Carnegie

by Peter Krass

  On April 4, Carnegie received an update from Frick: “Business holds up remarkably well, considering excitement regarding Cuba. Have urged all Congressmen and Senators with whom I am acquainted to stand by the President, and let him handle the matter in his own way.”13 A week later, McKin-ley requested that Congress grant him the power to end hostilities between Spain and the Cuban nationalists, which amounted to declaring war; and, on April 25, a declaration of war was passed. The United States was intent on expelling Spain from Cuba and Puerto Rico, as well as in the Philippines, where the nationalists were also fighting the Spanish. To Roosevelt and the expansionists’ chagrin, an amendment to the war declaration prevented the United States from annexing Cuba, assuming she won, but the fate of the Philippines and Puerto Rico remained up for debate.

  A naval blockade was imposed on Cuba, and there was a call for 125,000 volunteers to swell the ranks of the regular army, which numbered a mere 28,000 men. Among those who answered the call was Roosevelt, who requested a commission in the army. He was made a lieutenant colonel and was assigned to the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, nicknamed the “Rough Riders.”

  Although Carnegie considered the blowing up of the Maine to be an accident, the pacifist was strangely silent in protesting the war, especially considering his fervor in calling for arbitration of the 1895 Venezuelan dispute. The reason for his silence: he was caught in a profitable quandary. As the United States and Europe’s colonial powers armed themselves, Carnegie realized a boon in profits, and he was intent on taking further advantage of the situation. Just six months before, when the navy was aggressively attempting to procure lower tonnage rates on the armor plates, Carnegie had beaten the government into submission by offering to sell the navy his armor mill. Run it yourself, Carnegie had challenged.14 No one accepted the offer, and now Carnegie was getting $400 a ton for armor versus the $249 Bethlehem was paid by Russia. Net income for March 1898 was an unparalleled $791,302.13—a pace that would give Carnegie record profits.15 If he denounced the war, he would be attacked fiercely, be labeled a hypocrite, and risk the profits that were to fuel his philanthropy. Besides, he didn’t think the war would amount to much killing; as he told Frick, “I am not alarmed, much as I regret war.”16 Carnegie subscribed to the accepted public opinion: “It was a splendid little war.”

  The lack of guns and ammunition for American armed forces was no secret, and in May Carnegie urged his board of managers to build a mill for forging guns. Guns. Like an evolving criminal who commits increasingly heinous acts, the self-proclaimed pacifist, cloaking himself in patriotism, had now taken the next step as profits easily trounced ideology. When the board took up the issue of making guns, Dod Lauder made an alternative proposal based on the soundest of logic: “Projectiles might pay us better than forgings. Guns fire many times their own weight in projectiles.”17 Going into guns involved a large investment, too, so Carnegie took Dod’s advice, and soon they were busy making projectiles; it was his patriotic duty, of course.

  Amazingly, in the heat of war, at the very time Carnegie was championing guns, Frick and Carnegie actually exchanged a series of congenial letters. The letters demonstrate the complete and distinct separation of the business personality and that of home life. In a postscript to one business letter, Frick wrote, “I look forward to the time when you will receive as much pleasure from association with your little daughter as I do from mine.”18 When Carnegie worried that baby Margaret appeared more attached to Louise, Frick consoled him: “My experience is that little girls show their mamas preference until they are about three years old, and then the papas seem to be really appreciated.”19 An appreciative Carnegie observed, “I think when Helen and she are seen together the people will vote them a prize pair.”20 He even invited Frick to Skibo, but Frick had already made plans to summer at the health resort of Aix-les-Bains, in southeastern France, where his wife could enjoy a completely relaxing vacation. (Frick the machine could be compassionate at times.)

  Just before leaving Cannes for their first summer at Skibo, Louise wrote in confidence to her New York pastor, the Reverend Charles H. Eaton: “The giving up of Cluny, with all its tender associations, has affected my sister and me deeply, and we cannot look forward to Skibo with the delight that Mr. Carnegie does, but when we have seen it and have lived there no doubt we shall grow to like it, particularly if it suits Mr. Carnegie and Margaret.”21 Her husband’s needs always superseded her own. Like Carnegie’s brother, Tom, Louise internalized much of her emotions, but instead of liquor being her outlet, she had her diary and Reverend Eaton. For an uncertain Louise, the one sure saving grace about Skibo was the organ in the great hall. She decided to surprise her husband by hiring an organist to greet them, and relied on the resourceful Edinburgh librarian Hew Morrison to make arrange-ments.22 The prerequisite was knowing Carnegie’s favorites: Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Handel’s Largo. He also appreciated oratorio music and choral works with religious themes that set a glorious tone for his daily life.

