Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-07-20
CARNEGIE WAS BLESSED
BY BEING BORN OF POOR
PARENTS, SAYS STEAD
Bitter Experience as Child Laborer
Did Not Kill Hope of Steel Master
Who Always Believed His Dreams
Of Success Would Come True.
By w. T. STEAD.

| a reputation. he was known to be a
man in whose hands everything pros
pered, he could command as much
capital as he required. And as he
had faith in the future of the coun-
try, whose praises he chanted in his
book, Triumphant Democracy" he
acquired all the best coal and iron
mines in the neighborhood of Pitts
burg.
Owes Debt to Partners.
Mr.. Carnegie in describing his up
ward march naturally does not dwell
much on rebates. He is profuse in
his acknowledgements of the services
rendered him by his partners:
81 have often said that If l had
to lose all the capital 1 had in the
works or lose my partners, should
let all my capital go and start again
without a dollar, but with the or
ganization intact"
He was constantly on the lookout
for young fellows of exceptional ca
paCity. He mentioned one instance
in which he had taken a young fell
low from behind a counter in Dun
feminine, sent him to Pittsburg,
given him a chance of proving what
was in him, and finally admitted him
to partnership, with a result that he
is now drawing a dividend of $3.50, 900
a year. Mr.. Carnegie kept the ma
jOrity of the shares in his own hands,
but nearly one-half of the shares
were distributed among the rising
young men who were offered a better
chance of making them in the firm
than they could possibly have found
elsewhere.
Apart from questions of detail and
administration Mr.. Carnegie owed his
great success largely to a strong
imagination married to keen Scotch
common sense. Nine years ago The
Times, summing up the story of the
growth of the Carnegie works. thus
described the eliminating develop
ment of his business just before he
turned 1t over to the United States
Steel and Iron Company:
The chief stages in the recent
progress of the Carnegie Steel Com
pany have been the building at
Homestead Works of plants Of per-
haps unequaled extent for the manu-
facture of open-hearth steel and ar
NOR plates, the acquisition of the
larger and richer parts of the Con-
nelsville coal field, near Pittsburg,
the buying up of the richest iron ore
mines of the Mesaba and other ranges
on Lake Superior, the acquisition or
control Of a special fleet of steamers
for the transport of iron ores from
their mines on Lake Superior to
Cleveland on Lake Erie, a distance Of
700 to 800 miles, and a private rail-
way to take the ore overland from
Cleveland to Pittsburg and the con-
struCtion of blast furnaces at Du-
qdesne, on the Monongahela River,
which have each produced as much in
a day as the largest furnaces, 80
years ago, were capable Of prOduc-
ing in an average week"
Delay Expansion for Buyers,
The year before Mr.. Carnegie sold
his interest in the business for
$500, 000, 900 he had offered to sell out
for the sum of $165, 100000.
1t was in the next year that Pier
pont Morgan became alarmed by the
competition which Carnegie offered to
his steel corporation, and as a result
of the menace of that competition Mr..
Carnegie was induced to sell the
company, which he had previously
valued at $150,O0O,0 GO for $445,O0O,O 900.
Of this Mt Carnegie's own share was
5000. 000, 900
Therefore, more than two-thirds of
his whole fortune was paid to him.
not because of any Industrial activity
on his part, but owing to the manner
in which he succeeded in impressing
upon Pierpont Morgan the fact that
he must be bought out at any price.
The one towering fact which Car
negie's rivals kept before them was
that their company had cleared $40
100000 during the last year They
were not selling so much steel, and
brick, and machinery. They were
selling a money making mechanism,
which had taken SO years to construct
And so, in the letter which Schwab
carried back to Morgan. were the fol-
lowing figures:
Five per cent gold bonds. 1904 900, 900
Preferred stock ......... 9S,277120
Common stock ......... 90,279,04O
Taking the preferred stock at par,
and the common at SO. this meant a
cash price of $447,416,640. Add to
this the $40,000O00 Of profit for the
year. and the total was S487, 60
nearly half a billion.
Mr.. Carnegie had triumphed all
along the line. And the secret OF his
triumph, apart from the phenomenal
prosperity of that boom year was
that he knew and practiced the arts
which created the needed atmosphere
and brought about the psychological
moment when the enemy feels there
is nothing for it but to capitulate and
sell out at any cost without even
counting the cost"