aded with coke.

These properties were practically owned by Mr. Carnegie personally, and
his was the controlling hand. He had a daily report from every mill,
which in a few lines told just what the concern was doing. There was
also a daily report from each branch office, and a report from the head
cashier, where one line of figures presaged the financial weather. When
"the billion-dollar trust"--the United States Steel Corporation--was
formed, Mr. Carnegie sold his interests in the Carnegie plants to the
new concern for two hundred fifty million dollars, and took his pay in
five-per-cent bonds.

It was the biggest and cleanest clean-up ever consummated in the
business world. As a financial get-away it has no rival in history.

There were many wise ones who said, "Oh, he will foreclose and have the
works back in a few years." But not so--the United States Steel
Corporation has made money and is making money, because it is being
managed by men who, for the most part, were trained by Carnegie in the
financial way they should go.

As far as money is concerned, Mr. Carnegie could have made much more by
staying in business than by selling out, but Andrew Carnegie quit one
job to take up a harder one. "To die a millionaire will yet be a
disgrace," he said. To give away money is easy, but to give it away
wisely, so it will benefit the world for generations to come--that is a
most difficult and exacting task.

The quarter of a thousand million in Steel Bonds did not constitute Mr.
Carnegie's whole wealth. He had several little investments outside of
that. In fact, that clever saying, "Put all your eggs in one basket," is
exoteric, not esoteric. What Mr. Carnegie really meant was, if you are
only big enough to watch one basket, to have two were folly. Mr.
Carnegie himself has always had his eggs in a dozen or so baskets, but
he never has had any more baskets than he could watch. His baskets were
usually coupled together like the "grasshopper," which pumps several
oil-wells with one engine. Wealth is good for those who can use it;
power the same; but when you cease to manage a thing and the thing
begins to manage you, it may eat you up.

In East Aurora there used to be a good friend of mine who had a
peanut-stand at the station. The business flourished and some one
advised my friend that he should put in popcorn as a sideline. He did
so, and got nervous prostration. You see, he was a peanut man, and when
he got outside of h