Carnegie

by Peter Krass

  Another major undertaking by the institution was the launching of the Carnegie, a uniquely designed brigantine with auxiliary power that would ultimately sail nearly four hundred thousand miles, charting the oceans. The hull was made of wood, and all the metalwork was of nonmagnetic bronze or copper to eliminate any interference with the magnetic compasses used. Without a doubt, the chart work saved untold lives, and the innovative boat fired Carnegie’s competitive spirit as he sought to secure his place, and the Republic’s place, in scientific history.

  “The declared object of the Carnegie Institution was to attain preeminence if possible in investigations, discovery, etc., for the Republic,” he wrote his newly elected president of the institution, Robert Woodward. “I quite agree with you that the money given in Britain, as far as I know, is not well managed. Too many doctrinaires and too little managing ability. My impression is that rather than assist projects already started, if the Carnegie Institution does anything in foreign lands it should be in some new field, where success will be credited to the Republic. Rivalry between nations is beneficent when it is rivalry for good ends.”14

  At the time the institution was making great strides, Carnegie’s Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching provided another unforeseen benefit. One of the staff members, Abraham Flexner, was charged with evaluating medical schools to determine if they were worthy of pension money. What he discovered disturbed him. A zealot, he visited some 155 schools personally and concluded that their quality was scandalously poor; many were merely degree factories run for profit. One school’s physiology lab consisted of nothing but a pulse-taking device; another school had not one scrap of scientific apparatus; and of the 155 medical schools, only 23 required more than a high school diploma for matriculation. Flexner issued a scathing report evaluating facilities and teaching staff; if he believed the institution was purely a money-making scam, he said so. That prompted one of the schools to sue the foundation for “injuring its business.” The 1910 “Flexner Report” had a definite, positive impact on improving the quality of medical education; so much so that John D. Rockefeller’s vigilant minister of philanthropy, Frederick Gates, recruited Flexner to help manage Rockefeller’s medical benefactions.

  Not all of Carnegie’s endeavors were a success. The spelling-reform movement died a quiet death, much to the pleasure of Whitelaw Reid, who called it a “fictitious movement.” A retort from Carnegie was quick in coming: “Amused at your calling improved spelling movement ‘a fictitious movement’ . . . move up, move on before old age comes—don’t be an old fogey—if you can help it.”15 But by 1911, what movement there had been was faltering badly, and the trustees of his foundations, once ordered to use the reformed words, were rebelling. “You will see from this report that in deference to my eminent colleagues of the Executive Committee and the Board of Trustees I have taken what we would call a step backwards in reference to spelling,” Carnegie Institution of Washington president Woodward informed him. “My experiment with the two proceeding reports met with a degree of disfavor which was unanticipated. . . . I have concluded that the relatively small question of the spelling of the English language should not be allowed to jeopardize the larger interests of the Institution.”16 Less than four years later, Carnegie, who continued to use the revised spellings, cut off funding for the Simplified Spelling Board. Spiteful and quick to place the blame elsewhere, he wrote Henry Holt: “A more useless body of men never came into association, judging from the effects they produced. . . . I think I hav been patient long enuf. . . . I have a much better use for the Twenty-five thousand dollars a year.”17

  Another flash of Carnegie’s that failed at this time was model housing for the poor. It was a revelation that came thirty years too late. In 1911, he finally recognized that libraries did not bring indoor plumbing, sewage systems, and better living conditions to the submerged tenth, the destitute. Like Horace Greeley had sixty years earlier, he realized certain segments of society simply could not help themselves. Newly inspired, Carnegie was now actually willing to break from his dictum of only helping those who help themselves. He wrote Ross in Dunfermline, “I know of no way of diffusing sweetness and lite more easily and practically than by improving housing conditions among the poor.”18 But he had picked the wrong country in which to build model houses: class-conscious Britain would not tolerate un-natural uplifting of the lower classes. “Where is this experiment to stop?” Ross responded shrilly. Ross feared antagonizing powerful landowners, even though he agreed that “the improvement of houses for the poorer classes is one of the most urgent social needs.”19 To overcome the annoying objections that always seemed to plague politicians and the narrow-minded, Carnegie suggested fixing up existing houses as long as landlords pledged not to raise the rent.20 The trustees, who distrusted any program smelling of social revolution, essentially ignored the suggestion. It was their prerogative.

