Chapter II: Part 2

On another occasion, while taking lunch at a railroad station in France, Mr. Maxim recognized a notorious confidence man who had, years before, robbed him in Paris. The fellow, seeing that he was detected, tried to escape by leaping upon a moving train. Maxim followed and a fierce struggle ensued on the footboard of the coach, while the train was running at a high speed. Maxim had to fight both the fellow and his comrades, but he subjugated his man. The train was brought to a standstill, and the victor marched his prisoner back over the ties to the station, delivering him to the authorities, and subsequently had the satisfaction of seeing him sentenced to several years at hard labor. This was one result of the backwoods training in Maine.

“Whatever job I was at,” Mr. Maxim told me, “I used to work at and think of day and night. I talked shop in season and out. If I was given work that was not good enough for me, I would do it so well and so quickly that they thought I was worthy of something better. No matter where I was, I managed, somehow, to get to the top. I noticed, the first thing, that the majority of the men around me were poor and the few rich; and I knew, of course, that the methods of the former were wrong, and that, consequently, the way to succeed was to follow the latter.”

“When did you first begin to invent?”

“Almost before I learned to walk. When I went to work, I began to study out ways of improving tools and appliances.”

FROM GAS MACHINES TO INCANDESCENT LAMPS.

“What were your first practical inventions?”

“In 1862-63 I was at work at Fitchburg, Massachusetts, making gas machines. I made various improvements at that time, which afterward came into general use. From Fitchburg I went to Boston, where I entered the service of Oliver P. Drake, who was not only a gas-machine maker, but also a philosophical-instrument maker. I first worked as a draughtsman, and then became his foreman. I learned from Mr. Drake many things that were useful to me in after life. From Boston I came to New York, where I obtained a situation as draughtsman at the Novelty Iron Works, East Twelfth street. At that time they were building the Pacific Mail steamers. Shortly after this, I thought of a new system of making gas from gasoline. All the machines that had existed would maintain only one hundred lights or less, and the density and illuminating power of the gas varied so much as to make the lights very unsatisfactory. I decided to make a machine that would make the gas, from first to last, of an equal density. I made this machine and patented it. It was intended for large consumers, and several were purchased by A. T. Stewart & Company. One of them was in the Park Avenue Hotel, and, for a time, another was used in the Post Office in New York City. I also made a very large machine, the biggest ever made, for the Grand Union and several other hotels at Saratoga which belonged to A. T. Stewart. From gas machines I turned my attention to small steam motors, and had a place in Centre street, which is still in existence, my successors being Messrs. Welch and Lawson, 205 Centre street. I soon began to experiment with electricity, and was the first man to file at the Patent Office an invention for building up and preserving the carbons of incandescent lamps, by the action of hydro-carbon vapors. I lost this patent, however, by a system of fraud, which I will not describe to-day. I was the first man to make an electrical regulator, and exhibited it at the Paris Exposition in 1881, and was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor. I secured many patents on electrical inventions from 1880 to 1885. I next experimented with automatic firearms.”

THE GENESIS OF THE AUTOMATIC GUN.

“How did you come to invent the automatic gun?”

“Many years ago, while firing at a target with a military musket, I was much surprised at the force of the recoil. It appeared to me that this waste of energy might be profitably employed in loading and firing the weapon, but it was not until I went to Europe and found myself in Paris with insufficient work to keep me fully employed, that I tried to make an automatic gun. I first made a drawing, which I afterward took to London; and, having obtained and equipped a small factory there, I commenced experiments with the view of evolving a gun which would load and fire itself. There were no data to refer to. No one had ever before spent a single cent in experimenting with automatic guns. I first thought of employing the recoil to working existing forms of mechanism, but found that impracticable. I then designed and constructed a totally new machine and a totally new system of feeding.

“In the spring of 1884, I constructed the first apparatus ever made in which the recoil of one cartridge would load another cartridge into the barrel and fire it. This is now in the South Kensington Museum, in London, labeled: ‘This apparatus loads and fires itself, by force of its own recoil, and is the first machine ever made in which energy from the burning powder is employed for loading and firing the arm.’

“When I made my first gun and found that it would really load and fire itself, I knew it would have a great future. A few friends came in to see it. They told others, and very soon a great number of people came to see the new wonder. In fact, everybody, from the Prince of Wales down, came to see the gun and fire it. No less than two hundred thousand rounds of ammunition were used in explaining the gun and showing it to visitors. At first, no one would believe that an automatic gun had really been made. No one was prepared to believe, without seeing it. In fact, I may say that they were unable to understand that the gun actually loaded and fired itself. It was considered a nine days’ wonder. The English Government was the first to give an order. It asked for a gun which would not weigh over one hundred pounds, and would fire four hundred rounds per minute. I made one that weighed forty pounds and fired two thousand rounds in three minutes, with one pull of the trigger. This is a result that no one else has ever attained. I showed my gun to Lord Wolseley at Hythe, where I fired at a target. That leader and Colonel Tongue were standing by the gun while I was firing it. I heard the latter say that it was the best firing that had ever been seen; that the accuracy was much better than had ever been known before; and that the rapidity of fire was without parallel. Everyone seemed astonished, and it was then that Lord Wolseley approached me and said: ‘Mr. Maxim, I have seen your gun. It is simply wonderful. It is the most remarkable invention I ever saw in my life, and I congratulate you heartily upon your success; but,’ he continued, ‘it is of no good, as you will observe that the cloud of smoke is very large indeed. Unless you can get smokeless powder, I am afraid your gun will be of little use.’ It was then that I began to think in earnest about smokeless powder, one of the directors having said that I was just the man to invent it. When I told him that I was not a chemist at all, as compared with Professors Fred. Adel and Dewar, his reply was: ‘You know all the chemistry that is necessary in the matter, and, moreover, you have an imagination, and the others have not. If you take the matter up, I am sure you will go ahead of them.’”

