BBC - Andrew Carnegie Rags to Riches, Power to Peace
Category
đź“š
LearningTranscript
00:00I am, I freely confess, a man of puzzling contradictions.
00:11Poverty drives my family from our Scottish homeland to seek our fortune in the new world.
00:18And what riches I gather about me.
00:22Andrew Carnegie begins with nothing.
00:26And through hard work, perseverance, and being in the right place at the right time, he is
00:33able to become really a multi-billionaire.
00:38My steel industry helps construct modern America, creates monstrous instruments of war, and
00:45makes me the richest man in the world.
00:48Then I give away every cent of my money to benefit others and to foster peace in war-torn
00:56lands.
00:58Here was a Scotsman who left Scotland penniless, went to America, became the richest man in
01:04the world, and then decided to invest his fortune for the common good.
01:10That's a story worth telling.
01:18I'm a New Yorker, so I had grown up with a man.
01:45I thought the man whose biography I was going to write was called Carnegie.
01:52The first call I made when I introduced myself, and the relative on the other end of the line
01:58said, young man, if you are going to write about my great-great-grandfather, get the
02:04name right.
02:09No one pronounces his name properly anymore.
02:11He's now Carnegie.
02:13So if you go to America and say, oh, have you been to the Carnegie Library, they're
02:20like, who?
02:22But they've all heard of Carnegie Hall.
02:43Andrew Carnegie was born in 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland, a tiny little town.
03:04I grow up in the attic of a small one-story house on the corner of Moody Street and Priory
03:09Lane.
03:11My childhood home is full of my parents' love for me, and philanthropy for others.
03:17Andrew Carnegie lived in a world where the artisans, the workers, the weavers, were all
03:25educated.
03:26They were politically minded, and Carnegie grew up listening to his father and his friends
03:32debate the issues of the day.
03:35So Carnegie was interested in the world outside him.
03:43Just a few miles from Edinburgh, a small town is the beating heart of the weaving trade.
03:51On his handlooms, my father weaves fine linen tablecloths, but factories are springing up
03:58to threaten his gentle way of life.
04:02We are on the brink of monumental change.
04:09This unprecedented explosion of new ideas and new technological inventions leaves a
04:15trail of devastation.
04:17My father sells his last cloth, and I learn what poverty means.
04:22Then and there came my resolve, I will cure such poverty when I come to be a man.
04:30The Carnegie family, like all of the other weavers, went into economic depression in
04:38the 1840s, so his mother Margaret decided that the only way to protect her children
04:47as they grew up, to make sure that they would prosper, was to bring them to the United States.
04:56The Industrial Revolution forces us to forsake our beloved Scotland, and seek a new life
05:01in the new world.
05:03I leave Dunfermline with tearful eyes, not knowing if I will ever return.
05:09Yet my optimism abounds with the thought of reaching America.
05:16After a grueling three-month crossing, we arrive in this land of opportunity.
05:21We are destined for greatness.
05:25The great Allegheny Mountains greet us with their magnitude and rugged charm.
05:32You have families coming from all over the world for this opportunity, for that piece
05:36of the pie, to be American, to build a more successful future.
05:44Why does my family come here?
05:53It's opportunity.
05:55It's opportunity that doesn't exist in Old World Europe.
06:01Folks are able to come here and get a job that's fairly well-paying.
06:05As far as the industrial pool, what's grabbing them and bringing them to this country, it's
06:11that heavy manufacturing.
06:15My first job as a bobbin boy earns me a dollar and twenty cents a week.
06:20The hours hang heavy upon me, and in the work itself, I take no pleasure.
06:25But I am now a breadwinner, a helper for my family.
06:31Pittsburgh is the poster child of the American Industrial Revolution.
06:36This is a place where ingenuity and capital and labor all came together.
06:41And that hope that by working hard and pushing forward, that you're going to achieve something
06:48that your parents couldn't achieve.
06:51When he arrived in America, I think he was determined that he was going to do better.
06:57And I think that steely Scottish determination was something that stood him in good stead.
07:06I progress to telegraph operator, then superintendent with the railroad.
07:10I am determined to build my fortune.
07:14He rose up and learned how to invest money, in fact, doing things which we would regard
07:19as probably illegal today, using inside information to buy up shares in the companies that were
07:25then going to be favored with contracts from the railroad.
07:29Government in the United States did not regulate the economy.
07:33And that meant that men of business could proceed using their wiles, using practices
07:43that would today be known as illegal.
07:48He began to accumulate fortune.
07:50And in due course, again through the railways, he got, of course, into iron manufacture for
07:56bridge building, for rails, and latterly into steel.
08:04Investing my capital, but still working with the railroad.
08:07My riches are enhanced by the bloody horrors of the Civil War.
