Five hundred letters a day are sent to Andrew Carnegie, with suggestions concerning the best way in which he can escape disgrace. The lazzaroni of America are as bad as the same tribe in Italy, only they play for bigger stakes. The altruistic graft is as greedy as the grab of commercialism, that much-berated thing.
Mr. Carnegie can not walk a block on Broadway without being beset by would-be philanthropists who offer to pit their time against his money, and thereby redeem the world from its sin and folly. And these philanthropists do not realize for a moment that they are, for the most part, plain grabheimers from Grabville. And all of their pious plans for human betterment have their root in a selfish desire for personal aggrandizement. Mr. Carnegie's plan of giving only where the parties themselves also agree to give is a most wise and prudent move.
The town that accepts thirty thousand dollars for a library and agrees to raise three thousand a year to maintain it, is neither pamperized, patronized nor pauperized. In ten years the town has put as much money into the venture as did Mr. Carnegie. Like Nature, Andrew Carnegie is a good deal of a schemer. Ask a town to start in and raise three thousand dollars a year for library purposes, and the whole Common Council, His Honor the Mayor, and the Board of Education will throw a cataleptic fit. But get them fired with a desire to secure thirty thousand dollars from Mr. Carnegie, and they make the promise to love, honor, obey—and maintain—and strangely enough, they do. An action for non-support is a mighty disgraceful thing. It is a wonderful bit of psychology—this giving with an obligation—and Andrew Carnegie is not only the Prince of Ironmasters, but he is a pedagogic prestidigitator, and an artistic financial hypnotist. Not only does he give the library, but he sets half the town hustling to maintain it. The actual good comes, not from the library building, but from the human impulses set in motion—the direction given to thousands of lives. The library is merely an excuse—a rallying-point—and around it swings and centers the best life of the town.
This working for a common cause dilutes the sectarian ego, dissolves village caste, makes neighbor acquainted with neighbor, and liberates a vast amount of human love which otherwise would remain hermetically sealed. Gossip is only the lack of a worthy theme. A town library supplies topics for talk, and the books there supply ten thousand more. To accept a Carnegie library means to take on an obligation. Achievement always stands for responsibility. "Is it possible that you are nervous?" asked the man of Abraham Lincoln when the orator was about to appear before an audience. "Young man," was the reply, "young man, I have spoken well." To have done well and then live up to your record is a serious matter. Responsibility is ballast. A town that has taken on a Carnegie Library is one big committee intent on making the thing a success. There is furniture needed, pictures to secure, statuary to select, books to buy. A Carnegie Library is usually an annex to the High School.
O most clever, cunning and canny Carnegie! did you know how great and wise was your scheme? Not at all, any more than when you were a bobbin-boy you could have guessed that one day you would own two hundred fifty million dollars in five-per-cent bonds. You are as much astonished as any one to see the perfection of your plan. Like all great men, you sail under sealed orders.
As you "worked" the people by allowing them to "work" you for a gift, which once secured turns out to be not gift but a responsibility, so has a Supreme Something been using you for a purpose you wist and wot not of. And the end, it seems, is not yet.
The only time I ever heard Mr. Carnegie relate one of my pleasing stories was at a banquet of railroad officials, some months ago, in New York. Be it said, as a matter of truth, that Mr. Carnegie gave me due credit, although if he had not mentioned my name I would have been complimented to know that he had read the Good Stuff closely and pondered it well. As brother authors, you will please take notice that we observe the amenities.
So here is the story: One lowering Fall day I was walking along the road that leads from the village to my farm, two miles out of town. And as I trudged along I saw a horseshoe in the middle of the road. Now, I never go by a horseshoe—it means good luck!
So I picked up the horseshoe, and instantly my psychic sky seemed to brighten. And as I walked along with the horseshoe in my hand I saw another horseshoe in the road. "Everything is coming my way," I said. I picked up the second horseshoe, and then I had one in each hand.