Part 30

f the benefits to be obtained from the Carnegie Library at Allegheny was most gratifying. The place was formally dedicated on February Thirteenth, Eighteen Hundred Ninety. President Harrison was present and made an address. The music for the occasion was supplied by "Young Damrosch" and his orchestra. Leopold Damrosch, the noted leader, had died only a few years before, and his son Walter had taken up his work. The manly ways of "Young Damrosch" and his superb skill as a conductor made an impression on Mr. Carnegie then and there that bore speedy fruit. In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-one, Mr. Carnegie built the Carnegie Music-Hall at the corner of Fifty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue in New York City, especially with Walter Damrosch and the Damrosch needs in mind. I have spoken in this hall a score or more of times, and I never stand upon its spacious platform but that I think with admiration of the ironmaster who had the courage to back with two million dollars his faith in the musical appreciation of New York City. It is good to know that the prophetic business instincts of Mr. Carnegie did not here play him false. The various offices and studios connected with the splendid auditorium were quickly rented, and the investment has paid a fair return from the first. When it was built it was the noblest auditorium in America. One of its chief benefits has been to show the people of America that such a building will pay. For one thing, it gave certain Western capitalists heart to erect the Fine Arts Building in Chicago. And now in a dozen cities of the United States there are great auditoriums where big events, musical and oratorical, bring the people together in a way that enlarges their spiritual horizon. Andrew Carnegie has ever had a passion for music. At Skibo Castle the meals are announced by bagpipe. Of course I admit that whether the bagpipe is a musical instrument or not is a matter of argument, for just what constitutes music my Irish friend, George Bernard Shaw, says is a point of view. Andrew Carnegie has given the musical interests of America an immense impulse. His presentation of pipe-organs to churches, schools and halls bids fair to revive the age of Sebastian Bach. "Music helps us to get rid of our whims, prejudices and petty notions," says Andrew Carnegie. The famous Pittsburgh Orchestra was first made possible by his encouragement, and without Carnegie we would have had no Damrosch, or at least a different Damrosch. From almost its inauguration, Mr. Carnegie has been President of the New York Oratorio, and for many years President of the Philharmonic Society. I was once present at a meeting of this Society when a memorial volume of thanks from "The Philharmonic" was presented to Mr. Carnegie. The book contained the autographs of every member, working and honorary, of the association. Among the rest I added my name to the list. Shortly after the presentation exercises I met Mr. Carnegie on the stairs. He had the book under his arm. He graciously thanked me for adding my name, and spoke of how he prized my autograph. I replied somewhat loftily, "Oh, don't mention it--it is nothing--it is nothing!" And then I felt how feeble my attempted pleasantry was. To Mr. Carnegie it was no joke. In fact, he was as tickled with his book of names, and its assurance of affection, as a girl who has just been presented by her lover with a volume of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poems. Then I saw how sensitive and tender is the heart of this most busy man, and how precious to him is human fellowship. This is a side of his nature that was new to me. Shakespeare says, "Sad is the lot of princes." They are pushed out and away from the common heart of humanity. Most of the men they meet want something, and as these folks want the thing they want awful bad, they never tell the prince the truth. In his presence they are like brass monkeys, or, more properly, like monkeys filled with monkey desires. They are shorn of all human attributes. Pity the lot of the multimillionaire who has most incautiously allowed it to become known that he considers it "a disgrace for any man to die rich." 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. I had gone about a quarter of a mile when I saw two more horseshoes right together in the road. "It seems as if some one is working me," I said. I looked around and could see no one. "And anyway, I accept the bluff," I said to myself, as I picked up the two horseshoes. Then I had two horseshoes in each hand, but I wasn't four times as happy as when I had one. I had gone about a quarter of a mile when I saw a pile of horseshoes in the road. "I've got 'em, I fear!" I said to myself. But I braced up and walking up to the pile of horseshoes I kicked into them. They were horseshoes all right. And just then I saw a man coming down the street picking up horseshoes in a bag. I watched him with dazed eyes and swallowed hard as I tried to comprehend the meaning of this strange combination. Just then I saw the man's horse and wagon ahead. He was a junk gentleman and had lost the tailboard out of his wagon and been strewing horseshoes all along the way. He called to me and said, "Hey, ol' man, dem's my horseshoes!" "I know," said I; "I've been picking them up for you." And the moral is: While it is true that one horseshoe brings you good luck, a load of horseshoes is junk. * * * * * In way of personal endowments, Mr. Carnegie has favored two individuals: Booker T. Washington and Luther Burbank. And so far as I know, these are the only men in America who should be endowed. Even the closest search, as well as a careful scrutiny in the mirror, fails to find any one else whom it would be wise or safe to make immune from the struggle. To make a man secure against the exigencies of life is to kill his ambition and destroy his incentive. To transform a man into a jellyfish, give him a fixed allowance, regardless of what he does. This truth also applies to women. Women will never be free until they are economically free. The fifteen million dollars which Mr. Carnegie has given for a pension-fund for superannuated college professors is quite another thing from pensioning a man so he will be free to work out his ideal. The only people who have ideals are those in the fight. But even this beneficent pension-fund for teachers turned out to grass requires the most delicate and skilful handling. Several instances have already arisen where colleges have retired men well able to work, in order that these men might secure the pensions and the college could put in younger men at half-price. There has even been a suspicion that the pensioner "divvied" with the college. To supply an incentive or temptation for a man in middle life to quit work in order that he may secure a pension is a danger which the donor mildly anticipated, but which he finds it very hard to guard against. What is "middle life"? Ah, it depends upon the man. Some men are young at seventy, and Professor Mommsen at eighty was at the very height of