Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
the West had learned to read by sound and could really take a message
by ear. This led me to practice the new method. One of the operators
in the office, Mr. Maclean, became expert at it, and encouraged me by
his success. I was surprised at the ease with which I learned the new
language. One day, desiring to take a message in the absence of the
operator, the old gentleman who acted as copyist resented my
presumption and refused to "copy" for a messenger boy. I shut off the
paper slip, took pencil and paper and began taking the message by ear.
I shall never forget his surprise. He ordered me to give him back his
pencil and pad, and after that there was never any difficulty between
dear old Courtney Hughes and myself. He was my devoted friend and
copyist.
Soon after this incident Joseph Taylor, the operator at Greensburg,
thirty miles from Pittsburgh, wishing to be absent for two weeks,
asked Mr. Brooks if he could not send some one to take his place. Mr.
Brooks called me and asked whether I thought I could do the work. I
replied at once in the affirmative.
"Well," he said, "we will send you out there for a trial."
I went out in the mail stage and had a most delightful trip. Mr. David
Bruce, a well-known solicitor of Scottish ancestry, and his sister
happened to be passengers. It was my first excursion, and my first
glimpse of the country. The hotel at Greensburg was the first public
house in which I had ever taken a meal. I thought the food wonderfully
fine.
This was in 1852. Deep cuts and embankments near Greensburg were then
being made for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and I often walked out in
the early morning to see the work going forward, little dreaming that
I was so soon to enter the service of that great corporation. This
was the first responsible position I had occupied in the telegraph
service, and I was so anxious to be at hand in case I should be
needed, that one night very late I sat in the office during a storm,
not wishing to cut off the connection. I ventured too near the key and
for my boldness was knocked off my stool. A flash of lightning very
nearly ended my career. After that I was noted in the office for
caution during lightning storms. I succeeded in doing the small
business at Greensburg to the satisfaction of my superiors, and
returned to Pittsburgh surrounded with something like a halo, so far
as the other boys were concerned. Promotion soon came. A new operator
was wanted and Mr. Brooks telegraphed to my afterward dear friend
James D. Reid, then general superintendent of the line, another fine
specimen of the Scotsman, and took upon himself to recommend me as an
assistant operator. The telegram from Louisville in reply stated that
Mr. Reid highly approved of promoting "Andy," provided Mr. Brooks
considered him competent. The result was that I began as a telegraph
operator at the tremendous salary of twenty-five dollars per month,
which I thought a fortune. To Mr. Brooks and Mr. Reid I owe my
promotion from the messenger's station to the operating-room.[18] I
was then in my seventeenth year and had served my apprenticeship. I
was now performing a man's part, no longer a boy's--earning a dollar
every working day.
[Footnote 18: "I liked the boy's looks, and it was very 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." (James
D. Reid, _The Telegraph in America_, New York, 1879.)
Reid was born near Dunfermline and forty years afterwards Mr. Carnegie
was able to secure for him the appointment of United States Consul at
Dunfermline.]
The operating-room of a telegraph office is an excellent school for a
young man. He there has to do with pencil and paper, with composition
and invention. And there my slight knowledge of British and European
affairs soon stood me in good stead. Knowledge is sure to prove useful
in one way or another. It always tells. The foreign news was then
received by wire from Cape Race, and the taking of successive "steamer
news" was one of the most notable of our duties. I liked this better
than any other branch of the work, and it was soon tacitly assigned to
me.
The lines in those days worked poorly, and during a storm much had to
be guessed at. My guessing powers were said to be phenomenal, and it
was my favorite diversion to fill up gaps instead of interrupting the
sender and spending minutes over a lost word or two. This was not a
dangerous practice in regard to foreign news, for if any undue
liberties were taken by the bold operator, they were not of a
character likely to bring him into serious trouble. My knowledge of
foreign affairs became somewhat extensive, especially regarding the
affairs of Britain, and my guesses were quite safe, if I got the first
letter or two right.
The Pittsburgh newspapers had each been in the habit of sending a
reporter to the office to transcribe the press dispatches. Later on
one man was appointed for all the papers and he suggested that
multiple copies could readily be made of the news as received, and it
was arranged that I should make five copies of all press dispatches
for him as extra work for which he was to pay me a dollar per week.
This, my first work for the press, yielded very modest remuneration,
to be sure; but it made my salary thirty dollars per month, and every
dollar counted in those days. The family was gradually gaining
ground; already future millionairedom seemed dawning.
Another step which exercised a decided influence over me was joining
the "Webster Literary Society" along with my companions, the trusty
five already named. We formed a select circle and stuck closely
together. This was quite an advantage for all of us. We had before
this formed a small debating club which met in Mr. Phipps's father's
room in which his few journeymen shoemakers worked during the day. Tom
Miller recently alleged that I once spoke nearly an hour and a half
upon the question, "Should the judiciary be elected by the people?"
but we must mercifully assume his memory to be at fault. The "Webster"
was then the foremost club in the city and proud were we to be thought
fit for membership. We had merely been preparing ourselves in the
cobbler's room.
