"That is why we are cottoning to that idea of a civic center out by Schenley Park; that's why we pat Andrew Carnegie on the back when we know that he is giving us the best in pictures and in music in America; that's why Frick is holding back with his horse pasture there in front of Carnegie Institute to build something bigger and better. Don't you get the idea now of the bigger and better Pittsburgh?"
The limousine stopped and the ironmaster beckoned a large, whiskered Russian to it. "Here's a real anarchist," he said, "but he is one of my protégés. He speaks down in a dirty hall in Liberty avenue, near the Wabash terminal, but he's for the new Pittsburgh, and he's for it strong—so we come together after a fashion."
The Russian, who was a teacher, came close to the big automobile and pointed to a woman of his own people—a woman wretchedly poor, who dwelt in one of the hovels which are today Pittsburgh's greatest shame.
"She's reading Byron," he said quietly, "and she has been in America less than six months. She says there is a magnificent comparison between Byron and Tolstoy."
That reminded the ironmaster of an incident.
"After that bad time in 1907," he said, "I chanced into one of Mr. Carnegie's libraries, and the librarian complained to me of the way the books were being ruined. Their backs were being scratched and filled with rust and even shavings. I had an idea on that myself. I went back to our own mill—it was pretty dull there and I was dodging the forlorn place as much as I could. But we were sifting out a gang from the men who were beating at our doors every morning for work, and even then we were carrying twice as many men as we really needed. I went around back of the furnaces and there were the library books—the men were reading them in the long shifts."
"They weren't reading fiction?" asked the New Yorker.
"Not a bit of it," said the ironmaster. Then he added:
"One of them spoke to me. He was only getting three days a week. 'Mr. Carnegie can give the books,' was his quiet observation, 'and the money to buy them. But we need more than money. Can't he ever give us the leisure to read them without its costing us the money for our food?'
"That, New Yorker, from the mouth of one of those of the new Pittsburgh is the real answer to your question."