Negotiations between the president of RCA's manufacturing wing in Camden and the union local rapidly collapsed, and David Sarnoff, head visionary of RCA, took over the task of dealing with the conflict from the towering new RCA office building in New York City. When the union delegation arrived to discuss matters, Sarnoff attempted to demonstrate his sympathy for the workers by telling Horatio Alger stories to the labor representatives in extended detail. His account began with desperate poverty in a shtetl in tsarist Russia in 1891, progressed to the Jewish ghetto of New York, and ended, as his biographer put it, with Sarnoff as a "corpulent, immaculately dressed, manicured, barbered, massaged, chauffeur-driven, cigar-smoking corporate prince, poised and assured, a dominating presence whose steely blue eyes fixed on subordinates could bead their brows and moisten their palms." Since his tales absorbed a considerable amount of time, the UE delegates amused themselves by smoking all of Sarnoff's cigars, and when the stories ended, Carey wryly suggested that Sarnoff should have RCA-Victor record his moving epic for posterity. Although Sarnoff was one of the most respected figures in twentieth-century business history, he had no skills or experience in labor negotiations and had little to offer the leadership of Local 103 other than his ability to filibuster the unionists. He did, however, have an image to protect as a liberal business leader and an immigrant who had made good.