The man who would come to define the Wards’ New York operation—Hugh’s grandson William—was born with flour in his blood, but it was the brute tactics of steel barons that defined his career. William began to rise in the company after his father died in 1915, and, by the early 1920s, he had muscled aside an uncle and assorted nephews to consolidate control. Wildly ambitious and often accused of stock swindles, boardroom thuggery, political corruption, and violent anti-union activities, all glossed with the sheen of high-profile charity work and benevolent paternalism, William put into motion
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