Andrew Carnegie (25 November 1835 – 11 August 1919) was a Scottish-born
American industrialist, businessman, and a major philanthropist.
A Tribute
Photos by: Eilleen Klos -
Fort Couch School,
Upper St. Clair, PA
taken November 18, 2000 at the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania
"My heart is in the work." -- Andrew Carnegie
Neither a rags-to-riches biographical sketch nor a perfectly
scanned-in image of Mr. Carnegie could serve as as great a personal tribute to
the great
Founder of Libraries, the earnest
Champion of Peace and the resolute Captain of Industry as presenting
his
own words online--available electronically and immediately to the whole
world through the World Wide Web. He would be tickled pink.
Mr. Carnegie loved to promote his ideas and opinions in print.
As one of America's most successful businessmen and, perhaps, the world's
richest man, it can be assumed that he felt his opinions and advice were not
without proven merit. In fact, his journalistic career had begun early when
the young man found himself barred from free membership in Col. James
Anderson's "Mechanics' and Apprentices' Library." In 1853 Carnegie took the
matter to the pages of the Pittsburgh Dispatch; and, as Joseph Wall
notes in his definitive biography of Andrew Carnegie, the victory the young
man won through his letters to the editor left a lasting impression:
It was also his first literary
success, and for Andrew nothing else that he had known in the way of
recognition by others had been quite as exhilarating as this experience of
seeing his own words in print. It fed his vanity and at the same time
increased his appetite for more such food. At that moment a journalistic
ambition was born which he would spend the remainder of his life attempting
to satisfy. (1)
An American possessed of nineteenth century grandeur, he was
yet a man of contradictions. The wealthiest human being of his time, he was
convinced of the merits of poverty in developing character. His vast wealth,
produced by the sweat of "the toilers of Pittsburgh," he returned to the city
he loved, to America, to Scotland,
to England and to the world. Not a religionist, he yet spoke in spiritual
terms when expressing what he hoped his benefactions would accomplish in the
world and in the lives of those very toilers whose labor had produced his
wealth:
"Man does not live by bread alone." I
have known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can
sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called
poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to
reach. It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so
pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else. Money can
only be the useful drudge of things immeasurably higher than itself. Exalted
beyond this, as it sometimes is, it remains Caliban still and still plays
the beast. My aspirations take a higher flight. Mine be it to have
contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of
the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of
Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of
wealth. (2)
In fact, by the time he died in 1919, he
had given away $350,695,653
(3). At his death,
the last $30,000,000 (4)
was likewise given away to foundations, charities and to pensioners.
Andrew Carnegie was convinced of and committed to the notion
that education was life's key. He was convinced of the power of, what we term
today, access to information. He learned that lesson profoundly in the
libraries of Col. Anderson in
Allegheny City. It was an experience he never forgot and which motivated
his campaign of world-wide library-building. Over the doors of The Carnegie
Library of Pittsburgh, carved in stone, are his own
words, "Free to the People."
(5)
William F. Buckley, Jr., in a newspaper column, describes a
proposal for a portable mini-computer ("TeleRead") able to effectively store
and display the texts of hundreds of books--"everyone's personal library."
Buckley pays Mr. Carnegie this perspicacious compliment:
Andrew Carnegie, if he were alive, would probably buy
TeleRead from Mr. Rothman for $1,
develop the whole idea at his own expense, and then make a gift of it to the
American people. (6)
Andrew Carnegie stood somewhere
between 5'2" and 5'6". But inside, where the meanings are, there had to be a
great, tough, disciplined and determined giant of a man--a spirit much akin to
the gracefully powerful and wonderfully purposeful image of
The Reading Blacksmith,
the focus of Mr. Carnegie's memorial to his childhood benefactor,
James Anderson.
Although a Captain of Industry, he was peculiarly naive or
perhaps just eternally optimistic about human nature--sharing with old Walt
Whitman an abiding democratic faith in the common sense, decency and nobility
of spirit of the people. Andrew Carnegie lived through the industrialization
of America and was one of the leading actors in that drama. He was a shrewd
and alert businessman who could charm Mark Twain with his adage, "Put all your
eggs in one basket and then watch that basket."
(7) He was also a
millionaire with an extraordinary social conscience. "The man who dies thus
rich, dies disgraced,"
(8) he so wrote and so believed.
His legacy lives on in the hundreds and hundreds of libraries
that his wealth made possible. The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, one of Mr.
