by the superintendent. Our rule never to employ new men,
but to wait for the old to return, had not been violated so far. In
regard to the second opening of the works, after the strikers had shot
the sheriff's officers, it is also easy to look back and say, "How
much better had the works been closed until the old men voted to
return"; but the Governor of Pennsylvania, with eight thousand troops,
had meanwhile taken charge of the situation.

I was traveling in the Highlands of Scotland when the trouble arose,
and did not hear of it until two days after. Nothing I have ever had
to meet in all my life, before or since, wounded me so deeply. No
pangs remain of any wound received in my business career save that of
Homestead. It was so unnecessary. The men were outrageously wrong. The
strikers, with the new machinery, would have made from four to nine
dollars a day under the new scale--thirty per cent more than they were
making with the old machinery. While in Scotland I received the
following cable from the officers of the union of our workmen:

"Kind master, tell us what you wish us to do and we shall do it for
you."

This was most touching, but, alas, too late. The mischief was done,
the works were in the hands of the Governor; it was too late.

I received, while abroad, numerous kind messages from friends
conversant with the circumstances, who imagined my unhappiness. The
following from Mr. Gladstone was greatly appreciated:

MY DEAR MR. CARNEGIE,

My wife has long ago offered her thanks, with my own, for
your most kind congratulations. But I do not forget that you
have been suffering yourself from anxieties, and have been
exposed to imputations in connection with your gallant
efforts to direct rich men into a course of action more
enlightened than that which they usually follow. I wish I
could relieve you from these imputations of journalists, too
often rash, conceited or censorious, rancorous, ill-natured.
I wish to do the little, the very little, that is in my
power, which is simply to say how sure I am that no one who
knows you will be prompted by the unfortunate occurrences
across the water (of which manifestly we cannot know the
exact merits) to qualify in the slightest degree either his
confidence in your generous views or his admiration of the
good and great work you have already done.

Wealth is at present like a monster