GENIUS IS DEVOTION AND APPLICATION.
“Before I had been in Chicago a great while, some people got together and built a church, and appointed me pastor of it, hardly so much as saying to me ‘by your leave.’ It was named the Unity Church, and I remained in charge of it till 1879, when I came to New York to preach in the Church of the Messiah.
“Here I have since remained. My life, you see, is divided into two sections,—forty years in the pulpit, twenty-one years at the anvil. I have worked on long lines, and I will say to young men that, when your homes and your schools have done all they can for you, and you begin the work of life, you must take hold with a will and be content to work hard on long lines. People say that such and such a person has genius for what he or she takes in hand, and that is the secret of the success attained. But I say that genius means strong devotion and steadfast application. You may imagine that you can go from the bottom to the top of the ladder at one jump, but it is not true. Going up the ladder at one jump is like the toy monkey that goes up at a jump and comes down head first. The men and women who achieve true success are all hard climbers. They work in one direction. Our course must not be like a cow-path, all over the pasture and into the woods, for that may mean through the woods into the wilderness.
“I want to say, too, that, if we expect to do well in this life, we must keep well, by all the means in our power;—eat well, and sleep well eight hours out of the twenty-four. Young men should choose, as early as they can, a good and true woman for a wife, and look forward to a noble family of children. My ambition was to have seven, and the all-wise Father gave me nine. If a young man has good mental and physical health and works hard, his life will be sweet and clean. He will do his day’s work well and his life’s work well, and at the end he will be able to say, with Adam in the play:—
“‘Though I look old, yet am I strong and lusty,
For in my youth I never did apply hot and rebellious liquors to my blood,
And did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility.
Therefore my age is lusty winter, frosty, but kindly.’”
XLVII
Canada’s Leading Conservative Extols “the Country of the Twentieth Century.”
THOUGH he lost his fight against Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the Premiership of Canada in the general election of 1904, Robert Laird Borden is still one of the Dominion’s important figures.
He is in the prime of life. He has conspicuous ability, remarkable energy and an indomitable will. What a man with this combination of qualities sets his mind upon he usually obtains. Mr. Borden freely acknowledges his ambition to reach the top notch of political success, and there are a great many Canadians who believe that he will yet be Premier.
His party, in spite of his defeat, has strong faith in him, and his opponents, now triumphant, admit that he is formidable—a menace to their continuing success. They feel that under the scrutiny of Borden, who is notably quick to detect weak spots in the armor of the enemy, and to drive home strong thrusts, they must put their best foot front. Thus, even in defeat, Mr. Borden is a power.
My first impression of him was obtained in Montreal. He was walking through a hotel rotunda with the long, swift strides that bespeak much physical energy. His head was bowed and his eyes were knit. He struck me at the moment as being a personification of determination and concentration. It was a little later, in his room, that I had my talk with him. Mr. Borden’s head is large. His brow rises straight up from heavy brows and eyes which are deep-set and rather small, and twinkle with shrewdness and good nature. The lower part of his face is heavy, indicating the strength of will and purpose which have carried him to the front in Canadian politics.
“I am much interested in success,” he said with a smile. “Indeed, the air in Canada nowadays is charged with it. We have a feeling that a far larger part of the success of Canada lies in the future rather than in the past. While the United States developed more in the nineteenth century than any other country in the world, we believe that Canada will show similar industrial advances within the next quarter of a century. We entertain the idea that ours will prove to be the country of the twentieth century. It is not yet as widely known as it should be that we have a somewhat larger area in land than the United States and that this land is not rendered sterile by the winter reign of the mythical personage called ‘our lady of the snows,’ but is capable of remarkable productivity.
“We are looking forward and not backward, and therefore I am not particularly interested in the unimportant events of long ago; but if you must know, I will say that I was born in the village of Grand Pre, in Nova Scotia, in 1854. Some of my ancestors had lived in the United States. One of them, my great-grandfather, was the law partner of Pierpont Edwards, in New Haven, Conn. They had one of the largest practices in that section of the country, but when the Revolutionary War broke out my forefather remained loyal to King George. He migrated with his family to Nova Scotia, and there the family has since remained.
“Yes, my village is the one which Longfellow has described in his poem ‘Evangeline’; and yet, taking full advantage of his poetical license, Longfellow put much in his picture that is purely imaginary. It is, however, a little community whose inhabitants lead the simple life, acquire robust physiques, and strong opinions of right and wrong.
“I know of no better environment than one like this for the passing of the days of early youth. The impressions stamped on the mind of a boy by such people and surroundings never forsake him. However different from the simple beliefs of these villagers his standpoint may eventually become, these first teachings remain what might be called the oak rafters of his philosophy.
“I feel that not a little of whatever I have achieved is due to the fact that the years of my boyhood and youth were spent in an environment of simplicity. I was an industrious student, and when I was about fourteen I was made a teacher in the Acadia Villa Academy in my native country. It was in this school that I had obtained my preliminary education, and I presume I did right in returning to the institution as teacher the modicum of knowledge I had acquired. When I was still in my teens I went to the United States and became an instructor in Glenwood Institute in New Jersey. This proved to be excellent training for me. I think that an experience of this kind is one of the best things in the world for a young man, for the reason that the necessity in it to command others teaches him the more easily to command himself. It increases his dignity, self-reliance and self-respect.
“I decided, however, that I did not care to make teaching my life work, and so I returned to Nova Scotia in 1874 and began the study of law in the offices in Halifax of the firm of Weatherby & Graham. In 1878 I was called to the bar and a few months afterwards was offered a partnership by J. P. Chapman, of Kentville, now a county court judge.
“Together we worked up quite a large practice, but owing to certain circumstances I entered the firm of Thompson, Graham & Tupper. It was not long afterward that the senior member of the firm, Sir John Thompson, became judge of the Supreme Court, and in the course of time Sir Charles Tupper, one of the other members, was called to the cabinet of Sir John A. McDonald. Subsequently Mr. Graham, the third member of the firm, became Judge in Equity for the Province of Quebec.
“I believe that a large part of anything I have achieved has been due to the fact that I was associated with able men during the impressible period of young manhood. While I did not realize it at that time, I have often thought since that one of the most fortunate circumstances in my life was my close contact with these men. By this means I not only absorbed a greater knowledge of the law than otherwise would have been the case, but also became imbued with certain principles that I have always retained.
“The calling of these gentlemen to high places under the Government left me to the position of senior partner, and the firm name eventually became Borden, Ritchie, Parker & Chisholm. We did a large business, and on the strength of this I was elected and held for several years the position of president of the Nova Scotia Barristers Society. It was in 1896 that I first entered politics, representing Halifax as the Conservative party’s candidate for the Dominion Parliament.”
