Carnegie (17 page)

The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature . . .

Herbert Spencer,
The Americans

W
hile Carnegie was languishing in his ‘loneliness’ with his ever-present mother, Louise Whitfield and her mother spent the summer of 1881 in the Catskill Mountains on the west side of the Hudson River valley, about 75 miles northwest of New York. She was feeling neglected by Carnegie, who had written only one letter to her on 21 June from the Queen’s Hotel, Reading. The sentiment therein saying how he wished she was with the party did nothing to assuage her feeling of being sidelined. Louise had other suitors, but slowly her relationship with Carnegie began to rekindle as each came back into the other’s orbit. If she
was
contemplating marriage with Carnegie – although he had not asked her – she was likely to see three main obstacles: his obsessive attention to his mother, the promotion of his place in society, and his business interests. There was also the fact that he was twice her age. Their strange on-off courtship would last for six years.

Carnegie had then one prime subject on his mind: the administration of his steel interests in Pittsburgh. The atmosphere at the Edgar Thomson Steel Co. was not congenial. After the death of chairman David McCandless, general manager William P. Shinn began jockeying for promotion, inflating his own salary and entrenching his position in the company. Soon realising that he was not going to be appointed chairman, Shinn resigned and went to work for a rival, the Vulcan Iron Co. Lawsuits were prepared for Shinn to gain compensation for not advancing in the Carnegie company; Carnegie initially baulked at the figure proposed, but when he realised that the Edgar Thomson Co. books would be examined in court he backed down and Shinn was given a payment of $200,000 to close the unpleasant altercations.
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In due course Tom Carnegie was appointed chairman of the company. Carnegie was keen to see off his competitors, a particular rival being the Cambria works at Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Towards this end the year 1881 saw a reorganisation of the various iron and steel businesses into Carnegie Bros & Co. Ltd, which now incorporated the Edgar Thomson and Union Iron Mills, the Lucy Furnaces (named after Tom’s wife Lucy Coleman) and the Keystone Bridge Co. Carnegie was the majority shareholder.
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This portfolio was greatly expanded by 1886, with enhanced profits. By 1886 too, the firm of Carnegie, Phipps & Co. had been organised to run the Homestead mills. Business was further expanded by the purchase of the Hartman Steel Works at Bear Falls.
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It was a glorious time for Carnegie: ‘America had won the steel leadership of the world [from Britain], and Carnegie was at the heart of it.’
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For his business to flourish Carnegie needed reliable sources of supplies, especially coke, which brought into Carnegie’s orbit one Henry Clay Frick. Born at West Overton, Pennsylvania, of wealthy farming stock, but with little education, Frick was a winner in the ante-bellum race to supply the nation’s steel mills with coke, from his Connellsville plant; in 1871 he organised the Henry C. Frick Co. and ten years later Carnegie was a valued customer. By 1883 Carnegie had bought into Frick’s company and owned 50 per cent of the stock. Frick became a key player in Carnegie’s business life.

What of Carnegie’s other interests? Carnegie lived life on various levels, with some facets seemingly less than compatible. A look at some of them offers a flavour of Carnegie’s views on British politics, newspapers and literature. Carnegie had been interested in what was happening on the British political scene since the early days of the family’s emigration. Back then (1848) the Whig Lord John Russell was Prime Minister, and for forty years the political pendulum had swung left and right, with eleven politicians holding the office of Prime Minister. Carnegie followed the careers of them all. A regular correspondence had been undertaken between Carnegie and his cousin Dod Lauder, exchanging views on the political scenes of their respective countries. On 15 April 1880 Dod wrote a letter in high glee that the second Conservative administration of Benjamin Disraeli had fallen in the general election of that May and that William Ewart Gladstone was to form his second Liberal administration. Queen Victoria, whose contempt for Gladstone dated back to the Roman Catholic troubles of 1845, reluctantly accepted his ministry, and Carnegie hoped that the new administration would bring about the end of the House of Hanover in particular and the monarchy in general. Carnegie’s frequent visits to Britain brought him into the world of the country’s movers and shakers, but as his republicanism grew, so did his snobbery and his need for the oxygen of high society.

