[Footnote 48: The total amount of this fund in 1919 was $29,250,000.]

My friend, Mr. Thomas Shaw (now Lord Shaw), of Dunfermline had written an article for one of the English reviews showing that many poor people in Scotland were unable to pay the fees required to give their children a university education, although some had deprived themselves of comforts in order to do so. After reading Mr. Shaw's article the idea came to me to give ten millions in five per cent bonds, one half of the L104,000 yearly revenue from it to be used to pay the fees of the deserving poor students and the other half to improve the universities.

The first meeting of the trustees of this fund (The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland) was held in the Edinburgh office of the Secretary of State for Scotland in 1902, Lord Balfour of Burleigh presiding. It was a notable body of men—Prime Minister Balfour, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (afterwards Prime Minister), John Morley (now Viscount Morley), James Bryce (now Viscount Bryce), the Earl of Elgin, Lord Rosebery, Lord Reay, Mr. Shaw (now Lord Shaw), Dr. John Ross of Dunfermline, "the man-of-all-work" that makes for the happiness or instruction of his fellow-man, and others. I explained that I had asked them to act because I could not entrust funds to the faculties of the Scottish universities after reading the report of a recent commission. Mr. Balfour promptly exclaimed: "Not a penny, not a penny!" The Earl of Elgin, who had been a member of the commission, fully concurred.



The details of the proposed fund being read, the Earl of Elgin was not sure about accepting a trust which was not strict and specific. He wished to know just what his duties were. I had given a majority of the trustees the right to change the objects of beneficence and modes of applying funds, should they in after days decide that the purposes and modes prescribed for education in Scotland had become unsuitable or unnecessary for the advanced times. Balfour of Burleigh agreed with the Earl and so did Prime Minister Balfour, who said he had never heard of a testator before who was willing to give such powers. He questioned the propriety of doing so.

"Well," I said, "Mr. Balfour, I have never known of a body of men capable of legislating for the generation ahead, and in some cases those who attempt to legislate even for their own generation are not thought to be eminently successful."

There was a ripple of laughter in which the Prime Minister himself heartily joined, and he then said:

"You are right, quite right; but you are, I think, the first great giver who has been wise enough to take this view."

I had proposed that a majority should have the power, but Lord Balfour suggested not less than two thirds. This was accepted by the Earl of Elgin and approved by all. I am very sure it is a wise provision, as after days will prove. It is incorporated in all my large gifts, and I rest assured that this feature will in future times prove valuable. The Earl of Elgin, of Dunfermline, did not hesitate to become Chairman of this trust. When I told Premier Balfour that I hoped Elgin could be induced to assume this duty, he said promptly, "You could not get a better man in Great Britain."

We are all entirely satisfied now upon that point. The query is: where could we get his equal?

It is an odd coincidence that there are only four living men who have been made Burgesses and received the Freedom of Dunfermline, and all are connected with the trust for the Universities of Scotland, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Earl of Elgin, Dr. John Ross, and myself. But there is a lady in the circle to-day, the only one ever so greatly honored with the Freedom of Dunfermline, Mrs. Carnegie, whose devotion to the town, like my own, is intense.

My election to the Lord Rectorship of St. Andrews in 1902 proved a very important event in my life. It admitted me to the university world, to which I had been a stranger. Few incidents in my life have so deeply impressed me as the first meeting of the faculty, when I took my seat in the old chair occupied successively by so many distinguished Lord Rectors during the nearly five hundred years which have elapsed since St. Andrews was founded. I read the collection of rectorial speeches as a preparation for the one I was soon to make. The most remarkable paragraph I met with in any of them was Dean Stanley's advice to the students to "go to Burns for your theology." That a high dignitary of the Church and a favorite of Queen Victoria should venture to say this to the students of John Knox's University is most suggestive as showing how even theology improves with the years. The best rules of conduct are in Burns. First there is: "Thine own reproach alone do fear." I took it as a motto early in life. And secondly:

"The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip To haud the wretch in order; But where ye feel your honor grip, Let that aye be your border."

John Stuart Mill's rectorial address to the St. Andrews students is remarkable. He evidently wished to give them of his best. The prominence he assigns to music as an aid to high living and pure refined enjoyment is notable. Such is my own experience.

An invitation given to the principals of the four Scotch universities and their wives or daughters to spend a week at Skibo resulted in much joy to Mrs. Carnegie and myself. The first meeting was attended by the Earl of Elgin, chairman of the Trust for the Universities of Scotland, and Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Secretary for Scotland, and Lady Balfour. After that "Principals' Week" each year became an established custom. They as well as we became friends, and thereby, they all agree, great good results to the universities. A spirit of cooeperation is stimulated. Taking my hand upon leaving after the first yearly visit, Principal Lang said:

"It has taken the principals of the Scotch universities five hundred years to learn how to begin our sessions. Spending a week together is the solution."

One of the memorable results of the gathering at Skibo in 1906 was that Miss Agnes Irwin, Dean of Radcliffe College, and great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin, spent the principals' week with us and all were charmed with her. Franklin received his first doctor's degree from St. Andrews University, nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. The second centenary of his birth was finely celebrated in Philadelphia, and St. Andrews, with numerous other universities throughout the world, sent addresses. St. Andrews also sent a degree to the great-granddaughter. As Lord Rector, I was deputed to confer it and place the mantle upon her. This was done the first evening before a large audience, when more than two hundred addresses were presented.

The audience was deeply impressed, as well it might be. St. Andrews University, the first to confer the degree upon the great-grandfather, conferred the same degree upon the great-grandchild one hundred and forty-seven years later (and this upon her own merits as Dean of Radcliffe College); sent it across the Atlantic to be bestowed by the hands of its Lord Rector, the first who was not a British subject, but who was born one as Franklin was, and who became an American citizen as Franklin did; the ceremony performed in Philadelphia where Franklin rests, in the presence of a brilliant assembly met to honor his memory. It was all very beautiful, and I esteemed myself favored, indeed, to be the medium of such a graceful and appropriate ceremony. Principal Donaldson of St. Andrews was surely inspired when he thought of it!

My unanimous reelection by the students of St. Andrews, without a contest for a second term, was deeply appreciated. And I liked the Rector's nights, when the students claim him for themselves, no member of the faculty being invited. We always had a good time. After the first one, Principal Donaldson gave me the verdict of the Secretary as rendered to him: "Rector So-and-So talked to us, Rector Thus-and-So talked at us, both from the platform; Mr. Carnegie sat down in our circle and talked with us."

The question of aid to our own higher educational institutions often intruded itself upon me, but my belief was that our chief universities, such as Harvard and Columbia, with five to ten thousand students,[49] were large enough; that further growth was undesirable; that the smaller institutions (the colleges especially) were in greater need of help and that it would be a better use of surplus wealth to aid them. Accordingly, I afterwards confined myself to these and am satisfied that this was wise. At a later date we found Mr. Rockefeller's splendid educational fund, The General Education Board, and ourselves were working in this fruitful field without consultation, with sometimes undesirable results. Mr. Rockefeller wished me to join his board and this I did. Cooeperation was soon found to be much to our mutual advantage, and we now work in unison.

[Footnote 49: Columbia University in 1920 numbered all told some 25,000 students in the various departments.]

In giving to colleges quite a number of my friends have been honored as was my partner Charlie Taylor. Conway Hall at Dickinson College, was named for Moncure D. Conway, whose Autobiography, recently published, is pronounced "literature" by the "Athenaeum." It says: "These two volumes lie on the table glistening like gems 'midst the piles of autobiographical rubbish by which they are surrounded." That is rather suggestive for one who is adding to the pile.

The last chapter in Mr. Conway's Autobiography ends with the following paragraph:

Implore Peace, O my reader, from whom I now part. Implore peace not of deified thunder clouds but of every man, woman, child thou shalt meet. Do not merely offer the prayer, "Give peace in our time," but do thy part to answer it! Then, at least, though the world be at strife, there shall be peace in thee.

My friend has put his finger upon our deepest disgrace. It surely must soon be abolished between civilized nations.

The Stanton Chair of Economics at Kenyon College, Ohio, was founded in memory of Edwin M. Stanton, who kindly greeted me as a boy in Pittsburgh when I delivered telegrams to him, and was ever cordial to me in Washington, when I was an assistant to Secretary Scott. The Hanna Chair in Western Reserve University, Cleveland; the John Hay Library at Brown University; the second Elihu Root Fund for Hamilton, the Mrs. Cleveland Library for Wellesley, gave me pleasure to christen after these friends. I hope more are to follow, commemorating those I have known, liked, and honored. I also wished a General Dodge Library and a Gayley Library to be erected from my gifts, but these friends had already obtained such honor from their respective Alma Maters.