  The Carnegies arrived at Skibo on May 31, and, as they stepped across the threshold of their new home, the swelling tones of the organ greeted them. The organist played Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, an extremely popular work that aroused feelings of heroism—the first movement intense, built on a pounding single four-note figure, then giving away to rhythmic grace. After the rousing welcome, five names were signed into the guest book: Andrew Carnegie, Louise Carnegie, Margaret Carnegie, Estelle Whitfield, and James Bertram, Carnegie’s personal secretary.

  Every morning the organist played music, which, for Carnegie, was a fine substitute for family prayer. It also became a Sunday night tradition for all— family, guests, neighbors, and servants—to gather in the great hall and sing hymns. That summer, there was no revolving door for guests, for the simple reason that there were no accommodations for them. The Dunfermline relatives visited—Uncle Lauder and Lisa Lauder arriving on June 4—along with Hew Morrison and a John Beatty of Pittsburgh. Frick, Phipps, Dod, and Henry Curry visited in July.

  It did not take Louise long to agree with her husband that Skibo was indeed their heaven on earth, and Carnegie paid $425,000 for the property. His Dunfermline solicitor, John Ross, handled the transaction, and Carnegie hired an architectural firm in Inverness on Loch Ness to draw up plans for renovations and an elaborate addition. He was intent on transforming the run-down estate into a true castle to firmly establish his reign, to show the lords who was king. But it was also to be a warm home, not a gaudy palace filled with priceless treasures in which Margaret and her young friends would fear to play.

  Louise flourished at Skibo as a mother and a business manager—she worked closely with the architects and became known as the power behind the throne—and she expressed her exuberance in another letter to Reverend Eaton: “To show you the unique range of attractions, yesterday Mr. Carnegie was trout fishing on a wild moorland loch surrounded by heather while I took Margaret to the sea and she had her first experience of rolling upon the soft white sand and digging her little hands in it to her heart’s content, while the blue waters of the ocean came rolling in at her feet and the salt sea breeze brought the roses to her cheeks. She is strong and hearty and so full of mis-chief—a perfect little sunbeam.”23

  Carnegie was equally fascinated with Margaret’s mischief making and even wrote his British friends about her, worried she needed a firmer hand. Cranky Herbert Spencer actually weighed in: “I hear that your little girl is very precocious and that you are keeping her back. Quite right. But you may very safely expend her energies in the cultivation of the perceptions—the examination of things, especially natural products. That is the normal activity in all children, and would be encouraged if parents were not so intensely stupid as to ignore it. That kind of mental activity you may encourage without any danger of injury from precocity.”24

  Although in heaven, Carnegie had to keep his attention on the affairs of the world and his steel company. The day after arriving at Skibo, he wrote to D
r. Adolf Gurlt, a peace activist in Bonn, Germany, who had questioned why Carnegie was not speaking out against the war. “No power on earth can stop the American people doing what has now become their duty—Cuba must be freed from Spanish oppression,” Carnegie explained. “When Spain realizes this there will be peace, but not till then. Knowing this as I do I remain silent. When the proper time comes, when I can urge liberal treatment of Spain and the surrender of the Philippines, believe me, you shall again find me, as you say you did before, pleading the right in the North American Review and elsewhere.”25 In his next breath, Carnegie was telling Dod: “Business is great. War bound to end—probably before this reaches you negotiations will be begun. Spain is done.”26 Carnegie relished the fact that the United States was beating an old-world power, just as he had beaten the iron and steel aristocracy time and again. The war so enthralled Carnegie that he couldn’t remain silent; only instead of promoting peace, he decided to give military advice to the commanding general in the Caribbean arena.

