In 1886 he was appointed general manager of the road and the following year became general manager of the Wabash Western, comprising all of the Wabash lines west of the Mississippi and also between Chicago and Detroit. In 1889 he was appointed general manager of the reorganized and consolidated Wabash system and controlled the important and manifold interests of the railway for six years or until he resigned to become general manager of the Grand Trunk, succeeding L. J. Seargeant. Five years later he left the Grand Trunk to take the position of president of the Southern Pacific Railway Company but remained in that connection for only a year, as the railway passed under the control of the Harriman interests, whose policy differed from that of Mr. Hays. About that time he received a communication from Sir Charles Rivers Wilson, again offering him the position of general manager of the Grand Trunk and he returned to the latter road late in 1901 as second vice president and general manager. His connection therewith was continuous from that time until his demise, and on the retirement of Sir Charles Rivers Wilson in October, 1909, he was appointed president. In the meantime his connection with railway interests constantly broadened, making him one of the notable figures in railway circles on the American continent. He became president of the Central Vermont Railway, the Grand Trunk Western Railway, the Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee Railway, the Toledo, Saginaw & Muskegon Railway, the Michigan Air Line Railway, the Chicago, Detroit and Canada Grand Trunk Junction Railway, the Detroit & Toledo Shore Line, the Southern New England Railway Company, the Canadian Express Company, the Grand Trunk Railway Insurance & Provident Society and of various corporations featuring largely as factors in commercial and industrial development. He was chosen to the presidency of the St. Clair Tunnel Company, the International Bridge Company, the Montreal Warehousing Company, the Portland Elevator Company and the New England Elevator Company. He also represented the Grand Trunk Western Railway as a director of the Chicago & Western Indiana Railway and Belt Railway of Chicago.
In 1905 he was made a member of the permanent commission of the International Railway Congress and also a director of the United States Mortgage & Trust Company. He was a delegate to the Imperial Trades Congress in 1903. He became a director of the Royal Trust Company and the Merchants Bank of Canada and a director of the Canadian Board of the London & Lancashire Life Assurance Company. He was also a director of the Montreal Horticultural and Fruit Growing Association—a fact which indicated much of the breadth of his interests. His executive ability was sought as an element in the successful management of various benevolent, charitable and philanthropic enterprises. He was a governor of the Montreal General Hospital, a governor of the Royal Victoria Hospital and a governor of the McGill University. In 1907 he was decorated with the Order of the Rising Sun (third class) by the emperor of Japan.
He was a man of remarkable personality. Obstacles and difficulties seemed but a stimulus for renewed effort on his part and he was never happier than when he could grasp an opportunity and utilize it to the fullest extent or untangle a knotty problem in railway management and control. Mr. Hays was a well known figure in club circles, belonging to the Mount Royal, St. James, Canada, Forest and Stream, Montreal Jockey, Montreal Hunt, St. Maurice Fish and Game Club and the Laurentian Club of Montreal and the Rideau Club of Ottawa. Sir Wilfrid Laurier had termed him “a valuable acquisition to Canada,” and the Montreal Witness said he was “a splendid example of what brains, pluck and industry can overcome and accomplish,” while the Montreal Standard styled him “a man of quiet dignity, whose sanity and strength are seen and felt in all his undertakings.”
Mr. Hays was survived by his widow, who was Miss Clara J. Gregg, a daughter of William H. Gregg of St. Louis, Missouri, and four daughters, Mrs. George D. Hall, of Boston, Mrs. Thornton Davidson, Mrs. A. Harold Grier and Mrs. Hope C. Scott, of Montreal.
One of the ships that hastened to the relief of the Titanic recovered the body of Mr. Hays, which was brought back to Montreal for interment and laid to rest following one of the most imposing funerals ever accorded a civilian in this city. Mr. Hays worshipped at the American Presbyterian church of Montreal and was one of its trustees, but retained his membership in the First Presbyterian church of St. Louis, Missouri, and in the memorial services held in the former on the 25th of April, 1912, a sermon by the Rev. Dr. McKittrick, pastor of the First Presbyterian church of St. Louis, following the death of Mr. Hays, was read. He said in part: “The colossal catastrophe of the seas which has so recently startled and dismayed the civilized world could not pass today entirely unnoted in the temples of the living God. Among those who went down to their unexpected and, it seems to our vision, their untimely death, there was no man who worthily had a higher position in the social, industrial and financial world than Mr. Charles M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada. Since commonly the boy is father of the man we might almost refer to him as ‘our Mr. Hays’ for he was once in our Sunday School, and afterwards a member of our Board of Trustees. His is an inspiring example to all our boys and to every boy in the land of what may be accomplished by rightful purpose, industry, determination, all these by the worthy motives which variously constitute character. It took all the elements which are found in a manly man to make first so notable a record as was his in this city, and then to create for himself the distinguished name and for his undertaking the great prosperity which concerning both the history of today reveals.”
