Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1919-08-20
ANDREW CARNEGIE,
STEEL KING. DEAD
Ironmaster Passes Away at His
Summer Home.
EIGHTY-THREE YEARS OLD
With Fortune Piling Up, He Conceived
Plan of Giving 1t Away, and Has
Disposed of More Than
100000 900.

Carnegie, the steel magnate, died at
Brook" at 7:10 Monday morning af-
ter an illness of less than three days
with bronchial pneumonia. So sud-
den was his death that his daughter,
Mrs. Roswell Miller, was unable to
get to her fathers bedside before he
died. His wife and private secretary
were with him at the end.
Mr.. Carnegie leaves his widow, who
was Miss Louise Whitefield of New
York, and his daughter, Margaret,
who became the wife last April of En-
sign Roswell Miller of New York.
Born in Scotland in 1885.
Andrew Carnegie was born Novem-
Der 25, 1885, at Dunfernline, Fife
shire, Scotland. In 1913 he was
brought to America by his parents
who settled in Pittsburgh, Pa.
His first work was as a weaver's
assistant in cotton factory In Allie
gheny, Pa.
During this time he learned telegra-
ply. Later he entered the employ OF
the Pennsylvania railroad and became
an operator. Here he advanced rapid
ly and soon was superintendent or
the Pittsburgh division Of the road.
He joined Mr. Woodruff. inventor of
the sleeping car, in organizing the
Woodruff Sleeping Car company. Here
he gained the nucleus for his fortune.
He began careful investments in oil
lands and increased his means
Then the Civil war came. Mr.. Car
negie offered his services and was
made superintendent of military rail-
ways, and government telegraph lines
in the East.
After the war he developed iron
works of various kinds and estab-
lished at Pittsburgh the Keystone
Bridge works and the Union Iron
works 1t was then that he introduced
into this country the famous Bessemer
process of making steel. This was in
1868.
The Bessemer process revolution
lied the steel Industry and made him
the steel king of the world, laying the
foundation of his huge fortune.
Tried to Give Away Fortune.
Andrew Carnegie began race
aginst time when, in 1904, at the age
of sixty-fve, he resolved to give away
his enormous fortune. He held it
"disgraceful" for q man to keep on
gathering idle millions. In the COM
paratively few years which the actu-
airy could allow him, he would disem-
barrass himself of practically all he
had. No man had ever launched a
phiIanthropic campaign of such di-
mansions.
His was then a fortune of just
about quarter billion dollars, the
largest ever acquired by a foreign
born American.
To give this stupendous sum away,
in about half the time he had taken
to gather it, was a purpose Carnegie
had fairly well fulfilled when death
overlook him. He had distributed
about S3OO,O0O,0O0
He declared, when he gave up gath
ering wealth and announced an era of
distribution, that he expected to find
it more difficult to give his millions
away than it had been to acquire
them.
He built q great national institu-
ton in Washington, which should be
the fountain head of advanced work
in Investigating, research and dis
covery," and placed In the hands of
its trustees a total endowment of
some S2O,OOO,000.
He carried out his pet idea Of a
hero commission, endowed In 1905
with S5,O00,000 by which hundreds of
men, women and children have been
rewarded with Carnegie medals or
pensions for acts of heroism in the
rescue of imperiled persons. He later
extended similar benefaction to sew
eral countries.
Gave Organs to Churches.
He established the Carnegie foun-
dation for the advancement of teach
ing. with a total fund of $15,000,O 900.
In 1911 he capitalized his educational
benevolence so that his gifts to IL
braries. colleges and other institu-
lions. should live after him, by eStab-
fishing the Carnegie corporation with
fund of S25.00O.OO0.
One of his ideals was the abolition
of war. hope that he cherished in
the face of international conflicts. He
gave S1OOOO,0O0 toward an interna-
tional peace fund and built the peace
palace at The Hague, which was died.
icated in 1913. He gave $750000 for
the bureau of American republics at
Washington.
His love of music moved him to
equip hundreds of churches and insti-
buttons with pipe organs.
Engineer Killed in Wreck.
Denver, Colo, Aug. 14.-Joseph Alex