Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
_vice-versa_. I felt as if we were moles burrowing in the dark, and
this to me was intolerable. I insisted upon such a system of weighing
and accounting being introduced throughout our works as would enable
us to know what our cost was for each process and especially what each
man was doing, who saved material, who wasted it, and who produced the
best results.
To arrive at this was a much more difficult task than one would
imagine. Every manager in the mills was naturally against the new
system. Years were required before an accurate system was obtained,
but eventually, by the aid of many clerks and the introduction of
weighing scales at various points in the mill, we began to know not
only what every department was doing, but what each one of the many
men working at the furnaces was doing, and thus to compare one with
another. One of the chief sources of success in manufacturing is the
introduction and strict maintenance of a perfect system of accounting
so that responsibility for money or materials can be brought home to
every man. Owners who, in the office, would not trust a clerk with
five dollars without having a check upon him, were supplying tons of
material daily to men in the mills without exacting an account of
their stewardship by weighing what each returned in the finished
form.
The Siemens Gas Furnace had been used to some extent in Great Britain
for heating steel and iron, but it was supposed to be too expensive. I
well remember the criticisms made by older heads among the Pittsburgh
manufacturers about the extravagant expenditure we were making upon
these new-fangled furnaces. But in the heating of great masses of
material, almost half the waste could sometimes be saved by using the
new furnaces. The expenditure would have been justified, even if it
had been doubled. Yet it was many years before we were followed in
this new departure; and in some of those years the margin of profit
was so small that the most of it was made up from the savings derived
from the adoption of the improved furnaces.
Our strict system of accounting enabled us to detect the great waste
possible in heating large masses of iron. This improvement revealed to
us a valuable man in a clerk, William Borntraeger, a distant relative
of Mr. Kloman, who came from Germany. He surprised us one day by
presenting a detailed statement showing results for a period, which
seemed incredible. All the needed labor in preparing this statement he
had performed at night unasked and unknown to us. The form adapted was
uniquely original. Needless to say, William soon became superintendent
of the works and later a partner, and the poor German lad died a
millionaire. He well deserved his fortune.
It was in 1862 that the great oil wells of Pennsylvania attracted
attention. My friend Mr. William Coleman, whose daughter became, at a
later date, my sister-in-law, was deeply interested in the discovery,
and nothing would do but that I should take a trip with him to the oil
regions. It was a most interesting excursion. There had been a rush to
the oil fields and the influx was so great that it was impossible for
all to obtain shelter. This, however, to the class of men who flocked
thither, was but a slight drawback. A few hours sufficed to knock up a
shanty, and it was surprising in how short a time they were able to
surround themselves with many of the comforts of life. They were men
above the average, men who had saved considerable sums and were able
to venture something in the search for fortune.
What surprised me was the good humor which prevailed everywhere. It
was a vast picnic, full of amusing incidents. Everybody was in high
glee; fortunes were supposedly within reach; everything was booming.
On the tops of the derricks floated flags on which strange mottoes
were displayed. I remember looking down toward the river and seeing
two men working their treadles boring for oil upon the banks of the
stream, and inscribed upon their flag was "Hell or China." They were
going down, no matter how far.
The adaptability of the American was never better displayed than in
this region. Order was soon evolved out of chaos. When we visited the
place not long after we were serenaded by a brass band the players of
which were made up of the new inhabitants along the creek. It would be
safe to wager that a thousand Americans in a new land would organize
themselves, establish schools, churches, newspapers, and brass
bands--in short, provide themselves with all the appliances of
civilization--and go ahead developing their country before an equal
number of British would have discovered who among them was the highest
in hereditary rank and had the best claims to leadership owing to his
grandfather. There is but one rule among Americans--the tools to those
who can use them.
To-day Oil Creek is a town of many thousand inhabitants, as is also
Titusville at the other end of the creek. The district which began by
furnishing a few barrels of oil every season, gathered with blankets
from the surface of the creek by the Seneca Indians, has now several
towns and refineries, with millions of dollars of capital. In those
early days all the arrangements were of the crudest character. When
the oil was obtained it was run into flat-bottomed boats which leaked
badly. Water ran into the boats and the oil overflowed into the river.
The creek was dammed at various places, and upon a stipulated day and
hour the dams were opened and upon the flood the oil boats floated to
the Allegheny River, and thence to Pittsburgh.
In this way not only the creek, but the Allegheny River, became
literally covered with oil. The loss involved in transportation to
Pittsburgh was estimated at fully a third of the total quantity, and
before the oil boats started it is safe to say that another third was
lost by leakage. The oil gathered by the Indians in the early days was
bottled in Pittsburgh and sold at high prices as medicine--a dollar
for a small vial. It had general reputation as a sure cure for
rheumatic tendencies. As it became plentiful and cheap its virtues
vanished. What fools we mortals be!
