threatening to swallow
up the moral life of man; you by precept and by example have
been teaching him to disgorge. I for one thank you.

Believe me

Very faithfully yours

(Signed) W.E. GLADSTONE

I insert this as giving proof, if proof were needed, of Mr.
Gladstone's large, sympathetic nature, alive and sensitive to
everything transpiring of a nature to arouse sympathy--Neapolitans,
Greeks, and Bulgarians one day, or a stricken friend the next.

The general public, of course, did not know that I was in Scotland and
knew nothing of the initial trouble at Homestead. Workmen had been
killed at the Carnegie Works, of which I was the controlling owner.
That was sufficient to make my name a by-word for years. But at last
some satisfaction came. Senator Hanna was president of the National
Civic Federation, a body composed of capitalists and workmen which
exerted a benign influence over both employers and employed, and the
Honorable Oscar Straus, who was then vice-president, invited me to
dine at his house and meet the officials of the Federation. Before the
date appointed Mark Hanna, its president, my lifelong friend and
former agent at Cleveland, had suddenly passed away. I attended the
dinner. At its close Mr. Straus arose and said that the question of a
successor to Mr. Hanna had been considered, and he had to report that
every labor organization heard from had favored me for the position.
There were present several of the labor leaders who, one after
another, arose and corroborated Mr. Straus.

I do not remember so complete a surprise and, I shall confess, one so
grateful to me. That I deserved well from labor I felt. I knew myself
to be warmly sympathetic with the working-man, and also that I had the
regard of our own workmen; but throughout the country it was naturally
the reverse, owing to the Homestead riot. The Carnegie Works meant to
the public Mr. Carnegie's war upon labor's just earnings.

I arose to explain to the officials at the Straus dinner that I could
not possibly accept the great honor, because I had to escape the heat
of summer and the head of the Federation must be on hand at all
seasons ready to grapple with an outbreak, should one occur. My
embarrassment was great, but I managed to let all understand that this
was felt to be the most welcome tribute I could have received--a balm
to the hurt mind. I closed by saying that if elected to my lamented
friend's place upon th