“To what in particular, Mr. Borden,” I inquired, “do you attribute the fact that you speedily arose to leadership of your party in Parliament?”
Mr. Borden pondered a moment, and then said:
“I can hardly answer that question, but I will say that perhaps the influence I have been able to gain in Parliament has been due to the fact that I have had very strong convictions on all public questions, and have let slip few opportunities to express them. I am usually able to maintain the positions I take in argument, for the reason that I am always careful to fortify myself with facts and with as extensive a general knowledge of the subject as possible before going into a debate or going before the House on any particular issue.
“I believe I have the reputation of being a hard worker. However this may be, I will say that I have always made it a rule to give painstaking attention to seemingly unimportant details in my legal cases, and have frequently won them on this account. This habit, acquired in my youth, of looking after small matters, has made it much easier for me to take care of the large affairs of my clients and of my party since I have entered politics. I know of no surer road to both general and political success than the obvious highway of hard work, coupled, of course, with common sense.
“While the law is the profession which most naturally leads the young man into the political arena, I always like to see the farmer in politics, for the reason that the latter usually has a certain strong simplicity and a degree of sense that often discounts and renders weak in comparison the learning and polish of the professional man. The farmers will be the dominating class in the development of the Northwest, and I hope to see more and more of them in politics.”
In his contact with his fellow-men Mr. Borden’s manner is marked by a quiet dignity and cordiality that has won him many friends. While he has numerous political enemies, there are few men in the Dominion who are as popular personally. Mr. Borden likes to meet and exchange views with the average citizen. A little story is told of him in his recent campaign which is characteristic. It seems that he was on a night journey on a train and could not sleep. A like wakefulness afflicted a young man in the same car, and at midnight they found themselves together in the smoking compartment. Talk began at once, and throughout the dragging hours these two discussed the great questions of the day. The young man, who had just returned from the States, did not recognize his companion, and the next morning in Montreal he remarked to his friends upon his very interesting fellow-traveler of the night before. He said that they had chiefly talked politics and that his acquaintance had been so convincing that he had been won over to the Conservative party. He described his fellow-passenger, and very much to his astonishment was informed that the latter was Mr. Borden himself.
XLVIII
An Eminent Scholar Advocates the Union of Canada and the United States.
CANADA’S “grand old man” is Professor Goldwin Smith. With all his opinions Canadians do not agree, but they are united in their admiration for his qualities as a man and a scholar. A mention of his name brings an expression of liking and pride to the face of every intelligent resident of the Dominion. A mention of his well-known belief that Canada and the United States will eventually be one brings a smile which well expresses the average Canadian’s feeling that their leading philosopher’s idea of the union of the great commonwealths is too abstract and remote to arouse alarm in the patriotic breast.
In spite of this difference of opinion the people of the Dominion highly appreciate Professor Smith’s notable attainments as a student and a writer. They realize that from his vantage point of long residence in both England and the United States, as well as in Canada, and from his careful and enlightened study of the problems of these countries, his outlook is perhaps broader than that of any other man in Canada. Professor Smith, now in his eighty-first year, lives in an ideal way in his Toronto residence, The Grange. It was here that I called on him.
The Scotch lodgekeeper and his wife, in their quaint little home at the gate, were quite in keeping with the air of dignified calm which enfolds The Grange. The house, standing well back in the grounds, is representative of the best architecture of a century ago. It suggests reminiscence and contemplation. It has the mellow atmosphere of the past. When approaching it along the gravel walk you feel that you have left behind the hurly burly of everyday life; that this is a most fitting abode for one who stands apart from the crowd to watch the currents of life flow by.
As the house is, so is the man. Tall, slender and a trifle bent in figure, with a thin ascetic face, Professor Smith impressed me as a man who contemplates calmly and critically, but with a very kindly eye, as from high ground, the agitations and excitements of the times. I made a remark to him as to the quietude of his surroundings.
“Yes, I am very fond of the old place,” he replied, his eyes kindling with interest. “I am proud of it. You have noticed that all of the woodwork is black walnut, which was the prevailing mode in interior decorations in the early part of the nineteenth century. I have permitted nothing to be changed. I am fond of old things, perhaps, because I am old myself.”
“Your activities make it rather difficult to believe that statement,” I said.
“Well, I have always tried to retain a youthful spirit,” answered Professor Smith, with the engaging smile which is characteristic of him, “and I have been able to keep a fair amount of physical vigor by means of plenty of exercise and regularity in my mode of living. I have always been very fond of walking, and have done a great deal of it. While I am not as industrious in this respect as I used to be, I make a point of driving out in my carriage every afternoon. I rarely let anything interfere with this, because it has a tendency to give me new vitality both in spirit and body.”
“While your house is old, Professor Smith,” I remarked, “this country in which you live, Canada, is young.”
“Yes, we have not progressed as rapidly as the United States; we are yet, in many respects, a people of beginnings. Canadians look forward to the future with very optimistic spirit. We see possibilities of great industrial and agricultural development.”
“The average Canadian does not look as far into the future as you do yourself.”
“No, perhaps not,” smilingly replied Professor Smith. “I believe that the great majority of our people are not at all in sympathy with my opinion that Canada will eventually become a part of the United States. I have, however, long held this belief. It has been my idea for many years that the whole continent of North America should be, and will be eventually, given up to republican institutions. It has been said of me that I left Great Britain in order to be able to live in the republican atmosphere of the New World. While this is not altogether true, I am wonderfully interested in the great experiment of a government by the people which is now being tried by the United States.
“I think the experiment will prove a success, and that in the end all of the commonwealths on this side of the Atlantic will come sufficiently under the influence of this form of government to embrace it. The Old World powers are by degrees losing their dependencies in the New World. I long ago said, for example, that Spain’s hold upon Cuba was becoming weaker and weaker, and would sooner or later become altogether relaxed. I believe that this is likewise true of Great Britain in her relationship with Canada. A wide ocean divides the mother country from her great colony in North America, while merely an artificial boundary line divides us from the powerful republic to the South.
“The bond between Canada and the United States is gradually becoming closer in spite of the little intervening frictions which from time to time arise. I am aware that many Canadians express an antipathy for the United States, but this amounts to little more than talk. Young Canadians have been for many years seeking opportunities in the United States, and at the present time many thousands of agriculturists from the Western States are annually migrating into our Northwest to take advantage there of the productivity of the virgin soil. Numerous American capitalists are investing their money on our side of the line, and thus the commercial connection is constantly becoming closer.