The most celebrated wells were upon the Storey farm. Upon these we
obtained an option of purchase for forty thousand dollars. We bought
them. Mr. Coleman, ever ready at suggestion, proposed to make a lake
of oil by excavating a pool sufficient to hold a hundred thousand
barrels (the waste to be made good every day by running streams of oil
into it), and to hold it for the not far distant day when, as we then
expected, the oil supply would cease. This was promptly acted upon,
but after losing many thousands of barrels waiting for the expected
day (which has not yet arrived) we abandoned the reserve. Coleman
predicted that when the supply stopped, oil would bring ten dollars a
barrel and therefore we would have a million dollars worth in the
lake. We did not think then of Nature's storehouse below which still
keeps on yielding many thousands of barrels per day without apparent
exhaustion.
This forty-thousand-dollar investment proved for us the best of all so
far. The revenues from it came at the most opportune time.[28] The
building of the new mill in Pittsburgh required not only all the
capital we could gather, but the use of our credit, which I consider,
looking backward, was remarkably good for young men.
[Footnote 28: The wells on the Storey farm paid in one year a million
dollars in cash and dividends, and the farm itself eventually became
worth, on a stock basis, five million dollars.]
Having become interested in this oil venture, I made several
excursions to the district and also, in 1864, to an oil field in Ohio
where a great well had been struck which yielded a peculiar quality of
oil well fitted for lubricating purposes. My journey thither with Mr.
Coleman and Mr. David Ritchie was one of the strangest experiences I
ever had. We left the railway line some hundreds of miles from
Pittsburgh and plunged through a sparsely inhabited district to the
waters of Duck Creek to see the monster well. We bought it before
leaving.
It was upon our return that adventures began. The weather had been
fine and the roads quite passable during our journey thither, but rain
had set in during our stay. We started back in our wagon, but before
going far fell into difficulties. The road had become a mass of soft,
tenacious mud and our wagon labored fearfully. The rain fell in
torrents, and it soon became evident that we were in for a night of
it. Mr. Coleman lay at full length on one side of the wagon, and Mr.
Ritchie on the other, and I, being then very thin, weighing not much
more than a hundred pounds, was nicely sandwiched between the two
portly gentlemen. Every now and then the wagon proceeded a few feet
heaving up and down in the most outrageous manner, and finally
sticking fast. In this fashion we passed the night. There was in front
a seat across the wagon, under which we got our heads, and in spite of
our condition the night was spent in uproarious merriment.
By the next night we succeeded in reaching a country town in the worst
possible plight. We saw the little frame church of the town lighted
and heard the bell ringing. We had just reached our tavern when a
committee appeared stating that they had been waiting for us and that
the congregation was assembled. It appears that a noted exhorter had
been expected who had no doubt been delayed as we had been. I was
taken for the absentee minister and asked how soon I would be ready to
accompany them to the meeting-house. I was almost prepared with my
companions to carry out the joke (we were in for fun), but I found I
was too exhausted with fatigue to attempt it. I had never before come
so near occupying a pulpit.
My investments now began to require so much of my personal attention
that I resolved to leave the service of the railway company and devote
myself exclusively to my own affairs. I had been honored a short time
before this decision by being called by President Thomson to
Philadelphia. He desired to promote me to the office of assistant
general superintendent with headquarters at Altoona under Mr. Lewis. I
declined, telling him that I had decided to give up the railroad
service altogether, that I was determined to make a fortune and I saw
no means of doing this honestly at any salary the railroad company
could afford to give, and I would not do it by indirection. When I lay
down at night I was going to get a verdict of approval from the
highest of all tribunals, the judge within.
I repeated this in my parting letter to President Thomson, who warmly
congratulated me upon it in his letter of reply. I resigned my
position March 28, 1865, and received from the men on the railway a
gold watch. This and Mr. Thomson's letter I treasure among my most
precious mementos.
The following letter was written to the men on the Division:
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY
SUPERINTENDENT'S OFFICE, PITTSBURGH DIVISION
PITTSBURGH, _March 28, 1865_
To the Officers and Employees of the Pittsburgh Division
GENTLEMEN:
I cannot allow my connection with you to cease without some
expression of the deep regret felt at parting.
Twelve years of pleasant intercourse have served to inspire
feelings of personal regard for those who have so faithfully
labored with me in the service of the Company. The coming
change is painful only as I reflect that in consequence
thereof I am not to be in the future, as in the past,
intimately associated with you and with many others in the
various departments, who have through business intercourse,
become my personal friends. I assure you although the
official relations hitherto existing between us must soon