After the triumph of Lincoln’s noble purpose and binding of the nation’s wounds, folks slept in their beds. The great emancipator’s legacy—justice, forbearance, charity—stirred men profoundly and his appeals for amity revitalized the myriad dormant avocations of peace, foreshadowing an epoch of unparalleled activity. During five decades since, there has been work to do in United States of America and worthy men to do it. Uncle Sam has no commendable physical qualification if you concede him not two most perceptive normal optics together with an eye in the back of his head. In nepotism an unbeliever, with scant indulgence for clannishness and caste, this allegorical personage suffered all applicants to joust with his stalwart native sons and demonstrate their fitness to maintain the dignity of labor—the basic agency in creating his country’s present commercial pre-eminence. Was Solomon wiser? Behold the 256,547 miles of steel highway under operation in United States in this year of grace, which encompass the land like the network of veins in your torso, bringing each remote part into communion with the centres of life.
To the gradual accomplishment of this stupendous undertaking came a swelling stream of silver, ripening judgment, indomitable patience and a battalion of optimistic Canadians to “make good measure”.
Down the avenue of years, back as far as 1840, when the movement, unlike that northward to-day, was almost a stampede south, Canada had been loaning United States the best of her bone and sinew. Thousands of determined, capable young men craving new worlds to conquer, burned their bridges and sought a future midst beckoning possibilities which the Union held out to the youth of the day. Honestly received and judged, their colleagues verdict doth attest a high percentage have shared the burden in providing transportation, that paramount essential in advancing civilization.
Prophetic was Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s forecast “The nineteenth century belonged to United States but the twentieth will be Canada’s”, when one reflects that the year 1909 yielded 138,000,000 bushels of grain and beheld 90,966 shrewd Yankees, (Messieurs, your pardon), cross with cash and chattels to John Bull’s domain to participate in garnering 400,000,000 bushels in 1915 and 200,000,000 bushels in 1917. This exodus is a straw indicating one quarter from which blows the breeze. Will the outgoing tide float with it the scores of former Canadians who have, through industry and recognizance of trust, mortised into every department of railroading in United States? Will these naturalized, integral units in business and social organizations governed from Washington, sever the moorings of environment, association, intermarriage, to return to the land of their birth? Probably not. But who knows: the answer slumbers in the womb of the future.
What a deal of strenuous argument would have sufficed to coax James J. Hill, wizard of finance and foresight, from his art, enriched castle, St. Paul, to the farm near the village of Rockford, Ontario, where in boyhood, he followed the lowing herd and foraged for squirrels. Occasionally he sought denizens of the deep along the St. Lawrence or Labrador Coast, and he reached into fields and factories of the Dominion for tonnage, but the wealth and power he possessed and wielded so astutely behind the scenes for Great Northern Railway, et al, were not stumbled on with energies relaxed. His mature opinion regarding economic conditions and conservation of the country’s natural resources, was the outgrowth of years of watchfulness and a peculiar bent for accuracy in conclusion builded primarily on a heritage of worthy foundations. Like those homespun idols of the people, Presidents Grant, Garfield and McKinley, he lived close to the soil absorbing bodily vigor and clarity of judgment amid homely surroundings.
Biographies of such outstanding characters as Jim Hill make inspiring reading. If this generation’s youthful male population cultivate childhood’s imitative proclivities they could, with profit, emulate the perseverance of another young man from the same neighborhood. Foremost amongst those whose life work in the drama of ever changing railway activities has introduced them to a theatre for energetic effort in the sunny south, must be listed the name of W. B. Scott, President at New Orleans of the Texas Lines of the great Southern Pacific System. Guelph, Canada, with streets named to commemorate many Scottish cities, proudly boasts that he is her son. His success is the concrete result of hard work along given lines, and his journey from the duties of messenger boy in the freight shed of G.W.R.—G.T.R., via the route of C.P.R., Winnipeg, “Union Pacific” Omaha, Santa Fe at Chillecothe, &c., &c., to power and wealth is a fascinating study for younger railway men. He had been Director of Maintenance of Way & Operation for S.P.R. at Chicago, and his present most important position, helping to determine the policy of the vast network which annually transports hundreds of thousands of the world’s pleasure and health seekers, will give you an idea of the calibre of the man. He is modest to a degree, never reads what is printed about himself, is thoroughly inured by long experience, to the “hardships” of a private car and was well known by the late E. H. Harriman.
Close to Niagara Escarpment, at Hamilton, Ontario, where S. R. Callaway won his bride, railroading cast its spell broadcast, inoculating many promising youngsters. Graduates of the “Great Western”, “Hamilton & Northwestern” and “Northern” schools are scattered from Halifax to San Diego, from Vancouver to Honduras. James Charlton, first “G.P.A.” of the Great Western Railway, Canada, was a beacon light in guiding numerous proteges “up and along”. You may wager none of them imitated the behaviour of young Keenedge who, when saluted with “Does the train leave at Eleven sharp?” blandly replied, “Yes, or Eleven slow, if you like!” They all memorized and hummed the motto “Learn to labor and to wait”. John J. Byrne, from the same city, present Asst. Passr. Traffic Manager, Santa Fe Coast Lines, took up the refrain when setting out to contend with life’s odds and handicaps, and by doing the thing to be done with earnestness and fidelity, he also has compelled recognition, a distinguished place among his fellows and Mammon’s silver recompense. Through a similar “course of sprouts” and monotonous introduction to details passed James Horsburgh Jr., Genl. Passr. Agent, Southern Pacific Railway. With canny disinclination to “Bid the devil good-day before meeting him”, he philosophically set the pace in shouldering onerous duties and accomplished important results with the aid of a large corps of efficient assistants.
A contemporary of this trio and candidate for the order of merit is Alexander Hilton, or “Handsome Hilton”, as ladies know him, who also was born at Hamilton because his mother happened to be staying there at the time. He was “captured young” and as a junior developed that moral fibre and eager spirit which buoyed him while climbing the grade to the position of Passenger Traffic Manager, Frisco Lines.
Robert Somerville, a “C. & A.” Chicago veteran, now President Judson Company, was a Hamiltonian; likewise Dave Bowes, their General Manager. So was Harry Jameson, an auburn D.P.A., P.M.R. Harry Parry, indefatigable Asst. Genl. Passr. Agent, “N.Y.C. Lines”, Buffalo, the Jago Brothers, for years with the “West Shore” and A. W. Ecclestone, Dist. Passr. Agent, Nickel Plate, New York, claim the Ambitious City as birthplace. All keep in more than telepethic communication with friends there.
It is chronicled in the log that the bluff, jovial W. F. Herman, former “G.P.A.” of “C. & B.” Line, Cleveland, who takes to water like reynard to a partridge, got a bowing acquaintance with a vessel’s interior economy under W. K. Domville’s tutelage in the old “G.W.R.” shops at Hamilton. To this city, every now and then, comes W. L. Stannard, General Agent, C. & N.W.R., Detroit, on a brief visit to his respected sire, which stimulates the memory of other days.