08:13This conflict devours all resources.
08:17Railroads are essential for transporting the modern machinery of war.
08:22War is becoming a money-making machine.
08:29But the human cost is appalling.
08:32What value has money when life's at the price?
08:38Without Pittsburgh, and without what was being produced here, the North couldn't have won.
08:43That's what the North had over the South, these manufacturing bases.
08:47And Pittsburgh's at the epicenter of it.
08:51Railroads are getting built to transport troops and supplies.
08:56Railroads are also getting destroyed in the course of the war itself.
09:00So after the war, the steel industry is ripe to expand, to do a lot of the rebuilding of
09:08the infrastructure that was destroyed during the war.
09:11The raw need for steel puts Andrew Carnegie in the right place at the right time.
09:18His ambition, his charm, and his self-confidence gave him the ability to take risks with his
09:26money, to jump into new enterprises, to invest in steel when everybody else was investing
09:34in iron, to build new plants, to reinvest his dividends, never to take money out of
09:45his business, but to keep putting it in, getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger,
09:51expanding always.
09:54I mull over my station in life.
09:56This year yields me a bountiful and growing return.
10:00But there is more to life than material triumphs.
10:06I propose to take an income no greater than $50,000 per annum, but spend the surplus each
10:12year for benevolent purposes.
10:17The more I earn, the more I can give away, and for the next 20 years, the fast-changing
10:22American economy allows my wealth to grow and grow.
10:34So now we're going over the Monongahela River.
10:37Monongahela River, through most of the 20th century, was considered the hardest-working
10:41river in the world.
10:42There were more steel mills and industry along this river than anywhere else in the world.
10:48When I was a kid, and when my father was a kid, and his father, these rivers were dead.
10:54They were so full of pollutants that nothing could survive in them, and the air quality
11:01was so poor from all of these mills that by midday, you'd have to change your shirt because
11:07it was black.
11:09We're headed down into the town of Braddock.
11:14Braddock is historically, not just for this region, but for this country, one of the most
11:21important little towns that no one knows about.
11:24By the early 1870s, it's home to Carnegie Steel.
11:28It was the very first Carnegie's mills opened in 1875, and it's the only fully integrated
11:34steel mill, meaning going from raw material to iron, from iron to steel, and steel to,
11:40in this case, semi-finished product, it's the only one left in this entire state.
11:46But in the heyday of this town, this place was bustling.
11:50It really was a very large and active town for many, many years, and it's all because
11:56that mill was here.
11:58It really was unparalleled for such a small little space.
12:02They had 30,000 people in this town.
12:11Over the river in Homestead, I build a new mill.
12:16Insisting upon knowing our costs, and especially what each man is doing.
12:23Who saves material, who wastes it, and who produces the results?
12:29Homestead's very different than a number of the other mill towns in this region.
12:34Because Homestead's founded with this notion of being a workers' republic.
12:38It's not a company town.
12:40They had a highly organized labor force, and they didn't have to kowtow to anyone.
12:45This was their town.
12:48These men were steadfast in their commitment to keeping their place in this mill.
12:55So there's labor problems from the beginning.
12:58But there's an economic downturn.
13:00The price of steel drops, the wages go down accordingly.
13:04Carnegie felt that if we're not making as much money, you shouldn't be making as much money.
13:14My workers refuse to see reason.
13:17Advances asked for are ridiculous.
13:20These men are in the wrong.
13:23Andrew Carnegie delegated responsibility for labor relations in Pittsburgh to Henry Frick.
13:31Carnegie needed Frick, who was a brilliant manager.
13:38He brings him in because Frick was notorious at busting unions.
13:45No tolerance for unions at all.
13:48Frick precipitated an ugly, nasty strike.
13:55He was just the man that Carnegie needed to take care of this labor problem.
14:02He was the bad cop, the Carnegie's good cop.
14:06Instructing Frick to shut down the plant and wait until the workers buckled will prove to be something I live to regret.
14:15Things heat up, they cool down, they heat up, they cool down over the course of the day.
14:19And eventually shots are fired.
14:22July the 6th, 1892.
14:25A bloody battle erupts between strikers and 300 armed security guards at my plant.
14:31Several souls die.
14:33Nothing has ever wounded me so deeply.
14:37Who wins this battle in 1892?
14:40The standard line is that the workers won the battle, but the company won the war.
14:45The union was crushed.
14:47It's 40 years before unionism is back in the steel business.
14:53To treat workers as he did, whether directly or indirectly,
14:59to expose people to the conditions that he did,
15:03to allow suffering to happen, are inexcusable.
15:08Does he make up for it?
15:28In the 1880s, Carnegie publishes a very famous essay that's called Wealth.
