Chapter I: PARENTS AND CHILDHOOD
IF THE story of any man's life, truly told, must be
interesting, as some sage avers, those of my relatives
and immediate friends who have insisted upon having
an account of mine may not be unduly disappointed
with this result. I may console myself with the assurance
that such a story must interest at least a certain number
of people who have known me, and that knowledge will
encourage me to proceed.
A book of this kind, written years ago by my friend,
Judge Mellon, of Pittsburgh, gave me so much pleasure
that I am inclined to agree with the wise one whose
opinion I have given above; for, certainly, the story
which the Judge told has proved a source of infinite satisfaction
to his friends, and must continue to influence succeeding
generations of his family to live life well. And
not only this; to some beyond his immediate circle it
holds rank with their favorite authors. The book contains
one essential feature of value—it reveals the man.
It was written without any intention of attracting public
notice, being designed only for his family. In like manner
I intend to tell my story, not as one posturing—before
the public, but as in the midst of my own people and
friends, tried and true, to whom I can speak with the
utmost freedom, feeling that even trifling incidents may
not be wholly destitute of interest for them.
To begin, then, I was born in Dunfermline, in the attic
of the small one-story house, corner of Moodie Street
and Priory Lane, on the 25th of November, 1835, and,
as the saying is, "of poor but honest parents, of good
kith and kin." Dunfermline had long been noted as the
center of the damask trade in Scotland.1 My father, William
Carnegie, was a damask weaver, the son of Andrew
Carnegie after whom I was named.
My Grandfather Carnegie was well known throughout
the district for his wit and humor, his genial nature
and irrepressible spirits. He was head of the lively ones
of his day, and known far and near as the chief of their
joyous club—"Patiemuir College." Upon my return to
Dunfermline, after an absence of fourteen years, I remember
being approached by an old man who had been
told that I was the grandson of the "Professor," my
grandfather's title among his cronies. He was the very
picture of palsied eld:
"His nose and chin they threatened ither."
As he tottered across the room toward me and laid his
trembling hand upon my head he said: "And ye are the
grandson o' Andra Carnegie! Eh, mon, I ha'e seen the
day when your grandfaither and I could ha' e hallooed
ony reasonable man, oot o' his jidgment."
Several other old people of Dunfermline told me
stories of my grandfather. Here is one of them:
One Hogmanay night2 an old wifey, quite a character
in the village, being surprised by a disguised face suddenly
thrust in at the window, looked up and after a moment's
pause exclaimed, "Oh, it's jist that daft callant
Andra Carnegie." She was right; my grandfather at
seventy-five was out frightening his old lady friends, disguised
like other frolicking youngsters.
I think my optimistic nature, my ability to shed trouble
and to laugh through life, making "all my ducks
swans," as friends say I do, must have been inherited
from this delightful old masquerading grandfather
whose name I am proud to bear.3 A sunny disposition is
worth more than fortune. Young people should know
that it can be cultivated; that the mind like the body can
be moved from the shade into sunshine. Let us move it
then. Laugh trouble away if possible, and one usually
can if he be anything of a philosopher, provided that
self-reproach comes not from his own wrongdoing. That
always remains. There is no washing out of these
"damned spots." The judge within sits in the supreme
court and can never be cheated. Hence the grand rule of
life which Burns gives:
"Thine own reproach alone do fear."
This motto adopted early in life has been more to me
than all the sermons I ever heard, and I have heard not
a few, although I may admit resemblance to my old
friend Baillie Walker in my mature years. He was asked
by his doctor about his sleep and replied that it was far
from satisfactory, he was very wakeful, adding with a
twinkle in his eye: "But I get a bit fine doze i' the kirk
noo and then."
On my mother's side the grandfather was even more
marked, for my grandfather Thomas Morrison was a
friend of William Cobbett, a contributor to his "Register,"
and in constant correspondence with him. Even
as I write, in Dunfermline old men who knew Grandfather
Morrison speak of him as one of the finest orators
and ablest men they have known. He was publisher of
"The Precursor," a small edition it might be said of
Cobbett's "Register," and thought to have been the first
radical paper in Scotland. I have read some of his writings,
and in view of the importance now given to technical
education, I think the most remarkable of them is a
pamphlet which he published seventy-odd years ago
entitled "Head-ication versus Hand-ication." It insists
upon the importance of the latter in a manner that would
reflect credit upon the strongest advocate of technical
education to-day. It ends with these words, "I thank God
that in my youth I learned to make and mend shoes."
