by Peter Krass
Meanwhile, White and his friend Frederick Hols, who had served as secretary for the American delegation to the 1899 Hague Conference, continued to drop hints to Carnegie about building a peace temple for an international court of arbitration and library. (Czar Nicholas, concerned about the escalating military buildup in Europe, had called for the Hague Conference to discuss disarmament and peaceful means for settling conflict. The only act of substance was to move forward on creating the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.) In early 1902, it was Hols who applied the pressure to build the temple for the court; and again, although Carnegie considered himself the man for the task, he hesitated. Foremost, he feared the tribunal would not garner the respect it deserved if he stepped forward with the money. Also, the time was still not opportune, as he wrote Hols: “Please let the idea rest for the present. Let us get our English speaking race at peace first. This forcing ourselves upon unwilling peoples & shooting resisters down is so incongruous with the Hague Peace idea that neither Britain nor America seems in place— doing right (Hague) with one hand and (Filipinoes & Boers) wrong with the other. I am not going to think of it at present.”
By the summer of 1902, Carnegie had reconsidered his position and invited White to Skibo to discuss a temple of peace. They golfed, fished, walked the moors, and debated every topic except the very one behind White’s visit as Carnegie toyed with him by letting the dramatic tension build. As guest, White knew better than to initiate the discussion. On his last full day there, his host suggested yet another fishing expedition, which didn’t bode well for White in winning any commitment from Carnegie because he made it abundantly clear: “I never talk while I fish.” White recalled ruefully that he didn’t catch a fish all day. “Then, that very evening—the last of our stay—as the men, after smoking, entered the drawing room to join the ladies, Mr. Carnegie, with whom I happened to be walking at the time, somewhat ahead of the others, suddenly turned to me and said: ‘Now, as to that Peace Palace which you have been writing me about—I’ll build it.’”8 It was the same game Carnegie had played with Sir Swire concerning the Keighley library, a game he found humorous at the expense of others.
Slightly contrary to White’s recollections, the actual sequence of events was that initially Carnegie agreed to ante up $250,000 for a library of international law for The Hague, and then offered to provide the funding for a modest peace temple on the condition that the Dutch government request it. This last caveat served two purposes: it satisfied Carnegie’s ego, and it made the temple more acceptable to other governments and the public because it had been requested.9 It still took an interminable amount of time—as most diplomacy does—for the temple to be realized. Not until October did he write the deed for a $1.5 million gift, in which he stated his belief that the Permanent Court of Arbitration was the most important step yet toward abolishing war; and not until the spring of 1903 did he establish the endowed trust.10 It took another two years to agree on a site; in 1907 the cornerstone would be laid; and in 1913 the temple would be dedicated. In the interim, there would be a number of battles over it.
“The gift which fairly takes my breath away is your provision for the Temple of Peace,” a long-denied White exulted in April 1903. “That will result undoubtedly in saving hundreds of thousands of lives. It is an immense thing, to have made such a provision.”11 The gift was a fraction of what would be another fantastic year of beneficence, with the London Times estimating that Carnegie gave $21 million in 1903 versus Rockefeller’s $10 million.12 For all the attention being lavished on the philanthropy and the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, Europe continued to slide pell-mell toward war. As the political situation became more dire, Carnegie would increase his efforts, desperate to be mankind’s savior.
At the very time Carnegie was handing over the funds for his temple of peace, the United States and Britain became entangled in another dispute over Venezuela, a sequel to the 1895 conflict. The current conflict erupted when Britain, along with Germany and Italy, imposed a naval blockade on Venezuela because the country was not paying its debts, which outraged the other South American countries, especially when the United States didn’t invoke the Monroe Doctrine. “I dread the Venezuelan trouble,” Carnegie wrote William T. Stead. “A spark and there’s no telling the end. Occupation of territory on this continent by European powers, even temporary, may result in war.”