15:33It's more popularly remembered as the Gospel of Wealth.
15:39Wealth
15:45The Gospel of Wealth offers propositions that Carnegie feels everyone needs to accept.
15:51You may not like them, but they are the way things are.
15:54First of all, great inequality is inevitable.
15:58People like him are going to continue accumulating vast fortunes
16:02that just a few years before would have been unimaginable.
16:07Men who build great fortunes really are smarter than the rest of us.
16:11They know how to amass wealth in a way that the rest of us don't.
16:17I sat down my essay into a kinetophone recording
16:21so that my message will echo down the years.
16:26My quote from the Gospel of Wealth, published 25 years ago.
16:32This, then, is toiled to be the duty of the man of wealth.
16:37First, to set an example of modest and ostentatious living, shunning display.
16:45To provide moderately for the illegitimate wants of those dependent upon him.
16:50And after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him
16:56simply as just funds, which he is strictly bound as a matter of duty
17:03to administer in the manner which in his judgment is best calculated
17:08to produce the most beneficial results for the community.
17:14Here was a millionaire telling all the other millionaires.
17:18Here was a robber baron, captain of industry,
17:22telling his peers that they had to give away all their money.
17:26Not only that, that if they didn't give away their money,
17:29they would die disgraced, unloved, scorned.
17:34The man who dies bankrupt dies disgraced.
17:41What sets Carnegie apart from some of his brother millionaires
17:46is that men who build great fortunes didn't do that alone.
17:52Even though they are smarter, they've built these great fortunes
17:56using the labor and community that the rest of us provide.
18:00And therefore, those great fortunes are temporarily in the custody
18:06of a person like Carnegie, but they don't really belong to a person like Carnegie.
18:17Andrew Carnegie was what we called a philanthropist.
18:22I remember that when we were children, a very difficult word to spell.
18:26But somebody who gave away a lot of money, particularly for libraries and organs.
18:33And that was his mission in life, really, to make a lot of money
18:37and then to give it away.
18:47He had rather a good method.
18:50He didn't give you everything.
18:53That was his policy.
18:55If he gave, you had to give as well.
18:58So if you wanted to build a library, and he agreed to do it,
19:03he would either build the library, and you provided the books,
19:08or maybe you had to buy the land or the land,
19:12and you provided the books,
19:14or maybe you had to buy the land on which the library would be built.
19:18But that way, you had an ongoing interest in that project.
19:24Well, isn't that sensible?
19:27You know, if we get complete handouts, we don't value them.
19:31But if you put your blood, sweat and tears into getting it,
19:35what you wanted, you will always value it.
19:39I refined the worldwide giving of libraries into a neat and streamlined procedure,
19:45much like ordering a suit from the Sears catalogue.
19:53Libraries were important to Carnegie because he believed in education,
19:58and he believed in doing everything he possibly could
20:04to bring to common people opportunities that might not be theirs.
20:13With great wealth comes great responsibility.
20:16I think that's what Carnegie found,
20:18and that responsibility, I think, weighed quite heavily on his shoulders.
20:34Just having lots of zeros in the bank is nice for a little while,
20:40and then it's pretty unfulfilling.
20:42And it's not how many zeros you've got,
20:45it's actually what you do with them that marks you out.
20:50You know, he who dies thus wealthy dies disgraced.
20:54It's so powerful.
20:56He truly believed in philanthropy,
20:59He truly believed in philanthropy,
21:02and he truly believed in bettering the lot in life for other Americans,
21:08particularly through education and literacy.
21:11But I also think that he was very much aware of his need for a legacy,
21:16and one of the ways to do that was through naming rights.
21:21Andrew Carnegie can't be thought of as an individual.
21:25He has to be thought of as a conglomerate of robber barons,
21:32people like Goodyear, Firestone, Ford, J.P. Morgan,
21:37that if you add them up,
21:40they controlled the industrial production of America.
21:45The impact of steel on the urban environment cannot be underestimated.
21:52It is absolutely crucial to almost every aspect of urban life
21:58that we take for granted every single day and multiple times a day.
22:03It is absolutely crucial to almost every aspect of urban life
22:09that we take for granted every single day and multiple times a day.
22:14In New York City, if you wish to ride the subway, you're on steel rails.
22:20If you wish to take an elevator,
22:24you're probably going in a larger building.
22:27It's steel frame construction.
22:30The best example of steel in New York City is the Brooklyn Bridge.
22:39The Brooklyn Bridge is designed to bring together the ancient material of stone
22:45with this very fine, ethereal, new material of steel cabling.
22:53When the Brooklyn Bridge opens in the 1880s,
22:56it is more than twice the length in the center span
22:59than any suspension bridge that had ever come before it.
