Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1902-04-21

(From the Philadelphia North-American.)
THE Empire of Business" by Andrew
Carnegie. This ought to be an authori-
tative work. Years from now we shall
have. perhaps, various historical works
such as The Life and Letters of Carne-
gle l." and Memoirs of the Empire" by
the Duke of Schwab. For the present
these essays and addresses by the genial
monarch himself are of rare interest and
value, as giving the straightforward views
of a man who, beyond any doubt, knows
what he is talking about. Doubleday,
Page & Co., New York, are the publish
ers.
1t is gratifying to note that the first
chapter contains just what the public
wants to know-how to become Carne-
gle. The title is THE Road to Business
Success" and these are the Carnegie
signpostsS
Aim for the highest: do not touch liquor. or,
II at all, only at meals; never speculate; never
endorse beyond your surplus cash funds; make
the firms interest yours; break orders always
in one basket and watch the basket; expendi-
ture always within revenue.
Interests Identical.
On 1.-THE Interests of Labor and Capt.
tai" Mr.. Carnegie has a good deal to say,
but 1t is strangely foreign to the subject.
He was addressing his own workmen. The
interests of labor and capital, he said, are
identical, but. unfortunately, there is fire.
quent misunderstanding. On education he
spoke much more freely:
Men have sent their sons to colleges to waste
their energies upon obtaining knowledge OF
such languages as Greek and Latin, which are
of no more practical use TO them than ChoctaW.
have known few college graduates that knew
Shakespeare or Milton. They might be able to
tell you all about Ulysses or Agamemnon or
Hector, but what are these compared TO the
characters that find in our own classics?
In my own experience can say that
l have known few young men who were not
injured by college education. Had they gone
into active work during the years spent at col
lage they would have been better educated men
IN every ts true e,, sense Of dna t term o7 .
with the young man that knows stenography
or telegraphy. or bookkeeping or chemistryf
Should Include Fiction.
Mr.. Carnegie emphasized the value of
technical schools and the necessity for
specialization. Yet he said scientific
study should not exclude fiction reading
and this is Of interest as compared with
his recent. reported statement that all fic-
ton should be excluded from public IL
! braries. Finally he got down to the Ia
Dor and capital question:
The trouble between capital and labor is Just
| in proportion TO the ignorance OF the employer
and the ignorance of the employed. /. :.
Capital is ignorant of the necessities and the
true origin of friction between them.
There seems to be a good deal Of hard,
| Carnegie sense in this, elementary as it
is. He closes with an expression of gratii-
cation that shorter hours and better
wages are gradually being won by the
workingmen.
Chances for Young Men.
On Thrift as a Duty Mr.. Carnegie
wakes severely philosophical, urging the
excellence of the virtue, yet warning
| against falling a slave to It, and so pass
ing to the horrible old age of the miserly
millionaire. In How TO Win Fortune"
he continues his advice to youth. First
! he attacks the suspicion that the poor
course, the Studebakers and Disstons and
| Pullmans of the industrial world. He
| thinks this settles the matter, altogether
| ignoring the changed conditions of BUSH
| ness. A little farther on, however, he adj
mits that it ''is infinitely more difficult to
start a new business Of any kind today
than it was" But he maintains the diff
| ference is in form, not in substance; that
| the chances are even better for the young
man to obtain an interest in established
| firms, real ability and perseverance be-
ing the only requisites. OF related inter
est is his statemenD that the great con-
| Germ of the future is to divide it's profits
not among hundreds of idle capitalists
but among HUNDREDS OF it's idle employees"
Similar encouragement is extended in
the chapter on Wealth and it's Uses"
| wherein IL is pointed out that any one
with $50 or 500 may become a stockholder
| in Industrial concerns. But the author adj
vises real estate and mortgages as better
| investments.
The DoWn-Trodden Millionaire.
With the cry that wealth is being con-
centrated in few hands Mr.. Carnegie
| takes direct issue.
Today this is not true Wealth is being more
| and more distributed among the many. The
amount of the combined profits of labor and
capital which goes. to labor never so great
as today, the amount going to capital never
small. While the earnings of capital have
fallen more than one-half, in many cases have