The following reference to Mr. Hays’ life and work was made at the close of public worship in the American Presbyterian church, Montreal, on Sabbath, April 28th. Dr. Johnston said: “The subject that we have been considering this morning has unavoidably suggested to you, as it has to me, many thoughts regarding the life, the death and the work of Mr. Charles M. Hays whose loss our land mourns today.
“Much has already been said of Mr. Hays as the railway magnate, the man of enterprise, the devoted husband and father and the loyal friend. Upon these phases of his character I will not therefore further dwell, but there remains something to be said of that feature of his life which, though less conspicuous to the general public, nevertheless lay deep and strong behind all these other characteristics, and was indeed the inspiration of them. We all in this congregation know the large place which Mr. Hays gave to the work and worship of the church, and the readiness with which his time and influence were always lent to its interests. He loved the House of God. That love, in a measure, was doubtless the result of early training in a home of whose deep religious character he ever loved to speak in terms of affection and appreciation. It was also due in part to his deep sense of what he owed in his place of great prominence to the community at large, and to a younger generation in particular, in the way of example. Most of all, however, it was due to his appreciation of the place that worship should have in every life, and to his deep sense of the need of every soul for those things that the House of God and its services can give. This attitude instead of lessening, as in so many lives it does, as responsibilities increased, and honours accumulated, deepened in Mr. Hays with the passing years.
“The continent-wide enterprises with which his name will always be associated were not simply enterprises and interests to him. They constituted a work, a ministry, which it was given him to administer for man, and through man for God. The tens of thousands for whom he had already thrown open the door of their exodus from European stagnation and oppression were his Israel, whom he, in God’s name, was leading out into liberty and larger life. These broad prairies and boundless stretches of Northern Saskatchewan and the Peace River district, those hitherto impassable Rockies, giving gateway to the flowering farmlands that slope toward the silver sands of the Pacific—these were his Canaan, which it was his to conquer, not with sword and clash of battle, but with genius and enterprise and the power of science, so that into the good ‘Land of Promise’ he might bring the oppressed peoples of the world, to make a nation strong in liberty and in righteousness.
“Did time permit I could tell you much of how Mr. Hays carried on his great heart, the toiling multitudes of earth and their needs, and of how it was to him a vision glorious that he was permitted in some measure to contribute to their uplift and redemption. He, too, like Israel’s leader, had looked upon the burdens of the people. To us it seems that, like Moses, he has been permitted only to view his promised land from afar. On the threshhold of completion he has been bidden to lay down his work. A broken column? A work incomplete? Yes, if this world is all, and this life the only life, but if death is indeed for the life that lives in Christ, not extinction but expansion, not frustration but promotion, than surely in some other of the many mansions in our Father’s one great house, they still serve who have ceased from labor here, and work with gladness for the bringing in of that day when throughout all the universe of God there shall be nothing to hurt nor to destroy, but ‘God shall be all and in all.’”
The press throughout the American continent united in tribute to Charles Melville Hays and under the caption of Montreal’s Loss the Gazette of April 19, 1912, said editorially: “Among the many places which will have home reasons for bearing the loss (April 15, 1912) of the steamship Titanic in sorrowful memory there will be few to rank before Montreal. Of residents who had won or were winning honorable places of usefulness in the city’s commercial life, no less than four ended their earthly career in the dark hours of Monday when the Atlantic waters closed over the wreck of what had been one of the world’s noblest vessels. First of these, of course, ranks Mr. Charles M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railways and director and adviser in many allied and other enterprises. Mr. Hays came to Montreal as a stranger, when the condition and fortunes of the Grand Trunk Railway were low indeed. The life had apparently gone out of the direction and a great property, with greater potentialities, was in danger of passing into bankruptcy. He and his associates found their task harder also because they were strangers. It was only a little while, however, before the city and the country, as well as the proprietors of the railway, recognized that in the new general manager, which was the title Mr. Hays then had, they had a man who for capacity ranked with the highest in his profession. With a slight interruption Mr. Hays has had chief executive control since 1897 of the Grand Trunk Railway. In that time it has been lifted physically to the standard of a high class, well equipped road, with few superiors in America. Financially it has been so improved as to meet the interest charges on the new capital raised for betterments and has been able to pay dividends on some of the older issues that once seemed to have lost all value as investments. In late years he was a chief moving spirit in the projection and construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, which is now approaching completion. His work in these connections speaks of his executive ability louder than can words written or spoken. It is only to be added that in all relations of life, business or social, he was a plain, courteous and kindly gentleman, to whom all were ready to pay in full measure the respect that he deserved.”