My first gift to Hamilton College was to be named the Elihu Root Foundation, but that ablest of all our Secretaries of State, and in the opinion of President Roosevelt, "the wisest man he ever knew," took care, it seems, not to mention the fact to the college authorities. When I reproached him with this dereliction, he laughingly replied:

"Well, I promise not to cheat you the next gift you give us."

And by a second gift this lapse was repaired after all, but I took care not to entrust the matter directly to him. The Root Fund of Hamilton[50] is now established beyond his power to destroy. Root is a great man, and, as the greatest only are he is, in his simplicity, sublime. President Roosevelt declared he would crawl on his hands and knees from the White House to the Capitol if this would insure Root's nomination to the presidency with a prospect of success. He was considered vulnerable because he had been counsel for corporations and was too little of the spouter and the demagogue, too much of the modest, retiring statesman to split the ears of the groundlings.[51] The party foolishly decided not to risk Root.

[Footnote 50: It amounts to $250,000.]

[Footnote 51: At the Meeting in Memory of the Life and Work of Andrew Carnegie held on April 25, 1920, in the Engineering Societies Building in New York, Mr. Root made an address in the course of which, speaking of Mr. Carnegie, he said:

"He belonged to that great race of nation-builders who have made the development of America the wonder of the world.... He was the kindliest man I ever knew. Wealth had brought to him no hardening of the heart, nor made him forget the dreams of his youth. Kindly, affectionate, charitable in his judgments, unrestrained in his sympathies, noble in his impulses, I wish that all the people who think of him as a rich man giving away money he did not need could know of the hundreds of kindly things he did unknown to the world."]

My connection with Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes, which promote the elevation of the colored race we formerly kept in slavery, has been a source of satisfaction and pleasure, and to know Booker Washington is a rare privilege. We should all take our hats off to the man who not only raised himself from slavery, but helped raise millions of his race to a higher stage of civilization. Mr. Washington called upon me a few days after my gift of six hundred thousand dollars was made to Tuskegee and asked if he might be allowed to make one suggestion. I said: "Certainly."

"You have kindly specified that a sum from that fund be set aside for the future support of myself and wife during our lives, and we are very grateful, but, Mr. Carnegie, the sum is far beyond our needs and will seem to my race a fortune. Some might feel that I was no longer a poor man giving my services without thought of saving money. Would you have any objection to changing that clause, striking out the sum, and substituting 'only suitable provision'? I'll trust the trustees. Mrs. Washington and myself need very little."

I did so, and the deed now stands, but when Mr. Baldwin asked for the original letter to exchange it for the substitute, he told me that the noble soul objected. That document addressed to him was to be preserved forever, and handed down; but he would put it aside and let the substitute go on file.

This is an indication of the character of the leader of his race. No truer, more self-sacrificing hero ever lived: a man compounded of all the virtues. It makes one better just to know such pure and noble souls—human nature in its highest types is already divine here on earth. If it be asked which man of our age, or even of the past ages, has risen from the lowest to the highest, the answer must be Booker Washington. He rose from slavery to the leadership of his people—a modern Moses and Joshua combined, leading his people both onward and upward.

In connection with these institutions I came in contact with their officers and trustees—men like Principal Hollis B. Frissell of Hampton, Robert C. Ogden, George Foster Peabody, V. Everit Macy, George McAneny and William H. Baldwin—recently lost to us, alas!—men who labor for others. It was a blessing to know them intimately. The Cooper Union, the Mechanics and Tradesmen's Society, indeed every institution[52] in which I became interested, revealed many men and women devoting their time and thought, not to "miserable aims that end with self," but to high ideals which mean the relief and uplift of their less fortunate brethren.

[Footnote 52: The universities, colleges, and educational institutions to which Mr. Carnegie gave either endowment funds or buildings number five hundred. All told his gifts to them amounted to $27,000,000.]

My giving of organs to churches came very early in my career, I having presented to less than a hundred members of the Swedenborgian Church in Allegheny which my father favored, an organ, after declining to contribute to the building of a new church for so few. Applications from other churches soon began to pour in, from the grand Catholic Cathedral of Pittsburgh down to the small church in the country village, and I was kept busy. Every church seemed to need a better organ than it had, and as the full price for the new instrument was paid, what the old one brought was clear profit. Some ordered organs for very small churches which would almost split the rafters, as was the case with the first organ given the Swedenborgians; others had bought organs before applying but our check to cover the amount was welcome. Finally, however, a rigid system of giving was developed. A printed schedule requiring answers to many questions has now to be filled and returned before action is taken. The department is now perfectly systematized and works admirably because we graduate the gift according to the size of the church.

Charges were made in the rigid Scottish Highlands that I was demoralizing Christian worship by giving organs to churches. The very strict Presbyterians there still denounce as wicked an attempt "to worship God with a kist fu' o' whistles," instead of using the human God-given voice. After that I decided that I should require a partner in my sin, and therefore asked each congregation to pay one half of the desired new organ. Upon this basis the organ department still operates and continues to do a thriving business, the demand for improved organs still being great. Besides, many new churches are required for increasing populations and for these organs are essential.

I see no end to it. In requiring the congregation to pay one half the cost of better instruments, there is assurance of needed and reasonable expenditure. Believing from my own experience that it is salutary for the congregation to hear sacred music at intervals in the service and then slowly to disperse to the strains of the reverence-compelling organ after such sermons as often show us little of a Heavenly Father, I feel the money spent for organs is well spent. So we continue the organ department.[53]

[Footnote 53: The "organ department" up to 1919 had given 7689 organs to as many different churches at a cost of over six million dollars.]

Of all my work of a philanthropic character, my private pension fund gives me the highest and noblest return. No satisfaction equals that of feeling you have been permitted to place in comfortable circumstances, in their old age, people whom you have long known to be kind and good and in every way deserving, but who from no fault of their own, have not sufficient means to live respectably, free from solicitude as to their mere maintenance. Modest sums insure this freedom. It surprised me to find how numerous were those who needed some aid to make the difference between an old age of happiness and one of misery. Some such cases had arisen before my retirement from business, and I had sweet satisfaction from this source. Not one person have I ever placed upon the pension list[54] that did not fully deserve assistance. It is a real roll of honor and mutual affection. All are worthy. There is no publicity about it. No one knows who is embraced. Not a word is ever breathed to others.

[Footnote 54: This amounted to over $250,000 a year.]

This is my favorite and best answer to the question which will never down in my thoughts: "What good am I doing in the world to deserve all my mercies?" Well, the dear friends of the pension list give me a satisfactory reply, and this always comes to me in need. I have had far beyond my just share of life's blessings; therefore I never ask the Unknown for anything. We are in the presence of universal law and should bow our heads in silence and obey the Judge within, asking nothing, fearing nothing, just doing our duty right along, seeking no reward here or hereafter.

It is, indeed, more blessed to give than to receive. These dear good friends would do for me and mine as I do for them were positions reversed. I am sure of this. Many precious acknowledgments have I received. Some venture to tell me they remember me every night in their prayers and ask for me every blessing. Often I cannot refrain from giving expression to my real feelings in return.

"Pray, don't," I say. "Don't ask anything more for me. I've got far beyond my just share already. Any fair committee sitting upon my case would take away more than half the blessings already bestowed." These are not mere words, I feel their truth.

The Railroad Pension Fund is of a similar nature. Many of the old boys of the Pittsburgh Division (or their widows) are taken care of by it. It began years ago and grew to its present proportions. It now benefits the worthy railroad men who served under me when I was superintendent on the Pennsylvania, or their widows, who need help. I was only a boy when I first went among these trainmen and got to know them by name. They were very kind to me. Most of the men beneficiaries of the fund I have known personally. They are dear friends.

Although the four-million-dollar fund I gave for workmen in the mills (Steel Workers' Pensions) embraces hundreds that I never saw, there are still a sufficient number upon it that I do remember to give that fund also a strong hold upon me.



CHAPTER XXI

THE PEACE PALACE AND PITTENCRIEFF

Peace, at least as between English-speaking peoples,[55] must have been early in my thoughts. In 1869, when Britain launched the monster Monarch, then the largest warship known, there was, for some now-forgotten reason, talk of how she could easily compel tribute from our American cities one after the other. Nothing could resist her. I cabled John Bright, then in the British Cabinet (the cable had recently been opened):

"First and best service possible for Monarch, bringing home body Peabody."[56]

[Footnote 55: "Let men say what they will, I say that as surely as the sun in the heavens once shone upon Britain and America united, so surely it is one morning to rise, shine upon, and greet again the Reunited States—the British-American Union." (Quoted in Alderson's Andrew Carnegie, The Man and His Work, p. 108. New York, 1909.)]

