CARNEGIE ENTERPRISES i55 



payment only from the profits of the shares, that they might 

 not consider such transfers as gifts but as their due. The 

 first charge on the revenues of the business is for the best 

 paid labor in the world, and Mr. Carnegie makes it a para- 

 mount obligation to maintain that standard and to provide 

 steady employment for the thousands whose welfare is in 

 his keeping. 



The public philanthropies to which he has devoted mil- 

 lions aim to be practical and are characteristic of their creator, 

 but perhaps the most wisely conceived benefaction of the many 

 he has originated was instituted some years ago for the em- 

 ployees of the steel company. The cardinal canon of his 

 famous gospel of wealth and the governing motive in all his 

 philanthropic efforts is to help those who try to help them- 

 selves. This doctrine was put into practice first when he 

 established a savings and loan fund for the employees, and put 

 a premium on thrift and economy by obligating the company 

 to pay everyone who deposited his savings with the company 

 a higher rate of interest than could be obtained from any 

 public savings institution. The company has done this ever 

 since, paying a fixed rate of 6 per cent annually, regardless 

 of business conditions, deficits in interest earnings, or the 

 fluctuations of saving bank rates, and, in consequence, the 

 fund now has a larger number of depositors with a higher 

 average of deposits than any of the public savings mstitu- 

 tions in the mill localities. 



For the purpose of enabling the workmen to acquire their 

 own homes, loans are also made from this fund on more liberal 

 terms than can be obtained otherwise, and many of the work- 

 men own comfortable dwellings secured by the assistance thus 

 given. Every department foreman and paymaster in the 

 various works is authorized to receive deposits, and the many 

 chances afforded the workman by this arrangement to put by 

 surplus earnings to his credit with the company before he 

 leaves the works on pay day, have been an effective means of 

 helping him not to squander his money, for the temptations 

 to spend freely and foolishly which beset the average work- 

 man before he reaches his family with his earnings are many, 

 and to a large number, irresistible. The company, in addition 