Carnegie followed the progress of Gladstone’s government carefully, step by step, from the first budget of 10 June 1880, wherein income tax increased from 5
d
to 6
d
in the pound, through the Irish troubles and the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish (1882), to the Egyptian and Sudanese troubles (1882–3), the new Representation of the People Bill (1884) and beyond. The death of Disraeli in 1881 caused more delight in the Dod Lauder household, and Carnegie saw that cultivating the Liberals would be to his advantage.

One Liberal in particular would become a close friend. John Morley, later Viscount Morley of Blackburn, was a product of Lincoln College, Oxford, and had entered journalism through the
Saturday Review
, which he developed into the most influential conveyor of liberal opinion. More left wing than Gladstonian Liberals, Morley decided to give up journalism to enter politics and during 1883–95 he served as MP for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, before moving to Montrose Burghs (1896–1908). During 1892–5 he was Chief Secretary for Ireland.

What attracted Carnegie to the agnostic, individualistic Morley – apart from sheer opportunism – was Morley’s philosophical and social ideas as well as his books; he had written biographies of Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke (1879), economist and politician Richard Cobden (1881), and Oliver Cromwell (1900). Carnegie believed the latter subject should be left well alone, after all Cromwellian troops had harried the environs of his beloved Dunfermline. Despite such disagreements, their friendship endured, although sometimes Morley found Carnegie’s brand of humour and outspokenness hard to take. Importantly too, Morley introduced Carnegie to prominent British political leaders.

There was James Bryce, Viscount Bryce, jurist, historian and statesman, Liberal MP for Tower Hamlets 1880–5, and a member of Gladstone’s last cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Joseph Chamberlain, MP for West Birmingham 1885, was another member of Gladstone’s (third) cabinet. Henry Hartley Fowler, 1st Viscount Wolverhampton, was MP for divisions of Wolverhampton 1880–1908 and a later cabinet member. Henry Labouchere, 1st Baron Taunton, MP for Michael Borough (1826) and Taunton (1830), served variously under Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston and was a particular feather in Carnegie’s social cap, as was Archibald Philip Primrose, 8th Earl of Rosebery, Prime Minister 1884–5. One of the best known of the Liberal grandees, Rosebery was the son of the Lord Dalmeny who had been verbally assaulted by Carnegie’s grandfather at the hustings. In 1883 Rosebery visited Carnegie at Pittsburgh, and Carnegie was to remark that Rosebery was ‘handicapped by being born a peer’.
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Rosebery also introduced Carnegie to Gladstone.
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Carnegie gloried in his friendship with his network of Liberal contacts, the highlight being invitations to Gladstone’s home at Hawarden Castle, Flint. His snobbery totally masked any disgruntlement he felt at being blatantly used by the Liberals for financial purposes. A letter of 1 July 1887 from Gladstone to Carnegie proves the point:

Very recently your bountiful disposition gave me an opening which I felt my duty not to pass over, for representing to you the difficulties as to money in which the Liberal party is now placed. . . . Knowing your desire to apply funds to great beneficial public purposes, I hoped you would consider this a fit case for the exercise of your liberality which I know it is your practice to put in action on a truly ‘liberal’ scale. . . . It is of the utmost public importance to raise at once a considerable fund which will give efficacy to the operations of the party.
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Carnegie sent his financial aid directly to Gladstone, and in the future would finance politicians he thought radical enough, like John Elliot Burns, the socialist troublemaker who espoused the Liberals, and of course his friend Morley.

Two other friendships were to be of particular importance to Carnegie, with Herbert Spencer and Matthew Arnold. Carnegie had met Spencer some time before 1882, but was a fellow passenger with him aboard the SS
Servia
bound for New York on 12 August 1882; evidently he did not know Spencer well at that time because he carried aboard a letter of introduction from Morley.
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Herbert Spencer was a philosopher who by way of schoolmastering had espoused engineering and journalism to produce his
Social Statics
in 1852; by the time Carnegie met him he was well known for his
First Principles
(1862), explaining his synthetic philosophy which Carnegie had devoured years before. Carnegie became a devotee of Spencer’s theories and often repeated this mantra: ‘Before Spencer, all for me had been darkness, after him all had become light – and right.’
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Carnegie also was delighted with Spencer’s antimilitaristic philosophy. Spencer had expressed an eagerness for things American and was keen to meet his enthusiastic public who had paid his works much attention in America. In the event the naturally reticent Spencer found any public appearances, speeches or visits agonising. Nevertheless when the tours (and a trip to Canada) were finished, he consented to be Carnegie’s guest. Carnegie was at his most proud and pompous when he showed Spencer around the steelworks at Pittsburgh.

