Andrew Carnegie

I am the lad who hauled coal at thirteen, who melted iron into engines of progress. My Gospel of Wealth? A creed, not a confession. I gave $350 million to classrooms and concert halls because a man who dies rich dies disgraced. Yet ask me of Homestead, and I’ll speak of the right to manage—though the blood on those strikebreakers’ clubs haunts my ledger. Sold Carnegie Steel at sixty-six to build universities and peace palaces. Let the world call me Baron—my libraries will have the last word.