#73 Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick: The Bitter Partnership That Changed America

One thing is clear. Carnegie and Frick represent the American ethos of limitless possibility. Both men were born to poverty and both became wealthy and powerful beyond imagining. The impact of their steel making enterprise on the economy at the end of the nineteenth century was as profound as the impact of the American had been on this country's politics and philosophy. A century before.

And the rupture of their once perfect partnership illuminates the contradictions embodied in these two in those two hallowed pillars of our thinking. Capitalism and the Protestant ethic. Carnegie and Frick were not the first to wrestle with those contradictions, and they were most assertedly not the last. But the making and an unraveling of their relationship became an often trouble exploration of America's promise to us all. A reminder that monumental achievement

comes at monumental cost. Their story offers a vivid illustration of a young nation's steadfast belief in progress. And in man's ability to affect his own destiny. As the ancients observed Such thinking may be fine for the gods.

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