Carnegie’s fears were confirmed when, ignoring Roosevelt’s call for arbitration, on December 9, 1902, British and German boats sailed into La Guaira, seized all Venezuelan warships, and bombarded Puerto Cabello. In hopes of easing the heightened tensions between the United States and Britain, Carnegie cabled Morley to warn him that Prime Minister Balfour was playing with fire, and he suggested the cable be passed along to Balfour. According to Morley, the cable did indeed give the British cabinet the right cue. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who would succeed Balfour as prime minister, concurred: “I saw the strongly worded message you sent to John Morley regarding this ridiculous but most dangerous Venezuelan folly of our Government, and I cannot but believe that your warning had its effect on the Cabinet, to whose members it was shown.” Even Prime Minister Balfour expressed his obligations to Carnegie for the telegram, and promised there would be no invasion of Venezuela as Britain fully respected the Monroe Doctrine. Carnegie shuttled down to Washington and shared the letters with Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hay, and the conflict was resolved shortly.13 While Roosevelt and Hay resented his meddling, on occasion Carnegie did play a pivotal, yet unappreciated, role as messenger on the political stage.
After his successful involvement in the latest Venezuela conflict, reinforced greatly by the letters from Campbell-Bannerman and Balfour, Carnegie started considering himself one of the few who could accomplish anything at all toward peace. He assumed a Christ-like complex in promoting the brotherhood of man as his talk of an English-speaking race reunion and promotion of arbitration eventually evolved into an all-out campaign to save the world from war. The first years of the twentieth century should have heralded a golden age, Carnegie knew, considering the scientific work of the institution in Washington; the appearance of motorcars, making man ever more mobile; and the work of the Wright brothers. To think, in 1903, man would fly with the birds. But what of Icarus? Had we become too greedy for knowledge and material gain? Was humankind’s insatiable appetite leading to war after war?
In early 1904, Carnegie continued his campaign for peace, although, inspired by a tragic event, it took a slightly different course than expected. It was a bitterly cold Monday morning, January 25, 1904, when at 8:15 a massive explosion rocked the coal-mining town of Harwick, twelve miles north of Pittsburgh. A small amount of gas had ignited in a shaft and the entire mine exploded in a chain reaction, killing most of the employees. Rescue parties began to arrive from the surrounding area. Selwyn M. Taylor, a Pittsburgh mining engineer, and a small crew descended the main shaft and found a seventeen-year-old at the bottom, badly burned but alive. Hoping others were alive, Taylor advanced into the mine, only to become asphyxiated by gas. He was survived by a wife and a stepson. The next day a coal miner, Daniel A. Lyle, also working with a search party, ventured farther than others dared into the mine, and he, too, was overcome by gas and died, leaving behind a wife and five children. They were but 2 among 181 who were killed in what was one of the worst mining disasters of the twentieth century.
“I can’t get the women and children of the disaster out of my mind,” Carnegie, who was often taunted by the clarity of images emblazoned on his conscious, wrote to a friend, and he matched the $40,000 in public donations for relief efforts, as well as commissioned two gold medals to commemorate Selwyn M. Taylor and Daniel A. Lyle for their surviving families. The two men’s deaths made him realize that heroism didn’t require an act of war, and if he could just demonstrate to the country, to the world even, how heroic one could be in times of peace, perhaps young men wouldn’t be so likely to join the blood thirst as
soon as there was a chance to prove their manhood in war: “Not seldom are we thrilled by deeds of heroism where men or women are injured or lose their lives in attempting to preserve or rescue their fellows; such the heroes of civilization. The heroes of barbarism maimed or killed theirs.”