AUTOMATIC GUNS MADE SMOKELESS POWDER INDISPENSABLE.

“Such was really the case, because I find that my application for a patent for a smokeless powder, consisting of nitro-glycerine and gun cotton, was filed at the patent office about fourteen days ahead of any other, and Sir Richard Webster, in speaking for the government in the celebrated case of Nobel against the Government on smokeless powder, said: ‘H. S. Maxim is the first man to make a smokeless powder with nitro-glycerine and gun cotton. This powder was taken out to the States as much as eight or nine years ago, shown at Springfield, and put into competition with all other forms; and, according to the printed reports of the time, it was said to be superior to all others at all points, and I may say that the powder has not been improved on to any extent, as all the leading powders of to-day are practically the same as that invented by him at that time.’

“I was the first man to show a thoroughly good smokeless powder in the United States. Having succeeded in England, I took my guns abroad. Switzerland was the first country where I had a competitive trial with other makers. I was asked to fire at a dummy battery of artillery, at thirteen hundred yards, for one minute; but, as a matter of fact, I was only engaged half a minute in actual firing, when it was telephoned that I had technically killed three-fourths of the men and horses. I thought, perhaps, that I ought to have killed the whole of them, but the general said with great enthusiasm: ‘No gun ever made has ever done anything like that. It is the most marvelous thing that has ever been done. It is simply amazing. A little gun weighing only fifty pounds puts a battery of artillery out of action in half a minute, at thirteen hundred yards.’

“I next took the gun to Italy, where I won another victory, and then returned to England. I received very large orders from all these countries, and the gun is now in use, I may say, nearly all over the world. These guns are being made not only by our own company, which has many factories in England, but by the British Government, by Ludwig Loewe, of Berlin; by Krupp, by Armstrong and by the United States Government at Washington. The company with which I am connected is a very large one, and we make about sixty varieties of rapid-firing and automatic guns. We are also makers of very large guns, builders of battleships, etc. I have also made guns for flying aerial torpedoes, by the use of compressed air and gas. About ten years ago I conducted a series of experiments at Baldwin Park, Bexley, England, with a view of ascertaining how much power is required to perform artificial flight. These experiments were on a much larger scale than had ever been attempted before, and excited a great deal of interest in the scientific world. Lord Kelvin, at the Oxford meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Lord Salisbury in the chair, spoke in the highest terms of these experiments. He was very enthusiastic at what he had seen at Baldwin’s Park. He said that the work was all exceedingly well done, that the experiments were conducted with great care, and that they were very creditable to me.”

HOW LI HUNG CHANG BECAME INTERESTED IN MAXIM.

“I have been decorated by the President of France, by the Sultan of Turkey, by the Queen of Spain, and by the King of Portugal, etc.”

“How did you come to be decorated by the Emperor of China, Mr. Maxim?”

“On one occasion, when there was great excitement in London about a terrible massacre of missionaries in China, I attended a meeting which, at the beginning, was very much in favor of the missionaries and against the Chinese, but I made a speech from the Chinese standpoint and succeeded in getting a resolution passed about as follows: ‘This meeting regrets exceedingly that the American and English Missionary Societies will persist in sending missionaries to China to attack the ancient faith of the Chinese, and we are very sorry that the missionaries will not remain in their own countries, and allow the Chinese to enjoy their own religion in their own way in their own country.’ My speech was taken down in shorthand and sent to the Chinese Ambassador. He had it nicely written out in Chinese, beautifully bound, and sent it to Li Hung Chang. The latter sent it to the Emperor, and the Emperor gave me a decoration.”

HOW A FIRST-CLASS FRAUD WAS EXPOSED.

“Tell about the exposure of the Dowe scheme.”

