The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-08-02

To the great majority of his admir-
ing countrymen, Mr.. Charles M.
Schwab is known chiefly by the un-
important circumstance that he draws
the largest salary in the world. The
public has way of seizing upon triv-
ialities like this d ignoring the
solid merits that are a mans real title
to fame.
Suppose Mr.. Schwab does receive
the largest salary in the world-what
of it? The essential questions are,
Does he earn it, and moreover, he
was earning it for a great many years
before the public heard anything
about him. When he became presi-
dent of the Carnegie Steel Company,
in February, 1897, his salary was fix
ed at fifty thousand dollars a year,
with an interest in the business.
When the company was absorbed by
the United States Steel Corporation,
four years later, the value of that in
terest was estimated at over twenty
eight million dollars. That is equiv
alent to a salary of seven million
dollars a year for four years. Com
pared with that, the largest estimates
of the figures opposite Mr.. Schwab's S
name on the payroll of the steel trust
seem modest.
But few millions more or less are
trihes in this age. What thoughtful
people want to know is, not what a
man is receiving, but what he has
done. This amiable, smooth-faced
young man, this locomotive on pneu-
matte tires, has done much and is
likely to do more. He is forty years
old now-just the age of President
Butler of Columbia, and a little
younger than President Roosevelt
and the Emperor William. He had
what he himself calls the indispensa-
bic inheritance of poverty. Educated
by the Franciscan brothers at Loretto,
Pennsylvania, he began his business
career as grocer's boy for two dol
lars and fifty cents week at seven
teen, was promoted to driving stakes
in the engineering department of the
Edgar Thompson Steel Works two
months later at dollar day, and in
six months was superintendent and
took charge of the construction of
eight of the nine blast-furnaces now
in the plant. In 1887, at the age of
twenty-five, he was appointed super
intendent of the Homestead works,
and reconstructed the entire estab-
lishment, making it the largest in the
world of its class.
He created the vast and profitable
armor- plate branch of the Carnegie
industry. On the death of his friend
and discoverer, Captain Jones, in
1899, he succeeded him as general
superintendent of the Edgar Thomp-
son works. Three years later, the
Homestead works were added to his
jurisdiction. In February, 1897, at
thirty-fve, he became head of all the
enormous interests of the Carnegie
company.
Mr.. Schwab distinguished himself
at every stage of his career in the
Carnegie works. He was always de.
vising some way of doing something
more efficiently or more economically
than it had ever been done before.
He represents the highest develop
ment of the salaried employee. Other
men comparable with him as generals
of industry have soon graduated from
the payroll to work for themselves.
Rockefeller, Hill, Spreckels, Mills,
Stamford, Huntington, Hopkins and
Carnegie all began poor but all turn.
ed their energies to putting them
selves into position in which every.
thing amassed by their brains would
go into their own bank deposits
Schwab alone has been content to re.
main glorified wage-earner, cheer.
fully putting ten millions into the
pockets of his employees for every
million retained by himself.
1t is as such wage-earner that he
is of such peculiar significance. Tech
nologists may grow enthusiastic ovel
his work in connection with Captain
Jones in perfecting the "metal-mix
err" by which melted iron instead O
of cold pig is used in steel-making
and the whole industry is transform
ed. They may admire the bold in
genuity of the devices by which {
boy enabled his employers to under
take the manufacture of armor- plate
in competition with rivals who hat
spent years and millions in construct
ing the gigantic special plant ther
considered necessary. But the rea
value of Mr.. Schwab's career is il
| the light It throws upon the poss;bil