The herald., 1895-12-29

600, independent of the perma nent en-
dowment for it's maintenance, which
MIR. Carnegie will also provide. the
building will comprise free library,
rea;.ing rooms, a music hall, gy mnas-
ium, club rooms and swimming pool
The building is to be completed within
year.
No man can prescribe how others
should give. 1t is ones right to do
! what he will with his own. Perhaps
there il no better way to spend ones
| accumulated millions than in found
ing libraries, as Mr. Carnegie has been
| doing these last few years. Aud 1t il
most creditable and sagacious in him
| to expend this money while he 10 of
sound and keen mind and purpose,
and not wait to let it be done after his
| death, or, worse yet, made impossible
OF accomplishment by quarrels over
his will. So what he has done for
Homestead is most excellent.
And yet it is neither out of place
| nor unjust to recall the fact that
within three short years q terrible
tragedy was enacted at Homestead
Mr. Carnegie, the main owner OF the
vast iron works there-and most of
the other property OF the plsoe-was
coaching in Europe. The civil officers
of the region and the whole state could
not cope with the men and women who
made riot. Two Thousand Pinkertons,
responsible to no authority known to
the law, kept order, or, rather, pre-
vented greater destruction of prop.
erty, while starvation threatened
women and children as they roaned
streets hespattered with human blood.
A correspondent of the New York
Tribune, under orders to write the
facts about the Homestead OF that
dreadful time. reported that the village
of come ten Thousand people had no
water fit to drink. 1t had no news
paper or publication Of any sort. There
was no public library or reading room
where even a daily paper was to be
seen, and there was neither ordinary
community spirit or individual pride
and hope. More t an half Of the $500
workmen we're not even known by any
name, but by numbers Oh the payroll
and upon the hunks in which they
slept. They never saw the faces of the
men who owned the works. On pay
day each mans wages had to be passed
to him through an aperture in the
Office wall, by clerk whom not one
$1,000 W. GebWs hOlO was liz huWhA
sight, no human touch and, therefore,
no possible human sympathy.
Now, we do not know that Mr.. Carne-
gle was wrong as to any phase Of that
bloody strife, but we do know that
terrible gulf lies between him and all
his kind and the men who do the daily
toll for these; that capital and labor
are strangers rs to mutual touch and
sympathy. And 80 we cannot help
thinking that, fine ss are all the gifts
and endowments of wealth, it would
have been more blessed if Mr.. Carnegie
had. before leaving the country forever,
done little something for place
which had done 80 much for him; If he
had years ago provided just one poor
little reading room or other human
comfort for the mass Of toiiers under
him. To dot the land with libraries
now, splendid as these gifts are, will
never quite make good the loss to the
immunity that came Of his neglect to
help his fellows by kindlier notice in
the old days. when he could have
touched their hands and hearts aud in
huenced their lives.
HoUsE-BOAT on THE sTYX; Being Some
Accom- of the Divers Doings Of the Asso-
ciated Shade. BY JOHN KEsDRIcK RASGs.
harper IL Bros New York For ale here
by Sloll IL fhayer.
Measured by staids0ld standards tftis