23:07That change in metal,
23:10that roughly a couple percentages of carbon from iron to steel,
23:17changes everything.
23:20You have a metal that is malleable.
23:23You can shape however you want.
23:26It maintains its strength.
23:31Without steel, the 20th century and now the 21st century as we know it,
23:36wouldn't exist.
23:38It changes everything.
23:42New York City
23:50So inside of this building, which used to be the blowing engine house,
23:54where huge air compressors were that created the wind
23:58that was then superheated to go into the blast furnace,
24:01we now have the 48-inch universal plate mill,
24:05which we salvaged in 1991 from the Homestead Works.
24:11This is the last of its type.
24:13This is a steam-driven plate mill.
24:16There's nothing else like this anywhere in this country.
24:21They're producing armor plate for battleships.
24:27It's the start of what's known as the Great White Fleet.
24:33Andrew Carnegie secures the largest contract that the U.S. Navy ever given.
24:42For almost three decades, I dominate the steel industry.
24:47But now at the dawn of the 20th century,
24:50I fear that the very thing that made my fortune
24:53is now in danger of destroying mankind.
25:03I must follow my beliefs
25:06and begin the harder task of giving my money away
25:09for the good of all.
25:12March 2, 1901, I close the deal with J.P. Morgan
25:17and sell Carnegie Steel for $480 million.
25:23I am the richest man in the world.
25:27Now I must turn to a new mission in life.
25:30The abolition of war grows in importance
25:33and overshadows all else.
25:36Andrew Carnegie took a huge risk later in his life
25:41by calling for world peace.
25:44It's a pretty spectacular thing for him to do.
25:48I think fundamentally he was a practical man
25:51and he just thought it was wrong to kill your fellow man.
25:57There's this contradiction that's Andrew Carnegie.
26:00On one hand, he's making millions and millions of dollars
26:05off of producing iron and then steel
26:08to go into armament to build up the U.S. Navy.
26:12But at the same time, he's an avowed pacifist,
26:16that there is no reason for bloodshed
26:19and that war is barbaric, it's archaic,
26:22that modern man shouldn't have to resort to such means.
26:26But that contradiction still exists.
26:28If you didn't need to resort to those means,
26:31why would you build a navy?
26:36An age of new and fearsome weaponry is upon us.
26:42I fondly hope and strongly believe
26:45to hasten the coming of the day
26:47when men, disgracing humanity,
26:49shall cease to kill each other like wild beasts.
26:54Where would we be without men and women who dream?
26:59And Carnegie dreamed.
27:02He had all sorts of elaborate plans
27:06that he put his money into.
27:14One of those was for a simplified spelling scheme.
27:20He thought the English language was much too complicated.
27:24Why should slay be spelled S-L-E-I-G-H?
27:29Why should Gs sometimes be soft, sometimes be hard,
27:34sometimes not pronounced at all?
27:39My quest for a simplified language has powerful support
27:43from Theodore Roosevelt,
27:45and importantly, I think this president to be a peacemaker.
27:49The hour and the man have come,
27:52and Roosevelt is that man of destiny.
27:55Roosevelt was a Republican
27:57and Carnegie was a Republican.
28:00And Roosevelt, who many Republicans thought was anti-business,
28:05needed Carnegie by his side
28:08as proof that he was not anti-business,
28:12that he was pro-capitalist.
28:14So Carnegie gave him cover for some of his reform activities.
28:20Despite Roosevelt ordering government documents
28:23printed with the new spellings,
28:25the cause is lost.
28:27My ideas must be dropped.
28:30Enough is enough.
28:33The man had a sense of humor, he had wit, wisdom,
28:38and he believed in progress, he believed in evolution.
28:49Rich and powerful people can usually have just about anything they want,
28:53but very few people can have their own dinosaur.
28:56And the story of how Diplodocus came here to Pittsburgh is a remarkable one.
29:08It starts with Andrew Carnegie reading a headline that screams
29:12Most Colossal Animal Ever on Earth Just Found Out West.
29:16And it has an illustration of one of these long-necked dinosaurs,
29:20these sauropod dinosaurs, rearing up on its hind legs
29:23to look into an 11-story window.
29:26Carnegie sees this, and he's captivated.
29:28He buys the story hook, line, and sinker.
29:31And he scrawls a note to the director of his newly founded museum,
29:35William Holland, and he says,
29:37Dear Dr. Holland, can you please buy this for Pittsburgh?
29:41So Holland, when he got this note,
29:43you know, I have to buy a dinosaur,
29:45rendezvoused with the man who had discovered
29:47this supposedly gigantic dinosaur, a guy named William Harlow Reed.
