Carnegie (26 page)

When a nation ceases to create ideals its glorious days are past. Fortunately for the world, both the republic and the monarchy have the future before them.
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Then in this Diamond Jubilee year Carnegie set out to secure a palace for his own financial kingdom. To help in his search for a permanent home Carnegie recruited the help of Hew Morrison, the librarian at Carnegie’s new library foundation at Edinburgh. Morrison had a special interest in Scotland’s ancient castles and mansions, and to assist him Carnegie wrote a memo of essential requirements for his Scottish home: ‘It must have plenty of land, trout and salmon fishing, woods and hills, lochs and streams, a location bordering the sea, and, even more important, a beautiful waterfall.’
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At the top of Morrison’s research file of potential properties were a few available within the huge estates of Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland. Carnegie had already encountered the Sutherlands: Duchess Millicent had extracted money from him for her project to relieve the widows and orphans of the mining disaster at Audley Colliery (1895).
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Also on Morrison’s list was a property called Skibo abutting the Dornoch Firth. Morrison had done his research well and included maps and a deed with his notes. Carnegie was unimpressed; Skibo was run-down, smaller than he was looking for and had no waterfall.

Carnegie organised a two-week coaching trip to look at properties. From Inverness they travelled up the Moray Firth and east across Ross and Cromarty, to enter Sutherland at the village of Bonar Bridge where Thomas Telford’s bridge of 1812 (rebuilt after the flood of 1892) spans the channel between Dornoch Firth and the Kyle of Sutherland. From Bonar Bridge the main road runs east through the fine woods of the north shore of the Firth and would pass the estate of Skibo. Why not give it a passing glance, suggested Morrison. Carnegie reluctantly agreed but decided to go alone with Morrison as a separate jaunt. Their hired wagonette would take them the 8 miles or so to Skibo. As they travelled Morrison pointed out various features and then they entered the long tree-lined drive to the white Scottish baronial-style sandstone castle. Dismounting, they walked around the weed-grown terraces and took in the initial ambience of the place, its gables and turrets, woodlands and magnificent views of the 22,000-acre estate. As Carnegie soaked up the hills, pastures and angling potential – with a mooring for his yacht
Sea-breeze
– Morrison reviewed a little of the castle’s history.

It is probable that the coastline around Skibo estate was well known to the invading Norsemen who had anchorages here; at Ospisdale House nearby is a monument said to commemorate the death in battle of the Danish chief Ospis. And some etymologists say the Norsemen even contributed to the castle’s name, from a root of ‘skif’, a word describing a ‘place of ships’. Certainly by the thirteenth century the extant castle on the site was called Schytherbolle, and was gifted to St Gilbert de Moravia,
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Bishop of Caithness, in 1225 by William, Earl of Sutherland. A loyal servant of the secular state as well as a distinguished cleric, Bishop Gilbert used the castle on the site of Skibo as his primary episcopal residence; just as Carnegie would lavish time and money on the terraces and flower beds, so the bishop’s retainers had planted orchards and vegetable gardens. From here too, Bishop Gilbert oversaw the building of his new cathedral at Dornoch, which was restored in the year of Carnegie’s birth by Elizabeth, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland. Carnegie himself paid for the reconditioning of the organ in 1906 and the cathedral’s concealed lighting system was funded in 1950 by Margaret Carnegie in memory of her mother.
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In 1545 Bishop Robert Reid of Caithness gave Skibo to one John Gray in perpetuity. The Grays held the property until 1745, when Lieutenant Robert Gray surrendered the castle, estate and appurtenances to his importuning creditors (he died in 1776 a major in the Hanoverian 55th Foot Regiment based at Staten Island, New York).
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The property then passed through the hands of various creditors and owners until in 1882 one Ewen Sutherland-Walker filed for bankruptcy and the castle and estate he had enlarged and restored fell into the hands of trustees.

On that day in June 1897, as he surveyed the woodland planted by Bishop Gilbert, Carnegie knew that despite his initial reservations Skibo was exactly what he was looking for. In his usual single-minded way, he swamped Louise with his enthusiasm for Skibo. She had not seen it; could she make a home there? She recommended caution, and Carnegie agreed to dampen his enthusiasm until Louise had seen the property. Instead, Carnegie took out a lease of Skibo with an option to purchase.

