The weekly Alaska citizen., 1919-12-08


 in the steel world. Two of his i'm mediate ventures netted the Carnegie concern many millions of dollars without scarcely any investment. Un to this time the switching charges between the various Carnegie plants had been very profitable to the railroads and expensive to the Carne. gie company. MT. Prick built the Union railroad to weld the scattered Carnegie plants closer together. This eliminated the switching charges and saved enormous sums for the Carne. gie company.
 It was Mir. Prick who later took over a large portion of the Mesabi ore fields on Luke Superior in big
 teal that guaranteed the Carnegie company fer fifty years minimum annual supply of 100000 tons of ore,
 living a shrewd bargain with the Riskefellers who owned these ore lands.
 Later MT. Prick conceived the prop. osition of buying out Mr. Carnegie en- tirely, and in association with Henry Phipps, the second largest owner of ::tocks. and with the cooperation of z. H. Moore and others, MT. Prick asked MT. Carnegie for an option on his interests. MT. Carnegie demand ed $1,000,000 for a ninety-day option and named $157,950,00O in cash ana bonds for his entire holding. This price with the additioal cost of the stock of the other partners in the Carnegie company brot the cost of MT. Tricks scheme close to $25O. .OOO,- 900. The matter was taken to J. P. Morgan, who was not impressed with the idea. The plan collapsed, Mr. Frisk's option expiring at a cost of million dollars which Mr. Carnegie rocketed. This was the first failure Mir. Prick had ever known, but 1t was also blow to MT. Carnegie for the failure of the Prick syndicate left him in the position of having been on the market with his holdings which apparently could not be sold.
 MT. Carnegie became very bitter and tried to oust MT. Prick entirely from the steel business. They de- veloped a quarrel with many rami- fications. Mir. Carnegie sought to have the board of managers declare MT. Tricks stock forfeited at par val ue. MT. Prick replied with suit for an injunction to prevent this confls- cation of his stock, but the case was finally settled out of court by the reorganization of the Carnegie con- pany, which made several Pitts burghers millionaires over night. It made MT. Prick one of the wealthiest men in the country, but it was dis appointing to him later when Carne- gie with the aid of Charles M. Schwab succeeded in interesting MT. Morgan in the scheme he had previously re- jected and out of this interest came the financing of the United States Steel corporation in 1901. By this again, MT. Tricks fortune was doubl- ed. His $31,O00,000 investment in the Carnegie company was turned into s61 100000 in the United States Steel corporation, altho Carnegie hai stolen his thunder. MT. Schwab was made president of the steel corpora tion and MT. Carnegie's representa- tive in that concern.
 In 1903 times became hard and Unit ed States Steel dropped to a low level. MT. Prick then bot everything he could in the way of steel stock and when the excitement was over it was found he had acquired enough to be a power in that concern. His first move was to dethrone Mr. Schwab as president, but w. E. Corey, another Carnegie man, succeeded Schwab. Then MT. Prick attack ed Corey and succeeded in having him removed. MT. Farrell, Tricks friend, was finally made president of the great corporation.
 The breach between MT. Prick and MT. Carnegie never fully healed. A small instance of it was seen in Pitts burgh, where MT. Carnegie built a large office building, naming it afte'' himself, next door to which MT. Prick, built another building twice as large and named 1t after. himself. Mr. Prick. incidentally, became on of the largest holders of real estate in Pitts burgh. In New York MT. Carnegie built a magnificent home and some time later MT. Prick built an even more palatial residence on the site of the old Lenox Library between 70th and 71st streets on Fifth avenue. It was here that he provided for pic ture gallery which is one of the larg- est, If not the largest, private gallery in the world. It contains some of the most valuable and famous paint ings by Velasquez, Rembrandt, Gains borough and other masters. Many
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