The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-08-16

operator was not merely gIlQQluS Out
his daily grist of dots and dashes for
the money there was init He found
that the boy knew what the dots and
dashes were all about and when and
how they sought to be different. He
seized him and put him on his pay
rolls at thirty-fve dollars per month
an inordinate and unspendable sal
ary. He remained with the road
thirteen years, taking Scott's place as
superintendent of the Pittsburg divi-
sion when Scott went up to the vice
presidency.
At the outbreak of the war, when
Scott took charge of the government
transportation business, Carnegie was
made superintendent of military roads
and telegraph lines and rendered fine
service.
From a very early date, the young
railroad man began making ventures
for profit. One day Colonel Scott
suggested that he buy ten shares of
the stock of the Adams Express Com
pany. for five hundred dollars. The
boy and his mother discussed the mat
ter, and finally mortgaged their little
home to get the money. Another
day Carnegie met Mr.. Woodruff, who
had invented sleeping-car. Again
he borrowed money, to participate in
that enterprise. In 1860 he arrang-
ed with Colonel Scott and another
friend to buy the Story farm on Oil
Creek for forty thousand dollars.
That farm proved to be worth five
millions of dollars.
His first big manufacturing venture
was the organization of the Keystone
Bridge Company. He won. Iron
bridges were coming into fashion and
he got the lead in the business.
Soon he substituted steel for iron
by the Bessemer process. His
bridges were wanted everywhere.
He acquired various other manu-
featuring plants in the iron line. He
always won. By 1888 he had con-
troll of the Homestead steel works,
the Edgar Thompson steel works,
the Duquesne steel works and fur
naces, the Lucy furnaces, the Key
stone bridge works, the Upper Union
rolling-mills and the Lower Union
rolling mills. These works were cap
italized at about one hundred million
dollars, the ownership including
vast amount of coal and iron lands.
These properties were last year turn
ed over to the United States Steel
Corporation for two or three hundred
millions of dollars in cash, frst-mort-
gage bonds, and stock.
Ten or fifteen years ago, Mr.. Car
negie began to admit the oppression
of his wealth and its responsibilities.
He first made sundry arrangements
by which many of his employees be-
came sharers in his pro6ts-virtual-
ly partners.
After getting free of the greater
part of the personal care of the prop
critics in which he was chief owner,
Mr.. Carnegie devoted himself largely
to two tasks giving away his money
and writing for publication.
His gifts have been chiefly in the
line of building libraries. His great
est single gift was ten millions given
to the trustees of the Govt for aid to
the universities of the country. The
particulars of this gift need not be re-
cited. In all his work of giving Mr..
Carnegie has remained, as in the be-
ginning, ''canny Scot. While
giving away millions, he will step
aside to do a little business and
make millions. In the very business
of giving away money he is as care
full Of how he does it, and as adherent
to his own plans and policies, as if he
were trying to get money instead of
give it /; and wo to those beggars who
try to be choosers. There is no Joy for
those who try to tell him what to
do with his money. He will have
his own way or no way. 1t has often
been asked how Mr.. Carnegie came
to turn his chief charities in the di-
rection of library work. So practical
a man, it is supposed, would have
taken naturally to the more practical
charities-hospitals, industrial schools,
and the like. Probably the explana-
tion is complex. His parents were
book lovers. He was born with the
same taste. He began very early to
read with enthusiasm and purpose.
While he was yet a bobbin-boy, with
perhaps no book at home but the
Bible, a gentleman who was on the
lookout for chances to be helpful,
Colonel John B. Anderson, arranged
to supply him with all the books he
could read. Colonel Anderson lived
many years in Kansas, where he died.
Mr.. Carnegie never forgot his early
kindness, and has given pipe-organ,
a library and statue of Colonel An
derson to Kansas institutions of which
the latter was trustee. It is said that
this early encouragement to give his
spare time to good books instead otto
bad companions has always been as
signed by Mr.. Carnegie as one of the
explanations of why he has prospered
and is therefore the kind of aid which
he most prefers to pass on to the
youth of the land.
Next to books, Mr.. Carnegie taste
runs to music. His ancestors, or
many of them, no doubt made war on
fiddles and other musical instruments
as encouraging ungodliness. But
Mr.. Carnegie swung to the other side
and devoted millions to musical or
ganizations and institutions.
1t is natural for Mr.. Carnegie to
be writer. He began doing odd
bits of newspaper work when he was
a telegraph operator. From that
time to this he has been frequent
contributor to the publications of the
country. His magazine articles and