His Father a Transportation Pioneer.
Born in Thorold, Ontario, on October 16, 1877, his father being Henry Beatty, a well-known steamboat man on the Great Lakes, whose steamers of the Beatty Line were amongst the pioneers of navigation on those inland waters, his early youth was spent at Thorold, where he was an apt scholar in the town school. At ten years of age his family moved to Toronto where he attended the Model School, Harbord Collegiate, Toronto University and Osgoode Hall, and in 1898 was articled as a law student with the law firm of McCarthy, Osler, Hoskin & Creelman. On the appointment of the last named as chief counsel of the C.P.R. at Montreal in 1901, Mr. Beatty went with him and five years later was appointed his assistant. He was elevated to the chief solicitorship in 1910. Four years later, on the retirement of Mr. Creelman, he succeeded to the office of chief counsel, and also made a vice-president of the company. Mr. Beatty’s high ability had already been fully recognized, and on Lord Shaughnessy’s retirement, he was chosen to succeed him. Everyone will candidly admit that it is a difficult task to fill Lord Shaughnessy’s shoes, but the ex-president will as candidly admit that they fit his successor admirably.
E. W. BEATTY, K.C. President of the C.P.R.
The president makes no pretence to oratory, but he is a forceful public speaker, who says what he means clearly and succinctly, and has the magnetism to hold his audience deeply interested. The kind of speech that he makes is one that is frequently punctuated with applause, and his enthusiastic reception on rising is invariably magnified into an ovation when he closes his peroration. He always catches the crowd. He has no fads, and, well, he just has an old head on young shoulders. He still enjoys witnessing athletic sports which he indulged in during his boyhood days, likes a good play at the theatre, though I am afraid grand opera may be a little too much for him, delights in a horse race, and plays solitaire and other card games which require four or more players. He still pays the bachelor tax, and I don’t believe he would refuse a drink of Scotch in Quebec or British Columbia, but he wouldn’t chase off to Mexico or Cuba to get one. His politics are “Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway.” He enjoys the unbounded confidence of his large circle of friends, and the 100,000 officials and employees of the company look to him as one pre-eminently fitted to fill the high position which came to him because of his great personality, clean forceful character, and his many estimable qualities of head and heart.