Thus, the Harwick mine disaster inspired him to found the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission to reward acts of heroism with a medal and money. He wasted no time. The deed was completed and signed on March 12; he gave $5 million in U.S. Steel bonds; and he appointed a twenty-one-member commission to administer the fund. Sometimes it was the commission that read of a heroic act in the papers, other times it was brought to their attention by those directly affected; either way, an application for the reward had to be on their desk within three years of the incident. The commission then investigated thoroughly before a medal and a monetary reward were forthcoming. On one side of the medal was a profile of Carnegie (who was smart enough not to demand his name on libraries, but used it and his image liberally with his trusts and foundations), on the other the name of the hero and his courageous act. There was also a quote from the Bible, John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” As for the money, it varied depending on the need and was paid either monthly as a pension or in one lump sum.
Carnegie was extremely proud of what he considered to be a unique proj-ect—his pet—and promoted it with passion. As he told a friend, it was folly to waste time upon worrying about God and Heaven, for we “have only duties in this life, let us attend to these—as the only action approaching worship. By the way I send you Hero Fund, my pet child—Here’s worship of Humanity in its highest form—Heroism.”14 In touting it to John Ross, he also gave a glimpse of a painful childhood memory: “It is the fund that may be considered my pet. I used to hate that word, becaus the children at school cald me ‘Martin’s pet,’ but now I like it.”15
Cynics criticized the Hero Fund immediately, claiming it would spawn would-be, misguided heroes seeking reward and result in more tragedy. “I do not expect to stimulate or create heroism by this fund,” Carnegie responded vigorously, “knowing well that heroic action is impulsive; but I do believe that, if the hero is injured in his bold attempt to serve or save his fellows, he and those dependent upon him should not suffer pecuniarily.” Rewards were most often given for rescues from drowning or burning buildings or from automobile and industrial accidents. Eventually, the cynics were drowned out; and by December 1907, Carnegie could write Morley triumphantly: “Our Hero pension has triumphed, its last annual report swept the Country. . . . I don’t believe there’s a nobler fund in the world.”16 It was so noble in his estimation that he gave $10,540,000 to create eleven hero foundations, in the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland.
While Carnegie considered it an original inspiration, when Peter Cooper had founded Cooper Union he wanted $500 appropriated each year to be awarded to a woman who exhibited great heroism or sacrifice for humanity.17 Carnegie may or may not have been aware of this—it was on a much smaller scale than what he had in mind, in any case—but just that March he had given an address at a memorial honoring Peter Cooper, saying of his predecessor in philanthropy: “He pointed the way that all millionaires should follow.”18 As he had in business, Carnegie remained adept at borrowing ideas and expanding on them until they reached heroic proportions.
In his mania for peace, Carnegie even allowed a family scandal to play out in the press, which provided him the opportunity to prove his goodwill toward all. Initially unknown to the public and decisively suppressed by Lucy Carnegie, her daughter Nancy was married to the family’s coachman, James Hever, a widower and father of two. They had eloped in 1904, causing the estrangement of Lucy and Nancy, and in April 1905, the newspapers got hold of the story. Now that the marriage was public, Carnegie gave them $20,000 as a wedding gift in a show of support and defended Nancy in the newspapers: “Mr. Hever is not rich, but he is a sober, moral well doing man, and the family would rather have such a husband for Nancy than a worthless duke.” Carnegie was adept at twisting almost any situation to serve his agenda; in this case, he used a family elopement to swipe at the privileged class. Unable to stomach family infighting, he set about playing arbitrator; but Lucy, as he knew she would be, was stubborn. She had grander designs in mind for her children, and eventually her branch of the Carnegie family would marry into the Rockefellers.
Not until October did he negotiate—in public—peace between Lucy and Nancy. As part of the settlement, he presented his niece and her husband, who now had a baby in addition to his two children, with a hundred-acre estate on Long Island.19 Always quick to intertwine his life with the nation’s, Carnegie noted with particular satisfaction that while he was settling the family conflict, Roosevelt mediated the peace treaty between Japan and Russia, which was signed on September 5.
