THE LATE ANDREW CARNEGIE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2015, 14 August 1919, Page 3

THE LATE ANDREW CARNEGIE.

The ' late Andrew Carnegie was born on 25th November, 1837, in the ancient town of Dunfermline, Scotland. William Carnegie, his father, was a master weaver, who owned four damask looms. His mother was a woman of great .force of character, and Andrew's only instructor till he was eight years old. The first serious lesson Andrew Carnegie received in the stern school of life was the day on which his father took his last piece of work to the merchant, the introduction -of steam having caused the father’s business to decline. Andrew was just ten years of age, but the grim fact of poverty had to be faced, and, with the rest of the family, he took up his share of the burden. In 1848 the little party of four —father, mother, and two brothers —set out to seek their fortune in the great Republic across the water, and after a voyage of seven weeks in a sailing ship settled in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. The raw Scots lad started work as a, bobbinboy in a cotton factory. His apprenticeship was a severe one. The life was little better than slavery, and for this grinding work he received a little less than five shillings a week. He next became a clerk, and when fourteen years of age he obtained a situation as messengerboy in a telegraph office in Pittsburg. His capacity was perceived by .Mr T. A. Scott, of the Pennsylvania railway, who employed him as secretary, and in 1850 Carnegie became superintendent of the western division of the line. In this post ho was responsible for several improvements in the service; and when the Civil War opened lie accompanied Scott, (ben Assistant-Secretary of War, to the front. The first sources of the enormous wealth be subsequently attained were his introduction of sleeping-cars for railways, and- his purchase (1864) of Storey Farm on Oil Creek, where a large profit was secured from oilwells. Foreseeing the extent to which the demand would grow in America for iron and steel, be started the Keystone bridge works, built the Edgar Thompson steel-rail mill, bought out the rival Homestead steel works, and by 1888 bad under his control an extensive plant served by tributary coal and iron fields, a railway 425 miles in length, and a line of lake steamships. As years went by, the various Carnegie companies represented in this industry prospered to such an extent that in 1001, when, they were incorporated in the United States Steel Corporal ion, a trust, organised by Air J. Pierpont Morgan, and Air Carnegie himself retired from business, he was bought out at a figure equivalent to a capital of approximately £100,000,000. Ills views on social subjects, and the responsibilities which great wealth involved, were already known in a book entitled “Triumphant Democracy,” published in 1886, and in bis “Gospel of Wealth” (1900). lie acquired Skibo Castle, in Sulherlandshire, Scotland, and made bis home partly there and partly in New York; and he devoted las life to the work of providing the capital for purposes of public interest and social and educational advancement.' Aimmg these the provision of public libraries in the United States and United Kingdom (and similarly in other English-speaking countries) was especially prominent, and “Carnegie” libraries gradually sprang up on all sides, his method being to build and equip, but only on condition that the local authority provided site and maintenance, and thus to secure local interest and responsibility. By the end of 1908 he had distributed, over £10,000,000 for founding libraries alone. In Scotland he gave £2,000,000 in 1901 to establish a trust for providing funds for assisting education at the Scottish Universities, a benefaction which led, to his being elected Lord Rector of St. Andrew’s University. He was a large benefactor to the Titskegee Institute, under Booker Washington, for negro education. He also established large 'pension funds —in 1901, for his former employees at Homestead, and in 1905 for American college professors. His benefactions in the shape of buildings and endowments for education and research are too numerous for detailed enumeration. Alention must be made of his founding of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commissions, in America (1904) and in the United Kingdom (1908), for the recognition of deeds of heroism; his contribution of £500,000 in 1903 for the erection of a Temple of Peace at The Hague, and of £150,000 for a Pan-Ameri-can Palace in Washington as a home for the International Bureau of American Republics. In all his ideas he was dominated by an intense belief in the future and influence of the English-speaking people, in their democratic government and alliance for the purpose of peace and the abolition of war, and in the progress of education on unseetarian lines. He was a powerful supporter of the movement for spelling reform, as a moans of promoting the spread of the English language. Air Carnegie married in 1887, and had one daughter. Among other publications by him were: —“An American Four-in-Haiid in Britain” (1883), “Round ,1,0 World” (1884). “The Empire of Business” (1902), “Life of James Watt” (1905), and “The Prhlems of To-day” (1908). Carnegie, a borough of Allegheny County, 1 ennsylvania, was named in honour of Andrew Carnegie.