THE AMERICAN MILLIONAIRE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2523, 23 July 1902, Page 72

THE AMERICAN MILLIONAIRE.

(Concluded.)

CORNELIUS VANDER BI LT

One of th_- be<t of the younger generation f>T millionaiies is Mr Cornelius Vanderbilt — bi other of the young Duchess of Marlboiough. He began by defying his father and niairying the girl he was in love with, though at the tune it was supposed that this would mean tlv> loss of "£8,000,000. But the young fellow neither idled nor i<. pined; he s t t himself to work, and to work in almost its lowliest form. Mechanic d work and mechanical invention have alv ay» had an unaccountable fascination for people to ay bom these things could bring no increase of prosperity. Poor Louis XVI spent much of his tinvj m making lock*, and wj.s superintending with joy the work of his hand«« in this lespect while he ought to have been seeing the leaders of the Liberal Oppr-siti-i,i or leading the accounts oi the hunger riots and the official extortions in his realni.

MOHKER AXD SOLDI) R

.Young Cornelius Vanderbik has always 1-eon attracted by idilwvv works, and when he became in-, own Htu'tcr, bo-ight himself overalls by the di./en and in the s-bops of a great iromvoiks or in some railway centre took to the making of ne^v lire boxes for locomotives-, or some loim of oil or coal waggon which would be cheaper and more cftcctne tl.an thu^e then in existence. His unentions have been sucjes.>ful, and are employed on many railway systems; and he meantime goi-s r.n woikinjj, ])refemng greasy ringers and horny hinds and overalls t) the moie fn^luoiuible delights of drawing looms and rr c stai.Tanr.«. He has varied these amusement -> by joining a militia regimuil and }ia-smg ex iminatioiis which allow him to command a company ; in short, he i- ;> ♦iulv (!iii^;ir, simple, active young man, with a stiong ven^e oi what the citizen owes to the i.ounu\ into which he has been boiii.

AXDRKW CARXECIE

Mi Carnegie i- now m London, en route for Ins Castle in Scotland, wheie. as everybody knows, he spends a certain number of months m every year. Heie is a pen portiait ot him which I take from an American journal. It is very life-like, and I have heard that Mr Carnegie him-f-tlt laughs t vt it as one of the best descriptions of his peisonal appearance that has ever been ■written":

Height, sft 4iin ; weight, 1601b ; describes hini«clf as being "pony built" ; li.ur giey ; be.u-d and moimtdche almost white; hands and feet unusually small — piide> himself upon them: weais No. 4 shoe and No 6 glove ; eyes blue ; Las a Srotcli face; speaks with Scotch dehbeiation ; nose small and rather thick ; mouth determined '. jaw-s square ; forehead broad ; face pleasant; head lound ; wears Xo. 7 hat. Tin: DiR m or a\ im \.

Tt v ill be <.etn from tins that Mi Carnegie is not a tall nun, but he lia* .i considerable dignity of cairiage — j^ small men wuh strong thaidcteis very often haye — ■which yives you the mapiessum of a man of gi eater height than he really has-. Unlike ilie Yaiiclerbilt*- and the Pierijont Morand other Amencan millionaire*. .Mr Caint^ie m,iss nut bom rich, and he \u« not b.nn in Ameiic.i. He i-» a native of nunftiii'line — that srn ill bat ancient and hMuiK Kiuti.li town in \\hii_b the du^t of many uf the Si otch Kings .ue laid. 'ILoinas Sh.iw, one of the leadcis of the Libcial p.nty. and Lnid Advocate in the lost Libeial Admini»tiation, was bom in the same town ; a fact which lia-< had some consideiable inrliiencc both on Mr Cainegie and on .Scotland. For it was an article written by his townsman in the IS'ineteentb. Century which iiist suggested tc Mr Carnegie the munificent idea of making university education in Scotland quite free — cue ot Mr Carnegie* most generous and most beneficent works.

'iiir mum of run max.