  As time passed, Ross and other trustees of Carnegie’s foundations sought greater autonomy and became more resentful of his meddling. Slowly and sadly, Carnegie was being locked out of what he had created.

  Another conflict arose with Ross when, in January 1913, the Dunfermline Trust approved an extension for the library, Carnegie’s first library building, a structure he held sacred. Under the impression the extension was to be for scholars and researchers alone, Carnegie, already miffed his library was to be tampered with, argued that it was a pitiable use of funds because it would serve such a narrowly defined group. Ross, incensed that Carnegie was once again attempting to impose his views on what was supposed to be an independent board of trustees, censured the benefactor for his intrusion. An injured Carnegie, who would never mellow with age, responded:

  You surely regret the words you have riten me but I forgive you. . . . Has it come to this, that I cannot be permitted to forcibly express my feelings? I have had and am having as much experience as you with Libraries for the Masses which is what I consider most important. Libraries for antiquarians are within reach of Dunfermline as I point out—not for working man as you have it. My Friend, beware of the weaknesses of old age—which as I begin to learn from experience sometimes betray us into regretful words or action against those we love and honor most. I have laid aside your letter, sad, indeed, feeling that I have not deserved at your hands such a blow—not angry, no, no—but oh so sorry.21

  Both could be crotchety old men and the conflict passed quickly by, for less than a month later Carnegie, who had stormy relationships with so many, was sharing intimate feelings with Ross. After revising his will and setting up trusts for Louise and Margaret, the next month he admitted to Ross, “The final dispensation of one’s wealth preparing for the final exit is I found a heavy task—all sad—deep regrets that one isn’t allowed to live here in this heaven on earth forever, which it is to me. None other satisfactory . . . You have no idea the strain I have been under.”22 But Carnegie had no intention of going quietly into the night.

  Carnegie also came into conflict with the Carnegie Corporation trustees. As an afterthought, in 1912, he decided to found a Carnegie Corporation– like foundation in Britain called the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, to be headquartered in Dunfermline under Ross’s eye. There was just one problem: he had run out of money. Well, there was still $25 million in the bank, but it had been set aside for the family and sundry bequests he desired to make on his demise. The best course, he decided, was simply to take $10 million from the Carnegie Corporation, so he submitted his request to Henry Pritchett, who was now heading the organization. It wasn’t that easy, Pritchett explained, for only the trustees could make such a decision, and their decision would be limited to the deed of the endowment. In fact, the deed limited the scope of the corporation’s activities to aiding the people of the United States, so the answer was no. Unwilling to accept no, Carnegie went to Root for support, but Root concurred with Pritchett.

  Determined to found the United Kingdom Trust, the next year he appropriated $10 million of his U.S. Steel bo
nds, and in the deed he charged that the income was to be used “for the improvement of the well-being of the masses of the people of Great Britain and Ireland, by such means as are embraced within the meaning of the word ‘charitable,’ according to Scotch or English law, and which the Trustees may from time to time select as best fitted from age to age for securing these purposes, remembering that new needs are constantly arising as the masses advance.”23 As with the Carnegie Corporation, the trustees were given a free hand, but the trust’s initial work focused on Carnegie’s existing programs: the building of libraries, especially in rural areas, and the shoring up of existing libraries. Other priorities included donating public baths and organs and sponsoring musical competitions. By 1917, social welfare and health projects were being funded, projects desperately needed by citizens on both sides of the Atlantic for decades, only to have been ignored by robber barons focused on haute culture.