[Footnote 56: George Peabody, the American merchant and philanthropist, who died in London in 1869.]

No signature was given. Strange to say, this was done, and thus the Monarch became the messenger of peace, not of destruction. Many years afterwards I met Mr. Bright at a small dinner party in Birmingham and told him I was his young anonymous correspondent. He was surprised that no signature was attached and said his heart was in the act. I am sure it was. He is entitled to all credit.

He was the friend of the Republic when she needed friends during the Civil War. He had always been my favorite living hero in public life as he had been my father's. Denounced as a wild radical at first, he kept steadily on until the nation came to his point of view. Always for peace he would have avoided the Crimean War, in which Britain backed the wrong horse, as Lord Salisbury afterwards acknowledged. It was a great privilege that the Bright family accorded me, as a friend, to place a replica of the Manchester Bright statue in Parliament, in the stead of a poor one removed.

I became interested in the Peace Society of Great Britain upon one of my early visits and attended many of its meetings, and in later days I was especially drawn to the Parliamentary Union established by Mr. Cremer, the famous working-man's representative in Parliament. Few men living can be compared to Mr. Cremer. When he received the Nobel Prize of L8000 as the one who had done the most that year for peace, he promptly gave all but L1000, needed for pressing wants, to the Arbitration Committee. It was a noble sacrifice. What is money but dross to the true hero! Mr. Cremer is paid a few dollars a week by his trade to enable him to exist in London as their member of Parliament, and here was fortune thrown in his lap only to be devoted by him to the cause of peace. This is the heroic in its finest form.

I had the great pleasure of presenting the Committee to President Cleveland at Washington in 1887, who received the members cordially and assured them of his hearty cooeperation. From that day the abolition of war grew in importance with me until it finally overshadowed all other issues. The surprising action of the first Hague Conference gave me intense joy. Called primarily to consider disarmament (which proved a dream), it created the commanding reality of a permanent tribunal to settle international disputes. I saw in this the greatest step toward peace that humanity had ever taken, and taken as if by inspiration, without much previous discussion. No wonder the sublime idea captivated the conference.

If Mr. Holls, whose death I so deeply deplored, were alive to-day and a delegate to the forthcoming second Conference with his chief, Andrew D. White, I feel that these two might possibly bring about the creation of the needed International Court for the abolition of war. He it was who started from The Hague at night for Germany, upon request of his chief, and saw the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Emperor and finally prevailed upon them to approve of the High Court, and not to withdraw their delegates as threatened—a service for which Mr. Holls deserves to be enrolled among the greatest servants of mankind. Alas, death came to him while still in his prime.

The day that International Court is established will become one of the most memorable days in the world's history.[57] It will ring the knell of man killing man—the deepest and blackest of crimes. It should be celebrated in every land as I believe it will be some day, and that time, perchance, not so remote as expected. In that era not a few of those hitherto extolled as heroes will have found oblivion because they failed to promote peace and good-will instead of war.

[Footnote 57: "I submit that the only measure required to-day for the maintenance of world peace is an agreement between three or four of the leading Civilized Powers (and as many more as desire to join—the more the better) pledged to cooeperate against disturbers of world peace, should such arise." (Andrew Carnegie, in address at unveiling of a bust of William Randall Cremer at the Peace Palace of The Hague, August 29, 1913.)]

When Andrew D. White and Mr. Holls, upon their return from The Hague, suggested that I offer the funds needed for a Temple of Peace at The Hague, I informed them that I never could be so presumptuous; that if the Government of the Netherlands informed me of its desire to have such a temple and hoped I would furnish the means, the request would be favorably considered. They demurred, saying this could hardly be expected from any Government. Then I said I could never act in the matter.

Finally the Dutch Government did make application, through its Minister, Baron Gevers in Washington, and I rejoiced. Still, in writing him, I was careful to say that the drafts of his Government would be duly honored. I did not send the money. The Government drew upon me for it, and the draft for a million and a half is kept as a memento. It seems to me almost too much that any individual should be permitted to perform so noble a duty as that of providing means for this Temple of Peace—the most holy building in the world because it has the holiest end in view. I do not even except St. Peter's, or any building erected to the glory of God, whom, as Luther says, "we cannot serve or aid; He needs no help from us." This temple is to bring peace, which is so greatly needed among His erring creatures. "The highest worship of God is service to man." At least, I feel so with Luther and Franklin.

When in 1907 friends came and asked me to accept the presidency of the Peace Society of New York, which they had determined to organize, I declined, alleging that I was kept very busy with many affairs, which was true; but my conscience troubled me afterwards for declining. If I were not willing to sacrifice myself for the cause of peace what should I sacrifice for? What was I good for? Fortunately, in a few days, the Reverend Lyman Abbott, the Reverend Mr. Lynch, and some other notable laborers for good causes called to urge my reconsideration. I divined their errand and frankly told them they need not speak. My conscience had been tormenting me for declining and I would accept the presidency and do my duty. After that came the great national gathering (the following April) when for the first time in the history of Peace Society meetings, there attended delegates from thirty-five of the states of the Union, besides many foreigners of distinction.[58]

[Footnote 58: Mr. Carnegie does not mention the fact that in December, 1910, he gave to a board of trustees $10,000,000, the revenue of which was to be administered for "the abolition of international war, the foulest blot upon our civilization." This is known as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Honorable Elihu Root is president of the board of trustees.]

My first decoration then came unexpectedly. The French Government had made me Knight Commander of the Legion of Honor, and at the Peace Banquet in New York, over which I presided, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant appeared upon the stage and in a compelling speech invested me with the regalia amid the cheers of the company. It was a great honor, indeed, and appreciated by me because given for my services to the cause of International Peace. Such honors humble, they do not exalt; so let them come.[59] They serve also to remind me that I must strive harder than ever, and watch every act and word more closely, that I may reach just a little nearer the standard the givers—deluded souls—mistakenly assume in their speeches, that I have already attained.

[Footnote 59: Mr. Carnegie received also the Grand Cross Order of Orange-Nassau from Holland, the Grand Cross Order of Danebrog from Denmark, a gold medal from twenty-one American Republics and had doctors' degrees from innumerable universities and colleges. He was also a member of many institutes, learned societies and clubs—over 190 in number.]

* * * * *

No gift I have made or can ever make can possibly approach that of Pittencrieff Glen, Dunfermline. It is saturated with childish sentiment—all of the purest and sweetest. I must tell that story:

Among my earliest recollections are the struggles of Dunfermline to obtain the rights of the town to part of the Abbey grounds and the Palace ruins. My Grandfather Morrison began the campaign, or, at least, was one of those who did. The struggle was continued by my Uncles Lauder and Morrison, the latter honored by being charged with having incited and led a band of men to tear down a certain wall. The citizens won a victory in the highest court and the then Laird ordered that thereafter "no Morrison be admitted to the Glen." I, being a Morrison like my brother-cousin, Dod, was debarred. The Lairds of Pittencrieff for generations had been at variance with the inhabitants.

The Glen is unique, as far as I know. It adjoins the Abbey and Palace grounds, and on the west and north it lies along two of the main streets of the town. Its area (between sixty and seventy acres) is finely sheltered, its high hills grandly wooded. It always meant paradise to the child of Dunfermline. It certainly did to me. When I heard of paradise, I translated the word into Pittencrieff Glen, believing it to be as near to paradise as anything I could think of. Happy were we if through an open lodge gate, or over the wall or under the iron grill over the burn, now and then we caught a glimpse inside.

Almost every Sunday Uncle Lauder took "Dod" and "Naig" for a walk around the Abbey to a part that overlooked the Glen—the busy crows fluttering around in the big trees below. Its Laird was to us children the embodiment of rank and wealth. The Queen, we knew, lived in Windsor Castle, but she didn't own Pittencrieff, not she! Hunt of Pittencrieff wouldn't exchange with her or with any one. Of this we were sure, because certainly neither of us would. In all my childhood's—yes and in my early manhood's—air-castle building (which was not small), nothing comparable in grandeur approached Pittencrieff. My Uncle Lauder predicted many things for me when I became a man, but had he foretold that some day I should be rich enough, and so supremely fortunate as to become Laird of Pittencrieff, he might have turned my head. And then to be able to hand it over to Dunfermline as a public park—my paradise of childhood! Not for a crown would I barter that privilege.