Cobbett published it in the "Register" in 1833, remarking
editorially, "One of the most valuable communications
ever published in the 'Register' upon the subject, is
that of our esteemed friend and correspondent in Scotland,
Thomas Morrison, which appears in this issue." So
it seems I come by my scribbling propensities by inheritance—from
both sides, for the Carnegies were also
readers and thinkers.
My Grandfather Morrison was a born orator, a keen
politician, and the head of the advanced wing of the radical
party in the district—a position which his son, my
Uncle Bailie Morrison, occupied as his successor. More
than one well-known Scotsman in America has called
upon me, to shake hands with "the grandson of Thomas
Morrison." Mr. Farmer, president of the Cleveland and
Pittsburgh Railroad Company, once said to me, "I owe
all that I have of learning and culture to the influence of
your grandfather"; and Ebenezer Henderson, author
of the remarkable history of Dunfermline, stated that
he largely owed his advancement in life to the fortunate
fact that while a boy he entered my grandfather's service.
I have not passed so far through life without receiving
some compliments, but I think nothing of a complimentary
character has ever pleased me so much as this
from a writer in a Glasgow newspaper, who had been a
listener to a speech on Home Rule in America which I
delivered in Saint Andrew's Hall. The correspondent
wrote that much was then being said in Scotland with
regard to myself and family and especially my grandfather
Thomas Morrison, and he went on to say, "Judge
my surprise when I found in the grandson on the platform,
in manner, gesture and appearance, a perfect
facsimile of the Thomas Morrison of old."
My surprising likeness to my grandfather, whom I do
not remember to have ever seen, cannot be doubted, because
I remember well upon my first return to Dunfermline
in my twenty-seventh year, while sitting upon a sofa
with my Uncle Bailie Morrison, that his big black eyes
filled with tears. He could not speak and rushed out of
the room overcome. Returning after a time he explained
that something in me now and then flashed before him
his father, who would instantly vanish but come back at
intervals. Some gesture it was, but what precisely he
could not make out. My mother continually noticed in
me some of my grandfather's peculiarities. The doctrine
of inherited tendencies is proved every day and hour, but
how subtle is the law which transmits gesture, something
as it were beyond the material body. I was deeply
impressed.
My Grandfather Morrison married Miss Hodge, of
Edinburgh, a lady in education, manners, and position,
who died while the family was still young. At this time
he was in good circumstances,a leather merchant conducting
the tanning business in Dunfermline; but the peace
after the Battle of Waterloo involved him in ruin, as
it did thousands; so that while my Uncle Bailie, the eldest
son, had been brought up in what might be termed
luxury, for he had a pony to ride, the younger members
of the family encountered other and harder days.
The second daughter, Margaret, was my mother,
about whom I cannot trust myself to speak at length.
She inherited from her mother the dignity, refinement,
and air of the cultivated lady. Perhaps some day I may
be able to tell the world something of this heroine, but
I doubt it. I feel her to be sacred to myself and not for
others to know. None could ever really know her—I
alone did that. After my father's early death she was
all my own. The dedication of my first book4 tells the
story. It was: "To my favorite Heroine My Mother."
Fortunate in my ancestors I was supremely so in my
birthplace. Where one is born is very important, for different
surroundings and traditions appeal to and stimulate
different latent tendencies in the child. Ruskin truly
observes that every bright boy in Edinburgh is influenced
by the sight of the Castle. So is the child of Dunfermline,
by its noble Abbey, the Westminster of Scotland,
founded early in the eleventh century (1070) by Malcolm
Canmore and his Queen Margaret, Scotland's
patron saint. The ruins of the great monastery and of
the Palace where kings were born still stand, and there,
too, is Pittencrieff Glen, embracing Queen Margaret's
shrine and the ruins of King Malcolm's Tower, with
which the old ballad of "Sir Patrick Spens" begins:
"The King sits in Dunfermline tower,5
Drinking the bluid red wine."
The tomb of The Bruce is in the center of the Abbey,
Saint Margaret's tomb is near, and many of the "royal
folk" lie sleeping close around. Fortunate, indeed, the
child who first sees the light in that romantic town, which
occupies high ground three miles north of the Firth of
Forth, overlooking the sea, with Edinburgh in sight to
the south, and to the north the peaks of the Ochils
clearly in view. All is still redolent of the mighty past
when Dunfermline was both nationally and religiously
the capital of Scotland.
