“THE MISFORTUNE OF BEING RICH MEN’S SONS”
“I should like to cause you to say some other important things for young men to learn and benefit by.”
“Our young partners in the Carnegie company have all won their spurs by showing that we did not know half as well what was wanted as they did. Some of them have acted upon occasions with me as if they owned the firm and I was but some airy New Yorker, presuming to advise upon what I knew very little about. Well, they are not now interfered with. They were the true bosses,—the very men we were looking for.”
“Is this all for the poor boy?”
“Every word. Those who have the misfortune to be rich men’s sons are heavily weighted in the race. A basketful of bonds is the heaviest basket a young man ever had to carry. He generally gets to staggering under it. The vast majority of rich men’s sons are unable to resist the temptations to which wealth subjects them, and they sink to unworthy lives. It is not from this class that the poor beginner has rivalry to fear. The partner’s sons will never trouble you much, but look out that some boys poorer, much poorer, than yourselves, whose parents cannot afford to give them any schooling, do not challenge you at the post and pass you at the grand stand. Look out for the boy who has to plunge into work direct from the common school, and begins by sweeping out the office. He is the probable dark horse that will take all the money and win all the applause.”[[7]]
[7]. Mr. Carnegie’s recent retirement from business, and the sale of his vast properties to the Morgan Syndicate, marks a new era in his remarkable career; and it gives him the more leisure to consider carefully every dollar he bestows in the series of magnificent charities that he has inaugurated.