  Carnegie was forced to realize that his days as an influential adviser in politics and charity were coming to a close and he didn’t relish entering his twilight; as he told Ross, “deep regrets that one isn’t allowed to live here in this heaven on earth forever.” Carnegie’s life had always been a tight cycle of emotional ups and downs—extremely fluctuant waves if charted on graph paper. Now was a depressed period, particularly so in the wake of creating the Carnegie Corporation and with the arbitration treaties floundering in the Senate. To make matters worse, the House of Representatives was investigating U.S. Steel, and Taft’s attorney general charged the company with violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. Carnegie, retired for a dozen years, was named a codefendant. It was unthinkable.

  Notes

  1. “Carnegie on the Verge of Seventy,” Current Literature (May 1907).

  2. Charles S. Gleed, “Andrew Carnegie,” Cosmopolitan 33 (July 1902).

  3. “Pittsburgh and Carnegie,” Independent (April 11, 1907), p. 865.

  4. Goodenough, p. 48; “Pittsburgh and Carnegie,” p. 864.

  5. “Fifty Million Dollars,” Collier’s (June 5, 1909).

  6. AC to John Ross, December 23, 1908, quoted in Hendrick, Carnegie, vol. 2, p. 175.

  7. John D. Rockefeller Jr. to AC, May 8, 1909, ACLOC, vol. 166; John D. Rockefeller Jr. to AC, June 23, 1909, ACLOC, vol. 167.

  8. Chernow, p. 474.

  9. Joseph Frazier Wall, Skibo (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 87.

  10. Fabian, p. 8.

  11. Goodenough, p. 153.

  12. A Manual of the Public Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie, pp. 206–207; Goodenough, pp. 153–154.

  13. Hendrick, Carnegie, vol. 2, p. 240.

  14. AC to Robert S. Woodward, September 28, 1909, ACLOC, vol. 170.

  15. AC to Whitelaw Reid, October 11, 1909, ACLOC, vol. 170.

  16. Robert S. Woodward to AC, November 18, 1911, ACLOC, vol. 200.

  17. AC to Henry Holt, February 25, 1915, ACLOC, vol. 238.

  18. AC to John Ross, February 25, 1911, ACLOC, vol. 188.

  19. John Ross to AC, March 9, 1911, ACLOC, vol. 189.

  20. AC to John Ross, March 22, 1911, ACLOC, vol. 189.

  21. AC to John Ross, January 14, 1913, ACLOC, vol. 212.

  22. AC to John Ross, February 11, 1913, ACLOC, vol. 213.

  23. A Manual of the Public Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie, p. 222.

  CHAPTER 35

  House of Cards

  Back in May 1911, the House of Representatives had appointed a committee, chaired by Augustus Stanley of Kentucky, to investigate the history of U.S. Steel and alleged violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. As evidence of monopolistic behavior mounted, Taft came under pressure to act, and on October 27 Carnegie picked up the morning newspaper to discover the attorney general had filed suit against U.S. Steel, as well as against other officers and him. His lawyer, D. A. Reed, had warned Carnegie the prior week about the impending charges, but considered them unwarranted.1 Reed then arranged a deal in which the government agreed to drop the rather senseless charges against Carnegie in exchange for his testimony as a witness, a worrisome development for Elbert H. Gary and Pierpont Morgan, considering the Scotsman had long ago proved himself a verbal loose cannon. Subsequently, Carnegie was subpoenaed to appear before the Stanley Committee in mid-January.

  Louise and he spent New Year’s Eve at their cottage on St. Andrew’s golf course in Yonkers, and they decided to make the traditional rounds on New Year’s Day. They visited with the Rockefellers, who were six miles away in Pocantico Hills, near North Tarrytown, where Rockefeller owned a weekend escape on three thousand acres overlooking the Hudson River that included a twelve-hole golf course he had plowed in winter so he could play. (Rockafel-low was, after all, Carnegie’s kind of man.) A tall and spare Rockefeller, smiling as he greeted them, had just finished riding and was wearing a paper jacket for warding off the cold wind. He promptly presented the Carnegies a paper jacket each and two large photographs of himself. Indulging in the friendship that day, Carnegie was gloating nine days later when, recounting his ore deal before the Stanley Committee, he proceeded to say, “Don’t you know, it does my heart good to think I got ahead of John D. Rockefeller on a bargain.”