The child privileged to develop amid such surroundings
absorbs poetry and romance with the air he
breathes, assimilates history and tradition as he gazes
around. These become to him his real world in childhood—the
ideal is the ever-present real. The actual has yet to
come when, later in life, he is launched into the workaday
world of stern reality. Even then, and till his last
day, the early impressions remain, sometimes for short
seasons disappearing perchance, but only apparently
driven away or suppressed. They are always rising and
coming again to the front to exert their influence, to elevate
his thought and color his life. No bright child of
Dunfermline can escape the influence of the Abbey,
Palace, and Glen. These touch him and set fire to the
latent spark within, making him something different and
beyond what, less happily born, he would have become.
Under these inspiring conditions my parents had also
been born, and hence came, I doubt not, the potency of
the romantic and poetic strain which pervaded both.
As my father succeeded in the weaving business we
removed from Moodie Street to a much more commodious
house in Reid's Park. My father's four or five looms
occupied the lower story; we resided in the upper, which
was reached, after a fashion common in the older Scottish
houses, by outside stairs from the pavement. It is
here that my earliest recollections begin, and, strangely
enough, the first trace of memory takes me back to a day
when I saw a small map of America. It was upon rollers
and about two feet square. Upon this my father, mother,
Uncle William, and Aunt Aitken were looking for Pittsburgh
and pointing out Lake Erie and Niagara. Soon
after my uncle and Aunt Aitken sailed for the land of
promise.
At this time I remember my cousin-brother, George
Lauder ("Dod"), and myself were deeply impressed
with the great danger overhanging us because a lawless
flag was secreted in the garret. It had been painted
to be carried, and I believe was carried by my father, or
uncle, or some other good radical of our family, in a procession
during the Corn Law agitation. There had been
riots in the town and a troop of cavalry was quartered in
the Guildhall. My grandfathers and uncles on both sides,
and my father, had been foremost in addressing meetings,
and the whole family circle was in a ferment.
I remember as if it were yesterday being awakened
during the night by a tap at the back window by men
who had come to inform my parents that my uncle, Bailie
Morrison, had been thrown into jail because he had
dared to hold a meeting which had been forbidden. The
sheriff with the aid of the soldiers had arrested him a
few miles from the town where the meeting had been
held, and brought him into the town during the night,
followed by an immense throng of people.6
Serious trouble was feared, for the populace threatened
to rescue him, and, as we learned afterwards, he
had been induced by the provost of the town to step forward
to a window overlooking the High Street and beg
the people to retire. This he did, saying: "If there be a
friend of the good cause here to-night, let him fold his
arms." They did so. And then, after a pause, he said,
"Now depart in peace!"7 My uncle, like all our family,
was a moral-force man and strong for obedience to law,
but radical to the core and an intense admirer of the
American Republic.
One may imagine when all this was going on in public
how bitter were the words that passed from one to the
other in private. The denunciations of monarchical and
aristocratic government, of privilege in all its forms, the
grandeur of the republican system, the superiority of
America, a land peopled by our own race, a home for
freemen in which every citizen's privilege was every
man's right—these were the exciting themes upon which
I was nurtured. As a child I could have slain king, duke,
or lord, and considered their deaths a service to the state
and hence an heroic act.
Such is the influence of childhood's earliest associations
that it was long before I could trust myself to speak
respectfully of any privileged class or person who had
not distinguished himself in some good way and therefore
earned the right to public respect. There was still
the sneer behind for mere pedigree—"he is nothing, has
done nothing, only an accident, a fraud strutting in borrowed
plumes; all he has to his account is the accident of
birth; the most fruitful part of his family, as with the
potato, lies underground." I wondered that intelligent
men could live where another human being was born to a
privilege which was not also their birthright. I was never
tired of quoting the only words which gave proper vent
to my indignation:
"There was a Brutus once that would have brooked
Th' eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king."
But then kings were kings, not mere shadows. All this
was inherited, of course. I only echoed what I heard at
home.
Dunfermline has long been renowned as perhaps the
most radical town in the Kingdom, although I know
Paisley has claims. This is all the more creditable to the
cause of radicalism because in the days of which I speak
the population of Dunfermline was in large part composed
of men who were small manufacturers, each owning
his own loom or looms. They were not tied down to
regular hours, their labors being piece work. They got
webs from the larger manufacturers and the weaving
was done at home.