“As a matter of fact, there is in some particulars more intimate union between Canada and the United States than between some of our own provinces. I have often said to my friends that the beginning of wisdom in regard to Canada is the realization of the fact that the natural avenues of traffic and communication lie north and south rather than east and west. We must remember that between various parts of the Dominion nature has set up very formidable barriers, great lakes, high mountains, and wide expanses of uncultivated territory. We must not forget, furthermore, that there are two distinct races in Canada, different in religion, sympathies and general characteristics. Thus it will be seen that without compactness in territory and without a homogeneous spirit among the people, Canada is not a united country. She needs the United States and, by the same token, the United States needs Canada. While I don’t expect to see it in my own time, I feel justified in prophesying that the passing years of the twentieth century will bring an equal union between our country and the States. Together they will rise to greater heights of power, influence and civilization than any nation has yet attained.
“I like to see Canadians go to the United States and I like to see young Americans come to Canada. A young man should always have courage to seek the fields which seem to be most promising for him. I am inclined to think that a changed environment is a stimulus to his energy and ambition. A knowledge of the different sections certainly gives him a broader outlook and adds materially to his equipment for the battle of life.”
XLIX
After Failure as a Grocer, He Becomes the Ablest Administrator Quebec Has Ever Had.
“THE busiest man in Canada,” exclaimed a friend in close touch with the government, when I told him that I desired to meet the Hon. S. N. Parent, Premier of the Province of Quebec.
“Parent, you know,” continued my informant, “is not only Premier of the Province, but is also mayor of the City of Quebec, minister of lands, mines and fisheries, president of the company that is building a seven-million-dollar bridge across the St. Lawrence, director in the Quebec Railway Light and Power Company, director in the Grand Trunk Railway, and a lawyer with the largest practice in the Province.”
This information as to his surprising range of activities, bespeaking a man of remarkable achievement, made me more than ever anxious to talk with Mr. Parent, and I said so to my friend.
“Well,” he exclaimed, “the premier is personally one of the most approachable men alive, but all day long in the ante-rooms of his various offices there are crowds waiting to see him. He never appears in the streets of Quebec on foot, but always in his cab, for the simple reason that if he were walking so many persons would stop him that he would be hours getting to his destination. His lieutenants hedge him in, but once past them you are all right.”
“What would be a good time and place to call on him?”
“In answer to that I will give you an outline of his movement for his business day, and you may judge for yourself. Promptly every morning at half-past seven he arrives at his law office in Lower Town and sees clients there until ten o’clock, when he goes to the City Hall to take up his work as Mayor. Here he keeps in close touch with every detail of city administration.
“It has been said that not a nail is driven on public property without his knowledge. This, of course, is an exaggeration, but it is the truth that he is the first mayor Quebec has had in sixty years who has been able to run the municipal government without an annual deficit in the treasury. And yet with all his economy he has instituted numerous public improvements. On the strength of this work for Quebec he has several times been reëlected Mayor and has held the office for eleven years.
“After an hour at the City Hall he is driven to Parliament House, where he transacts the business of the Province until half-past one. Here, in addition to his general work, he gives special attention to the land and fisheries department, which he has made the most important in the provincial government. He has so developed it that it yields a larger income than any other.
“Mr. Parent takes a light luncheon at half-past one, and remains in Parliament House until four o’clock, when he returns to his law office, where he gives himself up to cases and to his financial interests until seven. Now comes a dinner which is hardly more hearty than his luncheon, and after this he attends the meetings of committees, which assemble in the evening chiefly to suit his convenience. This schedule is as regular as clockwork. The Premier makes a point of letting nothing interfere with it. Exactly at the times and places I mention you can find him.”
Armed with this knowledge, and with a letter of introduction, I sought the Premier at the House of Parliament—a stately building of massive stone, standing out against the sky on the heights of the “Gibraltar of America,” and commanding a huge panoramic view of the Lower Town, of the St. Lawrence and St. Charles rivers, of the Isle of Orleans, the wide valley of St. Anne and the sweeping lines of the Laurentian Mountains.
The ante-room was crowded, as I had been told it would be, but an attendant at once took in my letter and almost immediately returned.
“The Premier cannot see you to-day,” he said, “but will be very glad to meet you at this office at twelve sharp to-morrow. If you would accept a little word of advice,” he added, official manner giving way to French-Canadian courtesy, “I would say that it would be well to be exactly on time. By five minutes past twelve, if you are not here, the Premier will be engaged with some one else, and then your opportunity will be gone. He never spends time in waiting. This is what you might call one of his peculiarities.”
I was on time. At precisely twelve an official passed out of the inner room and I was invited in. As the Premier swung about in his chair with the quick glance and motion that are characteristic with him, I saw a man with a high forehead, a prominent nose, keen gray eyes and a small mustache. His age is fifty-three, but he appears much younger.
“I am interviewing the most successful men in Canada,” I said, “and so, naturally, have called on you.”
Mr. Parent smiled, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, but made no comment.
“Would you mind telling me how you made your start toward success?”
The light of reminiscence came into the Premier’s eyes and his smile was more pronounced. After a very brief pause he said:
“You flatter me by the use of that word success; but if you want to know how I began my career I will assure you that I began it with a failure. My father was a merchant across the river in Beauport, where I was born, and before I was old enough to appreciate how much I did not know I branched out into business for myself. I started a grocery store. It failed, and I decided that I was unfit to be a successful grocer.
“A fair education gained at the normal school enabled me to obtain a place in a law office of S. B. Langois here in Quebec. After I had been with him a short time he strongly advised me to take up law as a profession. I was beginning to feel a pronounced inclination in this direction, and, stimulated by his encouragement, I began to study hard. I took the course at Laval University, and after graduation commenced to practice chiefly at first in the police courts.
“Gradually my clients increased in numbers and my cases in importance. Politics had always interested me. I became somewhat active in this field, and, although I have never tried to practice the art of oratory, for which I have no gift, I was elected to the County Council of Quebec in 1890. Three years later I was made Mayor of the city and not long afterwards Premier of the Province. My career since then has been largely official and a matter of record.”
“It is said that you have given the province and the city the best business administration they have ever had. You know more about business now than when you ran the grocery store, for instance.”
“Oh, yes,” laughed Mr. Parent, “a great deal more. For one thing, I have learned that the price of a business success is eternal vigilance. I have found that the only way to conduct affairs of a municipality along strictly business lines is to watch the committees—to watch their every move. It is in these bodies that the financial leaks are most likely to occur. Not having to carry the main responsibility for public expenditures, committees are inclined to be too generous, too confident of the resources of the treasury. I have no doubt that this is as true in your country, the United States, as in Canada.
“We have ten committees which are meeting constantly. During the eleven years I have been in office I have not missed a single meeting, which is one of the main causes, I think, of whatever success I may have had as a public administrator.”