Carnegie's chiefest joys, celebrates this November its
100th anniversary, a refuge to
August Wilson and to thousands and thousands of inquiring minds over ten
decades. The spirit of Andrew Carnegie, his faith in the ability of
individuals to better themselves and thus the society in which they live, now
prepares to face the challenges of the 21st Century. Through the power of a
technology unforeseen in his day, may
his
ideas and his example gain a new audience and a new life.
I quote from The Gospel of Wealth,
published [25]
years ago:
This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: first, to set an
example of modest unostentatious living, shunning display; to provide
moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after
doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust
funds which he is strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the
manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most
beneficial results for the community.
The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth,
so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in
harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been
changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days
there was little difference between the swelling, dress, food, and environment
of the chief and those of his retainers. The Indians are to-day where civilized
man then was. When visiting the Sioux, I was led to the wigwam of the chief. It
was just like the others in external appearance, and even within the difference
was trifling between it and those of the poorest of his braves. The contrast
between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us
to-day measures the change which has come with civilization.
This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as
highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that
the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in
literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather
than that none should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal
squalor. Without wealth there can be no Maecenas. The "good old times" were not
good old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated then as to-day.
A relapse to old conditions would be disastrous to both -- not the least so to
him who serves -- and would sweep away civilization with it. But whether the
change be for good or ill, it is upon us, beyond our power to alter, and
therefore to be accepted and made the best of. It is waste of time to criticize
the inevitable.
It is easy to see how the change has come. One illustration will
serve for almost every phase of the cause. In the manufacture of products we
have the whole story. It applies to all combinations of human industry, as
stimulated and enlarged by the inventions of this scientific age. Formerly
articles were manufactured at the domestic hearth or in small shops which formed
part of the household. The master and his apprentices worked side by side, the
latter living with the master, and therefore subject to the same conditions.
When these apprentices rose to be masters, there was little or no change in
their mode of life, and they, in turn, educated in the same routine succeeding
apprentices. There was, substantially, social equality, and even political
equality, for those engaged in industrial pursuits had then little or no
political voice in the State.
But the inevitable result of such a mode of manufacture was
crude articles at high prices. To-day the world obtains commodities of excellent
quality at prices which even the generation preceding this would have deemed
incredible. In the commercial world similar causes have produced similar
results, and the race is benefited thereby. The poor enjoy what the rich could
not before afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life.
The laborer has now more comforts than the farmer had a few generations ago. The
farmer has more luxuries than the landlord had, and is more richly clad and
better housed. The landlord has books and pictures rarer, and appointments more
artistic, than the King could then obtain.
The price we pay for this salutary change is, no doubt, great.
We assemble thousands of operatives in the factory, in the mine, and in the
counting-house, of whom the employer can know little or nothing, and to whom the
employer is little better than a myth. All intercourse between them is at an
end. Rigid Castes are formed, and, as, usual, mutual ignorance breeds mutual
distrust. Each Caste is without sympathy for the other, and ready to credit
anything disparaging in regard to it. Under the law of competition, the employer
of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which the rates paid
to labor figure prominently, and often there is friction between the employer
and the employed, between capital and labor, between rich and poor. Human
society loses homogeneity.
The price which society pays for the law of competition, like
the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the
advantages of this law are also greater still, for it is to this law that we owe
our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its
train. But, whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it, as we say of
the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred: It is here; we
cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be
sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures
the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome,
therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great
inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and
commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as
being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.
Having accepted these, it follows that there must be great scope for the
exercise of special ability in the merchant and in the manufacturer who has to
conduct affairs upon a great scale, That this talent for organization and
management is rare among men is proved by the fact that it invariably secures
for its possessor enormous rewards, no matter where or under what laws or
conditions. The experienced in affairs always rate the MAN whose services can be
obtained as a partner as not only the first consideration, but such as to render
the question of his capital scarcely worth considering, for such men soon create
capital; while, without the special talent required, capital soon takes wings.
Such men become interested in firms or corporations using millions; and
estimating only simple interest to be made upon the capital invested, it is
inevitable that their income must exceed their expenditures, and that they must
accumulate wealth. Nor is there any middle ground which such men can occupy,
because the great manufacturing or commercial concern which does not earn at
least interest upon its capital soon becomes bankrupt. It must either go forward
or fall behind: to stand still is impossible. It is a condition essential for
its successful operation that it should be thus far profitable, and even that,
in addition to interest on capital, it should make profit. It is a law, as
certain as any of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent
for affairs, under the free play of economic forces, must, of necessity, soon be
in receipt of more revenue than can be judiciously expended upon themselves; and
this law is as beneficial for the race as the others.
Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are
not in order, because the condition of the race is better with these than it has
been with any others which have been tried. Of the effect of any new substitutes
proposed we cannot be sure. The Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn
present conditions is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which
civilization itself rests, for civilization took its start from the day that the
capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and lazy fellow, "If thou
dost not sow, thou shalt no reap," and thus ended primitive Communism by
separating the drones from the bees. One who studies this subject will soon be
brought face to face with the conclusion that upon the sacredness of property
civilization itself depends -- the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars
in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his
millions. To those who propose to substitute Communism for this intense
Individualism the answer, therefore, is: The race has tried that. All progress
from that barbarous day to the present time has resulted from its displacement.
Not evil, but good, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by
those who have the ability and energy that produce it. But even if we admit for
a moment that it might be better for the race to discard its present foundation,
Individualism, -- that it is a nobler ideal that man should labor, not for
himself alone, but in and for a brotherhood of his fellows, and share with them
all in common, realizing Swedenborg's idea of Heaven, where, as he says, the
angels derive their happiness, not from laboring for self, but for each other,
-- even admit all this, and a sufficient answer is, This is not evolution, but
revolution. It necessitates the changing of human nature itself -- a work of
eons, even if it were good to change it, which we cannot know. It is not
practicable in our day or in our age. Even if desirable theoretically, it
belongs to another and long-succeeding sociological stratum. Our duty is with
what is practicable now; with the next step possible in our day and generation.
It is criminal to waste our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we can
profitably or possibly accomplish is to bend the universal tree of humanity a
little in the direction most favorable to the production of good fruit under
existing circumstances. We might as well urge the destruction of the highest
existing type of man because he failed to reach our ideal as to favor the
destruction of Individualism, Private Property, the Law of Accumulation of
Wealth, and the Law of Competition; for these are the highest results of human
experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit.
Unequally or unjustly, perhaps, as these laws sometimes operate, and imperfect
as they appear to the Idealist, they are, nevertheless, like the highest type of
man, the best and most valuable of all that humanity has yet accomplished.
We start, then, with a condition of affairs under which the best
interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the
few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist, the situation can be surveyed
and pronounced good. The question then arises, -- and, if the foregoing be
correct, it is the only question with which we have to deal, -- What is the
proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is
founded have thrown it into the hands of the few? And it is of this great
question that I believe I offer the true solution. It will be understood that
fortunes are here spoken of, not moderate sums saved by many years of
effort, the returns from which are required for the comfortable maintenance and
education of families. This is not wealth, but only competence,
which it should be the aim of all to acquire.
There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be
disposed of. It can be left to the families of the decedents; or it can be
bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered during their
lives by its possessors. Under the first and second modes most of the wealth of
the world that has reached the few has hitherto been applied. Let us in turn
consider each of these modes. The first is the most injudicious. In monarchical
countries. the estates and the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the
first son, that the vanity of the parent may be gratified by the thought that
his name and title are to descend to succeeding generations unimpaired. The
condition of this class in Europe to-day teaches the futility of such hopes or
ambitions. The successors have become impoverished through their follies or from
the fall in the value of land. Even in Great Britain the strict law of entail
has been found inadequate to maintain the status of an hereditary class. Its
soil is rapidly passing into the hands of the stranger. Under republican
institutions the division of property among the children is much fairer, but the
question which forces itself upon thoughtful men in all lands is: Why should men
leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it
not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not
well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for
the state. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of
income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons, men may well
hesitate, for it is no longer questionable that great sums bequeathed oftener
work more for the injury than for the good of the recipients. Wise men will soon
conclude that, for the best interests of the members of their families and of
the state, such bequests are an improper use of their means.
It is not suggested that men who have failed to educate their
sons to earn a livelihood shall cast them adrift in poverty. If any man has seen
fit to rear his sons with a view to their living idle lives, or, what is highly
commendable, has instilled in them the sentiment that they are in a position to
labor for public ends without reference to pecuniary consideration, then, of
course, the duty of the parent is to see that such are provided for in
moderation. There are instances of millionaires' sons unspoiled by wealth,
who, being rich, still perform great services in the community. Such are the
very salt of the earth, as valuable as, unfortunately, they are rare; still it
is not the exception, but the rule, that men must regard, and, looking at the
usual result of enormous sums conferred upon legatees, the thoughtful man must
shortly say, "I would as soon leave to my son a curse as the almighty dollar,"
and admit to himself that it is not the welfare of the children, but family
pride, which inspires these enormous legacies.
