Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Principal Donaldson of St. Andrews was surely inspired when he thought
of it!
My unanimous reelection by the students of St. Andrews, without a
contest for a second term, was deeply appreciated. And I liked the
Rector's nights, when the students claim him for themselves, no member
of the faculty being invited. We always had a good time. After the
first one, Principal Donaldson gave me the verdict of the Secretary as
rendered to him: "Rector So-and-So talked _to_ us, Rector Thus-and-So
talked _at_ us, both from the platform; Mr. Carnegie sat down in our
circle and talked _with_ us."
The question of aid to our own higher educational institutions often
intruded itself upon me, but my belief was that our chief
universities, such as Harvard and Columbia, with five to ten thousand
students,[49] were large enough; that further growth was undesirable;
that the smaller institutions (the colleges especially) were in
greater need of help and that it would be a better use of surplus
wealth to aid them. Accordingly, I afterwards confined myself to these
and am satisfied that this was wise. At a later date we found Mr.
Rockefeller's splendid educational fund, The General Education Board,
and ourselves were working in this fruitful field without
consultation, with sometimes undesirable results. Mr. Rockefeller
wished me to join his board and this I did. Cooeperation was soon found
to be much to our mutual advantage, and we now work in unison.
[Footnote 49: Columbia University in 1920 numbered all told some
25,000 students in the various departments.]
In giving to colleges quite a number of my friends have been honored
as was my partner Charlie Taylor. Conway Hall at Dickinson College,
was named for Moncure D. Conway, whose Autobiography, recently
published, is pronounced "literature" by the "Athenaeum." It says:
"These two volumes lie on the table glistening like gems 'midst the
piles of autobiographical rubbish by which they are surrounded." That
is rather suggestive for one who is adding to the pile.
The last chapter in Mr. Conway's Autobiography ends with the following
paragraph:
Implore Peace, O my reader, from whom I now part. Implore
peace not of deified thunder clouds but of every man, woman,
child thou shalt meet. Do not merely offer the prayer, "Give
peace in our time," but do thy part to answer it! Then, at
least, though the world be at strife, there shall be peace
in thee.
My friend has put his finger upon our deepest disgrace. It surely must
soon be abolished between civilized nations.
The Stanton Chair of Economics at Kenyon College, Ohio, was founded in
memory of Edwin M. Stanton, who kindly greeted me as a boy in
Pittsburgh when I delivered telegrams to him, and was ever cordial to
me in Washington, when I was an assistant to Secretary Scott. The
Hanna Chair in Western Reserve University, Cleveland; the John Hay
Library at Brown University; the second Elihu Root Fund for Hamilton,
the Mrs. Cleveland Library for Wellesley, gave me pleasure to christen
after these friends. I hope more are to follow, commemorating those I
have known, liked, and honored. I also wished a General Dodge Library
and a Gayley Library to be erected from my gifts, but these friends
had already obtained such honor from their respective Alma Maters.
My first gift to Hamilton College was to be named the Elihu Root
Foundation, but that ablest of all our Secretaries of State, and in
the opinion of President Roosevelt, "the wisest man he ever knew,"
took care, it seems, not to mention the fact to the college
authorities. When I reproached him with this dereliction, he
laughingly replied:
"Well, I promise not to cheat you the next gift you give us."
And by a second gift this lapse was repaired after all, but I took
care not to entrust the matter directly to him. The Root Fund of
Hamilton[50] is now established beyond his power to destroy. Root is a
great man, and, as the greatest only are he is, in his simplicity,
sublime. President Roosevelt declared he would crawl on his hands and
knees from the White House to the Capitol if this would insure Root's
nomination to the presidency with a prospect of success. He was
considered vulnerable because he had been counsel for corporations
and was too little of the spouter and the demagogue, too much of the
modest, retiring statesman to split the ears of the groundlings.[51]
The party foolishly decided not to risk Root.
[Footnote 50: It amounts to $250,000.]
[Footnote 51: At the Meeting in Memory of the Life and Work of Andrew
Carnegie held on April 25, 1920, in the Engineering Societies Building
in New York, Mr. Root made an address in the course of which, speaking
of Mr. Carnegie, he said:
"He belonged to that great race of nation-builders who have made the
development of America the wonder of the world.... He was the
kindliest man I ever knew. Wealth had brought to him no hardening of
the heart, nor made him forget the dreams of his youth. Kindly,
affectionate, charitable in his judgments, unrestrained in his
sympathies, noble in his impulses, I wish that all the people who
think of him as a rich man giving away money he did not need could
know of the hundreds of kindly things he did unknown to the world."]
My connection with Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes, which promote the
elevation of the colored race we formerly kept in slavery, has been a
source of satisfaction and pleasure, and to know Booker Washington is
a rare privilege. We should all take our hats off to the man who not
only raised himself from slavery, but helped raise millions of his
race to a higher stage of civilization. Mr. Washington called upon me
a few days after my gift of six hundred thousand dollars was made to
Tuskegee and asked if he might be allowed to make one suggestion. I
said: "Certainly."