“Some years ago a Hoboken barkeeper and a German tailor went to England to exploit the soundness of the alleged bullet-proof cloth. A whole town was placarded, to advertise Dowe’s wonderful bullet-proof cloth, etc. The invention was shown at the El Cambria Theatre, and a great many of the old military men of England went to see this wonderful invention, for the secret of which the supposed inventors demanded two hundred thousand pounds. The thing actually shown, however, was not bullet-proof cloth, neither was it a bullet-proof coat, but a little shield about the size and thickness of a railway cushion, which was apparently of fibrous material, and would stop a bullet. A target was marked on a piece of paper, and a piece of paper folded over the gun. One of these pieces of paper fell into my hands. I saw where the bullet had entered, and where the flash came out. This was a complete ‘give away,’ as it showed exactly what was in the plan, viz., that it was a piece of sharp deception. I then put a notice in the paper that I had discovered a shield, steel, better than that of Herr Dowe; that his weighed twelve and one-half pounds to the square foot, and mine only ten; that he asked two hundred thousand pounds for his secret, whereas I would sell mine for seven shillings, sixpence. A great crowd of people came to see my supposed invention, and I showed the exact thing that Herr Dowe had, except that mine was thinner and lighter. I had used nickel steel where he had used chrome steel. Many people were very much disappointed, and many of them blackguarded me in the papers, but there was truth in all I said. I did exactly what I said I would, and beat Herr Dowe in the point of weight. This exposed the whole thing, and, at the end of three days, everybody in London knew that Herr Dowe and the Hoboken barkeeper had been deceiving the public. In fact, one of their own men revealed the secret, confessing that it was nothing more nor less than a piece of steel with a cushion around it. Then the newspaper men who had been abusing me roundly, because they did not understand, in the first place, invited me to London to a dinner, and Herr Dowe and the Hoboken barkeeper disappeared.”

“To what do you attribute your success?”

“I never tried to exploit an invention till I had one to exploit. That is, I never asked anyone to invest in a theory; and I never allowed my name to be used to promote worthless properties or projects.”

III

A Poor Boy Once Borrowed Books Now Gives Away Libraries.

SELFISH wealth stands surprised, amazed, almost indignant, at the announcement that Andrew Carnegie, instead of resting in Olympian luxury on the millions he has earned, and going to the grave with his gold tightly clutched in his stiffening fingers, proposes to expend the bulk of his riches, during his lifetime, for the benefit of his fellowmen. Great financiers, who, if they lived to be as old as Methuselah, could not use a tithe of their vast fortunes on their own ordinary maintenance, protest against Mr. Carnegie’s plan of action, and declare that he ought to go on accumulating to the last. Others mildly suggest that his charity will be wasted on unworthy objects, and others frankly avow that they doubt the sincerity of his intentions. Altogether it may be said that Mr. Carnegie has stirred the very heart of Mammon as it has not been stirred since the Savior told the rich man to sell what he had and give to the poor.

IT IS HARDER NOW TO GET A START.

“There is no doubt,” said Mr. Carnegie, in reply to a question from me, “that it is becoming harder and harder, as business gravitates more and more to immense concerns, for a young man without capital to get a start for himself, and in large cities it is especially so, where large capital is essential. Still it can be honestly said that there is no other country in the world, where able and energetic young men and women can so readily rise as in this. A president of a business college informed me, recently, that he has never been able to supply the demand for capable, first-class [Mark the adjective] bookkeepers, and his college has over nine hundred students. In America, young men of ability rise with most astonishing rapidity.”

“As quickly as when you were a boy?”

“Much more so. When I was a boy, there were but very few important positions that a boy could aspire to. Everything had to be made. Now a boy doesn’t need to make the place,—all he has to do is to fit himself to take it.”

“Did you make your high places as you went along?”

“I shouldn’t call them high, and I did not make the earliest ones. In starting new enterprises, of course, I made my place at the head of them. The earliest ones were the poorest kinds of positions, however.”

“Where did you begin life?”

“In Dunfermline, Scotland. That was only my home during my earliest years. The service of my life has all been in this country.”

“In Pittsburg?”

“Largely so. My father settled in Allegheny City, when I was only ten years old, and I began to earn my way in Pittsburg.”

“Do you mind telling me what your first service was?”

“Not at all. I was a bobbin boy in a cotton factory, then an engine-man or boy in the same place, and later still I was a messenger boy for a telegraph company.”

MR. CARNEGIE’S FIRST WAGES.

“At small wages, I suppose.”

“One dollar and twenty cents a week was what I received as a bobbin boy, and I can tell you that I considered it pretty good, at that. When I was thirteen, I had learned to run a steam engine, and for that I received a dollar and eighty cents a week.”

“You had no early schooling, then?”

“None, except such as I gave myself. There were no fine libraries then, but in Allegheny City, where I lived, there was a certain Colonel Anderson, who was well to do and of a philanthropic turn. He announced about the time I first began to work, that he would be in his library at his home, every Saturday, ready to lend books to working boys and men. He only had about four hundred volumes, but I doubt if ever so few books were put to better use. Only he who has longed, as I did, for Saturday to come, that the spring of knowledge might be opened anew to him, can understand what Colonel Anderson did for me and others of the boys of Allegheny. Quite a number of them have risen to eminence, and I think their rise can be easily traced to this splendid opportunity.”

“How long did you remain an engine boy?”

“Not very long,” Mr. Carnegie replied, “perhaps a year.”

“And then?”

“I entered a telegraph office as a messenger boy.”

Although Mr. Carnegie would not dwell much on this period, he once described it at a dinner given in honor of the American Consul at Dunfermline, Scotland, when he said—

“I awake from a dream that has carried me away back in the days of my boyhood, the day when the little white-haired Scottish laddie, dressed in a blue jacket, walked with his father into the telegraph office in Pittsburg to undergo examination as an applicant for a position as messenger boy.

