In 1891 President Harrison went with me from Washington to Pittsburgh, as I have already stated, to open the Carnegie Hall and Library, which I had presented to Allegheny City.  We traveled over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad by daylight, and enjoyed the trip, the president being especially pleased with the scenery.  Reaching Pittsburgh at dark, the flaming coke ovens and dense pillars of smoke and fire amazed him.  The well-known description of Pittsburgh, seen from the hilltops, as “H—­l with the lid off,” seemed to him most appropriate.  He was the first President who ever visited Pittsburgh.  President Harrison, his grandfather, had, however, passed from steamboat to canal-boat there, on his way to Washington after election.

The opening ceremony was largely attended owing to the presence of the President and all passed off well.  Next morning the President wished to see our steel works, and he was escorted there, receiving a cordial welcome from the workmen.  I called up each successive manager of department as we passed and presented him.  Finally, when Mr. Schwab was presented, the President turned to me and said,

“How is this, Mr. Carnegie?  You present only boys to me.”

“Yes, Mr. President, but do you notice what kind of boys they are?”

“Yes, hustlers, every one of them,” was his comment.

He was right.  No such young men could have been found for such work elsewhere in this world.  They had been promoted to partnership without cost or risk.  If the profits did not pay for their shares, no responsibility remained upon the young men.  A giving thus to “partners” is very different from paying wages to “employees” in corporations.

The President’s visit, not to Pittsburgh, but to Allegheny over the river, had one beneficial result.  Members of the City Council of Pittsburgh reminded me that I had first offered Pittsburgh money for a library and hall, which it declined, and that then Allegheny City had asked if I would give them to her, which I did.  The President visiting Allegheny to open the library and hall there, and the ignoring of Pittsburgh, was too much.  Her authorities came to me again the morning after the Allegheny City opening, asking if I would renew my offer to Pittsburgh.  If so, the city would accept and agree to expend upon maintenance a larger percentage than I had previously asked.  I was only too happy to do this and, instead of two hundred and fifty thousand, I offered a million dollars.  My ideas had expanded.  Thus was started the Carnegie Institute.

Pittsburgh’s leading citizens are spending freely upon artistic things.  This center of manufacturing has had its permanent orchestra for some years—­Boston and Chicago being the only other cities in America that can boast of one.  A naturalist club and a school of painting have sprung up.  The success of Library, Art Gallery, Museum, and Music Hall—­a noble quartet in an immense building—­is one of the chief satisfactions of my life.  This is my monument, because here I lived my early life and made my start, and I am to-day in heart a devoted son of dear old smoky Pittsburgh.