Editing Andrew Carnegie (section)

==Controversies==
===1889: Johnstown Flood===
{{main|Johnstown Flood}}
[[Image:The Great Conemaugh Valley Disaster.jpg|thumb|A contemporary rendition of the Johnstown Flood scene at the Stone Bridge by [[Kurz and Allison]] (1890)|left]]
Carnegie was one of more than 50 members of the [[South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club]], which has been blamed for the [[Johnstown Flood]] that killed 2,209 people in 1889.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Frank, Walter Smoter |title=The Cause of the Johnstown Flood |date=May 1988 |journal=Civil Engineering |pages=63–66 |url=http://smoter.com/flooddam/johnstow.htm |access-date=February 27, 2015 |archive-date=April 6, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190406140339/http://smoter.com/flooddam/johnstow.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

At the suggestion of his friend Benjamin Ruff, Carnegie's partner [[Henry Clay Frick]] had formed the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The sixty-odd club members were the leading business tycoons of Western Pennsylvania and included among their number Frick's best friend, [[Andrew W. Mellon|Andrew Mellon]], his attorneys [[Philander Knox]] and James Hay Reed, as well as Frick's business partner, Carnegie. High above the city, near the small town of South Fork, the [[South Fork Dam]] was originally built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as part of a canal system to be used as a reservoir for a canal basin in Johnstown. With the coming-of-age of railroads superseding canal barge transport, the lake was abandoned by the Commonwealth, sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and sold again to private interests, and eventually came to be owned by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in 1881. Prior to the flood, speculators had purchased the abandoned reservoir, made less than well-engineered repairs to the old dam, raised the lake level, built cottages and a clubhouse, and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Less than {{convert|20|mi}} downstream from the dam sat the city of Johnstown.

The dam was {{convert|72|ft}} high and {{convert|931|ft}} long. Between 1881, when the club was opened, and 1889, the dam frequently sprang leaks and was patched, mostly with mud and straw. Additionally, a previous owner removed and sold for scrap the three [[cast iron]] discharge pipes that previously allowed a controlled release of water. There had been some speculation as to the dam's integrity, and concerns had been raised by the head of the Cambria Iron Works downstream in Johnstown. Such repair work, a reduction in height, and unusually high snowmelt and heavy spring rains combined to cause the dam to give way on May 31, 1889, resulting in twenty million tons of water sweeping down the valley as the Johnstown Flood.<ref>[[McCullough, David]] (1987) ''The Johnstown Flood''. Simon & Schuster, New York. {{ISBN|0671207148}}</ref> When word of the dam's failure was telegraphed to Pittsburgh, Frick and other members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gathered to form the Pittsburgh Relief Committee for assistance to the flood victims as well as determining never to speak publicly about the club or the flood. This strategy was a success, and Knox and Reed were able to fend off all lawsuits that would have placed blame upon the club's members.

Although Cambria Iron and Steel's facilities were heavily damaged by the flood, they returned to full production within a year. After the flood, Carnegie built Johnstown a new library to replace the one built by Cambria's chief legal counsel Cyrus Elder, which was destroyed in the flood. The Carnegie-donated library is now owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association and houses the Flood Museum.

===1892: Homestead Strike===
[[File:Homestead Strike - Mob attacking Pinkerton men.jpg|thumb|The Homestead Strike]]
{{Main|Homestead Strike}}
The [[Homestead Strike]] was a bloody labor confrontation lasting 143 days in 1892, one of the most serious in U.S. history. The conflict was centered on Carnegie Steel's main plant in [[Homestead, Pennsylvania]], and grew out of a labor dispute between the [[Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers]] (AA) and the [[Carnegie Steel Company]].

Carnegie left on a trip to Scotland before the unrest peaked.<ref name="Carnegie, Andrew 1920">''[[#Biography|Autobiography]]'', Ch. 17.</ref> In doing so, Carnegie left mediation of the dispute in the hands of his associate and partner [[Henry Clay Frick]]. Frick was well known in industrial circles for maintaining staunch anti-union sentiment. With the collective bargaining agreement between the union and company expiring at the end of June, Frick and the leaders of the local AA union entered into negotiations in February. With the steel industry doing well and prices higher, the AA asked for a wage increase; the AA represented about 800 of the 3,800 workers at the plant. Frick immediately countered with an average 22% wage decrease that would affect nearly half the union's membership and remove a number of positions from the bargaining unit.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NZY8mAT222EC |title=History of the Labor Movement in the United States: Volume Two: From the Founding of the American Federation of Labor to the Emergence of American Imperialism |last=Foner |first=Philip Sheldon |date=1975 |publisher=International Pub |isbn=9780717803880 |language=en}}</ref>

