The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-08-11
ANDREW CARNEGIE

CONTINUED from Page One.l
also literally backed the Pittsburgh
orchestra.
To the allied engineers societies he
gave $2,000,000. His small gifts to
colleges amounted to some $4,000. zoe.
No man left at his death such an
unique and such a scattered series Of
monuments to perpetuate his memory.
In the background of these fifteen
years of philanthropy there is the fa-'
miliar story of Scotch thrift, little
luck, and steel. which made such gen
crosby possible.
Carnegie was fond of telling the
| story himself. Rapidly covered 1t was
this: His first penny he earned I'M
expected as a child when he aston
ished his schoolmaster in Dunfermline
Ly reciting Burns long poem, Man
was Made to Mourn" without a break.
There Is an anecdote of how when
asked in Sunday school to recite q
proverb from Scripture the young Scot
| unwittingly forecast his own fortune
by giving the homely advice--''Look
after the pence and the pounds will
take care OF themselves"
Family Emigrntcd to q. S.
Andrew was IL when his father a,
master weaver was brough. almost TO
destitution. The steam looms drove
him out OF business. The family num-
bered four including Andy" and his
younger brother william. The parents
decided to emigrate 70 America
whence soFe relatives mad presided
them with success. They settled at
Allegheny City Pa. across the river
from Pittsburgh in 1S4S. The father
and Andrew found work IN IL cotton
| factory the son as bobbin boy It was
his first work. The salary was $1.2O
week. He was soon promoted at a
slight advance to engineers assistant
| He stocked the boilers and ran the en-
| CINE in the factory cellar.
In those dingy quarters, where he
worked twelve hours a day, came the
inspiration that later led to MS IL
brary nefactions. he said. A Colo
mel Anderson, possessed of some 400
books. announced he would open his
| library every weekend and allow boys
to borrow any books they pleased.
Carnegie was one of the most eager
Birth of Library Idea.
"Only he who has longed as I did
for Saturdays to come" he has said.
can understand what Colonel Ander-
son did for me and other boys of Al
! legheny. 1t is any wonder that I re-
| solved, IL ever surplus wealth came to
me, would use 1t initiating my bene-
factor2"
| At IL Carnegie emerged from the
engine cellar and became a telegraph
messenger. ]. Douglas Reid. Dun
feminine man, who had come, to
America earlier, was head of the Of
flee and ne made Andrew his protege.
Telegraphy was then almost a new
thing. Nobody ventured to read the
| dots and dashes by sound. They were
all impressed on tape. Carnegie IL
said to have been the third operator
in the United States to accomplish the
feat of reading messages by sound
alone. He practised mornings before
the regular operators came around.
"One day a death message signal
came" he has related, before the OPP
orators arrived. In those days death
messages were the most important
messages we handled I ventured to
| take this one"
Then Made S35 a Month.
He did 1t correctly and delivered
the telegram before the regular force
was on duty at all. 1t won him pro-
motion to the key and sounder. When
| the Pennsylvania railroad put up a
telegraph wire OF its own he became
clerk under Divisional Superintendent
Thomas A. Scott. His salary jumped
to s35 a month. Mr.. Scott" he OBJ
served, was then receiving SIPS q
month. and used to wonder what on
earth he could do with so much
money"
Andrew was Is when his father
died, and he became at once the
breadwinner for the family and a true
capitalist. He had been told by his
trusted employer that ten share OF
Adams Express stock could be had
for $500. and it was a good invest
ment. At a family council that night
CaInegie's mother decided she would
mortgage her little home for $500
The stock was bought. and it brought
monthly dividends OF 1 per cent.
Saw Value of Sleeping Car.
''I can see that first check of SIC
dividend money now he said Wher
he became a retired ironmaster with
millions. 1T was something new tC
all of us, for none of us had ever re-
received anything but from toll"
The next step toward independence
and fortune came when T. T. Wood
ruff, the inventor of the sleeping car