STAR-SPANCLED SCOTSMAN

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 12140, 30 December 1933, Page 9

STAR-SPANCLED SCOTSMAN

ANDH F.W CA 11-NEGT E. A-UEItfCA’S RKHEBT MAX.. A,s we .see him in perspective, it 4 s cloaicr .than, ever thM Andreev Carnage was. on>- nl’ the represents m 11 of the nineteenth century.. He was uin incarnation of two of its great governing .deals, seh-hqlp and philunthtophy ;-lie raised-I!.< m, it is the bare until motion J truth, to tlie highest power the word had vet seen (mites H C. Bailey, in the “London Daily

Telegraph"). 'When he sold his business in I9dl Pidpont Morgan, a competent judge in sueli..matters, ■ pronounced him “the richest man in the world.'’ Carnegie himself wrote to the late Lord Morlev, “LI! have at least £50,GC0,000 sterling" —it worked out at some £00,000,000 —“J could as well have had •£ ICO.WG'.CfJO 7h~'a few years.”

Even in America there had been nothing like this. Before Camtgic. according to his new biographer. -Mr. Lai ton Hendrick, the largest American fortune was William Vanderbilt s £40,000,000. Mr. Hendrick quotes a comment of the late Lord ItothsclnKi: “One of the most remarkable phenomena of - our time is the fact that Mr. Andrew ( unvg’-e should in the -brief period of. one generation have amassed a» fortune exceeding in size that of all the Rothschilds combined, which, they have been -a-century in accumulating.” •It was not much less remarkable that, having amassed this historic Wealth. Carnegie proceeded to ensure that it should be devoted, not to his family, not to establish a -financial dynasty but to . “thy improvement M mankind.” Charity in the ordinary sense did not- appeal to him. He declared that niiie-t'Uths of the money, spent on it was unwisely spent. His • millions were assigned to !>-' lira! its. to educational endowment-'-to the foundation of the Carnegie Institution as an international ‘force for the* elevation of the human race by the advance- of knowledge. He held with, in.imsc- conviction the simple faith of his eintnrv. that scientific resell fell will make ah easier and a. better- .word; aud-Aha* -the imm.uiracc can be raised out of its perverse fpllit-s ’by wiser education, . Carnegie was a very human -creature. and here in Air. Bui toil .Henc—rick’s enthusiastic pages we hare him . vigorously alive The book is best considered in two pints—first, Hie story of Carnegie’s. making of Ins m-Hions. secondly- the account- of his relations, with the eminent, from Herbert f-penr-cw to the Kaiser. “I was brought up among Chartists and Reptib!ic-aais,’ ’ Carnegie wrote. He was. in fact.* the son of a Dunfermline" weaver, who neither in his own country nor in America ere iff make a living. • ' ’ • Politically Carnegie remained to tiio end of his life just giieli a Scottish R-tdical of the ’forties ns -the adult* he knew in boyhood. But lie became, in the neat- plirnse of his friend. t‘i? novelist'. Wi.liam Black. “a. starspangled Scotsman,” with ■ grandiose ideas and ai sanguine faith which are rather of the land of liis adoption. He was twelve years old when bis family lied from the privations o.x -Scotland -to seek fortune in Pennsylvania. It wa s the year of European revolution. IS-IS. What is mole to the .point, it was the eve of the -industrial development in the United States. Carnegie found in the States iron and wood: he left them steel. His first job in America was we.rtli Idol, ill) cents a week. He was twenty when lie mad; his first- investment. By -the t* ir| e lie was '27 he was earning; £IO,OOO a. year, and at that dale, 1863, such income- “made him an, pntstaiicling man.” In 1887. when he was fifty, two. -he told Gladstone (adding that- he -.-, .-'dd. think it disgraceful to-'dSe a ten man), that- lie was receiving £370.000 per anuuni. What that amount Imu grown to on his retirement with a capital of £00,000,000 does-not , appear. Later his. secretary ■ reported that he had already,given away'3£4,~ 657,320 dollars, let us s«.y nearly £65,000,000. . “Good heavens,’’ Carnegie chircIdod, “where did 1 ever get all tho money?'’ . He cou’d hardly have got it, pf course, without favourable economic conditions. There has in the world’s history been' such a vast manufacture of wealth as in the swift exploitation of 'the. Emtea States' hi the last half of tho ipinoteenth century. Carnegie was, in-at the start. He had ’money in sleeping ears before. Pullman.' ITe, was'investing in. the Pennsylvania oilfield - as soon as Rockefeller; . , . -

Then lie discovered that -‘Ton making offered . scope for his/energies. As son a s lie had established himself; as an iron master, Bessemer • mvenfeil the first process for/ mqking- cheap steel, and Carnegie - grasped its .opportunities, though not-,- too quickly- . Ho had, of course; in its. highest" : development, ia shrewd'business .man’s eye to tire; future,' but it dobs’ not appear’ that life saaw'very far ahead,' and indeed,' InV biographer admits' that his lopg'-n'auge predictions were-j/j apt to be/Ndlible. Ho), was. bold even’ .; tp Audacity. Hb ;: -was; thousrli -that -- kindest of men in. private, rnthlp'ss m competition, and a hard driver cf b-s