[[File:Frick to Carnegie letter about the arming of the Pinkertons.jpg|thumb|left|Frick's letter to Carnegie describing the plans and munitions that will be on the barges when the Pinkertons arrive to confront the strikers in Homestead]]
The union and company failed to come to an agreement, and management locked the union out. Workers considered the stoppage a "[[lockout (industry)|lockout]]" by management and not a "strike" by workers. As such, the workers would have been well within their rights to protest, and subsequent government action would have been a set of criminal procedures designed to crush what was seen as a pivotal demonstration of the growing [[Labor history of the United States|labor rights movement]], strongly opposed by management. Frick brought in thousands of strikebreakers to work the steel mills and [[Pinkerton National Detective Agency|Pinkerton]] agents to safeguard them.

On July 6, the arrival of a force of 300 Pinkerton agents from New York City and Chicago resulted in a fight in which 10 men — seven strikers and three Pinkertons — were killed and hundreds were injured. Pennsylvania Governor [[Robert E. Pattison|Robert Pattison]] ordered two brigades of the state militia to the strike site. Then allegedly in response to the fight between the striking workers and the Pinkertons, [[Anarchism|anarchist]] [[Alexander Berkman]] shot at Frick in an attempted assassination, wounding him. While not directly connected to the strike, Berkman was tied in for the assassination attempt. According to Berkman, "...{{nbsp}}with the elimination of Frick, responsibility for Homestead conditions would rest with Carnegie."<ref>Berkman, Alexander (1912) [https://archive.org/details/prisonmemoirsan01berkgoog ''Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist'']. Mother Earth Publishing Association. p. 67.</ref> Afterwards, the company successfully resumed operations with non-union immigrant employees in place of the Homestead plant workers, and Carnegie returned to the United States.<ref name="Carnegie, Andrew 1920"/> However, Carnegie's reputation was permanently damaged by the Homestead events.

===Theodore Roosevelt===
According to David Nasaw, after 1898, when the United States entered a war with Spain, Carnegie increasingly devoted his energy to supporting pacifism. He strongly opposed the war and the subsequent imperialistic American takeover of the Philippines. When [[Theodore Roosevelt]] became president in 1901, Carnegie and Roosevelt were in frequent contact. They exchanged letters, communicated through mutual friends such as Secretary of State [[John Hay]], and met in person. Carnegie hoped that Roosevelt would turn the Philippines free, not realizing he was more of an imperialist and believer in warrior virtues than President McKinley had been. He saluted Roosevelt for forcing Germany and Britain to arbitrate their conflict with Venezuela in 1903, and especially for becoming the mediator who negotiated an end to the war between Russia and Japan in 1907–1908. Roosevelt relied on Carnegie for financing his expedition to [[Smithsonian–Roosevelt African Expedition|Africa in 1909]]. In return he asked the ex-president to mediate the growing conflict between the cousins who ruled Britain and Germany. Roosevelt started to do so but the scheme collapsed when king [[Edward VII]] suddenly died.<ref>Nasaw, ''Carnegie'' pp 650–652, 729–738.</ref><ref>[[Richard Ernsberger Jr.|Richard Ernsberger, Jr.]], "A Fool for Peace" ''American History'', (Oct 2018), Vol. 53, Issue 4.</ref> Nasaw argues that Roosevelt systematically deceived and manipulated Carnegie and held the elderly man in contempt. Nasaw quotes a private letter Roosevelt wrote to [[Whitelaw Reid]] in 1905:<ref>Nasaw, ''Carnegie'' p. 675.</ref> <blockquote>[I have] tried hard to like Carnegie, but it is pretty difficult. There is no type of man for whom I feel a more contemptuous abhorrence than for the one who makes a God of mere money-making and at the same time is always yelling out that kind of utterly stupid condemnation of war which in almost every case springs from a combination of defective physical courage, of unmanly shrinking from pain and effort, and of hopelessly twisted ideals. All the suffering from Spanish war comes far short of the suffering, preventable and non-preventable, among the operators of the Carnegie steel works, and among the small investors, during the time that Carnegie was making his fortune…. It is as noxious folly to denounce war per se as it is to denounce business per se. Unrighteous war is a hideous evil; but I am not at all sure that it is worse evil than business unrighteousness.</blockquote>