Then Carnegie, who had practically retired from active life, again arrayed himself in his shirt-sleeves, abandoned his career of authorship, and resumed his early trade.

His first attacks produced an immense reverberation in the House of Morgan.
He purchased a huge tract at Conneaut and began building a gigantic plant for the manufacture of steel tubes, a business in which he had not hitherto engaged.

This was a blow aimed at one of Morgan's pet new creations, the National Tube Company.

Should Carnegie finish his works, there was no doubt the Morgan enterprise would be ruined, for the new plant would be far more modern and so could manufacture the product at a much lower price; and, with Charles M.Schwab as active manager, what possible chance would the older corporation have?
But Carnegie struck his enemy at an even more vulnerable point.

The Pennsylvania Railroad had a practical monopoly of traffic in and out of Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh "created" more freight business than any other city in the world.