The hou^e in Inch. "\lr Carnegie was born wiib in Moddie '-tieet, at the b.ick ©£ tiw £<ls >vp;k»j jt lidd but a

storey, surmounted by a roof with <m attic in it, after the fashion of houses in the olden times ; its roof was tiled — in short, it was just the kind of house that ■would be occupied by decent, hard-working, poor weavers, such as the father and grandfather of Andrew Carnegie had been. The intioduction of the steam factories into *he cotton trade ruined the family business ; although the father of Andrew Carnegie was an exceptionally intelligent man, and had been able in his time to keep four looms and four journeymen at work under him. It is of his mother that Mr Carnegie speaks mos»t in the story of his life, but his father was also entitled to meniion and praise, for he was a great speaker — of course a Radical of Radicals, as Scotchmen of that class* and type nearly always are — iind was a popular v.nd vigorous speaker at the public meetings which at election and oilier times stirred 5.ma1l Dunfermline to its small depths. Tune has brought the philosophic mind to Mr Cainegie as to others, but theie was <i day when something of the fieiy apostolic and aggressive political spirit of his fathei was to be foiri.l in his own writings and speeches " GJ.OKDIk I.\I T J)KK."' There is a curious and typical figure in the childhood of Mr Carnegie which ought always to be mentioned ; he is such <i thorough embodiment ot an epoch and of «i nationality. When the family resolved that there was no future iov them in Scotland, and tLat they must try their fortunes in that wondious New Woild whose golden promise was intoxicating all the poor and the oppressed in eveiy land, they were face to face with one insuperable obstacle: they hadn't, even alter they had sold their looms and all their belongings, enough of money to carry them to America Heie is whit happened — I again go to mv American clnonicler • —

"In this emergency an appeal was made, „nd not in vain, to an uncle, a famous character in that part of Scotland This luoad-shouldeied, «-andy-h«ined Scot was known far and wide as 'Candy Rock and Whitenin' Geordie Lauder.' He wheeled a barrow and sold rock and stick candy to children and whitening for stove-cleaning to housewives. 'Candy Rock and Whitenin' Geordie' was a canny merchant, and could drive a bargain as well as he could play the bagpipes, and no man in Fifes-hire could equal him with the pipes.

"He was a brother to Mis Carnegie, and when that good woman announced her intention of going to Ameiica, Geordie Lander promptly advanced hei a loan of £10, or about 50dol. With this added 'capital the family staited for Allegheny City in the year 1846. Andrew Carnegie never had a chance to lepay the favour by hi* uncle.

"Long befoie richer came to young Carnegie, (Jeordie Latidi r was one of the greatest manufactiuei: in England. He sold the bariow and went to London. There he went into the biwiit^ of ■manufacturing dl Uncial flown*, aiid achieved a great uuccchs. He then blanched out on other lines and met with unwrying good fOl tune."'

AS A BOBIHN lIO Y

The family settled down in Allegl.eny City in the midst of tlu.t bu-y hive of factones and new industries which have made of Pennsylvania the mipoitant industml State it "is. The wholt family obtained emjjlojment at once in a cotton factory — and Andrew rec-dll" that, he began life as "a bobbin boy.' These w ere pre-lnstoiic d..ys before factoiy acts or trades unions or" any of the other agencies which have done so much to alleviate the lot of the young and the poor ; and the poor young child — never very strong — had to work from daybreak till dark.

IN JOHN" IIAY s; OFFICE.

From the cotton factory the boy went to the business of John Hay, a fellowcount lyman and a distant relative : and hsifi ike. ksuL slm& nit 9Jic* fi^-^i in &

position of responsibility and difficulty ; he had to take charge of an engine. The engine, it may be added, was in a cellar ; a slight aciiition to the discomfort of the occupation- Mr Carnegie has himself told us some of his feelings while thus employed : — "The firing of the boiler was all right," says Mr Carnegie, "for fortunately we did not use coal, but refuse wooden chips, and: I always liked to work in wood. But the responsibility of keeping the water right, and of running the engine, and the danger of making a mistake and blowing the whole factory to pieces, caused too great a strain, and I often awoke and found myself sitting up in bed through the night trying the steam gauges. But I never told them athome that I was Laving a hard tus6le. Aly kind employer, John Hay, peace to hi-3 ashes ! soon relieved me of the undue strain, for he needed someone to make out bills and keep accounts', and finding that I could write a plain schoolboy hand and could cipher, I became his only clerk. But rtill I had to work hard upstairs in the factory, for the clerking took ~up but little time."' ALWAYS WILLING TO CHAXCK IT.