When Dr. Ross whispered to me that Colonel Hunt might be induced to sell, my ears cocked themselves instantly. He wished an extortionate price, the doctor thought, and I heard nothing further for some time. When indisposed in London in the autumn of 1902, my mind ran upon the subject, and I intended to wire Dr. Ross to come up and see me. One morning, Mrs. Carnegie came into my room and asked me to guess who had arrived and I guessed Dr. Ross. Sure enough, there he was. We talked over Pittencrieff. I suggested that if our mutual friend and fellow-townsman, Mr. Shaw in Edinburgh (Lord Shaw of Dunfermline) ever met Colonel Hunt's agents he could intimate that their client might some day regret not closing with me as another purchaser equally anxious to buy might not be met with, and I might change my mind or pass away. Mr. Shaw told the doctor when he mentioned this that he had an appointment to meet with Hunt's lawyer on other business the next morning and would certainly say so.

I sailed shortly after for New York and received there one day a cable from Mr. Shaw stating that the Laird would accept forty-five thousand pounds. Should he close? I wired: "Yes, provided it is under Ross's conditions"; and on Christmas Eve, I received Shaw's reply: "Hail, Laird of Pittencrieff!" So I was the happy possessor of the grandest title on earth in my estimation. The King—well, he was only the King. He didn't own King Malcolm's tower nor St. Margaret's shrine, nor Pittencrieff Glen. Not he, poor man. I did, and I shall be glad to condescendingly show the King those treasures should he ever visit Dunfermline.

As the possessor of the Park and the Glen I had a chance to find out what, if anything, money could do for the good of the masses of a community, if placed in the hands of a body of public-spirited citizens. Dr. Ross was taken into my confidence so far as Pittencrieff Park was concerned, and with his advice certain men intended for a body of trustees were agreed upon and invited to Skibo to organize. They imagined it was in regard to transferring the Park to the town; not even to Dr. Ross was any other subject mentioned. When they heard that half a million sterling in bonds, bearing five per cent interest, was also to go to them for the benefit of Dunfermline, they were surprised.[60]

[Footnote 60: Additional gifts, made later, brought this gift up to $3,750,000.]

It is twelve years since the Glen was handed over to the trustees and certainly no public park was ever dearer to a people. The children's yearly gala day, the flower shows and the daily use of the Park by the people are surprising. The Glen now attracts people from neighboring towns. In numerous ways the trustees have succeeded finely in the direction indicated in the trust deed, namely:

To bring into the monotonous lives of the toiling masses of Dunfermline, more "of sweetness and light," to give to them—especially the young—some charm, some happiness, some elevating conditions of life which residence elsewhere would have denied, that the child of my native town, looking back in after years, however far from home it may have roamed, will feel that simply by virtue of being such, life has been made happier and better. If this be the fruit of your labors, you will have succeeded; if not, you will have failed.

To this paragraph I owe the friendship of Earl Grey, formerly Governor-General of Canada. He wrote Dr. Ross:

"I must know the man who wrote that document in the 'Times' this morning."

We met in London and became instantly sympathetic. He is a great soul who passes instantly into the heart and stays there. Lord Grey is also to-day a member (trustee) of the ten-million-dollar fund for the United Kingdom.[61]

[Footnote 61: Mr. Carnegie refers to the gift of ten million dollars to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust merely in connection with Earl Grey. His references to his gifts are casual, in that he refers only to the ones in which he happens for the moment to be interested. Those he mentions are merely a part of the whole. He gave to the Church Peace Union over $2,000,000, to the United Engineering Society $1,500,000, to the International Bureau of American Republics $850,000, and to a score or more of research, hospital, and educational boards sums ranging from $100,000 to $500,000. He gave to various towns and cities over twenty-eight hundred library buildings at a cost of over $60,000,000. The largest of his gifts he does not mention at all. This was made in 1911 to the Carnegie Corporation of New York and was $125,000,000. The Corporation is the residuary legatee under Mr. Carnegie's will and it is not yet known what further sum may come to it through that instrument. The object of the Corporation, as defined by Mr. Carnegie himself in a letter to the trustees, is:

"To promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding among the people of the United States by aiding technical schools, institutions of higher learning, libraries, scientific research, hero funds, useful publications and by such other agencies and means as shall from time to time be found appropriate therefor."

The Carnegie benefactions, all told, amount to something over $350,000,000—surely a huge sum to have been brought together and then distributed by one man.]

Thus, Pittencrieff Glen is the most soul-satisfying public gift I ever made, or ever can make. It is poetic justice that the grandson of Thomas Morrison, radical leader in his day, nephew of Bailie Morrison, his son and successor, and above all son of my sainted father and my most heroic mother, should arise and dispossess the lairds, should become the agent for conveying the Glen and Park to the people of Dunfermline forever. It is a true romance, which no air-castle can quite equal or fiction conceive. The hand of destiny seems to hover over it, and I hear something whispering: "Not altogether in vain have you lived—not altogether in vain." This is the crowning mercy of my career! I set it apart from all my other public gifts. Truly the whirligig of time brings in some strange revenges.

It is now thirteen years since I ceased to accumulate wealth and began to distribute it. I could never have succeeded in either had I stopped with having enough to retire upon, but nothing to retire to. But there was the habit and the love of reading, writing and speaking upon occasion, and also the acquaintance and friendship of educated men which I had made before I gave up business. For some years after retiring I could not force myself to visit the works. This, alas, would recall so many who had gone before. Scarcely one of my early friends would remain to give me the hand-clasp of the days of old. Only one or two of these old men would call me "Andy."

Do not let it be thought, however, that my younger partners were forgotten, or that they have not played a very important part in sustaining me in the effort of reconciling myself to the new conditions. Far otherwise! The most soothing influence of all was their prompt organization of the Carnegie Veteran Association, to expire only when the last member dies. Our yearly dinner together, in our own home in New York, is a source of the greatest pleasure,—so great that it lasts from one year to the other. Some of the Veterans travel far to be present, and what occurs between us constitutes one of the dearest joys of my life. I carry with me the affection of "my boys." I am certain I do. There is no possible mistake about that because my heart goes out to them. This I number among my many blessings and in many a brooding hour this fact comes to me, and I say to myself: "Rather this, minus fortune, than multi-millionairedom without it—yes, a thousand times, yes."

Many friends, great and good men and women, Mrs. Carnegie and I are favored to know, but not one whit shall these ever change our joint love for the "boys." For to my infinite delight her heart goes out to them as does mine. She it was who christened our new New York home with the first Veteran dinner. "The partners first" was her word. It was no mere idle form when they elected Mrs. Carnegie the first honorary member, and our daughter the second. Their place in our hearts is secure. Although I was the senior, still we were "boys together." Perfect trust and common aims, not for self only, but for each other, and deep affection, moulded us into a brotherhood. We were friends first and partners afterwards. Forty-three out of forty-five partners are thus bound together for life.

Another yearly event that brings forth many choice spirits is our Literary Dinner, at home, our dear friend Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the "Century," being the manager.[62] His devices and quotations from the writings of the guest of the year, placed upon the cards of the guests, are so appropriate, as to cause much hilarity. Then the speeches of the novitiates give zest to the occasion. John Morley was the guest of honor when with us in 1895 and a quotation from his works was upon the card at each plate.

[Footnote 62: "Yesterday we had a busy day in Toronto. The grand event was a dinner at six o'clock where we all spoke, A.C. making a remarkable address.... I can't tell you how I am enjoying this. Not only seeing new places, but the talks with our own party. It is, indeed, a liberal education. A.C. is truly a 'great' man; that is, a man of enormous faculty and a great imagination. I don't remember any friend who has such a range of poetical quotation, unless it is Stedman. (Not so much range as numerous quotations from Shakespeare, Burns, Byron, etc.) His views are truly large and prophetic. And, unless I am mistaken, he has a genuine ethical character. He is not perfect, but he is most interesting and remarkable; a true democrat; his benevolent actions having a root in principle and character. He is not accidentally the intimate friend of such high natures as Arnold and Morley." (Letters of Richard Watson Gilder, edited by his daughter Rosamond Gilder, p. 374. New York, 1916.)]

One year Gilder appeared early in the evening of the dinner as he wished to seat the guests. This had been done, but he came to me saying it was well he had looked them over. He had found John Burroughs and Ernest Thompson Seton were side by side, and as they were then engaged in a heated controversy upon the habits of beasts and birds, in which both had gone too far in their criticisms, they were at dagger's points. Gilder said it would never do to seat them together. He had separated them. I said nothing, but slipped into the dining-room unobserved and replaced the cards as before. Gilder's surprise was great when he saw the men next each other, but the result was just as I had expected. A reconciliation took place and they parted good friends. Moral: If you wish to play peace-maker, seat adversaries next each other where they must begin by being civil.