“Your position as the representative of a large population of both French and English must have its difficulties,” I remarked.
“These are not nearly as great as you might imagine,” quickly replied the Premier. “I don’t pretend to try to please everybody, but I do try to treat all alike. I myself, as you know, am of French descent. French was the language of my childhood, but whether a man is English, or Scotch, or French-Canadian, whether he is a Protestant or Catholic, has absolutely no weight with me in my attitude toward him in the discharge of my official duties.
“We French hold to our language and customs because we are proud of them, but there is complete sympathy between the two races in the Province of Quebec. The Anglo-Saxon Canadian admires the French-Canadian because of his honesty, industry and thrift, and the latter admires the former for virtues too numerous to mention. A union between the two, already close, is constantly becoming closer, and it gives me pleasure to think that perhaps I have done something to advance this movement for the common good.
“We are all working for the prosperity and progress of the province and city of Quebec. In this connection the possibilities are so great that even if we were inclined to racial prejudices, which is not true, we would realize that we could not afford to entertain them.
“Quebec is on the threshold of a new era. The great bridge across the St. Lawrence will bring important improvements in the railroad facilities of the city. The harbor, already one of the finest in existence for vessels of large tonnage, will be made even better by the extension of the dock system and by other projects now in hand. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, which is about to be built across the continent, will have its eastern terminus at Quebec, and will bring to us for export to the markets of the world a vast quantity of the products of the great Northwest. All this will mean a remarkable stimulus to our city.
“As for the province as a whole, the fertility of the soil, particularly in the neighborhood of Lake St. John, warrants the prediction that it will become the granary of Eastern Canada. The enormous water powers within our boundaries, harnessed for the generation of electricity, will mean the rise of many industries. There is, moreover, an immense wealth of money to be gathered from the many thousands of miles of territory which offer pulp wood for paper making. Year by year the pulp industry is extending, but it is as yet at the very beginning of its development. It will bring many millions of dollars to the province and its people. Young men now at the outset of their careers will grow rich from the new industrial activities.
“But in Quebec we have not yet been educated up, or down, to the idea that the most desirable thing in the world is wealth. We have other standards of success. None of us have what would be considered from the American point of view great riches, and we are well content that this is so. Money, of course, is an excellent thing, and we have no prejudices against its possession, but we are in no feverish haste to acquire it. For example, none of our professional men or politicians are very rich. Political life here offers practically no financial opportunities. The politician who attempted corrupt practices would find himself in an isolated position. There would be no coterie to support him. He would be subjected to adverse opinion that would quickly terminate his career. In my administration of public affairs in the province and city of Quebec there has not been, I am happy to say, five cents’ worth of scandal.
“No, as yet, at least, we are not worshippers of the golden calf. All we want in our careers and community is a healthy progress. We desire to keep the city of Quebec, for instance, abreast of the times, to infuse her veins with new blood, but certainly not at a sacrifice of the flavor of the past which makes her the most interesting and picturesque city on the continent. We respect the old, and intend to keep it and the new in harmonious balance.”
“How were you impressed with Mr. Parent?” inquired my friend when I informed him that I had had my interview.
“Excellently well,” I answered.
“I knew you would be. He is a high grade man, and is very representative of the French-Canadians of this generation. He believes in progress, but not in haste. He has good intentions, and the ability to carry them out. He is much more of a listener than a talker, but when he says a thing, or makes a promise, you may depend upon it.”
“You have found, haven’t you, that his political opponents admit that they respect him? I thought so. It has been said here in Quebec that in his character there is the combination of the canniness of the Scot, the progressive energy of the Englishman, the conservatism and sentiment of the French-Canadian, and the geniality of the Irish gentleman.”
L
Canada’s Leading Economist Tells Her Sons To Seek Fortune in Her Own Domain.
SIR WILFRID LAURIER, Premier of Canada, said that in matters pertaining to railways the Hon. Andrew George Blair was the Dominion’s greatest authority. Whenever in Canada you mention the name of Mr. Blair, whether among his friends or political opponents, the comment is,—an able man.
Since his entrance into political life in 1878, after twelve years of notably successful practice as a lawyer in his native city of Fredericton, New Brunswick, he has continually risen. Though defeated in his first candidacy for the New Brunswick House of Commons, he was elected the second time he ran, in 1879, and since then has always been victorious at the polls.
As a matter of course, through the force of his personality and without apparent effort, he became leader of the minority in the New Brunswick House, and this minority he changed from weakness to strength. His personal following grew so steadily that in 1883 the majority was defeated and Mr. Blair became Premier of the Province. In three general elections, those of 1886, 1890 and 1894, his leadership was sustained. “By this time,” remarked a friend of his to me, “Blair was the whole thing in the Province of New Brunswick.”
However this may have been, it is true that Mr. Blair had become a figure of national prominence. Long before this he had attracted the attention of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and when the latter became Premier of the Dominion in 1896 he made Mr. Blair a member of his Cabinet, appointing him to the important place of Minister of Railways and Canals.
It was in this position that he acquired the mastery of railroad problems that has made him Canada’s leading authority on transportation. In 1903, because he disagreed with the governmental powers on the subject of the projected Grand Trunk Pacific line across the continent, he resigned his portfolio.
But it very soon became evident that Mr. Blair was a man with whose services it was difficult to dispense. For the purpose of regulating the railroads in their relations with the public more specifically than had been possible by the Ministry of Railways and Canals a Board of Railway Commissioners was provided for by Parliament early in 1904. Mr. Blair had been very active in advocating the organization of the committee, and it was obvious that there was no man in Canada who could approach him in fitness for the place of chairman. Yet his opposition to the government in its great scheme for the new transcontinental road was a very formidable objection to his selection. This difficulty caused much hesitation on the part of the ruling spirits, but in the end it was decided that the Government could not get along without Mr. Blair, and so he was appointed chairman of the committee. After a few months of very successful work he resigned his place, an act which threw the party in power into a state of astonishment and consternation.
In his office in Ottawa I called upon Mr. Blair, and was at once impressed with what might be called his bigness. His face, the lower part of which is covered with the luxuriant growth of beard which is characteristic of the Scotchman, is broad. His forehead is high and wide. His eyes are unusually large. He speaks slowly, and every word has weight.
