Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie Part 16

Had Mr. Kloman been a business man it would have been impossible ever to allow him to be a partner with us again after this discovery. He was not such, however, but the ablest of practical mechanics with some business ability. Mr. Kloman's ambition had been to be in the office, where he was worse than useless, rather than in the mill devising and running new machinery, where he was without a peer. We had some difficulty in placing him in his proper position and keeping him there, which may have led him to seek an outlet elsewhere. He was perhaps flattered by men who were well known in the community; and in this case he was led by persons who knew how to reach him by extolling his wonderful business abilities in addition to his mechanical genius--abilities which his own partners, as already suggested, but faintly recognized.

After Mr. Kloman had pa.s.sed through the bankruptcy court and was again free, we offered him a ten per cent interest in our business, charging for it only the actual capital invested, with nothing whatever for good-will. This we were to carry for him until the profits paid for it. We were to charge interest only on the cost, and he was to a.s.sume no responsibility. The offer was accompanied by the condition that he should not enter into any other business or endorse for others, but give his whole time and attention to the mechanical and not the business management of the mills. Could he have been persuaded to accept this, he would have been a multimillionaire; but his pride, and more particularly that of his family, perhaps, would not permit this.

He would go into business on his own account, and, notwithstanding the most urgent appeals on my part, and that of my colleagues, he persisted in the determination to start a new rival concern with his sons as business managers. The result was failure and premature death.

How foolish we are not to recognize what we are best fitted for and can perform, not only with ease but with pleasure, as masters of the craft. More than one able man I have known has persisted in blundering in an office when he had great talent for the mill, and has worn himself out, oppressed with cares and anxieties, his life a continual round of misery, and the result at last failure. I never regretted parting with any man so much as Mr. Kloman. His was a good heart, a great mechanical brain, and had he been left to himself I believe he would have been glad to remain with us. Offers of capital from others--offers which failed when needed--turned his head, and the great mechanic soon proved the poor man of affairs.[33]

[Footnote 33: Long after the circ.u.mstances here recited, Mr. Isidor Straus called upon Mr. Henry Phipps and asked him if two statements which had been publicly made about Mr. Carnegie and his partners in the steel company were true. Mr. Phipps replied they were not. Then said Mr. Straus:

"Mr. Phipps, you owe it to yourself and also to Mr. Carnegie to say so publicly."

This Mr. Phipps did in the _New York Herald_, January 30, 1904, in the following handsome manner and without Mr. Carnegie's knowledge:

_Question:_ "In a recent publication mention was made of Mr.

Carnegie's not having treated Mr. Miller, Mr. Kloman, and yourself properly during your early partnership, and at its termination. Can you tell me anything about this?"

_Answer:_ "Mr. Miller has already spoken for himself in this matter, and I can say that the treatment received from Mr. Carnegie during our partnership, so far as I was concerned, was always fair and liberal.

"My a.s.sociation with Mr. Kloman in business goes back forty-three years. Everything in connection with Mr. Carnegie's partnership with Mr. Kloman was of a pleasant nature.

"At a much more recent date, when the firm of Carnegie, Kloman and Company was formed, the partners were Andrew Carnegie, Thomas M.

Carnegie, Andrew Kloman, and myself. The Carnegies held the controlling interest.

"After the partnership agreement was signed, Mr. Kloman said to me that the Carnegies, owning the larger interest, might be too enterprising in making improvements, which might lead us into serious trouble; and he thought that they should consent to an article in the partnership agreement requiring the consent of three partners to make effective any vote for improvements. I told him that we could not exact what he asked, as their larger interest a.s.sured them control, but I would speak to them. When the subject was broached, Mr. Carnegie promptly said that if he could not carry Mr. Kloman or myself with his brother in any improvements he would not wish them made. Other matters were arranged by courtesy during our partnership in the same manner."

_Question:_ "What you have told me suggests the question, why did Mr.

Kloman leave the firm?"

_Answer:_ "During the great depression which followed the panic of 1873, Mr. Kloman, through an unfortunate partnership in the Escanaba Furnace Company, lost his means, and his interest in our firm had to be disposed of. We bought it at book value at a time when manufacturing properties were selling at ruinous prices, often as low as one third or one half their cost.

