Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
"How long do you give our Established Church to live?"
My reply was I could not fix a date; he had had more experience than I
in disestablishing churches. He nodded and smiled.
When I had enlarged upon a certain relative decrease of population in
Britain that must come as compared with other countries of larger
area, he asked:
"What future do you forecast for her?"
I referred to Greece among ancient nations and said that it was,
perhaps, not accident that Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton,
Burns, Scott, Stevenson, Bacon, Cromwell, Wallace, Bruce, Hume, Watt,
Spencer, Darwin, and other celebrities had arisen here. Genius did not
depend upon material resources. Long after Britain could not figure
prominently as an industrial nation, not by her decline, but through
the greater growth of others, she might in my opinion become the
modern Greece and achieve among nations moral ascendancy.
He caught at the words, repeating them musingly:
"Moral ascendancy, moral ascendancy, I like that, I like that."
I had never before so thoroughly enjoyed a conference with a man. I
visited him again at Hawarden, but my last visit to him was at Lord
Randall's at Cannes the winter of 1897 when he was suffering keenly.
He had still the old charm and was especially attentive to my
sister-in-law, Lucy, who saw him then for the first time and was
deeply impressed. As we drove off, she murmured, "A sick eagle! A sick
eagle!" Nothing could better describe this wan and worn leader of men
as he appeared to me that day. He was not only a great, but a truly
good man, stirred by the purest impulses, a high, imperious soul
always looking upward. He had, indeed, earned the title: "Foremost
Citizen of the World."
In Britain, in 1881, I had entered into business relations with Samuel
Storey, M.P., a very able man, a stern radical, and a genuine
republican. We purchased several British newspapers and began a
campaign of political progress upon radical lines. Passmore Edwards
and some others joined us, but the result was not encouraging. Harmony
did not prevail among my British friends and finally I decided to
withdraw, which I was fortunately able to do without loss.[69]
[Footnote 69: Mr. Carnegie acquired no less than eighteen British
newspapers with the idea of promoting radical views. The political
results were disappointing, but with his genius for making money the
pecuniary results were more than satisfactory.]
My third literary venture, "Triumphant Democracy,"[70] had its origin
in realizing how little the best-informed foreigner, or even Briton,
knew of America, and how distorted that little was. It was prodigious
what these eminent Englishmen did not then know about the Republic. My
first talk with Mr. Gladstone in 1882 can never be forgotten. When I
had occasion to say that the majority of the English-speaking race was
now republican and it was a minority of monarchists who were upon the
defensive, he said:
"Why, how is that?"
"Well, Mr. Gladstone," I said, "the Republic holds sway over a larger
number of English-speaking people than the population of Great Britain
and all her colonies even if the English-speaking colonies were
numbered twice over."
"Ah! how is that? What is your population?"
"Sixty-six millions, and yours is not much more than half."
"Ah, yes, surprising!"
[Footnote 70: _Triumphant Democracy, or Fifty Years' March of the
Republic._ London, 1886; New York, 1888.]
With regard to the wealth of the nations, it was equally surprising
for him to learn that the census of 1880 proved the hundred-year-old
Republic could purchase Great Britain and Ireland and all their
realized capital and investments and then pay off Britain's debt, and
yet not exhaust her fortune. But the most startling statement of all
was that which I was able to make when the question of Free Trade was
touched upon. I pointed out that America was now the greatest
manufacturing nation in the world. [At a later date I remember Lord
Chancellor Haldane fell into the same error, calling Britain the
greatest manufacturing country in the world, and thanked me for
putting him right.] I quoted Mulhall's figures: British manufactures
in 1880, eight hundred and sixteen millions sterling; American
manufactures eleven hundred and twenty-six millions sterling.[71] His
one word was:
"Incredible!"
[Footnote 71: The estimated value of manufactures in Great Britain in
1900 was five billions of dollars as compared to thirteen billions for
the United States. In 1914 the United States had gone to over
twenty-four billions.]
Other startling statements followed and he asked:
"Why does not some writer take up this subject and present the facts
in a simple and direct form to the world?"
I was then, as a matter of fact, gathering material for "Triumphant
Democracy," in which I intended to perform the very service which he
indicated, as I informed him.
"Round the World" and the "American Four-in-Hand" gave me not the
slightest effort but the preparation of "Triumphant Democracy," which
I began in 1882, was altogether another matter. It required steady,
laborious work. Figures had to be examined and arranged, but as I went
forward the study became fascinating. For some months I seemed to have
my head filled with statistics. The hours passed away unheeded. It was
evening when I supposed it was midday. The second serious illness of
my life dates from the strain brought upon me by this work, for I had
to attend to business as well. I shall think twice before I trust
myself again with anything so fascinating as figures.
CHAPTER XXV
HERBERT SPENCER AND HIS DISCIPLE
Herbert Spencer, with his friend Mr. Lott and myself, were fellow
travelers on the Servia from Liverpool to New York in 1882. I bore a
note of introduction to him from Mr. Morley, but I had met the
philosopher in London before that. I was one of his disciples. As an
older traveler, I took Mr. Lott and him in charge. We sat at the same
table during the voyage.