HIS FIRST GLIMPSE OF PARADISE.

“Well I remember when my uncle spoke to my parents about it, and my father objected, because I was then getting one dollar and eighty cents per week for running a small engine in a cellar in Allegheny City, but my uncle said a messenger’s wages would be two dollars and fifty cents.... If you want an idea as to heaven on earth, imagine what it is to be taken from a dark cellar, where I fired the boiler from morning until night, and dropped into an office, where light shone from all sides, and around me books, papers, and pencils in profusion, and oh! the tick of those mysterious brass instruments on the desk, annihilating space and standing with throbbing spirits ready to convey any intelligence to the world! This was my first glimpse of paradise, and I walked on air.”

“How did you manage to rise from this position?”

“Well, I learned how to operate a telegraph instrument, and then waited my opportunity to show that I was fit to be an operator. Eventually my chance came, as everyone’s does.”

The truth is that the boy had the appearance of one anxious to learn and quick to understand. James D. Reid, the superintendent of the office, and himself a Scotchman, favored the ambitious lad, and helped him. In his “History of the Telegraph,” he says of him:—

“I liked the boy’s looks, and it was easy to see that, though he was little, he was full of spirit. He had not been with me a month when he began to ask whether I would teach him to telegraph. I began to instruct him and found him an apt pupil. He spent all his spare time in practice, sending and receiving by sound and not by tape, as was largely the custom in those days. Pretty soon he could do as well as I could at the key, and then his ambition carried him away beyond doing the drudgery of messenger work.”

“As you look back upon it,” I said to Mr. Carnegie, “do you consider that so lowly a beginning is better than one a little less trying?”

IT IS BEST TO BEGIN AT THE BOTTOM.

“For young men starting upon their lifework, it is much the best to begin as I did, at the beginning, and occupy the most subordinate positions. Many of the present-day leading men of Pittsburg, who rose with me, had a serious responsibility thrust upon them at the very threshold of their careers. They were introduced to the broom, and spent the first hours of their business life sweeping out the office. I notice we have janitors and janitresses now in offices, and our young men, unfortunately, miss that salutary branch of early education. Still I would say to the boy who has the genius of the future partner in him, that if by chance the professional sweeper is absent any morning, do not hesitate to try your hand at the broom. It does not hurt the newest comer to sweep out the office if necessary.”

“Did you?”

“Many’s the time. And who do you suppose were my fellow sweepers? David McBargo, afterward superintendent of the Allegheny Valley Railroad; Robert Pitcairn, afterward superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Mr. Moreland, subsequently City Attorney of Pittsburg. We all took turns, two each morning doing the sweeping; and now I remember Davie was so proud of his clean shirt bosom that he used to spread over it an old silk bandana handkerchief which he kept for the purpose, and we other boys thought he was putting on airs. So he was. None of us had a silk handkerchief.”

“After you had learned to telegraph, did you consider that you had reached high enough?”

“Not in the least. My father died just at that time, and the burden of the support of the family fell upon me. I became an operator at twenty-five dollars a month, a sum which seemed to me almost a fortune. I earned a little additional money by copying telegraphic messages for the newspapers, and managed to keep the family independent.”

HE WAS AN EXPERT TELEGRAPH OPERATOR.

More light on this period of Mr. Carnegie’s career is given by the “Electric Age,” which says: “He was a telegraph operator abreast of older and experienced men; and, although receiving messages by sound was, at that time, forbidden by authority as being unsafe, young Carnegie quickly acquired the art, and he can still stand behind the ticker and understand its language. As an operator, he delighted in full employment and the prompt discharge of business, and a big day’s work was his chief pleasure.”

“How long did you remain with the telegraph company?”

“Until I was given a place by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.”

“As an operator?”

“At first, until I showed how the telegraph could minister to railroad safety and success. Then I was made secretary to Thomas A. Scott, then superintendent, and not long afterward, when Colonel Scott became vice-president, I was made superintendent of the western division of the Pennsylvania Railroad.”

Thinking of this period of his life, I asked Mr. Carnegie if his promotion was not a matter of chance, and whether he did not, at the time, feel it to be so. His answer was emphatic.

“Never. Young men give all kinds of reasons why, in their cases, failure is attributable to exceptional circumstances, which rendered success impossible. Some never had a chance, according to their own story. This is simply nonsense. No young man ever lived who had not a chance, and a splendid chance, too, if he was ever employed at all. He is assayed in the mind of his immediate superior, from the day he begins work, and, after a time, if he has merit, he is assayed in the council chambers of the firm. His ability, honesty, habits, associations, temper, disposition—all these are weighed and analyzed. The young man who never had a chance is the same young man who has been canvassed over and over again by his superiors, and found destitute of necessary qualifications, or is deemed unworthy of closer relations with the firm, owing to some objectionable act, habit or association, of which he thought his employers ignorant.”

“It sounds true.”

THE RIGHT MEN IN DEMAND.