Burroughs and Seton both enjoyed the trap I set for them. True it is, we only hate those whom we do not know. It certainly is often the way to peace to invite your adversary to dinner and even beseech him to come, taking no refusal. Most quarrels become acute from the parties not seeing and communicating with each other and hearing too much of their disagreement from others. They do not fully understand the other's point of view and all that can be said for it. Wise is he who offers the hand of reconciliation should a difference with a friend arise. Unhappy he to the end of his days who refuses it. No possible gain atones for the loss of one who has been a friend even if that friend has become somewhat less dear to you than before. He is still one with whom you have been intimate, and as age comes on friends pass rapidly away and leave you.

He is the happy man who feels there is not a human being to whom he does not wish happiness, long life, and deserved success, not one in whose path he would cast an obstacle nor to whom he would not do a service if in his power. All this he can feel without being called upon to retain as a friend one who has proved unworthy beyond question by dishonorable conduct. For such there should be nothing felt but pity, infinite pity. And pity for your own loss also, for true friendship can only feed and grow upon the virtues.

"When love begins to sicken and decay It useth an enforced ceremony."

The former geniality may be gone forever, but each can wish the other nothing but happiness.

None of my friends hailed my retirement from business more warmly than Mark Twain. I received from him the following note, at a time when the newspapers were talking much about my wealth.

DEAR SIR AND FRIEND:

You seem to be prosperous these days. Could you lend an admirer a dollar and a half to buy a hymn-book with? God will bless you if you do; I feel it, I know it. So will I. If there should be other applications this one not to count.

Yours

MARK

P.S. Don't send the hymn-book, send the money. I want to make the selection myself.

M.

When he was lying ill in New York I went to see him frequently, and we had great times together, for even lying in bed he was as bright as ever. One call was to say good-bye, before my sailing for Scotland. The Pension Fund for University Professors was announced in New York soon after I sailed. A letter about it from Mark, addressed to "Saint Andrew," reached me in Scotland, from which I quote the following:

You can take my halo. If you had told me what you had done when at my bedside you would have got it there and then. It is pure tin and paid "the duty" when it came down.

Those intimate with Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain) will certify that he was one of the charmers. Joe Jefferson is the only man who can be conceded his twin brother in manner and speech, their charm being of the same kind. "Uncle Remus" (Joel Chandler Harris) is another who has charm, and so has George W. Cable; yes, and Josh Billings also had it. Such people brighten the lives of their friends, regardless of themselves. They make sunshine wherever they go. In Rip Van Winkle's words: "All pretty much alike, dem fellers." Every one of them is unselfish and warm of heart.

The public only knows one side of Mr. Clemens—the amusing part. Little does it suspect that he was a man of strong convictions upon political and social questions and a moralist of no mean order. For instance, upon the capture of Aguinaldo by deception, his pen was the most trenchant of all. Junius was weak in comparison.

The gathering to celebrate his seventieth birthday was unique. The literary element was there in force, but Mark had not forgotten to ask to have placed near him the multi-millionaire, Mr. H.H. Rogers, one who had been his friend in need. Just like Mark. Without exception, the leading literary men dwelt in their speeches exclusively upon the guest's literary work. When my turn came, I referred to this and asked them to note that what our friend had done as a man would live as long as what he had written. Sir Walter Scott and he were linked indissolubly together. Our friend, like Scott, was ruined by the mistakes of partners, who had become hopelessly bankrupt. Two courses lay before him. One the smooth, easy, and short way—the legal path. Surrender all your property, go through bankruptcy, and start afresh. This was all he owed to creditors. The other path, long, thorny, and dreary, a life struggle, with everything sacrificed. There lay the two paths and this was his decision:

"Not what I owe to my creditors, but what I owe to myself is the issue."

There are times in most men's lives that test whether they be dross or pure gold. It is the decision made in the crisis which proves the man. Our friend entered the fiery furnace a man and emerged a hero. He paid his debts to the utmost farthing by lecturing around the world. "An amusing cuss, Mark Twain," is all very well as a popular verdict, but what of Mr. Clemens the man and the hero, for he is both and in the front rank, too, with Sir Walter.

He had a heroine in his wife. She it was who sustained him and traveled the world round with him as his guardian angel, and enabled him to conquer as Sir Walter did. This he never failed to tell to his intimates. Never in my life did three words leave so keen a pang as those uttered upon my first call after Mrs. Clemens passed away. I fortunately found him alone and while my hand was still in his, and before one word had been spoken by either, there came from him, with a stronger pressure of my hand, these words: "A ruined home, a ruined home." The silence was unbroken. I write this years after, but still I hear the words again and my heart responds.

One mercy, denied to our forefathers, comes to us of to-day. If the Judge within give us a verdict of acquittal as having lived this life well, we have no other Judge to fear.

"To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Eternal punishment, because of a few years' shortcomings here on earth, would be the reverse of Godlike. Satan himself would recoil from it.



CHAPTER XXII

MATHEW ARNOLD AND OTHERS

The most charming man, John Morley and I agree, that we ever knew was Matthew Arnold. He had, indeed, "a charm"—that is the only word which expresses the effect of his presence and his conversation. Even his look and grave silences charmed.



He coached with us in 1880, I think, through Southern England—William Black and Edwin A. Abbey being of the party. Approaching a pretty village he asked me if the coach might stop there a few minutes. He explained that this was the resting-place of his godfather, Bishop Keble, and he should like to visit his grave. He continued:

"Ah, dear, dear Keble! I caused him much sorrow by my views upon theological subjects, which caused me sorrow also, but notwithstanding he was deeply grieved, dear friend as he was, he traveled to Oxford and voted for me for Professor of English Poetry."

We walked to the quiet churchyard together. Matthew Arnold in silent thought at the grave of Keble made upon me a lasting impression. Later the subject of his theological views was referred to. He said they had caused sorrow to his best friends.

"Mr. Gladstone once gave expression to his deep disappointment, or to something like displeasure, saying I ought to have been a bishop. No doubt my writings prevented my promotion, as well as grieved my friends, but I could not help it. I had to express my views."

I remember well the sadness of tone with which these last words were spoken, and how very slowly. They came as from the deep. He had his message to deliver. Steadily has the age advanced to receive it. His teachings pass almost uncensured to-day. If ever there was a seriously religious man it was Matthew Arnold. No irreverent word ever escaped his lips. In this he and Gladstone were equally above reproach, and yet he had in one short sentence slain the supernatural. "The case against miracles is closed. They do not happen."

He and his daughter, now Mrs. Whitridge, were our guests when in New York in 1883, and also at our mountain home in the Alleghanies, so that I saw a great deal, but not enough, of him. My mother and myself drove him to the hall upon his first public appearance in New York. Never was there a finer audience gathered. The lecture was not a success, owing solely to his inability to speak well in public. He was not heard. When we returned home his first words were:

"Well, what have you all to say? Tell me! Will I do as a lecturer?"

I was so keenly interested in his success that I did not hesitate to tell him it would never do for him to go on unless he fitted himself for public speaking. He must get an elocutionist to give him lessons upon two or three points. I urged this so strongly that he consented to do so. After we all had our say, he turned to my mother, saying:

"Now, dear Mrs. Carnegie, they have all given me their opinions, but I wish to know what you have to say about my first night as a lecturer in America."

"Too ministerial, Mr. Arnold, too ministerial," was the reply slowly and softly delivered. And to the last Mr. Arnold would occasionally refer to that, saying he felt it hit the nail on the head. When he returned to New York from his Western tour, he had so much improved that his voice completely filled the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He had taken a few lessons from a professor of elocution in Boston, as advised, and all went well thereafter.

He expressed a desire to hear the noted preacher, Mr. Beecher; and we started for Brooklyn one Sunday morning. Mr. Beecher had been apprized of our coming so that after the services he might remain to meet Mr. Arnold. When I presented Mr. Arnold he was greeted warmly. Mr. Beecher expressed his delight at meeting one in the flesh whom he had long known so well in the spirit, and, grasping his hand, he said:

"There is nothing you have written, Mr. Arnold, which I have not carefully read at least once and a great deal many times, and always with profit, always with profit!"

"Ah, then, I fear, Mr. Beecher," replied Arnold, "you may have found some references to yourself which would better have been omitted."

"Oh, no, no, those did me the most good of all," said the smiling Beecher, and they both laughed.

