by Peter Krass
49. Hendrick, Carnegie, vol. 2, pp. 139, 192.
50. John Brisbane Walker, “The World’s Greatest Revolution,” Cosmopolitan (April 1901).
51. Wall Street Journal, March 25, 1901.
52. AC to George Lauder Jr., March 6, 1901, ACLOC, vol. 82.
53. AC to Henry Phipps, n.d., and Phipps’s response, n.d., quoted in Hendrick, Carnegie, vol. 2, pp. 140–143.
54. Herbert L. Satterlee, J. Pierpont Morgan: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Macmillan, 1939), p. 345.
55. Flint, p. 169.
56. King, “Recollections and Conclusions from a Long Business Life,” pp. 228–229.
57. Memorandum in AC’s handwriting, n.d., ACLOC, vol. 81.
CHAPTER 29
Tainted Seeds
Pray sleep soundly—all is fixed—your Bonds and mine go as our partners’ go—into vaults,” Carnegie wrote cousin Dod.1 The vault, built specifically for their stacks upon stacks of almost $300 million in bonds, was located in friendly Hoboken, New Jersey, out of the New York City taxman’s reach. It was in a building that also housed the Home Trust Company, essentially a private bank Carnegie created to handle his financial interests—including the disbursements for his munificence, from major endowments to small pensions—all managed by Robert Franks, his trusted financial secretary since 1883.
Although Carnegie visited the Home Trust building several times, he never laid eyes on the mountainous stacks of bonds. He preferred to be the monkey who heard no evil, saw no evil, spoke no evil, because while money was power, it also had an odious element. He rarely carried cash with him, relying on James Bertram and Franks to handle any transactions. Once, he was even tossed from a London bus for not having the fare; and he was heckled by Mark Twain for years for borrowing a quarter from the author when Twain himself was in dire financial straits. He liked to consider himself above the dirty stuff, yet the very act of rejecting its physical presence gave him a sense of control over money, a need dating back to his family’s hungry days.
Now came the penultimate challenge of giving away his accumulated wealth, all $360 million plus. Morley didn’t envy him and warned him that he’d have some difficulty “in adapting the principles of accumulation to the business of distribution.”2 Carnegie, however, was confident: “Thousands of clippings from eleven thousand daily papers reach me. I read them to get my bearings in the new Line of Trade. Some are really strengthening. . . . Tenacity and steady sailing to the haven we clear for—supreme confidence in one’s own ideas, or conclusions rather, after thought—and above all, placing use above popularity.”3 He knew he’d come under criticism, but would persevere as he always had. His first benefaction on retiring, he was certain, was impervious to slander.
“I make this first use of surplus wealth,” he wrote proudly in an open letter to the Carnegie Steel men on March 12, announcing the creation of the Carnegie Relief Fund to provide pensions for the retired, as well as aid for the injured and families of those who died in Carnegie mills, “four millions of first mortgage 5% Bonds, upon retiring from business, as an acknowledgement of the deep debt which I owe to the workmen who have contributed so greatly to my success.”4 The Relief Fund, with its $4 million endowment of U.S. Steel bonds, was modeled after similar funds created by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Once again, Carnegie borrowed an idea and expanded on it. Harper’s Weekly called the pension gift the work of “a good magician,” but why did he wait until now to create a pension for the workers?5 How many who could have benefited were long since dead? Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. Even so, Carnegie was becoming a pioneer in pension funding, although he didn’t realize it at the time.
