Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Meet You in Hell by Les Standiford

At the turn of the century, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick used the steel industry to become two of the wealthiest men in the world.  Robber barons and philanthropists, their partnership began to unravel during the Homestead strike in 1892.  As someone born into a steel worker's family in Homestead , their story has often fascinated me.  It leads one to wonder if the wealthy can do enough good in the world to compensate for the evil done in the name of gaining that wealth.  In this telling, Carnegie comes off as the more repentant but no less greedy of the pair.  The title comes from the words Frick supposedly spoke when he refused to meet Carnegie as the latter was dying.  One can only hope that that is exactly where they are waiting for the current group of twenty-first century robber barons.

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