These were times of intense political excitement, and
there were frequently seen throughout the entire town,
for a short time after the midday meal, small groups
of men with their aprons girt about them discussing
affairs of state. The names of Hume, Cobden, and Bright
were upon everyone's tongue. I was often attracted,
small as I was, to these circles and was an earnest listener
to the conversation, which was wholly one-sided.
The generally accepted conclusion was that there must
be a change. Clubs were formed among the townsfolk,
and the London newspapers were subscribed for. The
leading editorials were read every evening to the people,
strangely enough, from one of the pulpits of the
town. My uncle, Bailie Morrison, was often the reader,
and, as the articles were commented upon by him and
others after being read, the meetings were quite exciting.
These political meetings were of frequent occurrence,
and, as might be expected, I was as deeply interested as
any of the family and attended many. One of my uncles
or my father was generally to be heard. I remember one
evening my father addressed a large outdoor meeting in
the Pends. I had wedged my way in under the legs of the
hearers, and at one cheer louder than all the rest I could
not restrain my enthusiasm. Looking up to the man under
whose legs I had found protection I informed him that
was my father speaking. He lifted me on his shoulder
and kept me there.
To another meeting I was taken by my father to hear
John Bright, who spoke in favor of J. B. Smith as the
Liberal candidate for the Stirling Burghs. I made the
criticism at home that Mr. Bright did not speak correctly,
as he said "men" when he meant "maan." He
did not give the broad a we were accustomed to in Scotland.
It is not to be wondered at that, nursed amid such
surroundings, I developed into a violent young Republican
whose motto was "death to privilege." At that time
I did not know what privilege meant, but my father did.
One of my Uncle Lauder's best stories was about this
same J. B. Smith, the friend of John Bright, who was
standing for Parliament in Dunfermline. Uncle was a
member of his Committee and all went well until it was
proclaimed that Smith was a "Unitawrian." The district
was placarded with the enquiry: Would you vote for a
"Unitawrian"? It was serious. The Chairman of Smith's
Committee in the village of Cairney Hill, a blacksmith,
was reported as having declared he never would. Uncle
drove over to remonstrate with him. They met in the village
tavern over a gill:
"Man, I canna vote for a Unitawrian," said the Chairman.
"But," said my uncle, "Maitland [the opposing candidate]
is a Trinitawrian."
"Damn; that's waur," was the response.
And the blacksmith voted right. Smith won by a small
majority.
The change from hand-loom to steam-loom weaving
was disastrous to our family. My father did not recognize
the impending revolution, and was struggling under
the old system. His looms sank greatly in value, and it
became necessary for that power which never failed in
any emergency—my mother—to step forward and endeavor
to repair the family fortune. She opened a small
shop in Moodie Street and contributed to the revenues
which, though slender, nevertheless at that time sufficed
to keep us in comfort and "respectable."
I remember that shortly after this I began to learn
what poverty meant. Dreadful days came when my
father took the last of his webs to the great manufacturer,
and I saw my mother anxiously awaiting his return
to know whether a new web was to be obtained or that a
period of idleness was upon us. It was burnt into my
heart then that my father, though neither "abject, mean,
nor vile," as Burns has it, had nevertheless to
"Beg a brother of the earth
To give him leave to toil."
And then and there came the resolve that I would cure
that when I got to be a man. We were not, however,
reduced to anything like poverty compared with many of
our neighbors. I do not know to what lengths of privation
my mother would not have gone that she might see
her two boys wearing large white collars, and trimly
dressed.
In an incautious moment my parents had promised
that I should never be sent to school until I asked leave
to go. This promise I afterward learned began to give
them considerable uneasiness because as I grew up I
showed no disposition to ask. The schoolmaster, Mr.
Robert Martin, was applied to and induced to take some
notice of me. He took me upon an excursion one day
with some of my companions who attended school, and
great relief was experienced by my parents when one day
soon afterward I came and asked for permission to go to
Mr. Martin's school.8 I need not say the permission was
duly granted. I had then entered upon my eighth year,
which subsequent experience leads me to say is quite early
enough for any child to begin attending school.
The school was a perfect delight to me, and if anything
occurred which prevented my attendance I was unhappy.
This happened every now and then because my
morning duty was to bring water from the well at the
head of Moodie Street. The supply was scanty and
irregular. Sometimes it was not allowed to run until late
in the morning and a score of old wives were sitting
around, the turn of each having been previously secured
through the night by placing a worthless can in the line.
This, as might be expected, led to numerous contentions
in which I would not be put down even by these venerable
old dames. I earned the reputation of being "an
awfu' laddie." In this way I probably developed the
strain of argumentativeness, or perhaps combativeness,
which has always remained with me.