If one were to make a military comparison it might be said that he has much more of the blunt strength of the cannon than of the glittering sharpness of the sword. And yet this military simile, except at times of heated debate in the House of Parliament, or when his indignation is aroused, is not a fair one, for no man’s ordinary manner is more quiet and benign. His energy is not obtrusive, nor of the kind called nervous. It seems to have a far deeper source than this. The truth is, Mr. Blair impressed me as possessing more of the equipment of the scholar and philosopher than of the lawyer giving and parrying quick thrusts in court litigation, or of the politician devising ways and means to hold and increase his power. It is difficult to imagine him indulging in airy flights of eloquence calculated to arouse the admiration of the crowd. Indeed, he never indulges in what is ordinarily called oratory. He depends for effectiveness in his speeches upon the force of fact and logic, with which in Parliament he has shattered numerous soaring bubbles of forensic sentiment.
“I don’t care to talk about myself,” he remarked to me. “Those good friends of mine who differ with me on matters of public policy are doing that. But I have no objection to saying something on the topic of success, although the subject is so vital and has such an intimate relationship to a young man’s ambitions and career that I should have liked to have a little time to consider it.
“I will say, however, that I have been strongly impressed within very recent times with the fact that it is no longer necessary for young Canadians to go to the United States to seek their success. At one time there were much greater opportunities for them there than here, and Canada lost many of her best minds and most promising youths. Not a few of these have achieved distinction in the States, and many young Canadians, inspired by their example, are still seeking fame and fortune across the border. But a larger number are now coming in this direction. The tide has turned. Men with capital, in money or in brains, are beginning to realize that in this twentieth century Canada is the land of opportunities.
“Even in the profession of law, which feels the effect of new conditions rather less quickly than do commercial pursuits, there has been a marked advance toward more business and larger fees. For electrical, mechanical and civil engineers there is more and more work in Canada because of the constant installation of new manufacturing plants and the extension of the railway systems.
“In the field of railroad construction in particular, on account of the necessity of thousands of miles more of track in the new territory which is being opened up, there will be a great deal of work for young men within the next few years. I do not myself believe that it is necessary to build new lines with the haste thought advisable in some quarters, but it is inevitable that sooner or later the country will be covered by a network of railroads. All this railway building and the resulting development of new communities will mean, of course, business and professional openings for a great number of energetic men.
“This will be especially true of our immense Northwest, which is virtually a new country of a wonderful productivity in grain and minerals, and of a vastness in territory difficult to imagine. In the flourishing little city of Edmonton, in the province of Alberta, I happened to meet a man not long ago who was installing mills for the grinding of wheat in the territory to the north, and asked him as to the location of the most northerly mill that he was building. In reply he mentioned a place which, to my astonishment, was over twelve hundred miles north of Edmonton. From this you will see that there are wheat fields nearly sixteen hundred miles north of the boundary line between Canada and the United States.
“The climate here is tempered by the winds which come through the passes of the Rocky Mountains from the warm Japanese current of the Pacific. This makes it possible to grow wheat in the region just east of the Rockies at a latitude much higher than in the section farther east, where the balmy winds do not reach, but the fact that there are wheat fields sixteen hundred miles north of the border will give you an idea of the marvelous extent of the wheat growing country of northwestern Canada.
“I have not the slightest doubt that in the course of the next twenty-five years a great commonwealth will have been developed here, and this means that many thousands of young men who are honest and energetic and wide awake enough to see and seize their chances will acquire comfortable competencies for themselves and families. Some will unquestionably make large fortunes.
“I do not, however, regard the accumulation of a great deal of money as a criterion of success. I think that a man who has been able to build for himself a comfortable home, presided over by a good wife and enlivened with the presence of a moderate number of children, is apt to be far more content with his lot than the man who must carry the burden of a great fortune.
“In the Northwest the conditions will not be such as to enable a man to amass the fabulous wealth which has marked the industrial development of the United States. For one thing, we are so regulating our railroads in their relations to the public that it will be quite impossible for favored shippers to obtain the preferences in freight rates which, in the United States, have been the chief source of the menacing wealth of certain conspicuous capitalists.
“To make impossible all discrimination in rates on the part of railroads has been one of my principal cares in the discharge of my official duties as Minister of Railways and as Chairman of the Railway Commission. If it can be truthfully said that I have accomplished something in this direction I shall feel that my labors have not been in vain.”
“What,” I inquired, “do you consider the chief requisite of success in political life?”
Mr. Blair paused, and turned his eyes reflectively toward the window. “This is a difficult question,” he answered slowly. “There are, of course, numerous qualities that combine to give a man success in politics as in any other pursuit. But I am sure that the prime essential of the man who is ambitious to hold any lasting influence in political life is character.
“If he possesses character he is bound to gain and maintain the respect, not only of his friends, but even of his enemies, and will be able to keep himself afloat on the tempestuous sea of politics long after those who have not been able to resist the temptations of a political career have been engulfed.
“In Canada the political life carries with it no great financial rewards. The young man who enters politics and devotes himself zealously to affairs of state must not expect affluence. If his aim in life is to acquire riches he should by all means keep clear of the political arena until, at least, he has made his success in business.”
In his administration in the office of Minister of Railways and of Chairman of the Railway Commission, Mr. Blair showed a pronounced simplicity and unconventionality in his methods. His aim being to accomplish as much as possible, he went straight to the mark, with little regard for formality or red tape. Many times, in his work of railway supervision, he has traversed the length and breadth of Canada, preferring to see conditions for himself rather than to judge of them on hearsay evidence. A single episode may be given as characteristic of his manner of obtaining results. There had been numerous complaints about the dangers of a certain crossing on one of the railways. Some of these complaints had been sent to the office of the Commission, but in the ordinary routine of business some time would have elapsed before action upon them could be taken. Meanwhile the railroad was doing nothing in the matter, and the lives of many children were daily in danger. Mr. Blair, however, had heard unofficially of the crossing. One day he happened to meet on a train the superintendent of the road in question. The train was approaching the dangerous place, when Mr. Blair suddenly remarked to the superintendent: “By the way, Mr. ——, I have heard that you have a bad crossing on the line not far from here. Let us get out and take a look at it.”
The superintendent acquiesced, and when the crossing was reached the train was stopped and the two gentlemen alighted. For a few moments they surveyed the woods that concealed the approach of trains and the other conditions which made the crossing hazardous.
“I think we have seen enough, Mr. ——,” remarked the Chairman. When they had resumed their seats in the car he said, “Now, see here, it is just as obvious to you as it is to me that this place should at once be made safer. It can be done easily. I wish you would interest yourself personally in the matter.” Within a day or two a gang of workmen had made the crossing safe.
LI
A Distinguished Educator has Found Contentment in the Simple Life.
“MY life has been very quiet,” said Dr. James Loudon, president of the University of Toronto, which is the largest educational institution in Canada. “When I was graduated from this University in the early sixties I became associated with it as an instructor, and have never had any other professional connection.
