So enamored is William R. Callaway, Genl. Passr. Agent, Soo Line, of the scenery and hunter’s paradise adjacent to his line that he dines with implements mounted with buckhorn purloined through a coach window by some friendly sharpshooter. He has ever been a pronounced independent in his methods, basking in no borrowed brilliancy, and as an original and persistent advertiser since the time of his regime as “D.P.A.”, “C.P.R.”, Toronto, this gentleman merits his unique reputation. It is whispered that when “relieving” some years ago at an Ontario hamlet, one seductive spring morning “W. R.” quit angling in the family aquarium, shut up shop and prepared to separate a few shiners from a creek close to the depot. Crawling well out on an overhanging branch he dropped anchor. Being then not versed in the gentle art tight rope balancing, drowsiness or anxiety soon precipitated a crisis. The would be Walton turned a couple of neat flip flaps and straightway “Father William” fathomed the moisture beneath. The fat hotelkeeper’s “Inexpressibles”, as Thackeray terms the garment, was the only alternative afterwards and the “G.P.A.” admits the ensemble would have made a hungry horse turn from his oats.
“If feasting, rise”, saith Opportunity: “Cities and fields I walk, I knock unbidden once at every gate.” Forsooth, the elusive sprite does and sometimes peers into secluded corners. Besides being awake at the psychological moment, a clever quartette who found “Hustle while you wait” their staunchest prop in reaching the plums were Herbert A. Jackson, W. R. Callaway, J. A. Holden and Geo. O. Somers. Mr. Somers started in life with none of the helps designated as luck. No doubt, he thought of ease but worked on through each consecutive group of wearying exactions. As the architect of his own fortune the progress of this village boy may be gauged by his former title, traffic manager of United Fruit Company’s fleet of eighty craft, to which William Mullins, of London and Toronto, promptly succeeded and to-day directs his corporation’s developments in Cuba.
E. F. L. Sturdee,
General Agent, Passenger Department,
Canadian Pacific Railway, Boston, Mass.
A Maritime Province Product from St. John, N.B.
Energy unsparingly applied was James A. Holden’s key to the door of advancement, which once open disclosed the road to preferment growing smoother and wider. Always in the atmosphere of moguls and shunts when a stripling, nurtured in routine as biller, telegrapher, superintendent’s clerk, agent, &c., he found it easy after getting in motion, to push on to St. Louis and the Frisco Railway, to an executive place with “C.O. & G.R.”, thence Chicago and the freight traffic managership of Rock Island Lines. Mr. Holden, who is Vice-President of Kansas City Southern Railroad, but just now busy with the Director General of Railroads at Washington, intimates that he reached this goal without cause to complain of the way he has been dealt with. He was a railroader’s son from Whitby, Canada, and office boy in ’77 on the now almost forgotten Whitby, Port Perry & Lindsay Railway.
It was the primitive equipment of the pioneer Whitby, Port Perry & Lindsay Railway, meandering through forest and farm, which hypnotized youthful John W. Platten, Port Perry, who became afterwards a Vice-President and influential executive officer of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Prior to this he spent some time with the “G.P.A.” and President of the “Erie” at Cleveland, and had been Treasurer of the deceased Central Bank of Canada, which prepared and qualified him for the position of President and General Manager of United States Trust & Mortgage Company. He is also Chairman for the share-holders of “White Star” common stock and with E. E. Loomis, President “L.V.R.”, made a special train survey and report regarding the value of the “Canadian Northern Ry.” a couple of years ago. Mr. Platten has lately been elected President of the Gulf, Mobile & Northern Railroad. The sponsors of the “L.V.” traffic artery from Niagara to tidewater, “fancied” three other Canucks in the persons of John S. Wood, Asst. Genl. Freight Agent, Geo. W. Hay, General Baggage Agent and N. W. Pringle, A.G.P.A., New York.
Take courage, all ye who falter: retemper the spring in your spine, as hard work, thrift and a mastery of the duties of the desk next above is Mr. Jarvis’s recipe for raising one’s status and stipend. The majority—whether Briton, Frank or Celt—accept this dictum and make obeisance to the inexorable law: wherefore, the sons of “Our Lady of the Snows” cheerfully caught hold and lifted with their cousins. Shoulder to shoulder these joint decendents of kindred mother stock have added to the national wealth by perfecting means for distributing inland and export trade to the widest possible compass. The annual interchange of business between United States and the fatherland of Canadians abroad exceeded $700,000,000, being third to what was transacted before the war with England and Germany, while their collaboration in multiplying communications has wrought incalculable gain to international good will. The natural affinities of the two Anglo Saxon families dominating North America cement the industrial and social fabric.