Carnegie had arranged for Spencer to be put up at a Pittsburgh hotel, but the great man decided to accept Tom Carnegie’s invitation to stay at his home. Spencer had taken a particular shine to Tom and his elder brother was greatly put out. However, Carnegie took Spencer to Cresson to rest before his departure back to Britain. The jaded Spencer was dreading his last engagement, a farewell dinner at Delmonico’s in New York on 9 November 1882. Carnegie drove Spencer to the banquet,

and saw the great man there in a funk. He could think of nothing but the address he was to deliver. I believe he had rarely before spoken in public. His great fear was that he should be unable to say anything that would be of advantage to the American people who had been the first to appreciate his works. He may have attended many banquets, but never one comprised of more distinguished people than this one. It was a remarkable gathering.
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Spencer was almost in a faint:

I ought to have been in good condition, bodily and mentally . . . I was in a condition worse than I had been for six and twenty years. ‘Wretched night; no sleep at all; kept in my room all day,’ says my diary, and I entertained ‘great fear I should collapse’ . . . I got friends to secrete me in an anteroom until the last moment, so that I might avoid all excitements of introductions and congratulations . . .
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Spencer forced himself to speak, but he feared ‘though not with much effect’; drained, he sat back and accepted a host of plaudits from such men as historian and Spencerian analyst John Fiske and clergyman and writer Henry Ward Beecher. Two days later Spencer returned to Britain, having become one of Carnegie’s special heroes. The Spencerian philosophy and social Darwinism, as will be seen shortly, became an important part of Carnegie’s ideas on wealth.

Matthew Arnold was a very different personality from Spencer, and his friendship with Carnegie was to be one of the most curious of all. Arnold looked upon manufacturers and businessmen of all kinds as ‘philistines’ – in Victorian Britain this was the most derogatory term one could think of. Further he looked upon America as the home of the most contemptible ‘philistines’ of all.
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Yet he instantly liked Carnegie for his ‘extraordinary freshness of spirit’
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and Carnegie described Arnold in his autobiography as ‘charming’.

The son of Dr Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School, Matthew Arnold was a poet and critic and was educated at Rugby, Winchester and Balliol College, Oxford. For a while he was a schoolmaster at Rugby, then he was appointed private secretary to Sir Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquis of Lansdowne, who was Prime Minister Lord John Russell’s President of the Council, before moving on to become an inspector of schools and Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1857 to 1867. In June 1883 Carnegie was introduced to Arnold at a London dinner party given by Mrs Henry Yates Thomson, whose book-collecting husband at that time owned the evening paper the
Pall Mall Gazette
(1865), whose contributors included both Arnold and Morley. Arnold was to be a guest on Carnegie’s British coach tour of 1884.

Despite his reservations about America, Arnold was mulling over the possibility of a lecture tour – he could certainly do with the fee money; Carnegie solidified the idea with an active proposal.
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By October 1883 Arnold was on his way to New York with his wife Flu and his daughter Lucy; lectures on ‘Numbers’ and ‘Literature and Science’ were already prepared, with another on the American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson in progress. In all, seventy lectures were contemplated. Carnegie and his secretary met Arnold at the dockside on 22 October and whisked him away to the Windsor Hotel before Arnold could utter any really anti-American remarks to the waiting press. Almost immediately Arnold’s inherent prejudices melted as he saw the doors of his suite decorated with flowers and captions of his book titles – Carnegie’s favourites
Culture and Anarchy
(1869),
Friendship’s Garland
(1871) and
Literature and Dogma
(1873). The ‘Scottishness’ of Carnegie’s apartments (tartan wallpaper and the like) and the Scots burr of Margaret Carnegie’s voice delighted Arnold, whose works on ‘Burns and the Celtic temperament’ had made him a Scotophile.
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