One of Mr Carnegie's many biographers sees in this story a revelation of Mr Carnegie's whole character — ot the key to his whole caieer. "He never hesitated," says, the biographer, "to take a chance when promotion was in sight" : ' "He did not wait until he had mastered an occupation or a situation before accepting it. He accepted it first and then mastered it. He was an engineer before he knew anything about boilecs, to say nothing of engines. The same is true of the successive duties which he assumed. If that boiler in the little dark basement had not been 'built on honour,' had a single seam or livet failed in its duty, many on American city would to-day be without a. public library building. ' A GAITE OF DRAUGHTS.

Mr Carnegie has always been the enemy of gambling in any form ; even gambling iv stocks irritates him. "There never was an instance of a man who has made a fortune by speculation and kept it." This is one of his favourite aphorisms. But it was his father's love for the game of draughts — without any other prize, I am. fure, than the gratification of winning, for this stein old Scotch Puritan w^as probably oi the same mind as to gambling as his son — it was his father's love of a game of draughts that to a certain extent shaped the boy's whole career. One of the rivals with whom Carnegie senior used to have p, joust on the draughts board was a Mr Brooks ; and Mr Brooks one day heard the father say, "I don't know what to do with, my boy."' Mr Brooks was manager of the Pittsburg telegraph office. "Send the boy to my office," replied he to the anxious father, "and I will make a messenger of him." The poor boy was only too glad tn. accept the offer.

WH\r CAME OF IT

Again I go to his autobiography for the story of what followed ; it is once more a revelation of character :

"My only dread," says Mr Carnegie, 'was that I should some day be dismissed bec.inse I did not know the city, for it is necessary that a messenger boy should knowall tha firms and addresses of men who are in the hab't of receiving telegrams, and I was a stranger in Pittsburg. However, I made up my mind that I would leant t > repeat successively each business house in the principal streets, and was soon able to shut my eyes and begin at one side of Wood street and call every firm, successively to the top, and then pass to the other side and call every firm to the bottom. Before long I was able to do this with the business stieets generally."'

There is grit for you — and thoroughness, and determiu'\ti< n to succeed ! In the telegraph office there was an old instrument w Inch had ceased to be used, and was supposed to be quite worthless. But it proved tr> bu the sword by which Andrew Carnegie v a-> df-tined to open the world's oyster. Mr Brooks, in hi> int-erest in the boy, showed him how to tick out the Morse alphabet >m the old instrument ; and in this v. <t\ — and half unconsciously — young Carnegie became a telegraph operator. Partly to amuse himself, he used to converse with, other boys along the line, and finally, onef morning, while ho was waiting for the iimval of the reguha operator, the signal was given, '-Death message !" This waa always regarded as an important message, as to which there should be extra celerity ol delivery ; so the boy took it and deIrtered it, and had all this done before the airival of the regular operator. He was asked to do the work of the other operatois when he arnved before them; he had a. quick eai ; jr.on learned to ta'-f off a message by ear alone ; and. in short, was noticed and emploj-ed by Mr Brooks at the salary of £25 a month, and so started lfgular work on what he considered high wages.

MR fABN-EfilE TO-DAY,

The lest of the history of Mr Carnegie in too w ell known. Suffice it to say that he is to-day only anxious as to how he can best utilise the wealth he has made for the benefit of other poor young men and women in ths generations to come, b'ich as he himself >r.ce -was; that he retains the simplicity „f mannei and habit, of his eaily days; eats little, drinks little, doesn't smoke; finds his chief delight in books, the eonve >ation of intellectual luends, and in doing good.