I know of no better mode of benefiting a youth than joining such a
club as this. Much of my reading became such as had a bearing on
forthcoming debates and that gave clearness and fixity to my ideas.
The self-possession I afterwards came to have before an audience may
very safely be attributed to the experience of the "Webster Society."
My two rules for speaking then (and now) were: Make yourself perfectly
at home before your audience, and simply talk _to_ them, not _at_
them. Do not try to be somebody else; be your own self and _talk_,
never "orate" until you can't help it.
I finally became an operator by sound, discarding printing entirely.
The accomplishment was then so rare that people visited the office to
be satisfied of the extraordinary feat. This brought me into such
notice that when a great flood destroyed all telegraph communication
between Steubenville and Wheeling, a distance of twenty-five miles, I
was sent to the former town to receive the entire business then
passing between the East and the West, and to send every hour or two
the dispatches in small boats down the river to Wheeling. In exchange
every returning boat brought rolls of dispatches which I wired East,
and in this way for more than a week the entire telegraphic
communication between the East and the West _via_ Pittsburgh was
maintained.
While at Steubenville I learned that my father was going to Wheeling
and Cincinnati to sell the tablecloths he had woven. I waited for the
boat, which did not arrive till late in the evening, and went down to
meet him. I remember how deeply affected I was on finding that instead
of taking a cabin passage, he had resolved not to pay the price, but
to go down the river as a deck passenger. I was indignant that one of
so fine a nature should be compelled to travel thus. But there was
comfort in saying:
"Well, father, it will not be long before mother and you shall ride in
your carriage."
My father was usually shy, reserved, and keenly sensitive, very saving
of praise (a Scotch trait) lest his sons might be too greatly
uplifted; but when touched he lost his self-control. He was so upon
this occasion, and grasped my hand with a look which I often see and
can never forget. He murmured slowly:
"Andra, I am proud of you."
The voice trembled and he seemed ashamed of himself for saying so
much. The tear had to be wiped from his eye, I fondly noticed, as he
bade me good-night and told me to run back to my office. Those words
rang in my ear and warmed my heart for years and years. We understood
each other. How reserved the Scot is! Where he feels most he
expresses least. Quite right. There are holy depths which it is
sacrilege to disturb. Silence is more eloquent than words. My father
was one of the most lovable of men, beloved of his companions, deeply
religious, although non-sectarian and non-theological, not much of a
man of the world, but a man all over for heaven. He was kindness
itself, although reserved. Alas! he passed away soon after returning
from this Western tour just as we were becoming able to give him a
life of leisure and comfort.
After my return to Pittsburgh it was not long before I made the
acquaintance of an extraordinary man, Thomas A. Scott, one to whom the
term "genius" in his department may safely be applied. He had come to
Pittsburgh as superintendent of that division of the Pennsylvania
Railroad. Frequent telegraphic communication was necessary between him
and his superior, Mr. Lombaert, general superintendent at Altoona.
This brought him to the telegraph office at nights, and upon several
occasions I happened to be the operator. One day I was surprised by
one of his assistants, with whom I was acquainted, telling me that Mr.
Scott had asked him whether he thought that I could be obtained as his
clerk and telegraph operator, to which this young man told me he had
replied:
"That is impossible. He is now an operator."
But when I heard this I said at once:
"Not so fast. He can have me. I want to get out of a mere office life.
Please go and tell him so."
The result was I was engaged February 1, 1853, at a salary of
thirty-five dollars a month as Mr. Scott's clerk and operator. A raise
in wages from twenty-five to thirty-five dollars per month was the
greatest I had ever known. The public telegraph line was temporarily
put into Mr. Scott's office at the outer depot and the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company was given permission to use the wire at seasons when
such use would not interfere with the general public business, until
their own line, then being built, was completed.
CHAPTER VI
RAILROAD SERVICE
From the operating-room of the telegraph office I had now stepped into
the open world, and the change at first was far from agreeable. I had
just reached my eighteenth birthday, and I do not see how it could be
possible for any boy to arrive at that age much freer from a knowledge
of anything but what was pure and good. I do not believe, up to that
time, I had ever spoken a bad word in my life and seldom heard one. I
knew nothing of the base and the vile. Fortunately I had always been
brought in contact with good people.
I was now plunged at once into the company of coarse men, for the
office was temporarily only a portion of the shops and the
headquarters for the freight conductors, brakemen, and firemen. All of
them had access to the same room with Superintendent Scott and myself,