Mr. Beecher was never at a loss. After presenting Matthew Arnold to him, I had the pleasure of presenting the daughter of Colonel Ingersoll, saying, as I did so:

"Mr. Beecher, this is the first time Miss Ingersoll has ever been in a Christian church."

He held out both hands and grasped hers, and looking straight at her and speaking slowly, said:

"Well, well, you are the most beautiful heathen I ever saw." Those who remember Miss Ingersoll in her youth will not differ greatly with Mr. Beecher. Then: "How's your father, Miss Ingersoll? I hope he's well. Many a time he and I have stood together on the platform, and wasn't it lucky for me we were on the same side!"

Beecher was, indeed, a great, broad, generous man, who absorbed what was good wherever found. Spencer's philosophy, Arnold's insight tempered with sound sense, Ingersoll's staunch support of high political ends were powers for good in the Republic. Mr. Beecher was great enough to appreciate and hail as helpful friends all of these men.

Arnold visited us in Scotland in 1887, and talking one day of sport he said he did not shoot, he could not kill anything that had wings and could soar in the clear blue sky; but, he added, he could not give up fishing—"the accessories are so delightful." He told of his happiness when a certain duke gave him a day's fishing twice or three times a year. I forget who the kind duke was, but there was something unsavory about him and mention was made of this. He was asked how he came to be upon intimate terms with such a man.

"Ah!" he said, "a duke is always a personage with us, always a personage, independent of brains or conduct. We are all snobs. Hundreds of years have made us so, all snobs. We can't help it. It is in the blood."

This was smilingly said, and I take it he made some mental reservations. He was no snob himself, but one who naturally "smiled at the claims of long descent," for generally the "descent" cannot be questioned.

He was interested, however, in men of rank and wealth, and I remember when in New York he wished particularly to meet Mr. Vanderbilt. I ventured to say he would not find him different from other men.

"No, but it is something to know the richest man in the world," he replied. "Certainly the man who makes his own wealth eclipses those who inherit rank from others."

I asked him one day why he had never written critically upon Shakespeare and assigned him his place upon the throne among the poets. He said that thoughts of doing so had arisen, but reflection always satisfied him that he was incompetent to write upon, much less to criticize, Shakespeare. He believed it could not be successfully done. Shakespeare was above all, could be measured by no rules of criticism; and much as he should have liked to dwell upon his transcendent genius, he had always recoiled from touching the subject. I said that I was prepared for this, after his tribute which stands to-day unequaled, and I recalled his own lines from his sonnet:

SHAKESPEARE

Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foil'd searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, Didst stand on earth unguess'd at—Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure, All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.

I knew Mr. Shaw (Josh Billings) and wished Mr. Arnold, the apostle of sweetness and light, to meet that rough diamond—rough, but still a diamond. Fortunately one morning Josh came to see me in the Windsor Hotel, where we were then living, and referred to our guest, expressing his admiration for him. I replied:

"You are going to dine with him to-night. The ladies are going out and Arnold and myself are to dine alone; you complete the trinity."

To this he demurred, being a modest man, but I was inexorable. No excuse would be taken; he must come to oblige me. He did. I sat between them at dinner and enjoyed this meeting of extremes. Mr. Arnold became deeply interested in Mr. Shaw's way of putting things and liked his Western anecdotes, laughing more heartily than I had ever seen him do before. One incident after another was told from the experience of the lecturer, for Mr. Shaw had lectured for fifteen years in every place of ten thousand inhabitants or more in the United States.

Mr. Arnold was desirous of hearing how the lecturer held his audiences.

"Well," he said, "you mustn't keep them laughing too long, or they will think you are laughing at them. After giving the audience amusement you must become earnest and play the serious role. For instance, 'There are two things in this life for which no man is ever prepared. Who will tell me what these are?' Finally some one cries out 'Death.' 'Well, who gives me the other?' Many respond—wealth, happiness, strength, marriage, taxes. At last Josh begins, solemnly: 'None of you has given the second. There are two things on earth for which no man is ever prepared, and them's twins,' and the house shakes." Mr. Arnold did also.

"Do you keep on inventing new stories?" was asked.

"Yes, always. You can't lecture year after year unless you find new stories, and sometimes these fail to crack. I had one nut which I felt sure would crack and bring down the house, but try as I would it never did itself justice, all because I could not find the indispensable word, just one word. I was sitting before a roaring wood fire one night up in Michigan when the word came to me which I knew would crack like a whip. I tried it on the boys and it did. It lasted longer than any one word I used. I began: 'This is a highly critical age. People won't believe until they fully understand. Now there's Jonah and the whale. They want to know all about it, and it's my opinion that neither Jonah nor the whale fully understood it. And then they ask what Jonah was doing in the whale's—the whale's society.'"

Mr. Shaw was walking down Broadway one day when accosted by a real Westerner, who said:

"I think you are Josh Billings."

"Well, sometimes I am called that."

"I have five thousand dollars for you right here in my pocket-book."

"Here's Delmonico's, come in and tell me all about it."

After seating themselves, the stranger said he was part owner in a gold mine in California, and explained that there had been a dispute about its ownership and that the conference of partners broke up in quarreling. The stranger said he had left, threatening he would take the bull by the horns and begin legal proceedings. "The next morning I went to the meeting and told them I had turned over Josh Billings's almanac that morning and the lesson for the day was: 'When you take the bull by the horns, take him by the tail; you can get a better hold and let go when you're a mind to.' We laughed and laughed and felt that was good sense. We took your advice, settled, and parted good friends. Some one moved that five thousand dollars be given Josh, and as I was coming East they appointed me treasurer and I promised to hand it over. There it is."

The evening ended by Mr. Arnold saying:

"Well, Mr. Shaw, if ever you come to lecture in England, I shall be glad to welcome and introduce you to your first audience. Any foolish man called a lord could do you more good than I by introducing you, but I should so much like to do it."

Imagine Matthew Arnold, the apostle of sweetness and light, introducing Josh Billings, the foremost of jesters, to a select London audience.

In after years he never failed to ask after "our leonine friend, Mr. Shaw."

Meeting Josh at the Windsor one morning after the notable dinner I sat down with him in the rotunda and he pulled out a small memorandum book, saying as he did so:

"Where's Arnold? I wonder what he would say to this. The 'Century' gives me $100 a week, I agreeing to send them any trifle that occurs to me. I try to give it something. Here's this from Uncle Zekiel, my weekly budget: 'Of course the critic is a greater man than the author. Any fellow who can point out the mistakes another fellow has made is a darned sight smarter fellow than the fellow who made them.'"

I told Mr. Arnold a Chicago story, or rather a story about Chicago. A society lady of Boston visiting her schoolmate friend in Chicago, who was about to be married, was overwhelmed with attention. Asked by a noted citizen one evening what had charmed her most in Chicago, she graciously replied:

"What surprises me most isn't the bustle of business, or your remarkable development materially, or your grand residences; it is the degree of culture and refinement I find here." The response promptly came:

"Oh, we are just dizzy on cult out here, you bet."

Mr. Arnold was not prepared to enjoy Chicago, which had impressed him as the headquarters of Philistinism. He was, however, surprised and gratified at meeting with so much "culture and refinement." Before he started he was curious to know what he should find most interesting. I laughingly said that he would probably first be taken to see the most wonderful sight there, which was said to be the slaughter houses, with new machines so perfected that the hog driven in at one end came out hams at the other before its squeal was out of one's ears. Then after a pause he asked reflectively:

"But why should one go to slaughter houses, why should one hear hogs squeal?" I could give no reason, so the matter rested.

Mr. Arnold's Old Testament favorite was certainly Isaiah: at least his frequent quotations from that great poet, as he called him, led one to this conclusion. I found in my tour around the world that the sacred books of other religions had been stripped of the dross that had necessarily accumulated around their legends. I remembered Mr. Arnold saying that the Scriptures should be so dealt with. The gems from Confucius and others which delight the world have been selected with much care and appear as "collects." The disciple has not the objectionable accretions of the ignorant past presented to him.

The more one thinks over the matter, the stronger one's opinion becomes that the Christian will have to follow the Eastern example and winnow the wheat from the chaff—worse than chaff, sometimes the positively pernicious and even poisonous refuse. Burns, in the "Cotter's Saturday Night," pictures the good man taking down the big Bible for the evening service:

"He wales a portion with judicious care."

We should have those portions selected and use the selections only. In this, and much besides, the man whom I am so thankful for having known and am so favored as to call friend, has proved the true teacher in advance of his age, the greatest poetic teacher in the domain of "the future and its viewless things."

