of his belief.
He wrote to Judge Thomas Mellon,
wealthy banker Of Pittsburgh, ask
Ion sent j. B. Corey to the coke dis
trict to investigate. Corey, inQuiring
for young Frick. was directed to
little coke-burners cabin, which he
found contained two small rooms, one
used as an office and the other as
sleeping quarters; but both neat and
arranged with systematic orderliness
The principal collateral which the oc-
cupant of this cabin. a clean shaven
youth. had to offer was the future he
believed to be in his business and his
faith in himself
Corey spent the day and night there
and Frick got the money. With this
capital he bought out his timid part
ners. Coke was down to 90 cents a
ton. Other men in the coke business
as gladly sold him their coal beds and
ovens.
Millionaire At 30.
The panic subsided. The price of
coke rose to 81, even IS a ton, and
Frick's holdings made him almost 4
millionaire before he was thirty years
old. The business grew until 1882
when 1t was reorganized under the
name Of the II. C. Frick Coke Com
pany, with a capitalization of $4,000
600, 5000 acres of coal beds, and
1,028 ovens.
Frick sold a half-interest in the H.
{. Frick Coke Company to Carnegie
Bros Of Pittsburgh, and in return
was admitted to the firm of Carnegie
Bros, and began new career as a
manufacturer of steel. His coke hold
ings had made him indispensable to
the Carnegies in their expanding
steel business, where coke is neces-
sary to reduce the iron ores.
Frick subsequently rendered inval-
liable services to Carnegie, especially
in his victory in the great Homestead
IN ISoS, WHICH ne was
shot by Alexander Berkman, an ar
archist. Nevertheless, the passions
aroused by this strike are said to
have helped to defeat Benjamin Har-
rison for a second term as President
and also to have been the beginning
OF the differences between Frick and
Andrew Carnegie.
Under Frick's management the Car
negie Steel Company soon attained an
impregnable position. 1t owned every
thing 1t needed to manufacture steel.
from the unmined ore to the cars in
which II delivered it's finished prod
uct. and 1t was independent of any
outsider in the transportation of any
of its materials from the day the ore
was mined to the day it's cars bearing
it's finished product were delivered
over its own switches to the Penn
sylvania railroad or the Baltimore
and Ohio.
Encounters CarneEie's Ire.
With Carnegie about to retire,