As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth at death for
public uses, it may be said that this is only a means for the disposal of
wealth, provided a man is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of
much good in the world. Knowledge of the results of legacies bequeathed is not
calculated to inspire the brightest hopes of much posthumous good being
accomplished. The cases are not few in which the real object sought by the
testator is not attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are
thwarted. In many cases the bequests are so used as to become only monuments of
his folly. It is well to remember that it requires the exercise of not less
ability than that which acquired the wealth to use it so as to be really
beneficial to the community. Besides this, it may fairly be said that no man is
to be extolled for doing what he cannot help doing, nor is he to be thanked by
the community to which he only leaves wealth at death. Men who leave vast sums
in this way may fairly be thought men who would not have left it at all, had
they been able to take it with them. The memories of such cannot be held in
grateful remembrance, for there is not grace in their gifts. It is not to be
wondered at that such bequests seems so generally to lack the blessing.
The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large
estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary
change in public opinion. The State of Pennsylvania now takes -- subject to some
exceptions -- one-tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget
presented in the British Parliament the other day proposes to increase the
death-duties; and, most significant of all, the new tax is to be a graduated
one. Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding
great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for the public ends would
work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the
form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing
estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish
millionaire's unworthy life.
It is desirable that nations should go much further in this
direction. Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of a rich man's
estate which should go at his death to the public through the agency of the
state, and by all means such taxes should be graduated, beginning at nothing
upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing rapidly as the amounts swell,
until of the millionaire's hoard, as of Shylock's, at least
" ---- The other half
Comes to the privy coffer of the state."
This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to
attend to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the end that
society should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the
people. Nor need it be feared that this policy would sap the root of enterprise
and render men less anxious to accumulate, for to the class whose ambition it is
to leave great fortunes and be talked about after their death, it will attract
even more attention, and, indeed, be a somewhat nobler ambition to have enormous
sums paid over to the state from their fortunes.
There remains, then, only one mode of using great fortunes; but
in this we have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of
wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor -- a reign of harmony --
another ideal, differing, indeed, from that of the Communist in requiring only
the further evolution of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our
civilization. It is founded upon the present most intense individualism, and the
race is prepared to put it in practice by degrees whenever it pleases. Under its
sway we shall have an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will
become, in the best sense, the property of the many, because administered for
the common good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be
made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been
distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest can be made
to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their
fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the
principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among them
through the course of many years in trifling amounts.
If we consider what results flow from the Cooper Institute, for
instance, to the best portion of the race in New York not possessed of means,
and compare these with those which would have arisen for the good of the masses
from an equal sum distributed by Mr. Cooper in his lifetime in the form of
wages, which is the highest form of distribution, being for work done and not
for charity, we can form some estimate of the possibilities for the improvement
of the race which lie embedded in the present law of the accumulation of wealth.
Much of this sum. if distributed in small quantities among the people, would
have been wasted in the indulgence of appetite, some of it in excess, and it may
be doubted whether even the part put to the best use, that of adding to the
comforts of the home, would have yielded results for the race, as a race, at all
comparable to those which are flowing and are to flow from the Cooper Institute
from generation to generation. Let the advocate of violent or radical change
ponder well this thought.
We might even go so far as to take another instance, that of Mr.
Tilden's bequest of five millions of dollars for a free library in the city of
New York, but in referring to this one cannot help saying involuntarily, How
much better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the last years of his own life to the
proper administration of this immense sum; in which case neither legal contest
nor any other cause of delay could have interfered with his aims. But let us
assume that Mr. Tilden's millions finally become the means of giving to this
city a noble public library, where the treasures of the world contained in books
will be open to all forever, without money and without price. Considering the
good of that part of the race which congregates in and around Manhattan Island,
would its permanent benefit have been better promoted had these millions been
allowed to circulate in small sums through the hands of the masses? Even the
most strenuous advocate of Communism must entertain a doubt upon this subject.
Most of those who think will probably entertain no doubt whatever.
Poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life; narrow
our horizon; our best work most imperfect; but rich men should be thankful for
one inestimable boon. They have it in their power during their lives to busy
themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows
will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives. The highest
life is probably to be reached, not by such imitation of the life of Christ as
Count Tolstoï gives us, but, while animated by Christ's spirit, by recognizing
the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit
suitable to the changed conditions under which we live; still laboring for the
good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and teaching, but
laboring in a different manner.