I took Arnold down from our summer home at Cresson in the Alleghanies to see black, smoky Pittsburgh. In the path from the Edgar Thomson Steel Works to the railway station there are two flights of steps to the bridge across the railway, the second rather steep. When we had ascended about three quarters of it he suddenly stopped to gain breath. Leaning upon the rail and putting his hand upon his heart, he said to me:

"Ah, this will some day do for me, as it did for my father."

I did not know then of the weakness of his heart, but I never forgot this incident, and when not long after the sad news came of his sudden death, after exertion in England endeavoring to evade an obstacle, it came back to me with a great pang that our friend had foretold his fate. Our loss was great. To no man I have known could Burns's epitaph upon Tam Samson be more appropriately applied:

"Tam Samson's weel-worn clay here lies: Ye canting zealots, spare him! If honest worth in heaven rise, Ye'll mend or ye win near him."

The name of a dear man comes to me just here, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, of Boston, everybody's doctor, whose only ailment toward the end was being eighty years of age. He was a boy to the last. When Matthew Arnold died a few friends could not resist taking steps toward a suitable memorial to his memory. These friends quietly provided the necessary sum, as no public appeal could be thought of. No one could be permitted to contribute to such a fund except such as had a right to the privilege, for privilege it was felt to be. Double, triple the sum could readily have been obtained. I had the great satisfaction of being permitted to join the select few and to give the matter a little attention upon our side of the Atlantic. Of course I never thought of mentioning the matter to dear Dr. Holmes—not that he was not one of the elect, but that no author or professional man should be asked to contribute money to funds which, with rare exceptions, are best employed when used for themselves. One morning, however, I received a note from the doctor, saying that it had been whispered to him that there was such a movement on foot, and that I had been mentioned in connection with it, and if he were judged worthy to have his name upon the roll of honor, he would be gratified. Since he had heard of it he could not rest without writing to me, and he should like to hear in reply. That he was thought worthy goes without saying.

This is the kind of memorial any man might wish. I venture to say that there was not one who contributed to it who was not grateful to the kind fates for giving him the opportunity.



CHAPTER XXIII

BRITISH POLITICAL LEADERS

In London, Lord Rosebery, then in Gladstone's Cabinet and a rising statesman, was good enough to invite me to dine with him to meet Mr. Gladstone, and I am indebted to him for meeting the world's first citizen. This was, I think, in 1885, for my "Triumphant Democracy"[63] appeared in 1886, and I remember giving Mr. Gladstone, upon that occasion, some startling figures which I had prepared for it.

[Footnote 63: Triumphant Democracy, or Fifty Years' March of the Republic. London and New York, 1886.]

I never did what I thought right in a social matter with greater self-denial, than when later the first invitation came from Mr. Gladstone to dine with him. I was engaged to dine elsewhere and sorely tempted to plead that an invitation from the real ruler of Great Britain should be considered as much of a command as that of the ornamental dignitary. But I kept my engagement and missed the man I most wished to meet. The privilege came later, fortunately, when subsequent visits to him at Hawarden were made.

Lord Rosebery opened the first library I ever gave, that of Dunfermline, and he has recently (1905) opened the latest given by me—one away over in Stornoway. When he last visited New York I drove him along the Riverside Drive, and he declared that no city in the world possessed such an attraction. He was a man of brilliant parts, but his resolutions were

"Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."

Had he been born to labor and entered the House of Commons in youth, instead of being dropped without effort into the gilded upper chamber, he might have acquired in the rough-and-tumble of life the tougher skin, for he was highly sensitive and lacked tenacity of purpose essential to command in political life. He was a charming speaker—a eulogist with the lightest touch and the most graceful style upon certain themes of any speaker of his day. [Since these lines were written he has become, perhaps, the foremost eulogist of our race. He has achieved a high place. All honor to him!]

One morning I called by appointment upon him. After greetings he took up an envelope which I saw as I entered had been carefully laid on his desk, and handed it to me, saying:

"I wish you to dismiss your secretary."

"That is a big order, Your Lordship. He is indispensable, and a Scotsman," I replied. "What is the matter with him?"

"This isn't your handwriting; it is his. What do you think of a man who spells Rosebery with two r's?"

I said if I were sensitive on that point life would not be endurable for me. "I receive many letters daily when at home and I am sure that twenty to thirty per cent of them mis-spell my name, ranging from 'Karnaghie' to 'Carnagay.'"

But he was in earnest. Just such little matters gave him great annoyance. Men of action should learn to laugh at and enjoy these small things, or they themselves may become "small." A charming personality withal, but shy, sensitive, capricious, and reserved, qualities which a few years in the Commons would probably have modified.

When he was, as a Liberal, surprising the House of Lords and creating some stir, I ventured to let off a little of my own democracy upon him.

"Stand for Parliament boldly. Throw off your hereditary rank, declaring you scorn to accept a privilege which is not the right of every citizen. Thus make yourself the real leader of the people, which you never can be while a peer. You are young, brilliant, captivating, with the gift of charming speech. No question of your being Prime Minister if you take the plunge."

To my surprise, although apparently interested, he said very quietly:

"But the House of Commons couldn't admit me as a peer."

"That's what I should hope. If I were in your place, and rejected, I would stand again for the next vacancy and force the issue. Insist that one having renounced his hereditary privileges becomes elevated to citizenship and is eligible for any position to which he is elected. Victory is certain. That's playing the part of a Cromwell. Democracy worships a precedent-breaker or a precedent-maker."

We dropped the subject. Telling Morley of this afterward, I shall never forget his comment:

"My friend, Cromwell doesn't reside at Number 38 Berkeley Square." Slowly, solemnly spoken, but conclusive.

Fine fellow, Rosebery, only he was handicapped by being born a peer. On the other hand, Morley, rising from the ranks, his father a surgeon hard-pressed to keep his son at college, is still "Honest John," unaffected in the slightest degree by the so-called elevation to the peerage and the Legion of Honor, both given for merit. The same with "Bob" Reid, M.P., who became Earl Loreburn and Lord High Chancellor, Lord Haldane, his successor as Chancellor; Asquith, Prime Minister, Lloyd George, and others. Not even the rulers of our Republic to-day are more democratic or more thorough men of the people.

When the world's foremost citizen passed away, the question was, Who is to succeed Gladstone; who can succeed him? The younger members of the Cabinet agreed to leave the decision to Morley. Harcourt or Campbell-Bannerman? There was only one impediment in the path of the former, but that was fatal—inability to control his temper. The issue had unfortunately aroused him to such outbursts as really unfitted him for leadership, and so the man of calm, sober, unclouded judgment was considered indispensable.

I was warmly attached to Harcourt, who in turn was a devoted admirer of our Republic, as became the husband of Motley's daughter. Our census and our printed reports, which I took care that he should receive, interested him deeply. Of course, the elevation of the representative of my native town of Dunfermline (Campbell-Bannerman)[64] gave me unalloyed pleasure, the more so since in returning thanks from the Town House to the people assembled he used these words:

"I owe my election to my Chairman, Bailie Morrison."

[Footnote 64: Campbell-Bannerman was chosen leader of the Liberal Party in December, 1898.]

The Bailie, Dunfermline's leading radical, was my uncle. We were radical families in those days and are so still, both Carnegies and Morrisons, and intense admirers of the Great Republic, like that one who extolled Washington and his colleagues as "men who knew and dared proclaim the royalty of man"—a proclamation worth while. There is nothing more certain than that the English-speaking race in orderly, lawful development will soon establish the golden rule of citizenship through evolution, never revolution:

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that."

This feeling already prevails in all the British colonies. The dear old Motherland hen has ducks for chickens which give her much anxiety breasting the waves, while she, alarmed, screams wildly from the shore; but she will learn to swim also by and by.

In the autumn of 1905 Mrs. Carnegie and I attended the ceremony of giving the Freedom of Dunfermline to our friend, Dr. John Ross, chairman of the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, foremost and most zealous worker for the good of the town. Provost Macbeth in his speech informed the audience that the honor was seldom conferred, that there were only three living burgesses—one their member of Parliament, H. Campbell-Bannerman, then Prime Minister; the Earl of Elgin of Dunfermline, ex-Viceroy of India, then Colonial Secretary; and the third myself. This seemed great company for me, so entirely out of the running was I as regards official station.