"After the settlement had been made with the creditors of the Escanaba Company, Mr. Kloman was offered an interest by Mr. Carnegie of $100,000 in our firm, to be paid only from future profits. This Mr.

Kloman declined, as he did not feel like taking an interest which formerly had been much larger. Mr. Carnegie gave him $40,000 from the firm to make a new start. This amount was invested in a rival concern, which soon closed.

"I knew of no disagreement during this early period with Mr. Carnegie, and their relations continued pleasant as long as Mr. Kloman lived.

Harmony always marked their intercourse, and they had the kindliest feeling one for the other."]

CHAPTER XIV

PARTNERS, BOOKS, AND TRAVEL

When Mr. Kloman had severed his connection with us there was no hesitation in placing William Borntraeger in charge of the mills. It has always been with especial pleasure that I have pointed to the career of William. He came direct from Germany--a young man who could not speak English, but being distantly connected with Mr. Kloman was employed in the mills, at first in a minor capacity. He promptly learned English and became a shipping clerk at six dollars per week.

He had not a particle of mechanical knowledge, and yet such was his unflagging zeal and industry for the interests of his employer that he soon became marked for being everywhere about the mill, knowing everything, and attending to everything.

William was a character. He never got over his German idioms and his inverted English made his remarks very effective. Under his superintendence the Union Iron Mills became a most profitable branch of our business. He had overworked himself after a few years'

application and we decided to give him a trip to Europe. He came to New York by way of Washington. When he called upon me in New York he expressed himself as more anxious to return to Pittsburgh than to revisit Germany. In ascending the Washington Monument he had seen the Carnegie beams in the stairway and also at other points in public buildings, and as he expressed it:

"It yust make me so broud dat I want to go right back and see dat everyting is going right at de mill."

Early hours in the morning and late in the dark hours at night William was in the mills. His life was there. He was among the first of the young men we admitted to partnership, and the poor German lad at his death was in receipt of an income, as I remember, of about $50,000 a year, every cent of which was deserved. Stories about him are many. At a dinner of our partners to celebrate the year's business, short speeches were in order from every one. William summed up his speech thus:

"What we haf to do, shentlemens, is to get brices up and costs down and efery man _stand on his own bottom_." There was loud, prolonged, and repeated laughter.

Captain Evans ("Fighting Bob") was at one time government inspector at our mills. He was a severe one. William was sorely troubled at times and finally offended the Captain, who complained of his behavior. We tried to get William to realize the importance of pleasing a government official. William's reply was:

"But he gomes in and smokes my cigars" (bold Captain! William reveled in one-cent Wheeling tobies) "and then he goes and contems my iron.

What does you tinks of a man like dat? But I apologize and dreat him right to-morrow."

The Captain was a.s.sured William had agreed to make due amends, but he laughingly told us afterward that William's apology was:

"Vell, Captain, I hope you vas all right dis morning. I haf noting against you, Captain," holding out his hand, which the Captain finally took and all was well.

William once sold to our neighbor, the pioneer steel-maker of Pittsburgh, James Park, a large lot of old rails which we could not use. Mr. Park found them of a very bad quality. He made claims for damages and William was told that he must go with Mr. Phipps to meet Mr. Park and settle. Mr. Phipps went into Mr. Park's office, while William took a look around the works in search of the condemned material, which was nowhere to be seen. Well did William know where to look. He finally entered the office, and before Mr. Park had time to say a word William began:

"Mr. Park, I vas glad to hear dat de old rails what I sell you don't suit for steel. I will buy dem all from you back, five dollars ton profit for you." Well did William know that they had all been used.

Mr. Park was non-plussed, and the affair ended. William had triumphed.

Upon one of my visits to Pittsburgh William told me he had something "particular" he wished to tell me--something he couldn't tell any one else. This was upon his return from the trip to Germany. There he had been asked to visit for a few days a former schoolfellow, who had risen to be a professor:

"Well, Mr. Carnegie, his sister who kept his house was very kind to me, and ven I got to Hamburg I tought I sent her yust a little present. She write me a letter, then I write her a letter. She write me and I write her, and den I ask her would she marry me. She was very educated, but she write yes. Den I ask her to come to New York, and I meet her dere, but, Mr. Carnegie, dem people don't know noting about business and de mills. Her bruder write me dey want me to go dere again and marry her in Chairmany, and I can go away not again from de mills. I tought I yust ask you aboud it."