Total relief disbursements for 1902 were $48,213.80, of which $19,700.90 was for accident benefits, $16,316 for death benefits, and $12,196.90 for pensions. Men disabled by accidents received 75 cents a day if single, $1 if married, and an additional 10 cents for each child for one year, and then the rates were cut in half. In the case of death due to an accident or heat prostration, the widow received $500 and an additional $100 for each child, the total not to exceed $1,200.6 Two years later, almost $242,000 was disbursed, including benefit payments for 230 men killed—quite a few more than the number killed during the Homestead strike—but there was no furor and the obliged Homestead men even thanked him: “The interest you have always shown in your workmen has won for you an appreciation which cannot be expressed by mere words. Of the many channels through which you have sought to do good, we believe that the ‘Andrew Carnegie Relief Fund’ stands first.”7
Carnegie also set aside $4,250,000 for his private pension list, the income used for annuities given to relatives, friends, Dunfermline schoolmates, Dunfermline postmen from his youth, fellow choir members in the Swedenbor-gian church, former associates, renowned artists, scholars, statesmen, and even strangers who, for some reason, had made the grade. These pensioners were subject to his code of morals: one friend that Carnegie knew to be a drunkard was rejected, but then, feeling a twinge of guilt, he made him sign a pledge of sobriety and put him on the list. Eventually, 409 names would be on his private list with about $250,000 distributed annually, the amounts ranging from $25 a month to $10,000 a year. He wanted friends and strangers alike to enjoy deserved retirement. For the valuable contributors to society, he wanted to relieve their daily anxiety over money getting so they could fully dedicate themselves to their chosen fields and benefit mankind.
The day after Carnegie announced the Relief Fund, he sailed for the Mediterranean, his first port of call Genoa and then on to the Antibes and Aix-les-Bains. Although a new life awaited, he remained tied to the last. “I sailed soon for Europe,” he recalled, “and as usual some of my partners did not fail to accompany me to the steamer and bade me good-bye. But, oh! the difference to me! Say what we would, do what we would, the solemn change had come. The wrench was indeed severe and there was pain in the good-bye which was also a farewell.”8 The spa town of Aix-les-Bains, in the French Alps, would help heal the melancholy.
While Carnegie sailed the Atlantic, announcements of his initial beneficence emblazoned the front pages of newspapers. The hoopla, the speculation, the critical commentary surrounding these first activities of retirement, he knew were best to be avoided. Still, the sale of the Carnegie Company thrust the entire family onto center stage, a role Louise found painful. She was profiled in Harper’s Bazaar, along with one of the leading stage actresses of the day, Ethel Barrymore, and Queen Olga of Greece. “Mrs. Andrew Carnegie is comparatively little known in New York outside of her circle of personal friends,” the magazine observed. “Her tastes are simple, and do not incline to the brilliant social life which it would be easy for her to lead.” For their immense wealth, the Carnegies’ tastes were relatively simple, typified by the fact they never owned a private box for the opera nor indulged in acquiring priceless art nor cruised aboard a 241-foot, steel-hulled, steam-powered yacht, as did Morgan on his Corsair. Harper’s also noted, “She shrinks, however, from publicity, and is glad to slip behind the protection of her husband’s prominent and strong personality. She is in sympathy with Mr. Carnegie’s munificence and schemes for public benefaction.”9 To be sure, requests for aid were now unrelenting. “The Lord has got tired of beggars,” Carnegie would say as he looked over the mounds of letters. “I know just how He feels.” One of those letters included a humorous solicitation from Mark Twain: “You seem to be in prosperity. Could you lend an admirer a dollar and a half to buy a hymn book with? God will bless you. . . . P.S. Don’t send the hymn book, send the money; I want to make the selection myself.”10
The greatest question of the day was how Carnegie would spend the $360 million. The makers of Mother’s Seigel’s Syrup, a British firm, sponsored a competition called “How Mr. Carnegie Should Get Rid of His Wealth.” Any contestant whose suggestion was used by Carnegie was to win a gold sovereign, and some forty-five thousand answered the call. Over twelve thousand respondents wanted his mone
y for themselves. Another five thousand plus wanted it used to subsidize the free distribution of Seigel’s Syrup. All of thirty-six hundred said he should give it to churches or the poor. Other suggestions included bequeathing it to little Margaret and paying off the national debt.11 Under constant scrutiny, Carnegie was recognized as “the most conspicuous apostle of the doctrine that great private wealth is a more or less accidental result of what has been hitherto our faulty economic system,” according to the American Monthly Review of Reviews, and was under a moral obligation to redistribute to best serve his fellow men.12 In May 1901, a writer for the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science noted, “It is most hopeful to find a man, rising from humble station, attaining to success which gives him power superior to that of kings, still announcing a doctrine full of patriotic devotion to the institutions that have been favorable to his rise, keenly sympathetic with his fellows and enthusiastic for the amelioration of conditions against which the less fortunate must struggle.”13 More powerful than kings—this Carnegie was well aware of. His wealth, of which everyone wanted a piece, continued to grant him access to the Executive Mansion in Washington and Parliament in London, as well as to open doors to academia. As far as he was concerned, he was indeed of national interest; and as a trustee of wealth, and by extension, civilization, he was prepared for the task. The world had never before witnessed such philanthropy as was about to be committed, and it was an opportune moment for Carnegie to demonstrate enlightenment.