“My birthplace was the city of Toronto, and my parents, like those of so many people in this province of Ontario, were Scotch. I might remark, parenthetically, that I think the infant that opens its eyes upon the world with Scotch blood in its veins has already made a pretty fair start in life. The typical Scotchman is shrewd and patient, and is the fortunate possessor of that sense of humor which does so much to smooth the way, both for himself and for those about him, and is so conducive to a sane philosophy. Patience, I have always thought, is a particularly valuable asset for the man who desires steady progress in his life.”
OUT OF DEBT AT LAST
“The truth of this is exemplified in your own career,” I suggested.
“Perhaps so,” replied Dr. Loudon. “I well remember Toronto when it was a comparative village, and I have seen it develop into the present brisk and impressive city. I remember, too, our University when its attendance was very small, and I have seen it steadily expand until now it has over twenty-five hundred students, and its influence has become widespread. I myself have been carried up with the general growth. For many years I was professor of mathematics in the University, and have made a special study of the science of physics. Finally, in 1892, chiefly on the ground of long service, I was made the president.
“Our progress here has been preëminently healthy—a substantial process of construction from the foundations up. If, from my observation of this development, any wisdom for young men can be gleaned, I would say to them, eliminate impatience and haste from your plans in building the structure of your career. Build slowly, keeping a careful eye upon the quality and placing of every beam and stone. It is by this method only that you will be able to construct an edifice that will be permanently satisfactory to yourself and impressive to the world.
“A conspicuous evil in the present day life of North America is hurry. Young men, in haste to achieve success, force themselves. The able ones rise with a rapidity which, I think is the reverse of beneficial in the long run. A reaction, an aftermath, is apt to come. Their mental and physical elasticity is apt to prematurely disappear, with the result that they will too soon find themselves past the summit of their careers and traveling the declivity on the other side. The great cities on this continent, and particularly those of the United States, have a voracious appetite for the vitality of youth. They develop a man, yes, but they also exhaust him.
“The mistake of this lies principally in the industrial and social pace of the present. Young men, influenced by the city life about them, spend a good deal more money on their living and enjoyment than they did in the days of my own youth, and in their keen desire to keep in the hunt, so to speak, they seek the goal of wealth cross-lots instead of by the more roundabout but much safer highway. The young women who become their wives have great power in the matter of keeping them away from the dangerous short-cuts. A wife should have an intimate knowledge of the varying conditions in her husband’s business, in order that she may properly adjust her expenditures to these conditions. This seems obvious, but the wife’s failure in this respect has been the cause of the undoing of many a man.
“The spirit of materialism and commercialism which is so marked has been, perhaps, a necessary factor in the development of the resources of this continent, but I believe that it is gradually losing its position as the commanding influence in our New World civilization, and that it will become a subordinate element in a broader and higher attitude toward life.”
“This development will come sooner, I think, in the United States than in Canada, for the reason that the former country has had the start of us in the evolution. The rough work of subduing rebellious nature, of clearing land, of breaking virgin soil for agriculture, of building railroads, has been nearly completed across the border, while on our side it is just beginning. We have a great Northwest, still in large degree a wilderness, to cover with farms and homes and the other appurtenances of civilization. We have yet large sections of our East to dot with the towns and the industries which this territory will bountifully support.
“It is only within a very few years that we have begun to take hold of this work with the zeal and determination that brings success. With this twentieth century there has been born in Canada a new spirit of enterprise. Even here in the University its effects have been strongly felt. It was not long ago that a large proportion of our graduates became teachers, or entered some other professional sphere, and in these fields most of them sought their opportunities in the United States. At the present time the majority of our students have turned toward commercial, mechanical or scientific pursuits, and they are finding their openings within our own domain. The standard of pecuniary compensation is advancing, not only in commerce but also in the professions. For example, even as comparatively a short time as a decade ago the largest fees or salaries for legal services never rose above a very few thousand dollars. Now we often hear of Canadian lawyers receiving many thousands in single fees or in yearly salaries from railroad, banking and other corporations. The general tendency is in this direction, and it is a direct result of our industrial expansion. The interests of Canadian employers of brains and labor are becoming larger. They want more men, and better trained men, and are willing to pay them more than in former years.
“Since a university does not completely fulfil its functions unless it keeps in touch with the life of the people and the currents of broad activity, we of the University of Toronto are aiming to keep pace with the new development in Canada. We are equipping young men for many practical pursuits, and are even establishing close relationships with numerous specific industries. Often of late we have had applications from employers for young men capable of assuming responsibilities. We keep track of the demand for youthful brains and university training, and make a point of being always ready to supply it. A notable factor in the practical work of the university is the Agricultural College, which is located at Guelph, Ontario, and controls 550 acres of land, upon which all phases of farming are carried on and taught to nearly six hundred students. We feel that this college is doing work which is very important. Much of the future wealth of Canada will be derived from agriculture, and especially from wheat growing in the Northwest, where hard wheat, the finest in the world, can be produced in sufficient quantities to supply all the markets of the earth. To adequately develop the possibilities of this territory we must have scientific farmers, and this is the kind we are doing our best to train.
“But with all this effort along material lines, we are by no means forgetting at the University of Toronto what we used to call the broad humanities. The play of the spirit, the exercise of the imagination, the stimulus of literature and art, a tolerant and cheerful philosophy are, after all, the things which make life worth living.”
LII
Beginning as Telegraph Operator He Built the Canadian Pacific.
“WHAT is success?” questioned Sir William Van Horne, half-reclining within the hospitable arms of a big chair in his luxurious residence in Shelbrooke Street, Montreal.
“You, Sir William, should surely know,” I remarked. “You are accredited by the world with being very familiar with it.”
“There are numerous subjects upon which the world and I do not agree,” replied, with a smile, the famous railroad builder.
“What is success?” he repeated slowly. “You might say, of course that it is the achievement of a purpose, but in the selection and formation of your purpose you may have made a failure, and then the whole is failure.
“Is contentment success? I am sure it is not. Is wealth? Not by any means. Is power? Not at all.”
Sir William was silent for a moment.
“The truth is,” he said suddenly, “the word success is one of the hardest in the language to define, and I won’t attempt it. I should say however, that a man’s real success in life can be pretty accurately measured by his usefulness as a member of society.
“He may be rich or poor, courted or ignored, but if he does things which at once or eventually make for progress in the world he is most assuredly a success. If, for example, he discovers something new in science, invents a valuable article, paints a great picture, writes a great book, develops a great industry, or——”
“Or builds a great railroad?” I interrupted.
