Mr. Carnegie's success, like that of every master businessman, has turned on his selection of men. He has always been on the lookout for young men who could carry the Message.
His success proves his ability to judge humanity. Whenever he was sure he had the genuine article he would tender the young man an interest in the business, often a percentage on sales or output. This was the plan of Marshall Field.
By this method he transformed a good man into a master, and bound the man to him in a way that no outside influence could lend a lure. The only disadvantage in this, Mr. Carnegie says, is that when the young man becomes a millionaire you may have him for a competitor, but even with this risk, it is much wiser than to try to carry all the burden yourself. A multimillionaire should raise a goodly brood of millionaires, and of necessity does. Wise is the man who sees to it that he has an understudy.
Once upon a time, along in the Eighties, Mr. Carnegie got somewhat overworked and took a trip to Europe. Just before going, he went around and bade good-by to each of the Big Boys who ran the mills. One of these was Captain William Jones, more familiarly known to fame as plain Bill Jones. "Bill," said Mr. Carnegie, "I'm a bit weary and I feel I must get away, and the only place for me to go is Europe. I have to place an ocean between me and this mighty hum of industry before I can get rest. And do you know, Bill, no matter how oppressed I am, just as soon as I round Sandy Hook and get out of sight of land, I get perfect relief." And Bill answered, "And, O Lord, just think of the relief we all get," and everybody roared, Andy loudest of all. And the last thing that Andy did before sailing was to raise Bill's salary just ten thousand dollars a year.
Mr. Carnegie has always liked men who are not afraid of him; and when one of his workers could convince him that he—the worker—knew more about some particular phase of the business than Mr. Carnegie, that man was richly rewarded. Mr. Carnegie has ever been on friendly terms with his men.
And had he been in America when the Homestead labor trouble arose, there would have been no strike. He is firm when he should be, but he is always friendly. He is wise enough and big enough to give in a point. Like Lincoln, he likes to let people have their own way. He manages them, if need be, by indirection, rather than by formal edict, order and injunction.
Barbaric folk prize gold and make much use of silver. But the consumption of iron is the badge of civilization. Iron rails, iron steamboats, iron buildings! And who was there thirty years ago who foresaw the modern sky-scraper, any more than a hundred years ago men foretold the iron steamship!
The business of Andrew Carnegie has been to couple the iron-mines of Lake Superior with the coal-fields of Pennsylvania. And to load the ore at Duluth and transport it to Pittsburgh, a thousand miles away, and transform it into steel rails, was a matter of ten days. When the Carnegie Steel Company was reconstructed in Nineteen Hundred, it was with no intention of selling out. It was the biggest, best-organized business concern in America, with possibly one exception. Its capital was one hundred million dollars. It owned the Homestead, the Edgar Thomson and the Duquesne Mills. Besides these, it owned seven other smaller mills.