His philanthropic philosophy had changed very little since he wrote “Gospel of Wealth” twelve years earlier, and he would defend it to the hilt. Through cajoling and scolding, he also prodded his fellow capitalists to live the gospel. “The thought comes to my mind—” he wrote the retail millionaire John Wanamaker, “is it not about time that you were beginning to practice distribution? I saw your immense new structure going up in Philadelphia, and Mrs. Carnegie has been patronizing your establishment here, and I cannot but feel that you should begin giving instead of using the whole of your exceptional talents in grabbing for more dollars. There! That is a better sermon than you hear in any of your chapels, including your own Sunday School!”14 For Mrs. Russell Sage, inheritor of millions, he wrote his “RULES FOR A PHILANTHROPIST,” which reiterated points in his “Gospel” and provided such sound advice as “Don’t begin any new departure without first testing fully upon a small scale.” He signed it, “Your fellow sufferer, A.C.”15
John D. Rockefeller, who had paid heed to Carnegie’s work for some time, required no prodding. After receiving a handout of oatmeal, he wrote the retired steel titan:
My Dear Mr. Carnegie:
I thank you for the oatmeal of your own manufacture, which you were kind enough to send me. It is very good and I hope you enjoy the eating of it as much as I do. Be sure to eat it very slowly and masticate well.
You grind oatmeal: I grind apples, and have ordered a bottle of my sweet cider sent you from Pocantico.
Keep right on with your grand work of giving away money, regardless of the criticisms of cranks and fools. You have already given away more money than any man living.
The good Lord bless you and give you wisdom for your great responsibilities.
Very sincerely yours,
John D. Rockefeller16
Rockefeller’s philanthropy chieftain, Frederick Gates, was not so complimentary. “Mr. Carnegie’s intimate friends tell me that it is no secret between them and him that he does these things for the sake of having his name written in stone all over the country,” he wrote his boss concerning the library giving. “Have you observed that he always gives buildings while somebody else furnishes the money to keep them in repair?”17 Gates was raising the old debate: altruism versus personal glorification. But he was missing Carnegie’s point in forcing communities to take an interest; it gave them ownership of their respective libraries. As for Carnegie’s propensity to publicize his doings, he himself had written years earlier, “To do things is not one-half the battle, Carlyle is all wrong about this. To be able to tell the world what you have done, that is the greatest accomplishment!”18 Publicity, he hoped, would beget good deeds by others.
Transferring his energy from business to philanthropy, Carnegie was now determined to improve mankind, a term he would use in a number of the philanthropic deeds he wrote. The power Carnegie’s money wielded frightened the general public, communities, and institutions, however, and one of the foremost objections to his philanthropy, regardless of its manifestation, was that he would use it to intrude on society and impose his own set of moral codes—a form of social control. Individuals and communities also found his almsgiving demeaning and patronizing and resented it, and, to a lesser degree, rejected his money as tainted because it was the result of draconian economics. Each major benefaction would arouse feverish deliberation and criticism that he would have to contend with in turn, some more virulent than others. As to Carnegie’s motives, an ongoing great debate was conducted: does he give money to alleviate his conscience and to make up for industrial crimes; to satisfy an insatiable desire for attention, notoriety, and immortality; because he is in fact a socialist in disguise; or perhaps, just perhaps, for altruistic reasons? Sure he had a desk drawer labeled Gratitude and Sweet Words, but regardless of how he conducted his philanthropy, he was always going to be labeled a notorious egotist because he so adamantly voiced his opinion and acted on his convictions. Certainly, philanthropy was an opportunity for the capitalists to cleanse their image, but these men also truly desired to create models for moral leadership. They considered themselves the high priests of civil religion, and Carnegie wanted to be a leading player in civilization’s progress at the dawn of the twentieth century. And unlike Morgan and Rockefeller, his philanthropy would give him an opportunity to reconcile internal conflicts between his radical heritage and capitalistic present that had made him a man of contradictions. But what did the gods have in store for him? Was it too late? Was there enough time left, or would he die disgraced?