One day the conversation fell upon the impression made upon us by
great men at first meeting. Did they, or did they not, prove to be as
we had imagined them? Each gave his experience. Mine was that nothing
could be more different than the being imagined and that being beheld
in the flesh.
"Oh!" said Mr. Spencer, "in my case, for instance, was this so?"
"Yes," I replied, "you more than any. I had imagined my teacher, the
great calm philosopher brooding, Buddha-like, over all things,
unmoved; never did I dream of seeing him excited over the question of
Cheshire or Cheddar cheese." The day before he had peevishly pushed
away the former when presented by the steward, exclaiming "Cheddar,
Cheddar, not Cheshire; I said _Cheddar_." There was a roar in which
none joined more heartily than the sage himself. He refers to this
incident of the voyage in his Autobiography.[72]
[Footnote 72: _An Autobiography_, by Herbert Spencer, vol. I, p. 424.
New York, 1904.]
Spencer liked stories and was a good laugher. American stories seemed
to please him more than others, and of those I was able to tell him
not a few, which were usually followed by explosive laughter. He was
anxious to learn about our Western Territories, which were then
attracting attention in Europe, and a story I told him about Texas
struck him as amusing. When a returning disappointed emigrant from
that State was asked about the then barren country, he said:
"Stranger, all that I have to say about Texas is that if I owned Texas
and h--l, I would sell Texas."
What a change from those early days! Texas has now over four millions
of population and is said to have the soil to produce more cotton than
the whole world did in 1882.
The walk up to the house, when I had the philosopher out at
Pittsburgh, reminded me of another American story of the visitor who
started to come up the garden walk. When he opened the gate a big dog
from the house rushed down upon him. He retreated and closed the
garden gate just in time, the host calling out:
"He won't touch you, you know barking dogs never bite."
"Yes," exclaimed the visitor, tremblingly, "I know that and you know
it, but does the dog know it?"
One day my eldest nephew was seen to open the door quietly and peep in
where we were seated. His mother afterwards asked him why he had done
so and the boy of eleven replied:
"Mamma, I wanted to see the man who wrote in a book that there was no
use studying grammar."
Spencer was greatly pleased when he heard the story and often referred
to it. He had faith in that nephew.
Speaking to him one day about his having signed a remonstrance against
a tunnel between Calais and Dover as having surprised me, he explained
that for himself he was as anxious to have the tunnel as any one
and that he did not believe in any of the objections raised against
it, but signed the remonstrance because he knew his countrymen were
such fools that the military and naval element in Britain could
stampede the masses, frighten them, and stimulate militarism. An
increased army and navy would then be demanded. He referred to a scare
which had once arisen and involved the outlay of many millions in
fortifications which had proved useless.
One day we were sitting in our rooms in the Grand Hotel looking out
over Trafalgar Square. The Life Guards passed and the following took
place:
"Mr. Spencer, I never see men dressed up like Merry Andrews without
being saddened and indignant that in the nineteenth century the most
civilized race, as we consider ourselves, still finds men willing to
adopt as a profession--until lately the only profession for
gentlemen--the study of the surest means of killing other men."
Mr. Spencer said: "I feel just so myself, but I will tell you how I
curb my indignation. Whenever I feel it rising I am calmed by this
story of Emerson's: He had been hooted and hustled from the platform
in Faneuil Hall for daring to speak against slavery. He describes
himself walking home in violent anger, until opening his garden gate
and looking up through the branches of the tall elms that grew between
the gate and his modest home, he saw the stars shining through. They
said to him: 'What, so hot, my little sir?'" I laughed and he laughed,
and I thanked him for that story. Not seldom I have to repeat to
myself, "What, so hot, my little sir?" and it suffices.
Mr. Spencer's visit to America had its climax in the banquet given
for him at Delmonico's. I drove him to it and saw the great man there
in a funk. He could think of nothing but the address he was to
deliver.[73] I believe he had rarely before spoken in public. His
great fear was that he should be unable to say anything that would be
of advantage to the American people, who had been the first to
appreciate his works. He may have attended many banquets, but never
one comprised of more distinguished people than this one. It was a
remarkable gathering. The tributes paid Spencer by the ablest men were
unique. The climax was reached when Henry Ward Beecher, concluding his
address, turned round and addressed Mr. Spencer in these words:
"To my father and my mother I owe my physical being; to you, sir, I
owe my intellectual being. At a critical moment you provided the safe
paths through the bogs and morasses; you were my teacher."
[Footnote 73: "An occasion, on which more, perhaps, than any other in
my life, I ought to have been in good condition, bodily and mentally,
came when I was in a condition worse than I had been for six and
twenty years. 'Wretched night; no sleep at all; kept in my room all
day' says my diary, and I entertained 'great fear I should collapse.'
When the hour came for making my appearance at Delmonico's, where the