Chapter M: C. DICKSON, Ex-District Passenger Agent, G.T.R., Toronto, (1)

formerly C.P.A. Union Pacific Ry. in Ontario.

THOMAS HENRY, Chief of Commissariat, Canada Steamship Lines,
formerly General Agent, Northern Pacific Railway, Montreal.

E. ALLEN, widely known Superintendent, Canadian Express Co.,
Toronto.

The late WM. G. MCLEAN, of Beatty Line and C.P.R., former General
Agent, G.N. Railway, Toronto and Montreal.

JOHN PAUL, District Freight Agent, Canadian Northern Railway,
Winnipeg and former agent M.C.R., London, Ont.
]

Three different gauges, or widths between rails, were accepted as standard in different parts of Canada and United States at that time, and to permit interchange of equipment, three rails were sometimes laid. Just before the adoption of the standard, broad gauge, 4 feet, 8½ inches, became general in America, a good-sized party bound for the west were delayed at Toronto half a day awaiting the readjustment of that portion of the “Great Western” to Hamilton, Ont. In the forenoon one rail over the entire distance, 39 odd miles, was moved in and spiked down in its new position. This must have been quite a feat 35 years ago in the absence of those simplifying methods practiced to-day. John Weatherston, father of Nicholas and Robert of the same name, supervised the work.

Moving westward over designated routes from Chicago, the canary-colored coaches were pulled by locomotives with yellow bellied boilers, wheels painted scarlet and ponderous smokestacks--hummers in the old days--but antiques in 1918. They bore such names as Antelope, Reindeer, Thistle, &c., as well as of prominent people.

BOIL THEM WHEN THEY’RE TOUGH

Picking her way daintily through the grime of the locomotive works, a young woman visitor viewed the huge operations with visible awe. Turning to a young man from the office who was shewing her through and pointing, she asked, “What is that big thing over there?”

“That’s a locomotive boiler”, said the guide.

She puckered her brows.

“And what do they boil locomotives for?” she enquired.

“To make the locomotive tender”, said the young man from the office, with amazing effrontery.

YOUNG’S MAGAZINE

What a shock it would be to My Lady’s complacency if, on her journey now, she should find it necessary to raise a sunshade in the coach to protect her raiment from the rain and snow sifting through the chinks and rifts in the car. This age is not without some blessings, as Ben Fletcher might have exclaimed. We are reminded here of a characteristic of Mr. Fletcher, who was advance agent for “D.G.H. & M.” He had been working up business for an excursion to Nebraska, which did not “pan out,” one solitary passenger offering his patronage. The selling agent wired him for instructions and received reply couched thusly: “By the great horned toad Reginald, chain him to the seat!”

The “St. P.M. & M.,” at birth “St. Paul & Pacific,” later converted by astute minds into the “Great Northern Railway,” was the railroad which gave that big quartette, Messrs. Angus, Smith, Hill and Stephens, a gilt-edged monopoly of Manitoba emigration and, incidentally, the patronage of dame fortune. Men and chattels had only shank’s mare as an alternative to this line northward from St. Paul as far as Fisher’s Landing, a Red River port. Here, transfer was made to the Kittson Line of steamboats plying to Fort Garry now Winnipeg, and owned by Norman Kittson, a colleague of J. J. Hill in some early business ventures. In winter the trip was made by stage travelling part way over thick ice. Mr. Kittson was one of several successors to Anson Northrup, the pioneer navigator of the Upper Mississippi River who launched his first craft there in 1835.

The Great Northern Railway, during the time of the Manitoba boom, and since, was championed in Canada by “live wires” such as Jack Huckins, resourceful Ham McMicken, who is acting for the road in Europe at present, Messrs. Kinsley, Graves, Wurtele, Watkins, Hetherington, Tudor and Brooks.

James M. Taylor, in charge of affairs for “C.M. & St. P.R.,” during those strenuous days, pulled off the biggest coup of the period I attempt to sketch, in securing for his line a party which originated at Millbrook, Ont., and is said to have consisted of or influenced 500 people together with 55 carloads of effects. Mr. A. Leach, who was ticket agent there then, capably fills that position to-day.

The idea which the “President’s Agreement” made concrete in February, 1900, was ridiculed twenty years before and the system of commissions to agents for ticket sales being in vogue, competition waxed lively. For obvious reasons the standards of remuneration did not always remain stationary; fancy prices and fat drafts swelled many a bank balance.

Although few dismissals and re-engagements by telegraph were bulletined, the foreign railway man’s berth never was considered as sure as taxes. For brief periods in those stirring times, the commission paid to agents for each ticket reading from a point in Eastern Canada to the Pacific Seaboard netted $11.00 to $15.00. Inside information about methods and means, dormant in the book shelves of many an agent’s memory, would have made interesting anecdotes had one gained the favor of men like Tom Ford, T.P.A., G.T.R., W. J. Grant, for a time with “Mobile & Ohio” in Canada, Geo. W. Hibbard, former A.G.P.A., C.P.R., Montreal, unfortunate Alex Drysdale, who lost his sight and was pensioned by the Chicago & Alton Railroad, and the erudite M. B. “Garfield” Tooker, the Beau Brummel of many a husting. Heard you ever of Mr. Tooker’s perceptive olefactory membrane? How he accurately distinguished, though blindfolded, the odor of a dozen different perfumes in J. Livingstone’s store in Listowel. Then behold, the unkindest cut of all: some mischievous scamp thrust an uncorked bottle of skunk oil beneath his nose.