29:52And that's when Reed sort of spilled the beans to them
29:55that the entire newspaper article, the entire, you know,
29:58illustration, captivating headline, all this stuff,
30:01was based on a single chunk of dinosaur bone
30:05about the size of your average microwave oven.
30:08So naturally, the Carnegie team was a little bit disappointed by this.
30:12And they had a few weeks of frustration.
30:15They searched and searched without finding much of anything.
30:18But on July 4, 1899,
30:21the team happened upon a few bones that led to a few more bones,
30:26and they uncovered much of the skeleton
30:29of a single individual of one of these giant, long-necked dinosaurs.
30:34And so I think having Diplodocus carnegii, his own species of dinosaur,
30:39and a dinosaur that very quickly became very famous,
30:42was a really nice feather in Andrew Carnegie's cap.
30:48Across the Atlantic, I purchased my own Scottish highland home
30:52and 40,000 acres of sweet pastoral scenery.
30:56I am a child with a new toy.
30:59Heaven itself is not nearly as beautiful as Scebo.
31:05Scebo means enchanted place,
31:08and I think he wanted it to be something magical.
31:14When Andrew Carnegie bought Scebo,
31:16he instructed his agents to go out and look for a suitable place.
31:21It had to have water, it had to be near the sea,
31:24it had to have mountains and so on.
31:26And he saw it and he liked it straight away.
31:32Here was a man, the richest man in the world.
31:35They bought over steel from the United States.
31:38We know that he bought in electricity, of course, which was very key.
31:43And all these things would have been new to people in the highlands.
31:47It was a remote part of the British Isles, so this was really exciting.
31:52Now, here we have probably the first electric lift in Scotland.
31:59And here it is, an Otis lift.
32:01It was bought in 1901, installed in 1902.
32:05And a little later on, Edward VII came to see it
32:09because he was remodelling the lift.
32:11And it's a very, very old lift.
32:13It's a very, very old lift.
32:15It was bought in 1902.
32:17And a little later on, Edward VII came to see it
32:20because he was remodelling Buckingham Palace
32:23and wanted to see first-hand some of these innovations
32:27that Carnegie had put into the castle.
32:33This is American steel.
32:37Castles had the habit of burning down,
32:40and he's installed to protect his books
32:43and priceless treasures that he had, and the castle itself.
32:50This gives you a nice little idea of how the day worked here.
32:54Bagpipes at 7.45, breakfast at 8.30,
32:57and that would be a great big sort of Victorian breakfast,
33:01church at 11.20, lunch at 1.45,
33:05tea at 5, dinner at 7.30,
33:08and a lot of games at 9.30.
33:11This is a horned spoon,
33:13and if you ate your porridge in the morning,
33:17then you were given this when you left.
33:20It's carved, I suspect,
33:22it's probably an endless horn from the estate,
33:26and carved with skeebo.
33:33Skeebo is more than my playground.
33:36Those I invite here could bring my seed plans for peace to fruition.
33:44If we look at the people who came to visit him,
33:47from heads of state through to celebrities of the day,
33:51people like Edward Elgar, Helen Keller,
33:54then there were the politicians,
33:56both from the US and from Great Britain,
33:59and then we had the clergy, the university,
34:02the educational establishment.
34:04He was somebody who we would say today was a great networker, I suppose.
34:11The 1902 summer season is the most glittering yet at Skeebo,
34:15and we are joined by a surprise visit from King Edward and Queen Alexandra.
34:21Just a year earlier, the king had ascended the throne
34:24on the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.
34:28There is a story that he had the chance to be offered a dukedom,
34:33and he turned it down.
34:35King Edward VII was saying, basically,
34:37you can have whatever you like, whatever title,
34:39and he said, no, all I'd like is a signed photograph of you.
34:45After dinner, His Majesty is attracted to a sketch
34:49of the Diplodocus carnegii sitting in my study.
34:53Rather enamoured by it, he asks if a dinosaur could be sent to England.
34:57I write to William Holland to enquire.
35:01May 1905.
35:03The British Museum of Natural History receives its very own Diplodocus dinosaur.
35:11The plaster replica becomes a public sensation.
35:15Dippy is such a success that I see its potential to win influence abroad
35:20in my quest for world peace.
35:22My life-size replicas straddle the globe in a wave of dinosaur diplomacy.
35:30The Diplodocus
35:35I hear the distant rumbles of industrialised war.
35:39Troops can now be mobilised and countries invaded within days.
35:44He worried that the European powers and the United States
35:50were spending too much money on military armaments,
35:54especially the British and the French and the Germans.
35:59They had engaged in the first arms race.
36:03They were building larger and larger warships, dreadnoughts.
36:10It saddens and fills my bones with fear
36:13as Britain launches the world's first dreadnought,
36:16a larger, faster, more powerful instrument of war than ever before.
