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 by a party of speculative people into the Escanaba Iron Company.  He was assured that the concern was to be made a stock company, but before this was done his colleagues had succeeded in creating an enormous amount of liabilities—­about seven hundred thousand dollars.  There was nothing but bankruptcy as a means of reinstating Mr. Kloman.

This gave us more of a shock than all that had preceded, because Mr. Kloman, being a partner, had no right to invest in another iron company, or in any other company involving personal debt, without informing his partners.  There is one imperative rule for men in business—­no secrets from partners.  Disregard of this rule involved not only Mr. Kloman himself, but our company, in peril, coming, as it did, atop of the difficulties of my Texas Pacific friends with whom I had been intimately associated.  The question for a time was whether there was anything really sound.  Where could we find bedrock upon which we could stand?