oducts. That scale will last three years and
it will not be submitted by the men. They have submitted many scales
to us. It is our turn now, and we are going to submit a scale to them.

"Now," I said to my partners, "I am going back to New York in the
afternoon. Nothing more is to be done."

A short time after my message was received by the men they asked if
they could come in and see me that afternoon before I left.

I answered: "Certainly!"

They came in and I said to them:

"Gentlemen, your chairman here, Mr. Bennett, assured you that I would
make my appearance and settle with you in some way or other, as I
always have settled. That is true. And he told you that I would not
fight, which is also true. He is a true prophet. But he told you
something else in which he was slightly mistaken. He said I _could_
not fight. Gentlemen," looking Mr. Bennett straight in the eye and
closing and raising my fist, "he forgot that I was Scotch. But I will
tell you something; I will never fight you. I know better than to
fight labor. I will not fight, but I can beat any committee that was
ever made at sitting down, and I have sat down. These works will never
start until the men vote by a two-thirds majority to start them, and
then, as I told you this morning, they will start on our sliding
scale. I have nothing more to say."

They retired. It was about two weeks afterwards that one of the house
servants came to my library in New York with a card, and I found upon
it the names of two of our workmen, and also the name of a reverend
gentleman. The men said they were from the works at Pittsburgh and
would like to see me.

"Ask if either of these gentlemen belongs to the blast-furnace workers
who banked the furnaces contrary to agreement."

The man returned and said "No." I replied: "In that case go down and
tell them that I shall be pleased to have them come up."

Of course they were received with genuine warmth and cordiality and we
sat and talked about New York, for some time, this being their first
visit.

"Mr. Carnegie, we really came to talk about the trouble at the works,"
the minister said at last.

"Oh, indeed!" I answered. "Have the men voted?"

"No," he said.

My rejoinder was:

"You will have to excuse me from entering upon that subject; I said I
never would discuss it until they voted by a two-thirds majority to
start the mills. Gentlemen, you have never seen New York. Let me take
you out and show you Fifth