Sir William smiled, and after a pause remarked, “I suppose you intend that to be a personal allusion, but we are not discussing personalities. I will say, however, that some of the men whom down in the States you call captains of industry have my admiration. I care very little whether they give money to charity, whether their work is colored by an active consciousness of its value to anybody outside of their families, their friends and themselves. Most of the men of this stamp are just in their dealings, and it is to their initiative force that the United States owes her material greatness. They have started wheels of industry that have given honest work and many of the comforts of life to millions of self-respecting men. They are rich, yes, and we say that riches do not constitute success. Nevertheless, these men have achieved it in one of its highest forms.”
It was very plain from his manner that in making these remarks Sir William’s thoughts were quite remote from his own career. Yet he himself is one of the most conspicuous and striking representatives on the continent of the class of men he was discussing. His humble start as a small boy in a railway station, contrasted with his present place as a giant in the field of railroading, indicates the height of his own achievement. His career has been a long series of upward steps.
At an age when most boys are playing marbles in short trousers, young Van Horne, forced by the death of his father to earn his own living, obtained a place as general utility boy at a railroad station in the county in Illinois in which in 1843 he was born. Here he saw and seized his first opportunity; that is, he taught himself telegraphy. With this knowledge and a robust personality as his only assets, he journeyed to Chicago and found a position as telegraph operator in the offices of the Illinois Central Railroad. But he did not long hold this place. The telegraphic keys were too small for him. Before he was twenty-two he had gone over to the Chicago & Alton road and was dispatching trains—work of so responsible a character that no railroad company would think for an instant of entrusting it to the ordinary inexperienced youth. But the chief requisite of the train despatcher is care, and care was only one of young Van Horne’s conspicuous qualities. He had a combination of others that overshadowed it and brought him promotion to the place of superintendent of telegraphy.
His work was still too easy for him, so they made him a division superintendent. He was now where the officials of other lines could see him, and the Wabash road took him away from the Chicago & Alton to make him their general manager. He was about thirty years old at this time, but he was already looming so large among the railroad men of the Middle West that when the directors of the Southern Minnesota Railway, which was in the hands of a receiver, bethought themselves to look about for a man who could rehabilitate their road, their eyes fell upon young Van Horne, and they asked him if he thought the line could be made to pay.
He replied that he thought so, and gave his reasons. They then asked him to assume the management of the moribund property. He liked then, as he does now, this kind of a job. There were chances in it far above the mere satisfactory performance of routine duty. There were opportunities here to create, to develop, to quicken into new life; and the young man’s instincts were all in this direction. So he took hold with enthusiasm, and put the company on a paying basis with a rapidity that amazed the stockholders who made him president. He went back to the Chicago & Alton in 1878 as general manager.
In a lifetime of work very few railroad men achieve as much as this, but Van Horne was still in his thirties and was just beginning. The Canadian Government had been trying for several years to push from the Ottawa Valley a road of steel across its vast domain to the Pacific Ocean, and it had found the task too much for it. Surveys had been made, but there had been comparatively little work of actual construction. Finally, in 1880, it was decided to allow the project to become a private enterprise, and in 1881, under the auspices of Sir Donald Smith, now Lord Strathcona, the Canadian Pacific Railroad Company was organized.
After Sir Donald had found the immense amount of money that was required, his greatest care was to find a man to take charge of the construction, much of it through unknown wildernesses, of the longest railway that had ever been projected. The length of the proposed line and the nature of the country through which it was to pass, made this the most stupendous railway undertaking the world had seen. It was necessary to procure a man fitted for a Herculean task. Sir Donald took stock with the railroad men of the New World and decided that the most promising of them all was William C. Van Horne.
The latter went into the work like a football player bucking the line on a university team. An army of men was hired. At an average speed of three miles a day for many months the steel rails were pushed into the vast forests and the trackless prairies of the Northwest. At last the workmen, urged incessantly by the directing mind of General Manager Van Horne, attacked the Rocky Mountains, and under the charges of picks and powder the mountains made way. At the end of the third year the summit of the Rockies had been reached, and before another twelve months had gone by the forbidding passes in the Selkirks were thundering and trembling from the assaults of dynamite.
The last rail of the main line was laid in November, 1885. In the meantime the company had been acquiring branch connections, and before the end of the year was in possession of nearly forty-five hundred miles of track. Before another six months had passed a great system was fully equipped and Canada had her railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The contract had called for the completion of the road in ten years. Van Horne and his men had finished it in five. Since then the system has been extended until now it embraces nearly ten thousand miles of track, and steamship lines cross the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. One may travel eighteen thousand miles on the route and property of the Canadian Pacific. Cities and towns, many thousands of farms and factories, have sprung up along the way. A new commonwealth in the Northwest has been developed. And it has been done under the general direction of Sir William C. Van Horne.
This is why Canadians, when asked to name living men who have done most to develop the Dominion, couple his name with that of Lord Strathcona. The latter, then Sir Donald Smith, had the courage to assume a burden of railway construction that had proved too heavy for the Government. He thus made possible Canada’s only transcontinental railway. Lord Strathcona financed the road, but Sir William Van Horne built it. The latter was its president from 1888 until 1899, when, the creative work being done, the chief difficulties surmounted, he resigned the presidency in favor of Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, and assumed work of less detail as chairman of the board of directors.
Plain William C. Van Horne became Sir William in 1894, when he was knighted by the queen for his high value as a worker in her domains in North America. Being nothing if not democratic, he was inclined, until he became used to it, to wax jocular about his title.
“I’ll wager,” he is reported to have said one day soon after he had received it, “that my old friends among the railroad boys down in Chicago, who used to call me Bill, will make some pointed remarks when they learn that I am Sir William now.”
His bluff geniality is one of the things that Canada likes best about Sir William. She claims him as a citizen, since his greatest work has been done and he has lived for years within her boundaries. She is proud of him and he is proud of her.
“Very few people,” he said to me, “have more than a faint idea of the marvelous resources and possibilities of this country. In the provinces of Quebec and Ontario the innumerable streams rushing down from the mountains offer sufficient water power to run the factories of a nation. A beginning has been made here that will eventually lift this locality into one of the leading industrial and electrical centers of the continent. In the making of paper in particular it will be preëminent. Much of the pulp wood used in paper manufacturing has thus far been obtained from Maine, but the supply there will be exhausted in less than five years, and then the paper makers must come to Canada for their supply of pulp. There are already extensive pulp wood industries in the Province of Quebec, but these are bound to be greatly multiplied.”
“It is in the Northwest, however, where millions of acres of land await only the plow and seed to produce the finest wheat in the world, that the most inviting opportunities for young men are to be found. The Canadian Northwest is much as was the great region of the United States west of the Mississippi River fifty years ago. It is a country at the outset of its development—a country which needs and will adequately reward the vigorous efforts of young manhood.”
