Lord Bountiful Carnegie.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 95, 1 May 1901, Page 3

Lord Bountiful Carnegie.

(Contributed). To his countrymen Mr Andrew Carnegie seems to have the appalling touch of Midas when it comes to making money. If that were all he had he would excite the fear of all men. Beginning as a poor boy, dependent on himself, struggling for what education he could get, he has achieved success and wealth that dazzle and might distress the beholder. But the ability to acquire is not his only or his greatest gift. His capacity for considering himself the trustee and not the owner of his vast possessions is as remarkable as his capacity for their acquisition. He has given to laudable public purposes, beneficial to mankind and especially useful to youth compelled to struggle as he was, about £5,000,000, a year. To this he recently added a fund of £BO,OOO, to pension his old employers as a reward for their part in making him successful. About the same time he notified the Technical School at Pittsburg of his intcnfcion to endow it with a fund of f*'y>ooo,000, and then, upon the eve of sailing for Scotland from New York, he notified that city that he would give it nearly £1,000,000, to invest in free library extension so as to bring library facilities within reach of the people of all classes in every section of the city. This wise broadcasting of nearly £10,000,000, in a few weeks is the most remarkable distribution of private wealth for popular use and benefit the world has ever witnessed. It must not be forgotten that he has company among the other American men and women, but he leads them all. He has set the pace and many will follow

There is much food for reflection in this. In ho" other country have enormous fortunes been as quickly acquired. If that were all. the historian of our times would find but little to write on that ; head to in- • terest humanity. But when-it may also be truthfully said that never since the appearance of man on the planet was as much of this wealth voluntarily redistributed, given away and gladly bestowed, for * purposes useful and helpful to the common people and the poor, history will beamingly record that wealth had an effect upon the American character that was novel and singular, and that, as it accumulated, the springs of benevolence and public spirit were made affluent by it, and from them flowed back into the lives of the people 'a Paetolian stream whose banks would hardly hold the flood. Andrew Carnegie has made for himself a place-in the esteem of his country men where at present he stands alone. Others approach the height, but he only has attained it. He seems as regardless of applause aqd to expect as little as he did for doing his duty as a shop boy, or when he sat at a telegraph instrument sending and receiving messages, - He sought nothing then but his wages and the approval of his own conscience, and he bestows fortunes upon publio purposes now apparently from the same sense of duty, and as heedless of comment.