36:21In response, the Germans set out to build their own monster battleship.
36:26I fear a race to disaster.
36:29He said if two men get into a fight, someone's going to get bloody.
36:34If those two men have knives or guns, someone's going to be killed.
36:40It's the same with nations.
36:42If they have these battleships, a skirmish can turn into a bloody war.
36:50He attempted to interest the leaders of the world
36:54in coming together and agreeing to treaties of arbitration.
37:00So if in the future there were disputes between the French and the Germans
37:06or the Germans and the English or the Russians and the Americans,
37:11instead of going to war, they would have treaties that obligated them
37:16to sit down at a table and arbitrate.
37:22I give an address at St Andrews
37:24in which I call for an international court of arbitration,
37:28a league of peace to settle disputes,
37:31to hasten the abolition of war, the foulest blot upon our civilisation.
37:38It is true that every nation regards and proclaims its own armaments
37:43as instruments of peace only,
37:45but just as naturally every nation regards every other nation's armaments
37:50as clearly instruments of war.
37:53Thus each nation suspects all the others
37:56and only a spark is needed to set fire to the mass of inflammable material.
38:08I meet Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany
38:11to promote my plans for a league of peace among the great nations of Europe.
38:16To avert this coming conflict,
38:18I now must employ all of my hard-won influence with men of power.
38:23How fortunate to have the ear of kaisers, kings and presidents.
38:30Dear Mr President,
38:31one more triumph on your path to immortality as the peacemaker.
38:34You will secure peace upon this continent
38:36and soon Europe will come under its sway.
38:39If the German Emperor could rise to his destiny
38:42and stand with you favouring this.
38:44Key to my peace plans is the involvement of President Roosevelt.
38:48I redouble my effort to recruit him as my trusted spokesman for peace.
38:58In one of the most remarkable stories in contemporary history,
39:03one of the most remarkable stories in Carnegie's life, in Roosevelt's life,
39:07when Roosevelt left the White House,
39:10Roosevelt decided that he was going to spend a year
39:13going on a safari in Africa.
39:18A letter arrives at Schiebo.
39:20Roosevelt asked me for $30,000
39:23to help fund a trip in the name of scientific research.
39:28Carnegie knew the European leaders
39:31but he did not have the personal introduction to them
39:35or the personal power that Roosevelt had.
39:39I know Roosevelt is not a rich man,
39:42so I seize this opportunity.
39:44I will fund his year-long African safari
39:47if, on the conclusion of the trip,
39:49he serves as my peace envoy to Europe.
39:54He accepts the mission.
39:58You're supposed to be after big game, my friend.
40:00I know very well for a holiday but, of course,
40:02unworthy is the pursuit of one who has played
40:05and, in my hope and belief,
40:07has yet to play a great game in the world.
40:12So be so glad when you've started upon your return
40:15and hope you will make it a point of meeting the big men of the world.
40:19These are the big game.
40:21Although your present holiday was well-earned.
40:25You are quite right about my trip here being only play,
40:29I can make the play of some serious use.
40:31I shall be a very short time in Europe
40:34as I shall be anxious to get back to America.
40:36Nevertheless, whatever you wish me to do,
40:39I shall certainly strive hard to do.
40:43If any man can get the Emperor in accord for peace,
40:46you are that man.
40:48He will go far to act in unison with you.
40:50Of this I am certain.
40:52You are sympathetic souls.
40:56When I see the Kaiser,
40:58I will go over the matter at length with him,
41:00telling him I wish to repeat our whole conversation to you.
41:04Then I'll tell it all to you when I am in London.
41:08The African safari is deemed a success.
41:11Roosevelt shoots a total of 512 beasts,
41:14including 17 lions, 11 elephants,
41:17and a 20-strong crash of rhinoceroses.
41:25In the spring of 1910,
41:27Roosevelt returned from Africa
41:31and began his triumphant march through Europe.
41:36He received the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway
41:42for his having, while President,
41:45arbitrated a peace agreement
41:48between the Russians and the Japanese.
41:51He gave speeches in France, in Berlin.
41:55Everywhere he went, he was greeted with public acclaim.
42:02Roosevelt had promised Carnegie,
42:05and now, in 1910,
42:07went to meet Kaiser Wilhelm of Prussia.
42:12The plan was that Roosevelt
42:17would invite Kaiser Wilhelm
42:20or his representatives to London,
42:23where Kaiser Wilhelm would meet with his cousin,
42:27who happened to be King Edward VII of Great Britain.
42:34Roosevelt agreed to be Carnegie's peace messenger,
42:37and he met with Kaiser Wilhelm.
42:39The problem was, at the very beginning of this process,
42:43King Edward VII of England died.
