The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-07-21
ANDREW CARNEGIE

A celebrated author is writing a
syndicated series OF articles about
famous American fnanciers and
Andrew Carnegies name heads the
list
No fairy story, nothing in the
realms of romance, no Aladdin, can
approach the story of the life of
Andrew Carnegie 1t really surpasses
all fiction.
The syndicate writer says:
The most picturesque figure
among the many men of great wealth
in the United States is Andrew earn
egie Although born in Scotland,
Carnegie came to this country when
he was only IL years old, and has con-
sidered America as his home ever
since. 1t was here he made his vast
fortune, and it is here that almost
the entire efforts of his life have
borne fruit He has been the most
beneficient of all the American
multi-millionaiers, having already
given close to 5000, 100000 to Ameri-
can institutions of various characters.
'Whe Andrew Carnegie was lad
he worked as a bobbin boy in a fac
tory in Allegheny City. Pa, from day
light to dark, earning a little over
a dollar a week He was so indus
trious that before he was 10 he found
employment in factory for making
! bobbins, having charge of the steam
engine that drove the machinery. his
| employer discovering the talent he
possessed, took him into his office,
but not being satisfied with the work,
when he was IA he became a tele-
graph messenger boy at $3.50 week.
He learned telegraphy and was soon
receiving a salary of $500 a year.
Thomas A. Scott took an interest in
the lad and offered him the position
of clerk and operator at s35 week.
He remained with the company 13
years, and during that term of SER
! vice conceived the now widely used
system of running trains by telegraph
signals between the blocks" or sta
tions
while still boy Carnegie made
his first business venture, buying at
Mr.. SCOTS suggestion, ten shares of
Adams Express company stock He
was so successful in all his schemes,
that when the civil war broke out,
Mr. Scott, who had become assistant
secretary of war, summoned Mr. Car
negie to Washington, and put him in
charge of the military railroads and
government telegraphs.
when the Pennsylvania Railroad
company began experimenting with
a bridge of cast iron, Mr.. Carnegie
was convinced that the use of that
material would become general, and
he organized the keystone Bridge
company, borrowing money to raise
his share of the capital. When he
visited England in 1868, and found
that steel was supplanting iron for
rails, he returned and introduced the
Bessemer process into his mills, and
later became the owner of the Home
stead Steel Works of Pittsburg. He
shortly gained control of a number of
nearby plants 1t was in steel that
Mr. Carnegie laid the real foundation
for his colossal fortune He went in
to the railroad business as well.
According to a published state
ment by Henry c. Frick, once Car
negie's close associate, his yearly in
come, when the, great steel trust was
formed, was between $24,000,oo0 and
$4,000. goo. If it really was as large
as Frick said, Carnegie's wealth es-
timated on the per cent basis then
aggregated more than $500 100000:
and in spite of his vast charities, he
is now credited by many fnanciers
with being worth fully that sum.
Nearly all of the many gifts OF
Mr.. Carnegie have been for education
al ends. He has, he says, no desire to
abolish poverty. 1--WE should, he de-
clares, "be quite willing to abolish
luxury, but to abolish honest, indus
trious, self-denying poverty, would be
to destroy the soil upon which man
kind produces the virtues which en-
able our race to reach a still higher
civilization than it now possesses
THE largest gifts that Mr.. Carnegie
has made, have been $53,000,000 to
the founding of libraries; S15,00O,OO0
to an education fund; $16,0O0000 to
the Pittsburg institute; $25,000,000 to
the Washington institute; $10,0O0,00O
to the Scotch universities, and $5,000,-
900 to a hero fund.
Personally Mr.. Carnegie is the
most genial and democratic of men.
His wealth has made him neither dis
solute. nor base, nor unapproachable,