what kind of a firm it was that was handling it, and
what was their idea, and what, if anything, they thought their little
planet was for, and what they proposed to do with it.

I found, on meeting Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Morgan, to
my astonishment, that they did not propose to do anything with it at
all. They had merely got it; that was as far as they had thought the
thing out apparently--to get it. They seemed to be depending, so far as
I could judge, in a vague, pained way, on somebody's happening along who
would think perhaps of something that could be done with it.

Of course, as Mr. Carnegie (who was the talking member of the firm)
pointed out, if they only owned a part of it, and could sell one part of
it to the other part there would still be something left that they could
do, at least it would be their line; but merely owning all of it, so, as
they did, was embarrassing. He had tried, Mr. Carnegie told me, to think
of a few things himself, but was discouraged; and he intimated he was
devoting his life just now to pulling himself together at the end, and
dying a poor man. But that was not much, he admitted, and it was really
not a very great service on his part to a world, he thought--his merely
dying poor in it.

When I asked him if there was anything else he had been able to think of
to do for the world--

"No," he said, "nothing really; nothing except chucking down libraries
on it--safes for old books."

"And Mr. Morgan?" I said.

"Oh! He is chucking down old china on it, old pictures, and things."

"And Mr. Rockefeller?"

"Mussing with colleges, some," he said, "just now. But he doesn't, as a
matter of fact, see anything--not of his own--that can really be done
with them, except to make them more systematized and businesslike, make
them over into sort of Standard Oil Spiritual Refineries, fill them with
millions more of little Rockefellers--and they won't let him do that. Of
course, as you might see, what they want to do practically is to take
the Rockefeller money and leave the Rockefeller out. Nobody will really
let him do anything. Everything goes this way when we seriously try to
do things. The fact is, it is a pretty small, helpless business, owning
a world," sighed Mr. Carnegie.

"This is why we are selling out, if anybody happens along. Anybody, that
is, who really sees what this piece of property is for and how to
develop it, can have it," said Mr. Carnegie, "and have it c