Soon after he had viewed Skibo, Carnegie embarked on a yacht tour of the coasts of Harris and Lewis, in the Hebrides, but somehow these mountainous islands with their sandy shores did not raise his spirits. The last visit to Cluny had affected him more than he realised and the melancholy moors and lochs of the Western Isles were more in tune with his feelings. Yes, Skibo would be a new adventure but Carnegie was experiencing a weariness that he had never felt before, and then he caught a severe cold. He was advised by London consultants not to go back to New York’s wintry chills, so the Carnegies rented Villa Allerton at Cannes. They remained there until February 1898, making plans to return to New York. It was not just the severe cold that debilitated Carnegie at this time; he was unsettled and anxious about the whole role of businessman. Communications from Charles Schwab about steel matters irritated him and he jibbed at proposed additions and renovations to the plants at Homestead and Duquesne. Suffering from overwhelming ennui, he somehow bestirred himself to return to America.

Carnegie was also disturbed by what he read in the papers. American chauvinists were becoming more anti-Hispanic by the week. Since the early sixteenth century the island of Cuba had remained under Spanish rule; now separatist agitation was brewing against the Spain of Hapsburg-Bourbon King Alfonso XIII and his Cuban administration. As dusk fell on 15 February 1898 an explosion ripped apart the US ‘good-will mission’ battleship
Maine
in Havana harbour; 266 of the 354 men aboard died. The government of Republican President William McKinley, who had been elected on a platform supporting Cuban independence, was split; American investments in sugar plantations and other forms of trade with Cuba were at risk. McKinley’s Secretary of the Navy, Senator Long, believed the
Maine
incident was an accident, while Assistant Secretary for the Navy Theodore Roosevelt thought otherwise. Many Americans were stirred to retribution by the newspapers of such men as William Randolph Hearst, and McKinley was pushed towards war.

Carnegie monitored the US blockade of Cuba, and as the war swelled his profits from armour plate his pacifism remained dormant. His own research showed Carnegie that both the US army and the navy were short on firepower and he signalled to his board of managers instructions to establish a plant for making guns. It seemed that his patriotism was engulfing his pacifism. Back in America Cousin Dod suggested that there would be more profit in bullets and shells than would follow from a huge investment in arms founding. Carnegie agreed. Soon US troops landed on Cuba and by 26 July 1898 the Spanish were negotiating for peace. For the Carnegies Skibo beckoned.

From Cannes the Carnegies and Louise’s sister Stella, who now lived with them almost permanently, travelled through France and England to arrive at Skibo in June 1898. Louise liked what she saw. Carnegie contacted his Dunfermline lawyer John Ross and negotiations were set in motion to buy Skibo and its 22,000 acres for £85,000.

Almost immediately Carnegie set about expanding his new Scottish fiefdom, engaging the prominent Inverness firm of architects Ross & Macbeth to prepare plans to transform the delapidated mansion into the castle he had in mind. A new list of employees and tenants was drawn up and local contractors were hired to refurbish the estate grounds, roads, bridges and ancillary buildings. Louise took a leading role in planning the contracted work. Within the new wings and reconstructed rooms would be two focal points, a pipe organ in the front hall and a library to house 70,000 volumes – some of which were selected for him by Lord Acton; the bookcases were carved with the coats-of-arms of the cities that had awarded Carnegie their freedoms. Carnegie liked carved mottoes and his large golden oak mantelpiece would display the dictum he copied from Colonel Niles A. Stokes’s library mantel back in Greensburg:

He that cannot reason is a fool
He that will not is a bigot
He that dare not is a slave.
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As well as a flurry of decorations – Carnegie was as fussy about these as Queen Victoria had been at Balmoral – he added portraits of his heroes from poet Robert Burns to Scottish engineer and inventor James Watt. Whimsy also took over with the naming of the new suites and bedrooms after regional place names, with others named after Carnegie-selected heroes from Gilbert de Moravia to Sigurd the Viking whose ships had entered the Dornoch Firth and whose cadaver Carnegie believed was buried somewhere in the grounds of Skibo.

Before they returned to New York in October 1898 Louise wrote to her friend and pastor the Revd Charles Eaton:

We are all very pleased with our new home. The surroundings are more of the English type than Scotch. The sweet pastoral scenery is perfect of its kind. A beautiful undulating park with cattle grazing, a stately avenue of fine old beeches, glimpses of the Dornoch Firth, about a mile away, all seen through the picturesque cluster of lime and beech trees. All make such a peaceful picture that already a restful home feeling has come. The Highland features to which our hearts turn longingly are not wanting, but are more distant.