  On May 8, Major General Nelson A. Miles had been ordered to capture Havana and was given 70,000 men with limited firepower to accomplish his task. Less than enthused, he pointed out to President McKinley that he would be facing a Spanish force of 125,000 with heavy guns in fortified positions. In Britain, Carnegie’s network of British dignitaries again served him and the United States when he learned through them that the Spanish did indeed want the United States to attack Havana. He promptly cabled Miles: “Believe you wise bold enough withdraw Santiago. Proceed full force Porto Rico. Object Santiago expedition attained. Town worthless. Capture Porto Rico would tell heavily Spain and Europe.”27 It appeared incredibly presumptuous, but Miles was actually thankful. Carnegie’s cable arrived when Miles was trying to convince the president and his advisers that a direct assault on Havana would result in needless death, and in his memoir, Serving the Republic, Miles acknowledged Carnegie’s timely advice: “Porto Rico and the eastern half of the island of Cuba were the objective points, in my judgment, for the active operations of our army. While I was advocating this I received a cablegram from Europe, signed by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, saying that the Spanish officials were anxious that we should attack Havana, knowing it to be heavily fortified and defensible. In the same dispatch that patriotic philanthropist advised the taking of Porto Rico first, for its effect in Europe. I laid this before President McKinley and his cabinet.”28 Havana was not attacked.

  Not until June 22 did 16,000 U.S. troops land in Cuba and move toward Santiago de Cuba. Along with the regular army were the special volunteer regiments, the most famous being the Rough Riders, led by Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt. After successfully seizing the Spanish fort at El Caney and storming the strategic heights of San Juan Hill—attacks that left 205 Americans killed and 1,180 wounded, as well as 215 Spaniards killed and 376 wounded—it was only a matter of time before the war was won.29 On July 26, Spain sued for peace. Admiral George Dewey, late in receiving the news of the surrender, besieged and took Manila by force. Assisting him was exiled Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo, who was under the assumption the Philippines would become an independent republic. The U.S. government had other plans, however, and set about organizing a colonial regime.

  Before the war was even over, Americans had been debating what to do with the war booty—Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Talk of taking possession of the Philippines thrilled empire-minded Roosevelt while it distressed the antiexpansionists, who argued for the islands’ political independence. But there was a duty to civilize the people, argued righteous ministers and politicians; a duty to educate, uplift, and Christianize them. To the would-be empire builders and capitalists, the Philippines was a means of establishing a military and economic power base in the Far East, a stepping-stone to China and other exploitable markets. In another ominous sign that the U.S. government had imperialistic designs, in August, the United States annexed Hawaii, further securing the country’s presence in the Pacific.

  As an active member of the New England Anti-Imperialist League since April, Carnegie now protested American imperialism, just as he promised Dr. Gurlt he would. Ensconced at Skibo, and working with his secretary, James Bertram, he wrote “Distant Possessions—the Parting of the Ways,” which appeared in the August North American Review. He posed the significant question of the day: “Is the Republic, the apostle of Triumphant Democracy, of the rule of the people, to abandon her political creed and endeavor to establish in other lands the rule of the foreigner over the people, Triumphant Despotism?” Carnegie anticipated the United States remaining in the Philippines and warned that the Filipinos would soon revolt. He pointed out that the European nations were all squabbling over their distant possessions, a tin-derbox the United States should avoid. To make his point, he used his favorite battle cry: “To-day the Republic stands the friend of all nations, the ally of none . . . she stands apart, pursuing her own great mission, and teaching all nations by example.”30 The Philippines must be set free. His anti-imperialistic ideas were no different than those he had expressed to his cousin Dod over forty years ago, in 1854, when they debated the Crimean War.

  John Hay, appointed ambassador in London that spring, read his friend’s article intently and reacted favorably, writing Carnegie: “I am not allowed to say in my present fix how much I agree with you. The only question in my mind is how far it is now possible for us to withdraw from the Philippines. I am rather thankful it is not given to me to solve that momentous question.”31 His thankfulness was brief. Shortly thereafter, Hay was appointed secretary of state and would have to deal personally with the question. It would become an extremely sticky issue as potent anti-imperialist forces continued to organize. By September, it was more obvious that McKinley was not going to return the Philippines to native rule; and Carnegie, whose anti-imperialist rhetoric would reach a fevered pitch, would discover his friend Hay was his most bitter enemy.