42:50On the eve of Roosevelt finally reaching Berlin,
42:53tragedy strikes.
42:56Britain is in mourning, diplomacy is at a halt,
42:59and my plans are in disarray.
43:02Peace talks between Roosevelt and the Kaiser,
43:04on which I have lavished $30,000
43:07and two years anticipating, are cancelled.
43:11They are meeting unofficially,
43:13but sadly Roosevelt will not be proposing
43:16my arbitration ideas.
43:19He does seem, however,
43:20to make use of his precious time in England.
43:26My last 24 hours in England
43:28have really been the pleasantest of all,
43:30and I spent them with Edward Grey
43:32in the Valley of Itchen and the New Forest,
43:35listening to bird songs.
43:39There has been a fatal flaw in my strategy
43:42to stop the war,
43:44a misplaced trust in those I counted on
43:46as my colleagues in my fight for peace.
43:50Roosevelt took Carnegie's money,
43:53and Roosevelt paraded Carnegie
43:56into and out of the White House
43:58when he needed the support.
44:01But he did, in the end, really betray Carnegie.
44:07In his private correspondence,
44:10he ceaselessly made fun
44:14of the little Scotsman
44:16and his utopian peace plans.
44:19Carnegie sort of fooled himself into believing
44:23that Roosevelt could be his messenger for peace.
44:28It was not to be.
44:32Roosevelt went home.
44:34Carnegie's well-laid plans were laid to rest.
44:39But Carnegie did not give up.
44:44I attend the opening of the Peace Palace at The Hague.
45:03It is the most auspicious day of my life.
45:06This temple is to bring peace,
45:09which is so greatly needed among his erring creatures.
45:12A permanent place of arbitration.
45:15The most holy building in the world,
45:18because it has the holiest end in view.
45:22I believe that Andrew Carnegie was, as he saw himself,
45:26a leader of the Western world,
45:29and the Western world was falling into chaos.
45:33It was a volatile time in the world,
45:37and Carnegie did think
45:39that he could stop war from happening
45:42because of his tremendous financial resources,
45:46that he could buy anything.
45:55Gentlemen of many religious bodies,
45:57all irrevocably opposed to war and devoted advocates of peace,
46:02I hereby appeal, hoping you will feel it is not only your duty,
46:07but your pleasure to undertake the administration of two million dollars
46:12in the cause of peace through arbitration of international disputes.
46:18We all feel, I believe, that the killing of man by man in battle is barbaric
46:24and negates our claim to civilization.
46:27This crime we wish to banish from the earth.
46:30We need to be aroused to our duty and banish war.
46:38This is a historic room in Carnegie's life,
46:43and really in the life of the peace movement.
46:47It's the drawing room, and you can see it's beautifully decorated
46:52with gilt decoration,
46:55and it was the location where Carnegie met with business associates,
47:02where parties would be held,
47:05and it was the site of the first meeting for international peace in 1910.
47:13It's also the site of the first meeting of the Church Peace Union
47:21in this room in 1914.
47:36February the 10th, 1914.
47:39With such high hopes, I hold my first meeting of my newly formed Church Peace Union,
47:45set up to promote the arbitration of conflicts around the world.
47:51It immediately sets to action, and within a few months,
47:55conferences are being held in Europe.
47:58August 1914, representatives arrive in Germany,
48:02hopeful they may yet keep the peace.
48:05From a thousand miles away, their mission gives me hope
48:09as we enjoy our summer holiday in Scotland.
48:12August the 3rd, 1914.
48:15Despite all my efforts, Europe enters into diplomatic breakdown.
48:21The next day, Germany declares war on France
48:25and pours troops into neutral Belgium.
48:30That evening, Britain declares war on Germany.
48:34The Great War erupts.
48:37Carnegie was horrified, absolutely horrified,
48:42because, again, there seemed to be some sort of
48:47because, again, there seemed to him no reason for this war.
48:53Yes, the Archduke had been assassinated by a Serbian,
48:58but why should an event of terrorism lead to a world war?
49:05And he was devastated.
49:11He was staying in a cottage up on the moors at Scebo,
49:15and the local minister came up to tell him,
49:18when he'd heard the news, came up to tell him.
49:20So people must have been aware of how vulnerable he was.
49:26We are in perilous times.
49:28This war staggers the imagination.
49:31I do not underestimate its horror,
49:34but I hope and I believe that this very horrible, newly barbaric excess
49:38will so revolt human nature against all things
49:42and that the reaction will be great enough
49:45to carry us into the realms of reason,
49:48and the realms of reason are the realms of peace.
49:53I think when Grandpa Negi was brought the news
49:56that there was going to be war,
49:59I think it just... I mean, his wife felt that it broke his heart.