The Earl of Elgin is the descendant of The Bruce. Their family vault is in Dunfermline Abbey, where his great ancestor lies under the Abbey bell. It has been noted how Secretary Stanton selected General Grant as the one man in the party who could not possibly be the commander. One would be very apt to make a similar mistake about the Earl. When the Scottish Universities were to be reformed the Earl was second on the committee. When the Conservative Government formed its Committee upon the Boer War, the Earl, a Liberal, was appointed chairman. When the decision of the House of Lords brought dire confusion upon the United Free Church of Scotland, Lord Elgin was called upon as the Chairman of Committee to settle the matter. Parliament embodied his report in a bill, and again he was placed at the head to apply it. When trustees for the Universities of Scotland Fund were to be selected, I told Prime Minister Balfour I thought the Earl of Elgin as a Dunfermline magnate could be induced to take the chairmanship. He said I could not get a better man in Great Britain. So it has proved. John Morley said to me one day afterwards, but before he had, as a member of the Dunfermline Trust, experience of the chairman:

"I used to think Elgin about the most problematical public man in high position I had ever met, but I now know him one of the ablest. Deeds, not words; judgment, not talk."

Such the descendant of The Bruce to-day, the embodiment of modest worth and wisdom combined.

Once started upon a Freedom-getting career, there seemed no end to these honors.[65] With headquarters in London in 1906, I received six Freedoms in six consecutive days, and two the week following, going out by morning train and returning in the evening. It might be thought that the ceremony would become monotonous, but this was not so, the conditions being different in each case. I met remarkable men in the mayors and provosts and the leading citizens connected with municipal affairs, and each community had its own individual stamp and its problems, successes, and failures. There was generally one greatly desired improvement overshadowing all other questions engrossing the attention of the people. Each was a little world in itself. The City Council is a Cabinet in miniature and the Mayor the Prime Minister. Domestic politics keep the people agog. Foreign relations are not wanting. There are inter-city questions with neighboring communities, joint water or gas or electrical undertakings of mighty import, conferences deciding for or against alliances or separations.

[Footnote 65: Mr. Carnegie had received no less than fifty-four Freedoms of cities in Great Britain and Ireland. This was a record—Mr. Gladstone coming second with seventeen.]

In no department is the contrast greater between the old world and the new than in municipal government. In the former the families reside for generations in the place of birth with increasing devotion to the town and all its surroundings. A father achieving the mayorship stimulates the son to aspire to it. That invaluable asset, city pride, is created, culminating in romantic attachment to native places. Councilorships are sought that each in his day and generation may be of some service to the town. To the best citizens this is a creditable object of ambition. Few, indeed, look beyond it—membership in Parliament being practically reserved for men of fortune, involving as it does residence in London without compensation. This latter, however, is soon to be changed and Britain follow the universal practice of paying legislators for service rendered. [In 1908; since realized; four hundred pounds is now paid.]

After this she will probably follow the rest of the world by having Parliament meet in the daytime, its members fresh and ready for the day's work, instead of giving all day to professional work and then with exhausted brains undertaking the work of governing the country after dinner. Cavendish, the authority on whist, being asked if a man could possibly finesse a knave, second round, third player, replied, after reflecting, "Yes, he might after dinner."

The best people are on the councils of British towns, incorruptible, public-spirited men, proud of and devoted to their homes. In the United States progress is being made in this direction, but we are here still far behind Britain. Nevertheless, people tend to settle permanently in places as the country becomes thickly populated. We shall develop the local patriot who is anxious to leave the place of his birth a little better than he found it. It is only one generation since the provostship of Scotch towns was generally reserved for one of the local landlords belonging to the upper classes. That "the Briton dearly loves a lord" is still true, but the love is rapidly disappearing.

In Eastbourne, Kings-Lynn, Salisbury, Ilkeston, and many other ancient towns, I found the mayor had risen from the ranks, and had generally worked with his hands. The majority of the council were also of this type. All gave their time gratuitously. It was a source of much pleasure to me to know the provosts and leaders in council of so many towns in Scotland and England, not forgetting Ireland where my Freedom tour was equally attractive. Nothing could excel the reception accorded me in Cork, Waterford, and Limerick. It was surprising to see the welcome on flags expressed in the same Gaelic words, Cead mille failthe (meaning "a hundred thousand welcomes") as used by the tenants of Skibo.

Nothing could have given me such insight into local public life and patriotism in Britain as Freedom-taking, which otherwise might have become irksome. I felt myself so much at home among the city chiefs that the embarrassment of flags and crowds and people at the windows along our route was easily met as part of the duty of the day, and even the address of the chief magistrate usually furnished new phases of life upon which I could dwell. The lady mayoresses were delightful in all their pride and glory.

My conclusion is that the United Kingdom is better served by the leading citizens of her municipalities, elected by popular vote, than any other country far and away can possibly be; and that all is sound to the core in that important branch of government. Parliament itself could readily be constituted of a delegation of members from the town councils without impairing its efficiency. Perhaps when the sufficient payment of members is established, many of these will be found at Westminster and that to the advantage of the Kingdom.



CHAPTER XXIV

GLADSTONE AND MORLEY

Mr. Gladstone paid my "American Four-in-Hand in Britain" quite a compliment when Mrs. Carnegie and I were his guests at Hawarden in April, 1892. He suggested one day that I should spend the morning with him in his new library, while he arranged his books (which no one except himself was ever allowed to touch), and we could converse. In prowling about the shelves I found a unique volume and called out to my host, then on top of a library ladder far from me handling heavy volumes:

"Mr. Gladstone, I find here a book 'Dunfermline Worthies,' by a friend of my father's. I knew some of the worthies when a child."

"Yes," he replied, "and if you will pass your hand three or four books to the left I think you will find another book by a Dunfermline man."

I did so and saw my book "An American Four-in-Hand in Britain." Ere I had done so, however, I heard that organ voice orating in full swing from the top of the ladder:

"What Mecca is to the Mohammedan, Benares to the Hindoo, Jerusalem to the Christian, all that Dunfermline is to me."

My ears heard the voice some moments before my brain realized that these were my own words called forth by the first glimpse caught of Dunfermline as we approached it from the south.[66]

[Footnote 66: The whole paragraph is as follows: "How beautiful is Dunfermline seen from the Ferry Hills, its grand old Abbey towering over all, seeming to hallow the city, and to lend a charm and dignity to the lowliest tenement! Nor is there in all broad Scotland, nor in many places elsewhere that I know of, a more varied and delightful view than that obtained from the Park upon a fine day. What Benares is to the Hindoo, Mecca to the Mohammedan, Jerusalem to the Christian, all that Dunfermline is to me." (An American Four-in-Hand in Britain, p. 282.)]

"How on earth did you come to get this book?" I asked. "I had not the honor of knowing you when it was written and could not have sent you a copy."

"No!" he replied, "I had not then the pleasure of your acquaintance, but some one, I think Rosebery, told me of the book and I sent for it and read it with delight. That tribute to Dunfermline struck me as so extraordinary it lingered with me. I could never forget it."

This incident occurred eight years after the "American Four-in-Hand" was written, and adds another to the many proofs of Mr. Gladstone's wonderful memory. Perhaps as a vain author I may be pardoned for confessing my grateful appreciation of his no less wonderful judgment.



The politician who figures publicly as "reader of the lesson" on Sundays, is apt to be regarded suspiciously. I confess that until I had known Mr. Gladstone well, I had found the thought arising now and then that the wary old gentleman might feel at least that these appearances cost him no votes. But all this vanished as I learned his true character. He was devout and sincere if ever man was. Yes, even when he records in his diary (referred to by Morley in his "Life of Gladstone") that, while addressing the House of Commons on the budget for several hours with great acceptance, he was "conscious of being sustained by the Divine Power above." Try as one may, who can deny that to one of such abounding faith this belief in the support of the Unknown Power must really have proved a sustaining influence, although it may shock others to think that any mortal being could be so bold as to imagine that the Creator of the Universe would concern himself about Mr. Gladstone's budget, prepared for a little speck of this little speck of earth? It seems almost sacrilegious, yet to Mr. Gladstone we know it was the reverse—a religious belief such as has no doubt often enabled men to accomplish wonders as direct agents of God and doing His work.

On the night of the Queen's Jubilee in June, 1887, Mr. Blaine and I were to dine at Lord Wolverton's in Piccadilly, to meet Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone—Mr. Blaine's first introduction to him. We started in a cab from the Metropole Hotel in good time, but the crowds were so dense that the cab had to be abandoned in the middle of St. James's Street. Reaching the pavement, Mr. Blaine following, I found a policeman and explained to him who my companion was, where we were going, and asked him if he could not undertake to get us there. He did so, pushing his way through the masses with all the authority of his office and we followed. But it was nine o'clock before we reached Lord Wolverton's. We separated after eleven.