First he fooled himself, then others
Perception can be everything.
In the case of J.V. Thompson, the wealthy Uniontown banker and dealer in coal lands in the early years of the 20th century, it was his perception – his argument — that H. C. Frick was out to ruin him.
Frick’s largely mythical role in Thompson’s downfall was consequential. It not only insulated Thompson from blame, but justified the public’s continued embrace of Thompson as a hometown hero.
Thompson was the richest man in town and a key figure in the coal and coke industry in the years before World War I. Frick was the super wealthy “king of coke” and the scourge of unionized labor.
Thompson’s financial downfall in the first decade and a half of the century affected all of Uniontown and Fayette County – for years. To the extent that the age of coal and coke continues to resonate, it matters still.
Thompson and Frick knew each other well. They were sometimes collaborators and friends, particularly as Frick knuckled his way to the top of the heap, leapfroggiing from regional entrepreneur to one of the giants of the industrial age.
Later, as the Scottdale native became richer and richer, their relationship changed. Thompson became more and more the supplicant.
An episode in the spring of 1914 points up the change. Thompson sought Frick’s help in putting the brakes on the construction of a railroad bridge across the Monongahela River just below J.V.’s country residence, Friendship Hill, the estate carved by Albert Gallatin out of the wilderness in the 18th century.
“I sincerely hope you can see your way clear to take this matter up,” Thompson wrote in a letter to Frick.
There’s no indication Frick ever responded.
In early June of that year, Thompson took a phone call from “Hillman in Pittsburgh” who had been conferring with “Mr. Phillips” and “the Gordons” about the purchase of some Thompson coal lands. Everyone, it appears, was waiting on word from Frick.
As far as is known, Frick remained mum on the matter.
In August, a telegram from Frick’s vacation retreat at Pines Crossing, Massachusetts, informed J.V. that Frick was “confined to bed,” the result of a “severe attack of muscular rheumatism,” and thus was unable “to be of any assistance to you in raising money.”
Thompson was on the verge of going broke.
Three days later, Thompson in a telegram asked Frick to “arrange for me to get $250,000 for one year in St. Clair Improvement Company stock.”
If Frick replied, his answer has been lost to history.
On August 21, 1914, J.V. wrote Frick a letter in which he spoke about obtaining money from the Mellon-controlled Union Trust Company in Pittsburgh for “certain liens paid back” and other loans, pay outs, and “imperfections of titles.”
Thompson said he had spoken with Union Trust president Henry C. McEldowney. As a result, he proposed to provide Frick with a bond worth $42,209.79.
As collateral, Thompson offered to bring in his brother “worth $1 million” and “Isaac Semans worth $3 million.”
It was up to Frick, inasmuch as McEldowney had informed J.V. “that it “was a matter to be so let decided by yourself.”
“I would highly appreciate your allowing this to be done, so that I can get my money from the Trust Co.,” pleaded J.V.
This time a Frick aide phoned a reply. The industrialist was once again confined to bed, this time with a fever, and therefore could not come to Thompson’s rescue.
A month later, Thompson proposed a deal involving “my Dunkard” coal lands for a paltry $15,000.
“I do not feel like considering the purchase of any more coal at this time,” Frick answered.
Frick did offer to see Thompson in New York City.
J.V. informed Frick that he would be in the city at the end of October. “If you are there {I} should be be very glad if you could make arrangements to see me.”
By now, the Thompson bankruptcy was just months away.
It’s not hard to imagine J.V. forming the impression that Frick wished him ill. Facing disaster and unable, or unwilling, to acknowledge his own shortcomings, it must have seemed that Frick was stonewalling him – was the person, in fact, who was engineering his downfall.
As the record shows, Thompson was the principal culprit, as his own attorney acknowledged to a panel of U.S. senators who inquired about culpability for the bankruptcy that threatened the future of the soft coal industry. “I presume,” the attorney said, that the bankruptcy could be traced directly to Thompson. “That is the general impression.”
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.