“It is. Another class of young men attribute failure to rise to employers having near relatives or favorites whom they advance unfairly. They also insist that their employers dislike brighter intelligence than their own, and are disposed to discourage aspiring genius, and delighted in keeping young men down. There is nothing in this. On the contrary, there is no one suffering more for lack of the right man in the right place than the average employer, nor anyone more anxious to find him.”

“Was this your theory on the subject when you began working for the railroad company?”

“I had no theory then, although I have formulated one since. It lies mainly in this: Instead of the question, ‘What must I do for my employer?’ substitute, ‘What can I do?’ Faithful and conscientious discharge of duties assigned you is all very well, but the verdict in such cases generally is that you perform your present duties so well, that you would better continue performing them. Now, this will not do. It will not do for the coming partners. There must be something beyond this. We make clerks, bookkeepers, treasurers, bank tellers of this class, and there they remain to the end of the chapter. The rising man must do something exceptional, and beyond the range of his special department. He must attract attention.”

HOW TO ATTRACT ATTENTION.

“How can he do that?”

“Well, if he is a shipping clerk, he may do so by discovering in an invoice an error with which he has nothing to do and which has escaped the attention of the proper party. If a weighing clerk, he may save the firm by doubting the adjustment of the scales, and having them corrected, even if this be the province of the master mechanic. If a messenger boy, he can lay the seed of promotion by going beyond the letter of his instructions in order to secure the desired reply. There is no service so low and simple, neither any so high, in which the young man of ability and willing disposition cannot readily and almost daily prove himself capable of greater trust and usefulness, and, what is equally important, show his invincible determination to rise.”

“In what manner did you reach out to establish your present great fortune?” I asked.

“By saving my money. I put a little money aside, and it served me later as a matter of credit. Also, I invested in a sleeping-car industry, which paid me well.”

CARNEGIE AND THE SLEEPING-CAR.

Although I tried earnestly to get the great iron-king to talk of this, he said little, because the matter has been fully dealt with by him in his “Triumphant Democracy.” From his own story there, it appears that, one day at this time, when Mr. Carnegie still had his fortune to make, he was on a train examining the line from a rear window of a car, when a tall, spare man, accosted him and asked him to look at an invention he had made. He drew from a green bag a small model of a sleeping-berth for railway cars, and proceeded to point out its advantages. It was Mr. T. T. Woodruff, the inventor of the sleeping-car. Mr. Carnegie tells the story himself in “Triumphant Democracy:”—

“He had not spoken a moment, before, like a flash, the whole range of the discovery burst upon me. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that is something which this continent must have.’

“Upon my return, I laid it before Mr. Scott, declaring that it was one of the inventions of the age. He remarked: ‘You are enthusiastic, young man, but you may ask the inventor to come and let me see it.’ I did so, and arrangements were made to build two trial cars, and run them on the Pennsylvania Railroad. I was offered an interest in the venture, which, of course, I gladly accepted.

“The notice came that my share of the first payment was $217.50. How well I remember the exact sum! But two hundred and seventeen dollars and a half were as far beyond my means as if it had been millions. I was earning fifty dollars per month, however, and had prospects, or at least I always felt that I had. I decided to call on the local banker and boldly ask him to advance the sum upon my interest in the affair. He put his hand on my shoulder and said: ‘Why, of course, Andie; you are all right. Go ahead! Here is the money.’

“It is a proud day for a man when he pays his last note, but not to be named in comparison with the day in which he makes his first one, and gets a banker to take it. I have tried both, and I know. The cars paid the subsequent payments from their earnings. I paid my first note from my savings, so much per month, and thus did I get my foot upon fortune’s ladder. It was easy to climb after that.”

“I would like some expression from you,” I said to Mr. Carnegie, “in reference to the importance of laying aside money from one’s earnings, as a young man.”

THE MARK OF A MILLIONAIRE.

“You can have it. There is one sure mark of the coming partner, the future millionaire; his revenues always exceed his expenditures. He begins to save early, almost as soon as he begins to earn. I should say to young men, no matter how little it may be possible to save, save that little. Invest it securely, not necessarily in bonds, but in anything which you have good reason to believe will be profitable; but no gambling with it, remember. A rare chance will soon present itself for investment. The little you have saved will prove the basis for an amount of credit utterly surprising to you. Capitalists trust the saving young man: For, every hundred dollars you can produce as the result of hard-won savings, Midas, in search of a partner, will lend or credit a thousand; for every thousand, fifty thousand. It is not capital that your seniors require, it is the man who has proved that he has the business habits which create capital. So it is the first hundred dollars saved that tells.”

“What,” I asked Mr. Carnegie, “was the next enterprise with which you identified yourself?”

A FORTUNATE LAND PURCHASE.

“In company with several others, I purchased the now famous Storey farm, on Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, where a well had been bored and natural oil struck the year before. This proved a very profitable investment.”

“Were you satisfied to rest with these enterprises in your hands?” I asked.

“No; railway bridges were then built almost exclusively of wood, but the Pennsylvania Railroad had begun to experiment with cast iron for bridge building. It struck me that the railway bridge of the future must be of iron, and I organized, in Pittsburg, a company for the construction of iron bridges. That was the Keystone Bridge Works. We built the first iron bridge across the Ohio.”