This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First,
to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or
extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent
upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him
simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound
as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best
calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community -- the man
of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren,
bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to
administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.
We are met here with the difficulty of determining what are
moderate sums to leave to members of the family; what is modest, unostentatious
living; what is the test of extravagance. There must be different standards for
different conditions. The answer is that it is as impossible to name exact
amounts or actions as it is to define good manners, good taste, or the rules of
propriety; but, nevertheless, these are verities, well known although
undefinable. Public sentiment is quick to know and to feel what offends these.
So in the case of wealth. The rule in regard to good taste in the dress of men
or women applies here. Whatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon. If any
family be chiefly known for display, for extravagance in home, table, equipage,
for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in any form upon itself, -- if these be
its chief distinctions, we have no difficulty in estimating its nature or
culture. So likewise in regard to the use or abuse of its surplus wealth, or to
generous, freehanded coöperation in good public uses, or to unabated efforts to
accumulate and hoard to the last, whether they administer or bequeath. The
verdict rests with the best and most enlightened public sentiment. The community
will surely judge, and its judgments will not often be wrong.
The best uses to which surplus wealth can be put have already
been indicated. Those who would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one
of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate
charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown
into the sea than so spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the
unworthy. Of every thousand dollars spent in so called charity to-day, it is
probable that $950 is unwisely spent; so spent, indeed, as to produce the very
evils which it proposes to mitigate or cure. A well-known writer of philosophic
books admitted the other day that he had given a quarter of a dollar to a man
who approached him as he was coming to visit the house of his friend. He knew
nothing of the habits of this beggar; knew not the use that would be made of
this money, although he had every reason to suspect that it would be spent
improperly. This man professed to be a disciple of Herbert Spencer; yet the
quarter-dollar given that night will probably work more injury than all the
money which its thoughtless donor will ever be able to give in true charity will
do good. He only gratified his own feelings, saved himself from annoyance, --
and this was probably one of the most selfish and very worst actions of his
life, for in all respects he is most worthy.
In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help
those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who
desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to rise the aids by which
they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual
nor the race is improved by aims-giving. Those worthy of assistance, except in
rare cases, seldom require assistance. The really valuable men of the race never
do, except in cases of accident or sudden change. Every one has, of course,
cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary assistance can
do genuine good, and these he will not overlook. But the amount which can be
wisely given by the individual for individuals is necessarily limited by his
lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected with each. He is the only true
reformer who is as careful and as anxious not to aid the unworthy as he is to
aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more so, for in aims-giving more injury is
probably done by rewarding vice than by relieving virtue.
The rich man is thus almost restricted to following the examples
of Peter Cooper, Enoch Pratt of Baltimore, Mr. Pratt of Brooklyn, Senator
Stanford, and others, who know that the best means of benefiting the community
is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise --
parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and minds; works
of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste, and public
institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the
people; -- in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their
fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good.
Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of
accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism
will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; intrusted
for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but
administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done
for itself. The best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of
the race in which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of
surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it
flows save by using it year by year for the general good. This day already
dawns. But a little while, and although, without incurring the pity of their
fellows, men may die sharers in great business enterprises from which their
capital cannot be or has not been withdrawn, and is left chiefly at death for
public uses, yet the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available
wealth, which was his to administer during life, will pass away "unwept,
unhonored, and unsung," no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he
cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: "The man
who dies thus rich dies disgraced."
Such, in my opinion, is the true Gospel concerning Wealth,
obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the Rich and the
Poor, and to bring "Peace on earth, among men Good-Will."
ANDREW CARNEGIE.
Transcribed by Katie Morgan and reverse-proofread by T. Lloyd
Benson from Andrew Carnegie, "Wealth," North American Review, CXLVIII
(June 1889), 653-64.
Carnegie gave away most of his money to fund the establishment of many
libraries, schools, and universities in America, the
United Kingdom and other countries, as well as a pension fund for former
employees. He is often regarded as the
second richest man in history. Carnegie started as a
telegrapher and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad
sleeping cars, bridges and oil derricks. He built further wealth as a bond
salesman raising money for American enterprise in Europe.
Steel was where he made his fortune. In the 1870s, he founded the Carnegie
Steel Company, a step which cemented his name as one of the “Captains of
Industry”. By the 1890s, the company was the largest and most profitable
industrial enterprise in the world. Carnegie sold it to
J.P. Morgan in 1901, who created
US Steel. Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale
philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, and
education and scientific research. His life has often been referred to as a
true "rags
to riches" story.
Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25 1835 in
Dunfermline,
Scotland,
the elder of two boys. The son of a weaver, Carnegie immigrated as a child
with his family to the United States in 1848 and settled in
Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Andrew's family had to borrow money in order to
immigrate. Allegheny was a very poor area. His first job at age 13 in 1848 was
as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill twelve hours a
day, six days a week. His wages were $1.25 per week, plus another 80 cents for
firing the furnace. Andrew's father, William Carnegie, started off working in
a cotton mill but then would earn money weaving and peddling linens. His
mother, Margaret Morrison Carnegie, earned money by binding shoes.
In 1850, Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy in the Pittsburgh Office
of the
Ohio Telegraph Company, at $2.50 per week, following the recommendation of
his uncle. His new job gave him many benefits including free admission to the
local theater. This made him appreciate Shakespeare's work. He was a very hard
worker and would memorize all of the locations of Pittsburgh's businesses and
the faces of important men. He made many connections this way. He also paid
close attention to the telegraph's instruments and within a year was promoted
as an operator.
Carnegie became a devoted follower of
Robert Burns. His uncle, George Lauder, a proprietor of a grocer's shop in
Dunfermline High Street introduced the young Carnegie to the writings of
Robert Burns and such historical Scottish heroes as
Robert the Bruce,
William Wallace, and
Rob Roy. It
was, perhaps, Burns who most influenced Carnegie; he regarded Burns as one of
the greatest preachers of democracy. Lauder had Carnegie memorize many pages
of Burns' writings, writings that were important to him for the rest of his
life. When he donated money for Carnegie libraries worldwide, it was with the
proviso that the libraries stock the complete works of Burns and commission a
bust of the poet for public display.
Carnegie's education and passion for reading was given a great boost by
Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to
working boys each Saturday night. Carnegie was a consistent borrower and a
"self-made man" in both his economic development and his intellectual and
cultural development. His capacity and willingness for hard work, his
perseverance, and his alertness soon brought forth opportunities. At work,
Carnegie quickly taught himself to distinguish the differing sounds the
incoming telegraph signals produced and learned to transcribe signals by ear,
without having to write them down.
Starting in 1853,
Thomas A. Scott of the
Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed Carnegie as a secretary/telegraph
operator at a salary of $4.00 per week. At age eighteen, the youth began a
rapid advancement through the company, becoming the superintendent of the
Pittsburgh Division. Scott also helped him with his first investments. In 1855
Carnegie invested $500 in a successful firm called
Adams Express. Later he invested money in sleeping cars for the
Pennsylvania Railroad Company and bought part of the company making the
wagons. This turned out to be a very profitable investment. Reinvesting his
money in railroad-related industries: (iron,
bridges, and
rails), Carnegie slowly accumulated capital, the basis for his later
success.
1860–1865: Civil War
Before the
Civil War, Carnegie had formed a partnership with George M Pullman, an
inventor of a
sleeping car for first-class travel. The sleeping car facilitated business
travel at distances over 500 miles (800 km). The investment proved a great
success and a source of profit for Woodruff and Carnegie. The young Carnegie
worked for the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad's Western Division
Tom Scott, and introduced several improvements in the service.
In spring 1861 Carnegie was appointed by Scott, who was now Assistant
Secretary of War in charge of
military
transportation, as Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union
Government's telegraph lines in the East. Carnegie helped open the rail lines
into Washington that the rebels had cut; he rode the locomotive pulling the
first brigade of Union troops to reach Washington. Following the defeat of
Union forces at
Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of the defeated
forces. Under his organization, the telegraph service rendered efficient
service to the Union cause and significantly assisted in the eventual victory.
Carnegie later boasted he was "the first casualty of the war" when he gained a
scar on his cheek from working with telegraph wire.
Forgotten Founders Historic Documents and Coins of Freedom - By Stanley
L. Klos - Last Exhbit at the 2008 GOP Convention:
http://www.pinellasrepublican.org/
Forgotten Founders Historic Documents and Coins of Freedom - By Stanley
L. Klos
President Obama errs Thomas Mifflin not
George Washington was U.S. President in 1784
The United Colonies 1st
government began in a Philadelphia Tavern
and the United States 1st federal government ended in a
NYC Tavern!
The Founders convened the government in 11 different capitol buildings and
experienced 15 years of challenges that
included war,
hyper-inflation, a failed
constitution, judicial corruption, armed citizen and U.S. Army rebellions.
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Mr. Carnegie Speaks