To show you the unique range of attractions, yesterday Mr Carnegie was trout fishing on a wild moorland loch surrounded by heather while I took Margaret to the
Sea
and she had her first experience of rolling upon white sand and digging her little hands in it to her heart’s content, while the blue waters of the ocean came rolling in at her feet and the salt breeze brought the roses to her cheeks. She is strong and hearty and so full of mischief – a perfect little sunbeam. With all our fullness of life before we have never really lived till now. . . .
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In all, the period 1900–3 saw Carnegie spend another £100,000 transforming his purchase. Near the mansion a large marble and glass swimming pool was constructed; its facilities included the latest pumps and heaters for the seawater which filled it.
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The swimming pool also doubled as a ballroom:

Huge electric arc lamps and chandeliers glittered overhead. . . . Tubs of evergreens were spread along the walls, and festoons of coloured paper chains and bunting hung overhead . . . Mrs Logan’s dance band from Inverness played in the balcony, varied by bagpipe music for Scottish reels and so forth, Highland Scottische . . . played so harmoniously by the castle piper.
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Historically Skibo was one of the last prominent Scottish baronial houses ever built.

On his return to New York Carnegie was eager to play a role in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War. Spanish colonial rule in the New World was coming to an end following two major defeats. Commodore George Dewey, commander of the US Asiatic Squadron, had destroyed the Spanish fleet in the Philippines at the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May 1898, thus establishing the US as a major naval power. Then General William Shafter led an army of regulars and volunteers (including Theodore Roosevelt and his ‘Rough Riders’) to destroy Spain’s Caribbean Fleet near Santiago, Cuba, on 17 July 1898. By the Treaty of Paris, signed on 10 December 1898, Spain renounced her claims to Cuba and ceded Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to America, thus helping the US to emerge as a world power.

What was all this to do with Carnegie? He was unhappy with America’s new international stance, and as a member of the New England Anti-Imperialist League believed that America should repeal the Treaty of Paris; he decided to use his wealth and his pen in what he saw as the saving of ‘American democracy’. With the help of his secretary James Bertram he put together a piece for the
North American Review
decrying the US policy of ‘Triumphant Despotism’ in the Philippines. Carnegie’s rhetoric left President McKinley unmoved and America did not withdraw from her new territories. Carnegie, though, contemplated withdrawing from his.

At 63 Carnegie knew that he was coming to an important intersection in his business life. A crucial decision would have to be made. His steel company, for example, needed to encompass new markets. The great epoch of railway construction was ending, and steel was entering the domestic construction industry more and more as the buildings dubbed ‘skyscrapers’ began to dominate the horizons from Chicago to St Louis. Carnegie Steel would need to diversify into a whole new range of products from tubes to wires. But Carnegie had no stomach for vigorous new enterprises. Was it time to sell out?

Carnegie owned 58 per cent of the total capital value of Carnegie Steel, his partners holding the rest. Among the partners too, there was a sense of unease. By the standards of the age Carnegie was an old man and the partnership agreement – the Iron Clad Agreement – hung over them menacingly. Should Carnegie die, for instance, then according to the terms of the agreement his partners would have to buy his share – it could not be sold outwith their ranks. And realistically they could not afford to buy him out. So pressure was gradually building up on Carnegie to agree to selling the whole company, perhaps to one of the syndicated steel trusts.

Up to now Carnegie had baulked at such an idea, but recently he was paying it more attention. It is a matter of speculation as to why he changed his mind. Was he now ready to be the bountiful philanthropist unfettered by commercial cares? Was he wishing to enter completely into his ‘heaven on earth’ at Skibo? Whatever the reason, during the cold winter of 1898–9 Carnegie instructed Henry Clay Frick and Henry Phipps to look into the sale of the company. At first they found a group of financiers – who wished to remain anonymous in the initial stage – willing to pay $250 million for the company on a 90-day option. Just as he would have loathed shareholders of a floated company, Carnegie did not trust ‘nameless’ financiers and insisted on a ‘deposit in trust’ of $2 million with 58 per cent in his name. The deposit would be forfeit if the option was not taken up in the 90 days. The nameless men agreed and so the matter rested.