"Of course you can go again. Quite right, William, you should go. I think the better of her people for feeling so. You go over at once and bring her home. I'll arrange it." Then, when parting, I said: "William, I suppose your sweetheart is a beautiful, tall, 'peaches-and-cream' kind of German young lady."

"Vell, Mr. Carnegie, she is a leetle stout. If _I had the rolling of her I give her yust one more pa.s.s_." All William's ill.u.s.trations were founded on mill practice. [I find myself bursting into fits of laughter this morning (June, 1912) as I re-read this story. But I did this also when reading that "Every man must stand on his own bottom."]

Mr. Phipps had been head of the commercial department of the mills, but when our business was enlarged, he was required for the steel business. Another young man, William L. Abbott, took his place. Mr.

Abbott's history is somewhat akin to Borntraeger's. He came to us as a clerk upon a small salary and was soon a.s.signed to the front in charge of the business of the iron mills. He was no less successful than was William. He became a partner with an interest equal to William's, and finally was promoted to the presidency of the company.

Mr. Curry had distinguished himself by this time in his management of the Lucy Furnaces, and he took his place among the partners, sharing equally with the others. There is no way of making a business successful that can vie with the policy of promoting those who render exceptional service. We finally converted the firm of Carnegie, McCandless & Co. into the Edgar Thomson Steel Company, and included my brother and Mr. Phipps, both of whom had declined at first to go into the steel business with their too enterprising senior. But when I showed them the earnings for the first year and told them if they did not get into steel they would find themselves in the wrong boat, they both reconsidered and came with us. It was fortunate for them as for us.

My experience has been that no partnership of new men gathered promiscuously from various fields can prove a good working organization as at first const.i.tuted. Changes are required. Our Edgar Thomson Steel Company was no exception to this rule. Even before we began to make rails, Mr. Coleman became dissatisfied with the management of a railway official who had come to us with a great and deserved reputation for method and ability. I had, therefore, to take over Mr. Coleman's interest. It was not long, however, before we found that his judgment was correct. The new man had been a railway auditor, and was excellent in accounts, but it was unjust to expect him, or any other office man, to be able to step into manufacturing and be successful from the start. He had neither the knowledge nor the training for this new work. This does not mean that he was not a splendid auditor. It was our own blunder in expecting the impossible.

The mills were at last about ready to begin[34] and an organization the auditor proposed was laid before me for approval. I found he had divided the works into two departments and had given control of one to Mr. Stevenson, a Scotsman who afterwards made a fine record as a manufacturer, and control of the other to a Mr. Jones. Nothing, I am certain, ever affected the success of the steel company more than the decision which I gave upon that proposal. Upon no account could two men be in the same works with equal authority. An army with two commanders-in-chief, a ship with two captains, could not fare more disastrously than a manufacturing concern with two men in command upon the same ground, even though in two different departments. I said:

"This will not do. I do not know Mr. Stevenson, nor do I know Mr.

Jones, but one or the other must be made captain and he alone must report to you."

[Footnote 34: The steel-rail mills were ready and rails were rolled in 1874.]

The decision fell upon Mr. Jones and in this way we obtained "The Captain," who afterward made his name famous wherever the manufacture of Bessemer steel is known.

The Captain was then quite young, spare and active, bearing traces of his Welsh descent even in his stature, for he was quite short. He came to us as a two-dollar-a-day mechanic from the neighboring works at Johnstown. We soon saw that he was a character. Every movement told it. He had volunteered as a private during the Civil War and carried himself so finely that he became captain of a company which was never known to flinch. Much of the success of the Edgar Thomson Works belongs to this man.

In later years he declined an interest in the firm which would have made him a millionaire. I told him one day that some of the young men who had been given an interest were now making much more than he was and we had voted to make him a partner. This entailed no financial responsibility, as we always provided that the cost of the interest given was payable only out of profits.

"No," he said, "I don't want to have my thoughts running on business.

I have enough trouble looking after these works. Just give me a h--l of a salary if you think I'm worth it."