Rocky Ford enterprise., 1907-05-03
G IN G e r
8 NH P.S
BY
@. HIT.

andrew Safhcgic anu tnc rest OF
the handful OF our fellow-citizens who
can write checks for a million dollars
without letting their left hand know
what their right hands doing. or tell
ing other people how they got it. may
come high to the country. but since
we have to have them it is probably
a good thing TO have them. like An
drew. make donations OF public in
stitutions while they live. II often
times saves trouble for the heirs
and for the iawyers-and insures the
pubiic's getting something out of the
estate more than the inheritance tax.
It is truly fine thing in way
that Andrew has been doing for the
people OF Pittsburgh. in giving them
the Carnegie Institute the other day.
II is truly marvellous pile. as the
descriptions 60. OF metal. marble and
granite. And into this splendid and
imposing pile has been crowded the
marvcis OF sculptured art and the rel
It's OF now eniombed empires and for
gotten civilizations. This is signiti-
cant III u way. its Nash HAHS So 7sss
to rival in spiendor and majestic
beauty anything in the old world.
The display and pageantry OF the
opening. and the attendance OF learn
cd savants gathered from the centres
OF learning in both the new world
and the old, was something never be-
fore equailed in these United States.
Andrew himself made 4 neat little
speech in which he reviewed the ben
eficent results OF his gift to the peo-
pie OF Pittsburgh. and pronounced a
glowing panegyric upon the people
who like himself ''iransmute their dol
lars into those higher things OF the
moral and intellectual and csthc,ic do
main" The speech itself is interest
ing and IL for nothing else rs showing
wha, an unlcarncd lad with native
ability and energy may come to do.
and do without public libraries or
technical schooling, when he has eth
or the wit or the good fortune to see
the special advantages there arc avail
able in our economic system.
This dedication event reads very
like description of the doings OF
some aniccnt king. who has builded
great palaces and hanging gardens.
and then glories in the thing as some
thing he himself has done and some
thing that will hand his name down
to unborn generations: unmindful OF
the fact that he has done il out of
the spoils taken in wars OF subju-
CATION and in tax lcvics upon his
subjects. Yet the difference in our
modern methods OF procedure are
such that we scoff at the man who
ventures to make such comparison.
We suspect him OF being an incapa-
bic and cnvious oniookcr, who would
greatly like himself to indulge the
human notion that it matters somc-
thing about a name when the owner
of il is long dead.
Yet the difference between the pow
or OF kingly prcrogativc and the pow
or OF the dollar is not so great. II
with the dollar Mr.. Carnegie could
buy mp those mountains of iron orc,
OF coal and of limestone that arc
round about Pittsburgh and which he
spoke OF transmitting into dollars"
he has the same advantage as il he
exercised kings prerogativc over
his subjects. There arc just two
things embodied in the structure of
the Carnegie Institute-labor and ma
terial. 1t does not matter which is
cnslavcd-owncd by an individual; the
other cannot accomplish without it.
Mr.. Carnegie says: II never saw the
bonds which made this Institute pos
siblc. and did not miss them from my
strong box" Mr.. Carnegie trans
Steel Corporation. it is understood, in
payment for the building and its ap-
purtcnances.
What is. the United States Steel
Corporation? 1t is an outgrowth OF
the gradual monopoly of all the read
lily available iron ore, coal and lime
stone OF this country by gigantic
combine, which Mr.. Carnegie practi-
cally inaugtratcd when he begun buy
ing up the iron ore, coal and lime
stone in all the area tributary to his
Pittsburgh plant. The other factor
in the game was the securing of an
enormous tariff upon the products of
the plant, that shut out like products
from other countries and compelled
the American consumer to pay that
enormous tax levy. The king in an
cient days did no more than own the
earth and tax the creatures who
crawlcd over it paying tithcs of what
they produced for the privilege of la
boring.
Gradually we are coming to see
that it does not make any difference
by what process we produce condi-