Famous Givers and Their Gifts - Bolton Sarah Knowles

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men's good

      Be each man's rule, and universal Peace

      Lie like a shaft of light across the land,

      And like a lane of beams athwart the sea."

      Mr. Carnegie has also written, in the North American Review for June, 1891, "The A. B. C. of Money," urging the Republic to keep "its standard in the future, as in the past, not fluctuating silver, but unchanging gold."

      In his articles in the newspapers, and in his public addresses, he has given good advice to young men, in whom he takes the deepest interest. He believes there never were so many opportunities to succeed as now for the sober, frugal, energetic young man. "Real ability, the capacity for doing things, never was so eagerly searched for as now, and never commanded such rewards… The great dry-goods houses that interest their most capable men in the profits of each department succeed, when those fail that endeavor to work with salaried men only. Even in the management of our great hotels it is found wise to take into partnership the principal men. In every branch of business this law is at work; and concerns are prosperous, generally speaking, just in proportion as they succeed in interesting in the profits a larger and larger proportion of their ablest workers. Co-operation in this form is fast coming in all great establishments." To young men he says, "Never enter a barroom… It is low and common to enter a barroom, unworthy of any self-respecting man, and sure to fasten upon you a taint which will operate to your disadvantage in life, whether you ever become a drunkard or not."

      "Don't smoke… The use of tobacco requires young men to withdraw themselves from the society of women to indulge the habit. I think the absence of women from any assembly tends to lower the tone of that assembly. The habit of smoking tends to carry young men into the society of men whom it is not desirable that they should choose as their intimate associates. The practice of chewing tobacco was once common. Now it is considered offensive. I believe the race is soon to take another step forward, and that the coming man is to consider smoking as offensive as chewing was formerly considered."

      "Never speculate. Never buy or sell grain or stocks upon a margin… The man who gambles upon the exchanges is in the condition of the man who gambles at the gaming-table. He rarely, if ever, makes a permanent success."

      "Don't indorse… There are emergencies, no doubt, in which men should help their friends; but there is a rule that will keep one safe. No man should place his name upon the obligation of another if he has not sufficient to pay it without detriment to his own business. It is dishonest to do so."

      Mr. Carnegie has not only written books and made money, he has distinguished himself as a giver of millions, and that while he is alive. He has seen too many wills broken, and fortunes misapplied, when the money was not given away till death. He says of Mr. Tilden's bequest of over $5,000,000 for a free library in the city of New York: "How much better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the last years of his own life to the proper administration of this immense sum; in which case neither legal contest nor any other cause of delay could have interfered with his aims."

      Of course money is sometimes so tied up in business that it cannot be given during a man's life; "yet," says Mr. Carnegie, "the day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free for him to administer during life, will pass away 'unwept, unhonored, and unsung,' no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be, 'The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.'"

      He believes large estates left at death should be taxed by the State, as is the case in Pennsylvania and some other States. Mr. Carnegie does not favor large gifts left to families. "Why should men leave great fortunes to their children?" he asks. "If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for the State. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons, men may well hesitate; for it is no longer questionable that great sums bequeathed often work more for the injury than for the good of the recipients. There are instances of millionnaires' sons unspoiled by wealth, who, being rich, still perform great services to the community. Such are the very salt of the earth, as valuable as unfortunately they are rare." Again Mr. Carnegie says of wealth left to the young, "It deadens their energies, destroys their ambition, tempts them to destruction, and renders it almost impossible that they should lead lives creditable to themselves or valuable to the State. Such as are not deadened by wealth deserve double credit, for they have double temptation."

      In the North American Review for December, 1889, Mr. Carnegie suggests what he considers seven of the best uses for surplus wealth: The founding of great universities; free libraries; hospitals or any means to alleviate human suffering; public parks and flower-gardens for the people, conservatories such as Mr. Phipps has given to the park at Allegheny City, which are visited by thousands; suitable halls for lectures, elevating music, and other gatherings, free, or rented for a small sum; free swimming-baths for the people; attractive places of worship, especially in poor localities. Mr. Carnegie's own great gifts have been largely along the line which he believes the "best gift to a community," – a free public library. He thinks with John Bright that "it is impossible for any man to bestow a greater benefit upon a young man than to give him access to books in a free library."

      "It is, no doubt," he says, "possible that my own personal experience may have led me to value a free library beyond all other forms of beneficence. When I was a working-boy in Pittsburg, Colonel Anderson of Allegheny – a name I can never speak without feelings of devotional gratitude – opened his little library of four hundred books to boys. Every Saturday afternoon he was in attendance at his house to exchange books. No one but he who has felt it can ever know the intense longing with which the arrival of Saturday was awaited that a new book might be had. My brother and Mr. Phipps, who have been my principal business partners through life, shared with me Colonel Anderson's precious generosity; and it was when revelling in the treasures which he opened to us that I resolved, if ever wealth came to me, that it should be used to establish free libraries, that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to that noble man."

      "How far that little candle throws his beams!

      So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

      Again Mr. Carnegie says, "I also come by heredity to my preference for free libraries. The newspaper of my native town recently published a history of the free library in Dunfermline, and it is there recorded that the first books gathered together and opened to the public were the small collections of three weavers. Imagine the feelings with which I read that one of these three men was my honored father. He founded the first library in Dunfermline, his native town; and his son was privileged to found the last… I have never heard of a lineage for which I would exchange that of the library-founding weaver."

      Mr. Carnegie has given for the Edinburgh Free Library, Scotland, $250,000; for one in his native town of Dunfermline, $90,000; and several thousand dollars each to libraries in Aberdeen, Peterhead, Inverness, Ayr, Elgin, Wick and Kirkwall, besides contributions towards public halls and reading-rooms at Newburgh, Aberdour, and many other places abroad. Mr. Carnegie's mother laid the corner-stone for the free library in Dunfermline. He writes in his "American Four-in-Hand in Britain," "There was something of the fairy-tale in the fact that she had left her native town, poor, thirty odd years before, with her loved ones, to found a new home in the great Republic, and was to-day returning in her coach, to be allowed the privilege of linking her name with the annals of her beloved native town in one of the most enduring forms possible."

      When the corner-stone of the Peterhead Free Library in Scotland was laid, Aug. 8, 1891, the wife of Mr. Carnegie was asked to lay the stone with square and trowel, and endeared herself to the people by her hearty interest and attractive womanhood. She was presented with the silver trowel with ivory handle which she had used, and with a vase of Peterhead granite from the employees of the Great North of Scotland Granite Works.

      Mr. Carnegie did not marry till he was fifty-two years of age, in 1887, the year following the death of his mother and only brother Thomas. The latter died Oct. 19, 1886. Mr. Carnegie's wife, who

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