50:04All the young men and women who worked for him
50:09and worked in the village,
50:11instead of expressing and feeling the same horror he did,
50:15seemed almost jubilant at the idea that they would be going to war.
50:25The defiant heroes of my church peace union still hold on to hope.
50:30Their conference in southern Germany continues in the belief
50:33they still may avert the slaughter.
50:36I am filled with deep horror that the men and women
50:39I have charged to help make peace are now themselves in danger.
50:44They agreed to continue their conference, which they did for two days.
50:50Meanwhile, Germany was becoming a police state.
50:57Finally, the German police helped the conference participants
51:02to take what turned out to be the last train out of Germany.
51:10GERMANY
51:21As I read this today, what a change.
51:23The world convulsed by war as never before.
51:26Men slaying each other like wild beasts.
51:30Most casualties in this great war are injuries to bones
51:34from shrapnel and gunshot wounds.
51:36The human frame can't withstand the impact of this new mechanised slaughter.
51:43I have failed to stop the war, but the supreme optimist is not defeated.
51:49He was a man who was used to getting his own way,
51:53and he would have given away his entire fortune to stop the First World War.
52:01Trying to find sense in a world gone mad,
52:05it shatters me to think of my beautiful palace of peace lying dormant.
52:14He couldn't go back to Scotland anymore,
52:16because Scotland was at war and the Atlantic was dangerous.
52:22He stopped talking, he stopped writing letters,
52:27he ceased all communication, he ceased all movement.
52:36He retreated further and further and further into silence.
52:43He would be wheeled in a wheelchair to his garden,
52:47where he would look into the sky,
52:50and he did not come out of what we can only refer to today
52:56as a profound depression.
53:00Carnegie did think that he could stop war from happening.
53:09If anyone could have done it, he thought he was the person.
53:17I may daily grow frail in body,
53:20but my hopes remain that one day war will be banished
53:24by an international court for peace.
53:27That day will mark the moment when man stops killing man,
53:31the deepest and blackest of crimes.
53:47Carnegie died.
53:49He did not live to learn that the Great War
53:55would soon be known as World War I,
53:58because Europe would, within a generation,
54:02be embroiled in a second, more deadly war.
54:15Carnegie was intent on getting rid of his fortune,
54:20providing his daughter and wife with enough money
54:24to live comfortable lives, but not to create a dynasty.
54:37He did not believe in inherited wealth.
54:40He didn't want to pass on his fortune to his daughter.
54:46I first remember going to Scebo when I was probably about six years old.
54:52It was like paradise.
55:04My grandmother, Margaret,
55:07she knew none of her family could keep Scebo going,
55:13but in the end it was to be sold,
55:17and she left Scebo for the last time,
55:20but she didn't tell us.
55:22We weren't supposed to know.
55:24I did know, and so on that last day,
55:28I was standing in a field with my cows,
55:32and I saw the car drive past.
55:36I still feel emotional, isn't it?
55:38It's silly, all those years later,
55:40with my grandmother in there,
55:43she didn't know I was in the field,
55:46but she was leaving, and I know my grandmother,
55:49she would never have looked back,
55:51because that's what she was like,
55:53but I think her heart must have been breaking.
55:56For us, as a family,
55:59it was never home,
56:02from the minute my grandmother drove off that day.
56:05He left enough money to his wife
56:08so that she could look after his daughter,
56:11but really he wanted to leave it
56:14so that it would benefit people who were less well-off,
56:19give them a chance in life,
56:21as he had a chance in life, to get on,
56:25and that was his dream,
56:29and I think it came true.
56:42If Andrew Carnegie was around today investing,
56:45Andrew Carnegie would be in robotics.
56:48He would be in the high-tech industry.
56:51He would be, I guess, a Bill Gates kind of guy.
56:55He knew trends.
57:04You have universities, you have Carnegie Hall,
57:07you have libraries,
57:09all of these fantastic things
57:12that were built with private philanthropy
57:15as gifts to the urban environment,
57:18or frankly, throughout the nation,
57:21that are remembered.
57:25I find it incredible that someone,
57:29you know, way back in the late 1800s,
57:33his clarity, Carnegie's clarity of vision
57:36of what he wanted to set out to do was incredible.
57:40It's kind of spooky, actually.
57:55If Andrew Carnegie were alive today,
57:58he would use every ounce of his energy,
58:02every dollar of his money,
58:05all his wit, his charisma,
58:08his intelligence
58:11to create international peace movements
58:16that would stop the scourge of war.
58:24Examining the impact and influence of Robert Burns
58:27on the USA and its culture,
58:30from presidents to musicians,
58:33Urrabi has inspired them all.
58:36Burns in the USA is next tonight,
58:39here on BBC Scotland.
58:54© BF-WATCH TV 2021