  It was the tenth day of January, a Wednesday, when Carnegie climbed the steps of the Capitol as sprightly as he could to testify before the committee. Dressed for a funeral, in a dark suit, he appeared rather jovial as he once again mounted the stage in the grandest of theaters. Here he could play both the coy operator and the lovable, doddering old man. He attempted to open with a soliloquy on the history of steel, only Chairman Stanley insisted on interrupting with anticipatory questions that resulted in the dialogue disintegrating into a marginal comedy with Carnegie’s personal counsel opening the routine:

  MR. REED: I think you are just a step ahead of Mr. Carnegie’s story,

  Mr. Chairman, if you will permit me to suggest it.

  THE CHAIRMAN: Very well. Do not let me anticipate.

  MR. CARNEGIE: Yes. If you would let me go right along, I would prefer to continue my story first, and then you can ask me questions.

  THE CHAIRMAN: Very well. I will not interrupt you.

  MR. CARNEGIE: Where was I?

  He was reminded and the story continued; but of course, a moment later the chairman again interrupted with a question and Carnegie again forgot where he was in his story.2 The stenographer read back Carnegie’s last sentence— that is, before the previous exchange. In this polite clash of egos, the substance of the story mattered little (everyone already knew the story); it was victory in the verbal fencing that took the day.

  After two days of Carnegie on the stand, one exasperated congressman declared, “We have been sitting here for two days and we have learned nothing.” A quiet chuckle shook Carnegie’s frame. That was precisely what he intended; after all, as he told the investigators again and again, his memory was too faulty to commit to details when under oath. The newspapers noted that Carnegie, while entertaining, didn’t seem to get “anywhere in particular” and was simply “enjoying his own reminisces.”3 Carnegie not only suppressed information, but he lied. When told the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890, he appeared surprised, according to one newspaper correspondent, and claimed he didn’t hear of it until much later. However, in 1890 he was very much involved in the trust debate and had even written essays on the topic. He also insisted he never studied the Carnegie Company’s books and was not apprised of any of the details in running the business, which was a bold-faced lie considering how meticulously oppressive he was in monitoring all facets of the operations. Revisionist history aside, even his severest critics had to appreciate how deftly he fenced with the Stanley Committee. A mutual friend of Stanley and Carnegie wrote the latter: “I long ago told Stanley he would catch a tartar when he caught you; and I guess by this time he too thinks so.”4

  As for the government’s case against U.S. Steel, in 1920 the Supreme Court would find in favor of the company.

  Old wounds were once again ripped open
by the hearings and the lawsuit. Based on revelations provided during the testimony, Bridge decided to revise his book—The Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Company—and in April asked for Carnegie’s cooperation. Even though Bridge admitted to being misled on certain issues, Carnegie wanted no part.5 Behind his jocular thrusts and parries with the Stanley Committee, there was a pained soul still haunted by the past. Like a mortally wounded sinner desperately seeking redemption, Carnegie wrote Alexander Peacock (as he had Lovejoy) in desperate hopes of finding that missing telegram in which Amalgamated leader Hugh O’Donnell begged the kind master to instruct them as to what to do during the Homestead strike. “It seems to me that ritely managed,” he wrote within days of hearing from Bridge, “those who had part in signing that cablegram would be glad to pass into history as having shown friendly relations between the chief owner and themselves. It mite be presented to them in this lite, I am sure. Explain fully that what I wish is to leav a record of the past and is not to be publisht at present.” If the cable could not be found and if those who signed would not testify, Carnegie suggested to Peacock that perhaps he should testify to the existence of the cable.6