In the performance of these duties I was often late
for school, but the master, knowing the cause, forgave
the lapses. In the same connection I may mention that
I had often the shop errands to run after school, so that
in looking back upon my life I have the satisfaction of
feeling that I became useful to my parents even at the
early age of ten. Soon after that the accounts of the
various people who dealt with the shop were entrusted
to my keeping so that I became acquainted, in a small
way, with business affairs even in childhood.
One cause of misery there was, however, in my school
experience. The boys nicknamed me "Martin's pet," and
sometimes called out that dreadful epithet to me as I
passed along the street. I did not know all that it meant,
but it seemed to me a term of the utmost opprobrium,
and I know that it kept me from responding as freely
as I should otherwise have done to that excellent teacher,
my only schoolmaster, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude
which I regret I never had opportunity to do more
than acknowledge before he died.
I may mention here a man whose influence over me
cannot be overestimated, my Uncle Lauder, George
Lauder's father.9 My father was necessarily constantly
at work in the loom shop and had little leisure to bestow
upon me through the day. My uncle being a shopkeeper
in the High Street was not thus tied down. Note the location
for this was among the shopkeeping aristocracy,
and high and varied degrees of aristocracy there were
even among shopkeepers in Dunfermline. Deeply affected
by my Aunt Seaton's death, which occurred about the beginning
of my school life, he found his chief solace in the
companionship of his only son, George, and myself. He
possessed an extraordinary gift of dealing with children
and taught us many things. Among others I remember
how he taught us British history by imagining each of
the monarchs in a certain place upon the walls of the
room performing the act for which he was well known.
Thus for me King John sits to this day above the mantelpiece
signing the Magna Charta, and Queen Victoria
is on the back of the door with her children on her knee.
It may be taken for granted that the omission which,
years after, I found in the Chapter House at Westminster
Abbey was fully supplied in our list of monarchs.
A slab in a small chapel at Westminster says that
the body of Oliver Cromwell was removed from there.
In the list of the monarchs which I learned at my uncle's
knee the grand republican monarch appeared writing his
message to the Pope of Rome, informing His Holiness
that "if he did not cease persecuting the Protestants the
thunder of Great Britain's cannon would be heard in the
Vatican." It is needless to say that the estimate we
formed of Cromwell was that he was worth them "a'
thegither."
It was from my uncle I learned all that I know of the
early history of Scotland—of Wallace and Bruce and
Burns, of Blind Harry's history, of Scott, Ramsey, Tannahill,
Hogg, and Fergusson. I can truly say in the words
of Burns that there was then and there created in me
a vein of Scottish prejudice (or patriotism) which will
cease to exist only with life. Wallace, of course, was our
hero. Everything heroic centered in him. Sad was the
day when a wicked big boy at school told me that England
was far larger than Scotland. I went to the uncle,
who had the remedy.
"Not at all, Naig; if Scotland were rolled out flat as
England, Scotland would be the larger, but would you
have the Highlands rolled down?"
Oh, never! There was balm in Gilead for the wounded
young patriot. Later the greater population of England
was forced upon me, and again to the uncle I went.
"Yes, Naig, seven to one, but there were more than
that odds against us at Bannockburn." And again there
was joy in my heart—joy that there were more English
men there since the glory was the greater.
This is something of a commentary upon the truth
that war breeds war, that every battle sows the seeds of
future battles, and that thus nations become traditional
enemies. The experience of American boys is that of the
Scotch. They grow up to read of Washington and Valley
Forge, of Hessians hired to kill Americans, and they
come to hate the very name of Englishman. Such was my
experience with my American nephews. Scotland was all
right, but England that had fought Scotland was the
wicked partner. Not till they became men was the
prejudice eradicated, and even yet some of it may linger.
Uncle Lauder has told me since that he often brought
people into the room assuring them that he could make
"Dod" (George Lauder) and me weep, laugh, or close
our little fists ready to fight—in short, play upon all our
moods through the influence of poetry and song. The
betrayal of Wallace was his trump card which never
failed to cause our little hearts to sob, a complete breakdown
being the invariable result. Often as he told the
story it never lost its hold. No doubt it received from
time to time new embellishments. My uncle's stories
never wanted "the hat and the stick" which Scott gave
his. How wonderful is the influence of a hero upon children!
