millionaire; 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 circumstances 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 association 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.

"Aft