“In your field of railroad building I presume there will be great opportunities?” I remarked.
“Undoubtedly,” replied Sir William.
“Is the railroad business a good one for a young man?”
“It is as good as any,” answered Sir William thoughtfully, “if a young man is content to work for a salary all his life. But he should not be content with this. The salary habit is a bad one, very easy to acquire, and very hard to shake off. The man with his stipend every week is apt to settle into a groove. He adjusts his mode of life to his Saturday envelope. It gets to be about the most important thing in his existence. He becomes tied up to it, and is afraid to make a move that will disturb this pleasant union. Always acting under the direction of somebody higher up, he loses his power of initial effort, and never develops to the full extent of his possibilities. He is likely to be a dependent all his life. If after long years of service he loses his place, as often happens, he is nearly helpless.
“I should say to the young man, strike out for yourself as soon as you can. Don’t be afraid to take a chance. Most of the interest of life lies in its uncertainties. You will have your tumbles, of course, but the exercise of standing on your own legs will give you strength to get up again and push on. One of the drawbacks about a salaried place is that a man is apt to lose keen interest in his work, and interest is at the foundation of energy, of concentration of inspiration, even, of all the elements, in brief, that go to make up an adequate performance.
“If you are interested, you will be working with vigor long after most other men have knocked off, tired out, as they imagine. I don’t care to talk about myself, but I will say that whatever my efforts have amounted to they have been impelled by strong interest. The man who feels no enthusiasm for his work will never accomplish anything worth while. Work that is interesting does more than all the doctors to keep men alive and young. I endorse what Russell Sage says about vacations. I don’t believe in them. When a man who has worked hard for many years decides that he has earned a long vacation, and retires from business, it almost invariably means the beginning of the end for him.
“There is nothing strange in this. He has suddenly cut off the interests of a lifetime, and no longer has momentum to carry him along the road of life. On the other hand, look at the old men who have not retired. Russell Sage himself is an excellent illustration; but in his city, New York, where the business pace is supposed to be very swift and wearing, there are many others—patriarchs to whom the allotted span of threescore years and ten is beginning to look like comparative youth, and yet who still are handling great interests. If they had stopped work when they had made fortunes, most of them would have been long since dead.
“Several years ago a London physician of Lord Strathcona informed him that he was in a bad way; that his friends would be mourning his loss in a week unless he permitted himself to relax. In less than a month the death of the doctor made it impossible to withdraw his injunction, so Lord Strathcona has been on the go ever since. He is over eighty now, and is so vigorous that he thinks nothing of taking little business trips from London across the Atlantic and the continent of North America to Vancouver.
“I believe in recreation of course, but I think it should be of a kind that involves activity of the brain. My own mental rest I find in painting pictures. I am very fond of doing landscapes. This takes my mind into a sphere rather remote from railway earnings and expenditures, and is refreshing.”
Sir William showed me a number of his paintings. Some were hung on his walls among those of well-known landscape artists, and in the comparison they suffered not a particle. I commented upon this fact.
“You can’t be much of a judge of art,” he answered with a smile. In this matter, however, many good judges are agreed. It is remarkable that a rough and ready man of affairs, a captain of industry in the true sense, should be able to paint pictures of a quality that many a professional artist might well envy. But Sir William has even wider interests than railroad building and painting. He is largely identified with financial enterprises of great magnitude in the United States, and at present is much absorbed in developing the resources of Cuba, upon which island he believes there are opportunities among the finest in the world for men of either large or small capital.
In addition to these pursuits he is a botanist and geologist of wide and accurate knowledge, and has for years been a close student of the civilization and art of the Orient. Nothing delights him more than a conversation on the art products of China, and he takes great pleasure in showing his friends beautiful specimens in his large collection of Oriental pottery and pictures. Supplement to these interests those of the practical farmer and you will have a partial idea of the range of accomplishments of a man who was making his living at the age of thirteen, and is self-taught.
Sir William has an extensive farm not far from Winnipeg. On a recent occasion, when the agriculturists of the region were holding a meeting to discuss their relations with the Canadian Pacific Railway, and to air some little grievances which they thought they had, Sir William was present, and was called upon to make a speech. He slowly arose, and the tillers of the soil settled back in their chairs to listen to words of great weight and finality from the master spirit of the road.
“I am inclined to think, gentlemen,” said Sir William in one of his opening sentences, “that we farmers are pretty well treated by this road.” From this point the agriculturists were with him to a man, and they left the hall with the feeling that their interests could not be otherwise than well looked after by the railroad company, since at the head of it they had a fellow-farmer.
LIII
An Immigrant Boy Becomes a National Figure in Reform.
THERE died recently in Ohio a man who made a high place for himself in the community. He won a strong hold on the hearts of the working people. He commanded also the respect and support of the majority of law-abiding citizens. I refer to Samuel Jones, late head executive and reform mayor of Toledo. His fame spread fast without the bounds of the municipality, and throughout the nation. He became as widely known as Governor Pingree, of Michigan, as a friend of the people, and for his peculiar yet practical ideas of municipal, social and industrial reform. He also won distinction as an able writer and fluent speaker on the social and economic conditions which affect our national life so strongly to-day.
Besides having been a conspicuous philanthropist, reformer, public officer, orator and writer, it is to be noted that Mayor Jones was, first and last, a successful man of business. He was president of the Acme Oil Company; an inventor and manufacturer of a successful patent—the Acme sucker-rod—an implement for pumping oil wells. He made a fortune as a successful operator in oil, and did it without influence or backing—by dint of industry, honesty and push, starting as a penniless boy, with only such education as he could acquire by himself.
A man of large heart and broad mind, his life presents a stimulating, wholesome example of the self-made, conscientious man of wealth impelled by Christian sympathy, and stung into action by what appeared to him to be the stress of political, industrial and social injustice. He embraced the opportunity which his social position afforded, of carrying out and putting into practice some ideas, of which, quoting Heine, he said: “They have taken possession of me, and are forcing me into the conflict whether I will or not.”
As showing the man, a few incidents are apropos. On going to his factory, one morning, during the hard winter of 1896, Mr. Jones found that some of his office help had affixed a sign to the outside door, “No help wanted.” This he ordered taken away as being contrary to the spirit of the institution. “Men who apply for work should have at least a decent reception,” he said; “maybe we can help them by kind words, even if we have no work for them.”
During the years of financial depression the prosperity of the oil business was affected by the conditions prevalent throughout the country. Mr. Jones issued an order that his work-people should not suffer. “Keep a little flour in the barrel and see that they have coal enough to keep them warm,” was the order.