His entrance to the realm of steel was much too long for Mr. Carnegie to discuss, although he was not unwilling to give information relating to the great subject. It appears that he realized the immensity of the steel manufacturing business at once. The Union Iron Mills soon followed as one of his enterprises, and, later the famous Edgar Thompson Steel Rail Mill. The last was the outcome of a visit to England, in 1868, when Carnegie noticed that English railways were discarding iron for steel rails. The Bessemer process had been then perfected, and was making its way in all the iron-producing countries. Carnegie, recognizing that it was destined to revolutionize the iron business, introduced it into his mills and made steel rails with which he was enabled to compete with English manufacturers.

THE HOMESTEAD STEEL WORKS.

His next enterprise was the purchase of the Homestead Steel Works,—his great rival of Pittsburg. By 1888, he had built or acquired seven distinct iron and steel works. All the plants of this great firm are within a radius of five miles of Pittsburg. In no other part of the world can be found such an aggregation of splendidly equipped steel works as those controlled by Carnegie and his associates. It now comprises the Homestead Steel Works, the Edgar Thompson Steel Works and Furnaces, the Duquesne Steel Works and Furnaces, all within two miles of one another; the Lucy Furnaces, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Upper Union Rolling Mills, and the Lower Union Rolling Mills.

In all branches, including the great coke works, mines, etc., there are employed twenty-five thousand men. The monthly pay roll exceeds one million, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, or nearly fifty thousand dollars for each working day.

“You believe in taking active measures,” I said, “to make men successful.”

“Yes, I believe in anything which will help men to help themselves. To induce them to save, every workman, in our company, is allowed to deposit part of his earnings, not exceeding two thousand dollars, with the firm, on which the high interest rate of six per cent. is allowed. The firm also lends to any of its workmen to buy a lot, or to build a house, taking its pay by installments.”

“Has this contributed any to the success of your company?”

A STRENGTHENING POLICY.

“I think so. The policy of giving a personal interest to the men who render exceptional service is strengthening. With us there are many such, and every year several more are added as partners. It is the policy of the concern to interest every superintendent in the works, every head of a department, every exceptional young man. Promotion follows exceptional service, and there is no favoritism.”

“All you have said so far merely gives the idea of getting money, without any suggestion as to the proper use of great wealth. Will you say something on that score?”

“My views are rather well known, I think. What a man owns is already subordinate, in America, to what he knows; but, in the final aristocracy, the question will not be either of these, but what has he done for his fellows? Where has he shown generosity and self-abnegation? Where has he been a father to the fatherless? And the cause of the poor; where has he searched that out? How he has worshipped God will not be asked in that day, but how he has served man.”

MR. CARNEGIE’S PHILANTHROPY.

That Mr. Carnegie has lived up, in the past, and is still living up to this radical declaration of independence from the practice of men who have amassed fortunes around him, will be best shown by a brief enumeration of some of his almost unexampled philanthropies. His largest gift has been to the city of Pittsburg, the scene of his early trials and later triumphs. There he has built, at a cost of more than a million dollars, a magnificent library, museum, concert hall and picture gallery, all under one roof, and endowed it with a fund of another million, the interest of which (fifty thousand dollars per annum), is being devoted to the purchase of the best works of American art. Other libraries, to be connected with this largest as a center, are now being constructed, which will make the city of Pittsburg and its environs a beneficiary of his generosity to the extent of five million dollars.

In his native land, Scotland, thrift is a virtue that is taught with the alphabet; and, when the twelve-year-old “Andy” Carnegie came to America with his father and mother, he was full of the notion of thrift and its twin brother, hard work.

CARNEGIE’S VIEWS ON THRIFT.

Once he wrote on the subject of thrift for a Scottish journal. He said:—

“The accumulation of millions is usually the result of enterprise and judgment, and some exceptional ability or organization. It does not come from savings, in the ordinary sense of the word. Men who, in old age, strive only to increase their already too great hoards, are usually slaves of the habit of hoarding, formed in their youth. At first they own the money they have made and saved. Later in life the money owns them, and they cannot help themselves, so overpowering is the force of habit, either for good or evil. It is the abuse of the civilized saving instinct, and not its use, that produces this class of men. No one needs to be afraid of falling a victim to this abuse of the habit, if he always bears in mind that whatever surplus wealth may come to him is to be regarded as a sacred trust, which he is bound to administer for the good of his fellows. The man should always be master. He should keep money in the position of a useful servant; he must never let it be his master and make a miser of him. A man’s first duty is to acquire a competence and be independent, then to do something for his needy neighbors who are less favored than himself.”

Mr. Carnegie has always lived up to this doctrine. He has made philanthropy a factor of existence. Already he has endowed over ninety libraries in different cities of the United States, having spent about $4,500,000 in this manner alone. He believes that a man can learn the science of true life and success in good books. In Scotland, where many of the residents of a poor hamlet have been benefited by his generosity, he is called “the good angel.” Whenever he visits any of these places, he is a greater man than the King of Great Britain.