Library giving remained Carnegie’s preferred means of advancing civilization, at least initially. It was his centerpiece. It was holy, a monument to his father and Colonel Anderson and his own proverbial success. It was also subject to the harshest scrutiny.
Just days after his retirement, Carnegie was reading the Scottish American newspaper (which he noted in the introspective memorandum to himself), when a quote struck him—“the gods send thread for a web begun.” The web begun was his library work. He resolved to use his multimillion-dollar thread to continue the web, to create a network of intellectual centers that would raise collective intelligence. On March 16, Carnegie announced a $5.2 million gift to New York City to build sixty-five branch libraries, on the now standard condition that the city provide the sites and the money to maintain the facilities. “I give you the seed,” Carnegie said in his press release. “Cultivate it as you will.”19 Harper’s Weekly considered the benefaction “an example not only of princely but of most intelligent generosity” that would add to the educational powers of the public schools; R. R. Bowker, the renowned editor of the Library Journal, praised it as a supreme gift; and the New York Daily Tribune, once his sternest critic, was equally effusive in praise.20 It was expected the necessary legislation would be enacted so the gift could be accepted posthaste.
Through 1898, Carnegie had provided for just 9 libraries. Over the next two years, he added 38 to the list.21 Now the pace leaped to such a jarring speed the newspapers couldn’t keep track; the Tribune noted just over 50 libraries for 1901 in the paper’s index, while, in fact, he gave 131. In addition to New York, other notable donations included $1 million for St. Louis, $500,000 for Glasgow—in gratitude, Glasgow University conferred on Carnegie the degree of LL.D.—and $100,000 for San Juan, Puerto Rico. Although there was an impression that Carnegie forced his libraries on communities, it wasn’t true; thousands of requests came from mayors, councils, committees, women’s clubs, and clergymen in remo
te villages.
He had now moved from a retail phase of library giving to wholesale, but the need for control remained paramount as Carnegie, now dubbed the “Patron Saint of Libraries,” wanted his library benefactions to run as efficiently as his mills had. To ensure that control, once a request was received, Carnegie’s secretaries Bertram and Franks opened a dossier on the town. Bertram would send out a basic questionnaire requesting information on the town’s size, its current library facilities, site availability, and whether any collection had been raised for a new building.22 More questions were added over time as Bertram and Franks became ever-more vigilant. They also reviewed the architect’s building plans to ensure there were no unnecessary extravagances and waste, which reflected Carnegie’s tastes; when the boss happened to see the proposed drawing of the Denver library, he wrote, “I am sorry to have my money wasted in this way—This is no practical library plan. Too many pillars.”23 Eventually Bertram had a pamphlet of architectural guidelines made. After receiving approval, the town council had to sign a pledge committing to provide the site and maintenance, and then money was sent in small amounts as work progressed.
Carnegie had little to do with the day-to-day administration, implicitly trusting Bertram and Franks, who would remain guardians of his ideals and wealth long after his death. The fact that they remained loyal said much about how well Carnegie treated them personally, as opposed to how he manipulated Frick and other business partners. Bertram would come into Carnegie’s study and say, “Here are forty or fifty more libraries, Mr. Carnegie. They need your O.K.”
Carnegie, who was much kinder to his personal help than his partners, dictates a letter to his secretary James Bertram. (Courtesy of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh)
“Have you examined them all, my boy?”
