THE ENTERPRISES BUILT UP BY ANDREW 



CARNEGIE. 



BY CHARLES H. SCHWAB. 



[Charles M. Schwab, former president of the United States Steel corporation, bom 

 Williamsburg. Pa., April 18, 1862; entered the servico of Carnegie & Co. as stake 

 driver in engineering corps of Edgar Thompson Steel works; rose steadily; became 

 superintendent Homestead works and finally president of the Carnegie Steel company: 

 president 1901-3.] 



It would seem a work of supererogation to present, in 

 a succinct sketch of Andrew Carnegie such as this aims to 

 be, the chronology of his life at length ; for many biographers 

 have made familiar the very interesting story of his notable 

 career, from his humble origin through three score and five 

 years, showing the subject in his successive stations as the 

 bobbin boy, telegraph messenger, telegraph operator, railway 

 superintendent, manufacturer, and philanthropist. 



Much less relevant would be the rehearsal of all the 

 many striking incidents of Mr. Carnegie's life, particularly 

 during his boyhood struggles, in a retrospective survey of 

 the quarter century of his life during which he was facile 

 princeps in the development of the American iron and steel 

 industry and in placing the United States foremost of all the 

 nations in that important branch of manufacturing. 



Mr. Carnegie's advent into the field of metallurgy fol- 

 lowed his retirement from the office of superintendent of 

 the Pittsburg division of the Pennsylvania railroad. That 

 was just forty years ago, when, it may be said, he was 

 a young man, albeit he will doubtless resent the imputation 

 that he is not still in the heyday of youth. The office of 

 superintendent of the Pittsburg division was not, during 

 Mr. Carnegie's incumbency, the sort of fat satrapy it is to-day, 

 and his emoluments were beggarly (SI, 750 per annum) com- 

 pared with those of R. P., as my distinguished friend, Mr. 

 Robert Pitcairn, the present Pittsburg head of the Pennsyl- 

 vania, is popularly apostrophized. Mr. Carnegie had, more- 



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