While thus endowing the city where his fortune was made, he has not forgotten other places endeared to him by association or by interest. To the Allegheny Free Library he has given $375,000; to the Braddock Free Library, $250,000; to the Johnstown Free Library, $50,000, and to the Fairfield (Iowa) Library, $40,000. To his native land he has been scarcely less generous. To the Edinburgh Free Library he has given $250,000, and to his native town of Dunfermline, $90,000. Other Scottish towns to the number of ten have received helpful donations of amounts not quite so large.

“I should like you to say some other important things for the young man to learn and benefit by.”

“Our young partners in the Carnegie company have all won their spurs by showing that we did not know half as well what was wanted as they did. Some of them have acted upon occasions with me as if they owned the firm and I was but some airy New Yorker, presuming to advise upon what I knew very little about. Well, they are not now interfered with. They were the true bosses,—the very men we were looking for.”

“THE MISFORTUNE OF BEING RICH MEN’S SONS.”

“Is this all for the poor boy?”

“Every word. I trust that few, if any, of your readers have the misfortune to be rich men’s sons. They are heavily weighted in the race. A basketful of bonds is the heaviest basket a young man ever had to carry. He generally gets to staggering under it. The vast majority of rich men’s sons are unable to resist the temptations to which wealth subjects them, and they sink to unworthy lives. It is not from this class that the poor beginner has rivalry to fear. The partner’s sons will never trouble you much, but look out that some boys poorer, much poorer, than yourselves, whose parents cannot afford to give them any schooling, do not challenge you at the post and pass you at the grand stand. Look out for the boy who has to plunge into work direct from the common school, and begins by sweeping out the office. He is the probable dark horse that will take all the money and win all the applause.

“The first thing that a man should learn to do is to save his money. By saving his money he promotes thrift,—the most valued of all habits. Thrift is the great fortune-maker. It draws the line between the savage and the civilized man. Thrift not only develops the fortune, but it develops, also, the man’s character.”

IV

A Good Shoemaker Becomes Detroit’s Best Mayor and Michigan’s Greatest Governor.

AN interview with Hon. Hazen S. Pingree, Governor of Michigan, was not an easy thing to obtain. “Approachable?” Very. He was a great favorite with newspaper men, but the most-sought-after man in Michigan. When he arrived at the simply furnished room that served as his official headquarters in Detroit, it was to find it bordered with a human wainscoting, each anxious member of which was waiting patiently, or otherwise, to ask some favor of the chief executive. As he entered the room suddenly became quiet; for there was something about the Governor’s powerful personality that compelled attention. But soon each want, no matter how small, was attended to in his kindly but straight-forward way.

An interesting medley of petitioners was present on the day of my interview. The first was a widowed mother requesting a favor for her son—a wreck of the Spanish-American war.

“I’ll do the best I can for you,” said the governor heartily as she left the room—and everyone knew what that meant.

Next came a gayly-dressed young woman, with a bill from the mint of her own imagination, which she asked the Governor to please push through the legislature. She was patiently referred to the representative from her district. Then a soldier stood before him with a transportation snarl to untangle; a book agent; a broadcloth-coated dandy, and a street laborer, each seeking help; and then a gaunt, ill-clad old woman, who in broken English, with harrowing tears and gestures of despair, laid her humble burdens in supplication before him. It was a touching picture.

Hers was not a case to lay before the Governor of the State, but she will never know it, poor woman, for the generous hand of the great-hearted man slid quickly down to the nest of the golden eagle that sent her gratefully away.

“You are not a native of the State you govern,” said I, as the Governor leisurely seated himself for the interview.

“No; I was born in Denmark, Maine. My father owned a forty-acre farm, and I was brought up there until I was about seventeen years old.”

“And you did——”

“Just what any one would do on a small farm; worked in summer and went to school in the winter. Then I started out to make my own way in the world, and the first work I found was in a cotton mill at Saco, Maine. In 1860, I went to Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and learned the trade of a cutter in a shoe factory. Soon after that the war broke out.”

“And you enlisted?”

“Yes, I have two honorable discharges as a private. I value them more than my position as governor.”

“How long were you in the war?”

“From 1862 until its close. I first enlisted in Company F, First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, and, with that regiment, took part in the battles of Bull Run, Fredericksburg Road, Harris Farm, Cold Harbor, Spottsylvania Court House, North Anna and South Anna.”

“Then you know something of the horrors of war from your own experience?”

“Yes; that is the reason I am an advocate of the universal peace project.”

“You believe in that?”

“Decidedly; and, moreover, I believe that ten years from now every man who calls himself a Christian will be ready to stand by the side of the Emperor of Russia in his plea for peace.”

“Let us return to your experience in the war. Were you ever a prisoner?”

“Several others and myself were captured on May 25, 1864, by a squad of Mosby’s men. We were confined five months at Andersonville; and from there were taken to Salisbury prison in North Carolina, then to Millen, Georgia, where we were exchanged in November, 1864. I rejoined my regiment in front of Petersburg, and was in the expedition to Weldon Railroad, the battles of Boynton Road, Petersburg, Sailors’ Creek, Farmsville, and Appomattox.”