  While McKinley and his cabinet had been conducting a two-front war, one in the Caribbean, the other in the Pacific, Carnegie was suddenly faced with a similar strategic challenge. In business for over thirty years—almost twenty-five in steel—he had yet to meet the challenges he would now. It would be far more complicated than in the past, when the Pittsburgh iron aristocracy’s attempt to defeat him with Duquesne and Homestead had been met, the competition conquered, and absorbed as easily as uttering veni, vidi, vici. And the complications were exacerbated by the fact that Carnegie had to conduct his efforts from first Cannes and then Scotland.

  Notes

  1. Henry C. Frick to AC, December 16, 1896, ACLOC, vol. 40.

  2. AC to William McKinley, December 17, 1896, ACLOC, vol. 40.

  3. New York Daily Tribune, March 31, 1897.

  4. AC to Louise Carnegie, two letters, n.d., quoted in Hendrick and Henderson, pp. 144–145.

  5. Louise Carnegie to Stella Whitfield, n.d., quoted in Hendrick and Henderson, p. 146.

  6. Louise Carnegie to AC, n.d., quoted in Hendrick and Henderson, p. 147.

  7. See Charles R. Flint, Memories of an Active Life (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1923), pp. 39, 40, for his visit to Cluny.

  8. AC to Charles Schwab, September 14, 1897, ACLOC, vol. 44.

  9. AC to Charles Schwab, October 1, 1897, ACLOC, vol. 45.

  10. AC to Charles Schwab, October 6, 1897, ACLOC, vol. 46.

  11. Nathan Miller, Theodore Roosevelt: A Life (New York: William Morrow, 1992), pp. 264–267.

  12. Andrew Carnegie, “Americanism Versus Imperialism,” North American Review (January 1899).

  13. Henry C. Frick to AC, April 4, 1898, ACLOC, vol. 50.

  14. AC to Charles Schwab, September 24, 1897, ACLOC, vol. 45.

  15. See statement, ACLOC, vol. 50.

  16. AC to Henry C. Frick, April 23, 1898, ACLOC, vol. 51.

  17. Board Meeting Minutes, May 17, 1898, ACLOC, vol. 51.

  18. Henry C. Frick to AC, March 19, 1898, ACLOC, vol. 50.

  19. Henry C. Frick to AC, April 19, 1898
, ACLOC, vol. 51.

  20. AC to Henry C. Frick, April 23, 1898, ACLOC, vol. 51.

  21. Louise Carnegie to Charles H. Eaton, n.d., quoted in Hendrick and Henderson, pp. 147–148.

  22. Louise Carnegie to Hew Morrison, May 8, 1898, ACLOC, vol. 51.

  23. Louise Carnegie to Charles H. Eaton, n.d., quoted in Hendrick and Henderson, p. 152.

  24. Herbert Spencer to AC, August 22, 1898, ACNYPL.

  25. AC to Dr. Adolf Gurlt, June 1, 1898, ACLOC, vol. 52.

  26. AC to George Lauder Jr., June 9, 1898, ACLOC, vol. 52.

  27. AC to General Nelson Miles, cablegram, n.d., ACLOC, vol. 53.

  28. Nelson A. Miles, Serving the Republic (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911), pp. 273–274.

  29. G. J. A. O’Toole, The Spanish War (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984), p. 322.

  30. Andrew Carnegie, “Distant Possessions—the Parting of the Ways,” North American Review (August 1898).

  31. John Hay to AC, August 22, 1898, quoted in Thayer, pp. 175–176.

  CHAPTER 26

  The Crusades

  Beginning in 1898, the wave of the Industrial Revolution Carnegie had ridden so easily was cresting—and he was about to be caught underneath. It was time for the industries driving the Industrial Revolution—steel, ore, railroads—to evolve to the next phase, to weed out the weak, to become more vertical, to consolidate, to mature. There was to be no place for radical individualism in the new order, but Carnegie thought otherwise. To meet the looming challenge, he would have to fight a multifront war requiring massive resources and deft generalship. On the western front there was Illinois Steel, and on the eastern front there was a new menace in the formidable persona of Pierpont Morgan, who was as intent on consolidating the steel industry as he had been with railroads. Carnegie’s energy and tenacity could not be over-estimated—but at age sixty-two, did he have the stamina? Could he win victories on both fronts? Or should he take a defensive posture on one front while attacking on the other? A defensive strategy did not agree with his nature, but lately Carnegie had been ambivalent about business, and he would waver between fighting and selling.