New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-04-12


TO insure livelihood the writer is the last man
TO ADVISE It's rejection-compared with Which all
the pecuniary gains of the northumberland are
dross-but for poor youth the earning OF com
petence Is duty and duty done is worth more
even than university education. precious as that
Is Liberal education gives man VINO really
absorbs ii higher tastes and aims than the
acquisition Of wealth. and world to enjoy
into which the mere millionaire cannot enter;
find therefore that 1t is not the best training
for business is to prove its claim to a higher
domain
And this still further qualification from the
lecture entitled Business" delivered at Cornell
in 1896:
Unless the young university man employs his
time to the very best advantage in acquiring
knowledge upon the pursuit which he is to make
the chief business Of his life. he Will enter bust
enter in their teens. although lacking in uni
veTsity education. This goes without saying
Now, the question is: VIII the graduate who
has dwelt in the region of theory oNeftake the
who has been for year or two in advance
of him. engaged in the hard and stern educatlVe
field of practice?
That il is possible for the graduate to do so
also goes without saying, and that he should In
after life possess views broader than the ordl-
nary business man. deprived of university edu-
cation. is also certain. and, OF course the race
in life is to those whose record is best at the
end; the beginning is forgotten and is OF no
moment. But IL the graduate IS ever 10 over
take the first starter in the race. 1t must be by
possessing stronger staying powers; his superior
knowledge leading to sounder judgment must
be depended upon to win the race al the
finish.
The exceptional graduate should excel the ex-
Ceptonal non graduate. He has more educatlon'
and education Will always tell, the other guam,
ties being equal. Take two men OF equal
natural ability. energy. and the same ambition
and characteristics. and the man VINO mas re-
ceiyed the best widest most suitable education
has the advantage over the other. undoubtedly.
II is interesting to recur to Mr. Carneg1es
well known views to the uses of wealth and
its distribution. that he has begun to prac-
tise his preachments so vigorously In "Weahh
and Its Uses a lecture delivered at Union
College, he described as the usual methods the
willing of it at death TO the family and the be-
quest OF It TO institutions He goes on to de-
scribe the third use, and the only noble use OF
surplus wealth:
That it be regarded a sacred trust. to be
administered by Its possessor, into whose hands
II flows. for the highest good of the people
e. l have often said and now repeat,
that the day is coming. and already we see It's
dawn, in which the man who dies possessed Oh
millions Of available wealth which free and
in his hands ready To he distributed VIII dle
disgraced. The epitaph which every rich
man should wish himself justly entitled to is
that seen upon the monument to Pitt;
He lived without ostentation,
And he died poor.
Such is the man whom the future is to honor'
while he who dies in old age retired from ousl-
ness possessed of millions of available wealth.,
is to die unwept, unhonored and unsung.
The title of the chapter on The Bugaboo Of
Trusts" implies Mr.. Carnegies belief that there
is no danger impending from industrial COM
bination. He thus formulates it:
Given freedom of competition. and all COM
binations or trusts that attempt to exact from
the consumer more than a legitimate return
upon capital and services write the charter of
their own defeat. We have many proofs that
this great law does not sleep, and that II VIII
not be suppressed
The fact that he is willing to reprint after
of he
taken to show that his opinion is unchanged,
notwithstanding the crowding events Of those
years
The fashion of trusts has but short season
longer to run and then some other equally vain
device may be expected to appear when the next
period of depression arrives; but there is not
the slightest danger that serious injury can re-
suit to the sound principles of business from
any all of these movements. The only people
who have reason to fear trusts those foolish
enough TO enter into them. The consumer and
the transporter. not the manufacturer and the
railway owner, are to reap the harvest
From a recent speech in this city on Rail
roads Past and Present" we take this bit of
autobiography in which Mr.. Carnegie tells how
he went into the railroad business:
When I had the honor to become railroad
man the Pennsylvania Railroad was not yet mn
ished to Pittsburg BY means Of some miles or
staging between two points, and a climb over
the mountains by means of ten inclined planes
the passenger enabled to reach Philadei-
iron fourteen feet lengths. imported from Eng
land lying on huge hewn blocks of stone, al
though the line passed through woods and ties
would have cost little. The company had no
telegraph line and dependent upon the use
of the Western Union wire. Mr.. Scott, the
sllperintendent the celebrated Thomas A Scott
who was afterward president, often came TO the
telegraph office in Pittsburg 10 talk to his su-
perior in Altoona. the general superintendent
I was then young operator, and made ms &C
ouaintance by doing this telegraphing for hlm
was receiving the enormous salary OF 30
month then and ne offered me $40 to become
his secretary and telegrapher, which meant
fortune Let me congratulate you upon the
great advance in your own wages ana salaries
since then. Mr. Scott received Sl2o a month
81 800 year-and my wonder was what a man
could do with that amount OF money. hadn
thought then Of use-he might succeed by
giving part of il away. what are the al
vantages a man receives from wealth Is often
discussed but the best of wealth Is not what II
does for the owner. but what 1t enables nm 10
do for others l served for some time before
received an advance of salary of $40 month
That gave me an enormous revenue compared
with the 81 20 a week at which ! started IN
the cotton factory
NIAGARA'S HISTORY.