"You have kindly specified that a sum from that fund be set aside for
the future support of myself and wife during our lives, and we are
very grateful, but, Mr. Carnegie, the sum is far beyond our needs and
will seem to my race a fortune. Some might feel that I was no longer a
poor man giving my services without thought of saving money. Would you
have any objection to changing that clause, striking out the sum, and
substituting 'only suitable provision'? I'll trust the trustees. Mrs.
Washington and myself need very little."
I did so, and the deed now stands, but when Mr. Baldwin asked for the
original letter to exchange it for the substitute, he told me that the
noble soul objected. That document addressed to him was to be
preserved forever, and handed down; but he would put it aside and let
the substitute go on file.
This is an indication of the character of the leader of his race. No
truer, more self-sacrificing hero ever lived: a man compounded of all
the virtues. It makes one better just to know such pure and noble
souls--human nature in its highest types is already divine here on
earth. If it be asked which man of our age, or even of the past ages,
has risen from the lowest to the highest, the answer must be Booker
Washington. He rose from slavery to the leadership of his people--a
modern Moses and Joshua combined, leading his people both onward and
upward.
In connection with these institutions I came in contact with their
officers and trustees--men like Principal Hollis B. Frissell of
Hampton, Robert C. Ogden, George Foster Peabody, V. Everit Macy,
George McAneny and William H. Baldwin--recently lost to us, alas!--men
who labor for others. It was a blessing to know them intimately. The
Cooper Union, the Mechanics and Tradesmen's Society, indeed every
institution[52] in which I became interested, revealed many men and
women devoting their time and thought, not to "miserable aims that end
with self," but to high ideals which mean the relief and uplift of
their less fortunate brethren.
[Footnote 52: The universities, colleges, and educational institutions
to which Mr. Carnegie gave either endowment funds or buildings number
five hundred. All told his gifts to them amounted to $27,000,000.]
My giving of organs to churches came very early in my career, I having
presented to less than a hundred members of the Swedenborgian Church
in Allegheny which my father favored, an organ, after declining to
contribute to the building of a new church for so few. Applications
from other churches soon began to pour in, from the grand Catholic
Cathedral of Pittsburgh down to the small church in the country
village, and I was kept busy. Every church seemed to need a better
organ than it had, and as the full price for the new instrument was
paid, what the old one brought was clear profit. Some ordered organs
for very small churches which would almost split the rafters, as was
the case with the first organ given the Swedenborgians; others had
bought organs before applying but our check to cover the amount was
welcome. Finally, however, a rigid system of giving was developed. A
printed schedule requiring answers to many questions has now to be
filled and returned before action is taken. The department is now
perfectly systematized and works admirably because we graduate the
gift according to the size of the church.
Charges were made in the rigid Scottish Highlands that I was
demoralizing Christian worship by giving organs to churches. The very
strict Presbyterians there still denounce as wicked an attempt "to
worship God with a kist fu' o' whistles," instead of using the human
God-given voice. After that I decided that I should require a partner
in my sin, and therefore asked each congregation to pay one half of
the desired new organ. Upon this basis the organ department still
operates and continues to do a thriving business, the demand for
improved organs still being great. Besides, many new churches are
required for increasing populations and for these organs are
essential.
I see no end to it. In requiring the congregation to pay one half the
cost of better instruments, there is assurance of needed and
reasonable expenditure. Believing from my own experience that it is
salutary for the congregation to hear sacred music at intervals in the
service and then slowly to disperse to the strains of the
reverence-compelling organ after such sermons as often show us little
of a Heavenly Father, I feel the money spent for organs is well spent.
So we continue the organ department.[53]
[Footnote 53: The "organ department" up to 1919 had given 7689 organs
to as many different churches at a cost of over six million dollars.]
Of all my work of a philanthropic character, my private pension fund
gives me the highest and noblest return. No satisfaction equals that
of feeling you have been permitted to place in comfortable
circumstances, in their old age, people whom you have long known to be
kind and good and in every way deserving, but who from no fault of
their own, have not sufficient means to live respectably, free from
solicitude as to their mere maintenance. Modest sums insure this
freedom. It surprised me to find how numerous were those who needed
some aid to make the difference between an old age of happiness and
one of misery. Some such cases had arisen before my retirement from
business, and I had sweet satisfaction from this source. Not one
person have I ever placed upon the pension list[54] that did not fully
deserve assistance. It is a real roll of honor and mutual affection.
All are worthy. There is no publicity about it. No one knows who is
embraced. Not a word is ever breathed to others.
[Footnote 54: This amounted to over $250,000 a year.]
This is my favorite and best answer to the question which will never
down in my thoughts: "What good am I doing in the world to deserve
all my mercies?" Well, the dear friends of the pension list give me a