Charles Melville Hays.
It is a good thing for the world at large that human talents are of a diversified nature. It is an equally excellent thing that the possession of special gift on the part of an individual is recognized by those with whom he comes in contact. A case in point is furnished by Charles M. Hays, who, until lately, was president of the Southern Pacific railroad. Mr. Hays’ work in life seems to have been that of turning unprofitable railroad systems into permanently paying propositions. He was born May 16, 1856, at Rock Island, Illinois, his parents being in fairly comfortable circumstances. After a common school training he entered the railroad service in 1873, his first position being in the passenger department of the St. Louis, Atlantic & Pacific railroad. The rungs of the ladder of his subsequent upward climb are something in this order: Prompted to a clerkship in the auditor’s office, he was at length placed in the general superintendent’s office on the same line; next he is heard of as secretary of the general manager of the Missouri Pacific railroad, and in 1886 he was made assistant general manager of the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific railroad; three years later he was appointed general manager of the Wabash & Western railroad, and was afterward made manager of the Wabash system, which was the outcome of the consolidation of the Wabash Western and Wabash railroads. He has also been general manager of the Grand Trunk system, and, as already intimated, was, until recently, the president of the Southern railroad. When Mr. Hays took hold of the Wabash lines they were in about as bad a condition as railroad lines can be. The same remark applies to the Grand Trunk system. When Mr. Hays severed his connection with these corporations they were in a flourishing condition—popular with the public and paying as to dividends. He created their prosperity by the industrious exercise of his special talents. The lesson may be taken to heart.