“And after the war?”

“I came to Detroit and obtained employment in a shoe factory. Soon after that my partner and myself started one of our own. He had a little less than a thousand dollars, and I had $460—left from my army pay.”

“That seemed a large sum, I suppose?”

“Yes, and I thought if I could ever get to making fifty pairs of shoes a day I would be perfectly happy.”

The number is amusingly small, when it is remembered that this factory, the embryo of which he spoke, grew up under the Governor’s personal supervision, until it is now one of the largest in the United States.

“But tell me, Governor, when you were starting out in life, did you ever look forward to the career you have carved out for yourself?”

“No,” said he, with the promptness that characterizes all of his speech; “I never had anything mapped out in my life. I did whatever there happened to be for me to do, and let the result take care of itself.”

“Is it the same with your political success, or is that the outgrowth of youthful ambition?”

HOW HE BECAME MAYOR OF DETROIT.

“No, I was pushed into that by accident. I had never been in the common council chamber before I was elected Mayor of Detroit. The thing that caught me was that my friends began to say I was afraid of the position, so, of course, I had to accept the nomination to prove that I wasn’t.”

This was clever of his friends. The fact is that, at that time, the city needed the Governor’s brains to manage its affairs. He was elected Mayor of Detroit four consecutive terms and was in his eighth year as mayor when he resigned. Even his most earnest political opponents admit that he was the best mayor the city ever had.

“But, during the formative years of your career, did you ever worry over the possibility of failure?”

“No,” said the Governor serenely, “I never did, and don’t now. I was never given to worrying.”

In this as in other ways, Mr. Pingree was remarkable. During the stormiest of his political times he was never in the least disturbed when he reached home, and he would sleep as peacefully as a child.

“What would you suggest, Governor, as the best route by which the young man of to-day may obtain success?”

“He can do one of two things: go to work for somebody else; or, if he cannot stand that, he can buy a small farm.”

“Then you think there is not the chance in the United States now that there was thirty years ago?”

“There isn’t a doubt about it. The young men of to-day are to be pitied—there isn’t anything for them to do. The subject is a serious one,” said the Governor, speaking rapidly. “Why, if I had nothing, I wouldn’t know how to advise my own son to start. I don’t claim to know much, but I do understand a little about the shoe business, and I can tell you honestly that, with the knowledge I have gained in many years of experience, and with the influence of my friends, I could not start in the shoe business to-day with the chance of success that I had then.”

“And the causes of this?”

“Are trusts and monopolies.”

“And the result?”

A GREAT CHANGE PROPHESIED.

“There will be a great change in this country before many years. Free schools have so educated the people that they will not submit to this injustice forever, even though it is organized against them.”

“But how will this change be effected?”

“Through the splitting up of political parties—but it is sure to come.”

“Recognizing the conditions that the young man of to-day has to contend with, what guide-posts would you point out to him?”

“In the first place, I would advise every young man to be honest and outspoken at all times. What people want is open, frank talk. There is too much catering and palavering and round-about talking nowadays. It is a great mistake. Then, of course, in order to accomplish anything, the young man must have plenty of energy and perseverance.”

By inheritance, Governor Pingree was a patriot and fighter. In his possession were three historic muskets, one of which was used by his great-grandfather in the Revolutionary War; another by his grandfather in the War of 1812, and one by himself in the Civil War. His first American forefather was Moses Pingree, who emigrated to this country in 1640. Many of his descendants have figured with distinction in American history, among them being Samuel Everett Pingree, Governor of Vermont from 1884 to 1886.

Governor Pingree was a strikingly interesting example of self-earned success. His indomitable will, tireless energy and unyielding perseverance were the machinery with which he manufactured the fabric of his career. But the pattern was stamped by his own individuality, and was like no other ever seen—it was _sui generis_.

On the battlefield of public life, Governor Pingree was a general who said, “Come on!” not “Go on!” He acted with the bold, unfettered authority that springs from an honest belief in the justice of his opinions, and never put his plans out of focus by shifting his ground. When once resolved, he was as immovable as a fixed star. He was absolutely fearless because he was absolutely honest, and was not afraid to fight, single-handed, the greatest financial power the world has ever known.

The political spider was never able to bind his arms with the thread of party combination—scheme or intrigue. He was at all times a free lance, fearless and ceaseless in his efforts to chip the veneer from gilded fraud, to pierce the heart of injustice and to befriend those not able to shield themselves. He was a champion of the people and a believer in them.

HE WAS NOT A DEMAGOGUE.

“But they call you a demagogue. How does that accusation affect you?”

The Governor smiled, as if he considered it a good joke.

“Well, that amuses me,” said he. “They don’t do that around here any more. They’ve worn it out, I guess. No, it doesn’t disturb me a particle. I always go on the principle that lies never hurt anybody.”

Governor Pingree was a man of powerful physique and dignity of bearing. But he was delightfully oblivious to his own importance, and was entirely devoid of ostentation in everything that he did or said. His disposition was buoyant, his manner that of frank simplicity, and he was prodigal in his generosity and sympathy for those in need. In his private business, the welfare of his employees was always balanced in the scale with his own.