ompt action on my
part was necessary to prevent serious trouble. I took the first train
for Pittsburgh, and was able to announce there to all concerned that,
although I was a shareholder in the Texas enterprise, my interest was
paid for. My name was not upon one dollar of their paper or of any
other outstanding paper. I stood clear and clean without a financial
obligation or property which I did not own and which was not fully
paid for. My only obligations were those connected with our business;
and I was prepared to pledge for it every dollar I owned, and to
endorse every obligation the firm had outstanding.

Up to this time I had the reputation in business of being a bold,
fearless, and perhaps a somewhat reckless young man. Our operations
had been extensive, our growth rapid and, although still young, I had
been handling millions. My own career was thought by the elderly ones
of Pittsburgh to have been rather more brilliant than substantial. I
know of an experienced one who declared that if "Andrew Carnegie's
brains did not carry him through his luck would." But I think nothing
could be farther from the truth than the estimate thus suggested. I am
sure that any competent judge would be surprised to find how little I
ever risked for myself or my partners. When I did big things, some
large corporation like the Pennsylvania Railroad Company was behind me
and the responsible party. My supply of Scotch caution never has been
small; but I was apparently something of a dare-devil now and then to
the manufacturing fathers of Pittsburgh. They were old and I was
young, which made all the difference.

The fright which Pittsburgh financial institutions had with regard to
myself and our enterprises rapidly gave place to perhaps somewhat
unreasoning confidence. Our credit became unassailable, and thereafter
in times of financial pressure the offerings of money to us increased
rather than diminished, just as the deposits of the old Bank of
Pittsburgh were never so great as when the deposits in other banks ran
low. It was the only bank in America which redeemed its circulation in
gold, disdaining to take refuge under the law and pay its obligations
in greenbacks. It had few notes, and I doubt not the decision paid as
an advertisement.

In addition to the embarrassment of my friends Mr. Scott, Mr. Thomson,
and others, there came upon us later an even severer trial in the
discovery that our partner, Mr. Andrew Kloman, had been led