While Carnegie slowly became more vested in peace work, he didn’t abandon his gospel. In 1905, he returned to his central theme of planting seeds for higher education. As of 1904, his total benefactions were just over $100 million, and Carnegie still had more than $200 million to dispense with—it was time to accelerate the munificence, it was time for a grand gesture.20 It would result in a benefaction the ever-sarcastic and caustic Mark Twain actually thought Carnegie deserved a halo for, one that would provide the Scotsman with another chance to assuage any guilt he felt in forsaking his radical ancestors. It would also create the greatest public furor since his retirement.
The canny president of MIT, Henry Pritchett, had planted the idea while visiting Skibo in 1904, when, in discussing the American educational system, he pointed out that one of its major faults was the poor salaries and absence of pensions. Now Carnegie wasn’t going to augment salaries, but because he had already created the Relief Fund, a pension plan for teachers at universities, colleges, and technical schools was an idea to which he could become easily attached. It was a natural extension of his work, especially considering he had already supplied buildings, facilities, equipment, grants for research, and tuition aid through other endowments. In April 1905, he created the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, appointed Pritchett president, and signed on a host of brilliant and devoted trustees, including Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia; Woodrow Wilson; banker Frank Vanderlip; Robert Franks; and his nephew, T. Morris Carnegie, among others. He endowed the pension fund with $10 million of his 5 percent bonds and he added $5 million the next year as the foundation extended the pensions to widows of college professors. (Schwab, busy rehabilitating himself as president of Bethlehem Steel, was in Carnegie’s library when the deed was signed and recalled that immediately afterward his mentor, still an avid penny-pincher, looked up, realized unnecessary lights were on, and turned them off.)
In the deed letter, Carnegie included a most interesting but not entirely unexpected clause: no aid was to be given to sectarian institutions. There would be nothing for schools under control of a sect that decreed its trustees, officers, faculty, or students must be members of a particular church.21 This clause was untouchable; and Pritchett, for one, agreed wholeheartedly with it. To ensure its enforcement, a questionnaire was designed to weed out those sectarian colleges and universities, as well as those that were financially unstable or academically too weak. Initially, it was sent to 627 institutions; of the 421 replies, only 52 were accepted. An immediate cry of dissent erupted from the hallowed halls of academia. Those presidents who desired inclusion but whose schools were rejected protested, as did Carnegie’s detractors who disdained the intrusion of a capitalist into their sacred realm. It was a replay of the Scottish universities trust. Representing the opposition were statements by a renowned historian at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. John Bach McMaster, who declared he didn’t want to be patronized or pauperized by Carnegie.
When William Jennings Bryan, an alumnus and a trustee of Illinois College, le
arned his school had been accepted, he fought participation; and when the school’s president took the pensions, he resigned. “Our college cannot serve God and Mammon,” Bryan wrote in his resignation letter. “It cannot be a college for the people and at the same time commend itself to the commercial highwaymen who are now subsidizing the colleges to prevent the teaching of economical truth. It grieves me to have my alma mater converted into an ally of plutocracy, but having done what I could to prevent it, I have no other resource than to withdraw from its management.”22 Bryan’s position was expected—he and Carnegie had had a nasty falling out years earlier— and “Our college cannot serve God and Mammon” became the popular cry among critics.
College and university presidents and provosts generally differed with the likes of Bryan. They believed the foundation would rightfully reward faithful teachers who had been unable to save for retirement and stimulate scholarly work since teachers wouldn’t be distracted by the specter of future destitution. Nicholas Murray Butler considered it Carnegie’s most important benefaction yet because not just the teachers benefited.23 Some of the rejected schools raised their admission and academic standards to qualify in the mad scramble for pension money, thus benefiting students and the educational system as a whole. The Carnegie Foundation also took an unexpected turn, morphing into a form of bribe for a college or university to change its charter by eliminating any sectarian connections or requirements. Once Carnegie perceived this unintended effect, he played it the hilt to create a secularization revolution. As he explained to one university president, in his travels around the world he had discovered that denominationalism resulted in destructive competition as one sect condemned the other.24 He refused to compromise for even the president of the United States.