I spent many hours and evenings in the High Street
with my uncle and "Dod," and thus began a lifelong
brotherly alliance between the latter and myself. "Dod"
and "Naig" we always were in the family. I could not
say "George" in infancy and he could not get more than
"Naig" out of Carnegie, and it has always been "Dod"
and "Naig" with us. No other names would mean anything.
There were two roads by which to return from my
uncle's house in the High Street to my home in Moodie
Street at the foot of the town, one along the eerie churchyard
of the Abbey among the dead, where there was no
light; and the other along the lighted streets by way of
the May Gate. When it became necessary for me to go
home, my uncle, with a wicked pleasure, would ask which
way I was going. Thinking what Wallace would do, I
always replied I was going by the Abbey. I have the satisfaction
of believing that never, not even upon one occasion,
did I yield to the temptation to take the other turn
and follow the lamps at the junction of the May Gate.
I often passed along that churchyard and through the
dark arch of the Abbey with my heart in my mouth.
Trying to whistle and keep up my courage, I would plod
through the darkness, falling back in all emergencies
upon the thought of what Wallace would have done if
he had met with any foe, natural or supernatural.
King Robert the Bruce never got justice from my cousin
or myself in childhood. It was enough for us that he
was a king while Wallace was the man of the people.
Sir John Graham was our second. The intensity of a
Scottish boy's patriotism, reared as I was, constitutes a
real force in his life to the very end. If the source of my
stock of that prime article—courage—were studied, I
am sure the final analysis would find it founded upon
Wallace, the hero of Scotland. It is a tower of strength
for a boy to have a hero.
It gave me a pang to find when I reached America
that there was any other country which pretended to
have anything to be proud of. What was a country without
Wallace, Bruce, and Burns? I find ill the untraveled
Scotsman of to-day something still of this feeling. It
remains for maturer years and wider knowledge to tell
us that every nation has its heroes, its romance, its traditions,
and its achievements; and while the true Scotsman
will not find reason in after years to lower the
estimate he has formed of his own country and of its
position even among the larger nations of the earth, he
will find ample reason to raise his opinion of other nations
because they all have much to be proud of—quite
enough to stimulate their sons so to act their parts as not
to disgrace the land that gave them birth.
It was years before I could feel that the new land
could be anything but a temporary abode. My heart was
in Scotland. I resembled Principal Peterson's little boy
who, when in Canada, in reply to a question, said he
liked Canada "very well for a visit, but he could never
live so far away from the remains of Bruce and Wallace.
1The Eighteenth-Century Carnegies lived at the picturesque hamlet
of Patiemuir, two miles south of Dunfermline. The growing importance
of the linen industry in Dunfermline finally led the Carnegies to move
to that town.
2The 31st of December.
3"There is no sign that Andrew, though he prospered in his wooing,
was specially successful in acquisition of worldly gear. Otherwise, however,
he became an outstanding character not only in the village, but in
the adjoining city and district. A 'brainy' man who read and thought
for himself he became associated with the radical weavers of Dunfermline,
who in Patiemuir formed a meeting-place which they named a
college (Andrew was the 'Professor' of it)." (Andrew Carnegie: His
Dunfermline Ties and Benedictions, by J. B. Mackie, F. J. I.)
4An American Four-in-Hand in Great Britain. New York, 1888.
5The Percy Reliques and The Oxford Book of Ballads give "town" instead
of "tower"; but Mr. Carnegie insisted that it should be "tower."
6At the opening of the Lauder Technical School in October, 1880,
nearly half a century after the disquieting scenes of 1842, Mr. Carnegie
thus recalled the shock which was given to his boy mind: "One of my
earliest recollections is that of being wakened in the darkness to be told
that my Uncle Morrison was in jail. Well, it is one of the proudest boasts
I can make to-day to be able to say that I had an uncle who was in jail.
But, ladies and gentlemen, my uncle went to jail to vindicate the rights
of public assembly." (Mackie.)
7"The Crown agents wisely let the proceedings lapse. . . . Mr. Morrison
was given a gratifying assurance of the appreciation of his fellow
citizens by his election to the Council and his elevation to the Magisterial
Bench, followed shortly after by his appointment to the office of Burgh
Chamberlain. The patriotic reformer whom the criminal authorities endeavored
to convict as a law-breaker became by the choice of his fellow
citizens a Magistrate, and was further given a certificate for trustworthiness
and integrity." (Mackie.)
8It was known as Rolland School.
9The Lauder Technical College given by Mr. Carnegie to Dunfermline
was named in honor of this uncle, George Lauder.
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