In 1868 Carnegie visited England. In the early days of the nineteenth century England controlled the iron business of the world; and when Carnegie made his first trip abroad, there were fifty-nine Bessemer Steel plants in Europe and only three in the United States. To-day, the United States produces over two fifths of all the steel and iron in the world, and the beginning of this great American industry can be found in the enterprise of the son of the poor Scotch weaver.
Carnegie had faith in steel. By the Bessemer process steel of high quality was economically produced by decarbonizing cast iron by forcing a blast of air through the mass of metal when it is in a molten condition. Carnegie saw the merits of this process, brought the idea home with him, and adopted it in his mills. The vindication of his faith was immediate. In an incredibly short time he had obtained control of seven great plants in the vicinity of Pittsburgh: the Homestead, the Edgar Thomson, the Duquesne Steel Works and Furnaces, the Lucy Furnaces, the Keystone Bridge Works, the Upper and Lower Union Rolling Mills. In the town to which he had come a poor lad from a foreign land, Carnegie was now assuming the proportions of a giant of industry.
Nothing was too good or too costly for the perfecting of the industry. “Carnegie was the first steelmaker in any country who flung good machinery on the scrap heap because something better had been invented. He was the first to employ a salaried chemist, and to appreciate science in its relation to manufacturing. In his early days he was the biggest borrower in Pennsylvania; and when the profits grew large they were poured back, to fertilize the soil from whence they grew.... So it is clear that, primarily, the aim of Andrew Carnegie was not to make large dividends or to sell stock, but to establish a solid and enduring industrial structure. First of all, he was a business builder; and the present unequaled prosperity in our iron and steel trade is largely due to the fact that American steel-makers have adopted the Carnegie policy of ranking improvements above dividends.”
To protect the supply of coal which his vast steel manufacture now required, in 1889 Carnegie joined forces with Henry C. Frick, who dominated the coke-making industry. As a result, his companies soon “owned and controlled mines producing 6,000,000 tons of ore annually; 40,000 acres of coal land, and 12,000 coke ovens; steamship lines for transporting ore to Lake Erie ports; docks for handling ore and coal, and a railroad from Lake Erie to Pittsburgh; 70,000 acres of natural-gas territory, with 200 miles of pipe-line; nineteen blast furnaces and five steel mills, producing and finishing 3,250,000 tons of steel annually. The pay-roll of the year exceeded $18,000,000.”
Gradually consolidating his interests, Carnegie formed in 1890, the Carnegie Company, with a paid up capital of $160,000,000, and in 1899 his interests were merged into the Carnegie Steel Company. Although still as active in affairs as ever, Carnegie now determined to retire from active business. In an address delivered at Pittsburgh he gave his reasons. “An opportunity to retire from business came to me unsought, which I considered it my duty to accept. My resolve was made in youth to retire before old age. From what I have seen around me, I cannot doubt the wisdom of this course, although the change is great, even serious, and seldom brings happiness. But this is because so many, having abundance to retire upon, have so little to retire to. I have always felt that old age should be spent, not as the Scotch say, in ‘making mickle mair,’ but in making good use of what has been acquired; and I hope my friends will approve of my action in retiring while still in full health and vigor, and I can reasonably expect many years of usefulness in fields which have other than personal aims.”
The “opportunity” to which Carnegie referred was the merging, in 1901, of the Carnegie Steel Company into the United States Steel Corporation. For his personal interest Carnegie received $420,000,000.
Freed from business, the iron-master turned to follow the paths to which his idealism had constantly called him. Always a reader and a student of books, he now found himself able to make, through public libraries, books everywhere available, and in various cities and towns he contributed for library buildings more than $60,000,000. Still further to advance education and bring its advantages to all who sought it, he made other gifts, consisting of $24,000,000 to the Institute at Pittsburgh, $22,000,000 to the Carnegie Institute in Washington, and $10,000,000 to the Universities of Scotland. At the time of his death in 1919, it was estimated that he had given away to education and other worthy causes over $350,000,000.
Behind this generous distribution of his great wealth was a desire to distribute his fortune before his death. “The day is not far distant,” he once said, “when the man who dies leaving behind him available wealth which was free to him to administer during life, will pass away ‘unwept, unhonored and unsung,’ no matter to what use he leaves the dross that he cannot take away with him. Of such the public verdict will be: ‘The man who dies thus rich, dies disgraced.’”
Many other worthy causes held Carnegie’s interest from his retirement from business to his death. Of all his public activities, he took perhaps greatest interest in the cause of world peace. He believed in arbitration instead of war, and aided in the organization of various leagues and commissions to that end.
But although Carnegie was one of the world’s most generous givers he had no desire to abolish poverty. “We should,” he said, “be quite willing to abolish luxury, but to abolish honest, industrious, self-denying poverty would be to destroy the soil upon which mankind produces the virtues which enable our race to reach a still higher civilization than it now possesses.” Not to help men were his millions given, but to help men to help themselves. In his long list of philanthropies, education is the goal. “Nothing for the submerged,” was his motto; but for the boy or man who honestly strove to force his way upward Carnegie would give all.