Another scout, robust and in commercial life at Hamilton to-day, who links the past and present, is D. O. Pease years ago with the Great Western Railway. Dan Pease is the proud possessor of the long delayed Fenian Raid medal, and when William Edgar appointed him D.P.A., G.T.R., Montreal, he evinced during twelve years in that capacity, an enthusiastic interest in military matters and movement of troops. Conversant with shipping and the French language, shrewd and sauve, he successively represented the C.M. & St. P.R. for several years in Quebec in the early days, and relates an incident about a ticket agent in Prince Edward Island who booked a party of twenty round trips to California and out of the bountiful commissions purchased for his wife a fine horse, harness and basket buggy.

Canadian Ticket Agents’ Association

Representative group of officers and members present at Annual Meeting, Buffalo, October, 1909.

Pictured beside C. & N.W.R. Terminal, Chicago

H. G. THORLEY, Ontario Passenger Agent, White Star Line,
Toronto; C. R. MORGAN, Ticket Clerk, C.T.A., G.T.R., Hamilton,
Overseas; F. W. CHURCHILL, City Passenger Agent, C.P.R.,
Collingwood; A. PHILIPS, City Passenger Agent, G.T.R.,
Huntington, P.Q., now M.L.A.; T. L. THOMSON, C.T.A., C. &
P.E.I.R., Charlottetown, P.E.I.; DR. J. W. SHAW, Honorary
Physician, Clinton, now overseas; WILL LAHEY, C.P.A., C.P.R.,
Brantford; W. WARD, C.T.A., G.T.R., Dresden, Ont.; H. J.
MOOREHOUSE, C.P.A., C.P.R., Sault Ste. Marie; H. M. BOHREER,
D.P.A., “M. & O.,” Chicago; ARTHUR HARE, C.P.A. “Wabash,”
Tillsonburg; M. MCNAMARA, C.T.A., G.T.R., Walkerton, Collector
Customs; W. MCILROY, C.P.A., C.P.R., Peterborough; E. DE LA
HOOKE, C.P.A., G.T.R., London, Ont., Secretary-Treasurer; J. P.
HANLEY, C.P.A., G.T.R., Kingston, Vice-President; R. J. CRAIG,
C.P.A., C.P.R., Cobourg, President; W. JACKSON, C.P.A., C.P.R.,
Clinton; W. BUNTON, C.P.A., G.T.R., Peterborough; C. E. MORGAN,
C.P.A., G.T.R., Hamilton; R. L. MORTIMER, C.P.A., G.T.R.,
Shelburne; GEO. B. WYLLIE, T.P.A., Illinois Central Railway,
Buffalo, N.Y.
]

There are quite a number of agents, active in transportation matters at the present time, who took part in and recall the friendly but whirlwind competition “American” lines indulged in to obtain the lion’s share of business moving beyond the border. Forty years rest lightly indeed, on them all and a baker’s dozen chosen at random might well include Edward de la Hooke, London, dean of the faculty, erect, vigorous and immaculate, who began railroading in Hamilton in 1864, W. G. Webster, a colt yet and an inveterate wag, who resides in Chicago, J. A. McKenzie, Woodstock, Will Jackson, Clinton W. Somerville, Seaforth, James Dore, Mitchell, R. Lauder, Goderich, C. L. King, Kincardine, John Towner, Stratford, P. Robertson and R. E. Waugh, Hamilton, Dick Shea, Palmerston, W. E. Rispin, Chatham, Dan. Hayes, London, Geo. McCallum, Galt, a storehouse of ancient history; C. E. Horning, Toronto, Tom Evans, London, John Paul, Dave Dover and Alex. Calder, Winnipeg, W. H. King, St. Thomas, J. Quinlan, Montreal, W. H. Clancy, now living in Toronto, (a wit with an “Emerald” flavor), A. E. Lalande, Montreal, J. B. Lambkin, Halifax, D. Carruthers, Quebec, John Lyons, Moncton, and J. M. Riddell, Portland. The names U. E. Thompson, Belleville, John Foy, Toronto, A. H. Taylor, Ottawa, C. E. Morgan, Hamilton, J. Tierney, Arnprior, W. Bunton, Peterborough, W. H. Harper, Chatham, Alex. Notman, Toronto, Joseph Heffernan, Guelph, Louis Drago, Niagara Falls and John Gray live in the memory although they have ceased their labors.

Among such as these was and is business and co-operation sought by that original and persistent advertiser, W. R. Callaway, once station master at Walkerton, now G.P.A., Soo Line; S. H. Palmer, C.P.A., M.C.R.; Harry W. Steinhoff, Geo. H. Anthony, Varnie Russell, R. G. McCraw of W.C.R. (the Soo’s new arm), D. W. Hatch, connected with A.T. & S.F.R.; C. Hartigan, Rutland Railway, and that big four who so well attended to Northern Pacific Railway affairs, Messrs. Walter E. Belcher, W. G. Mason, George Dew, Thomas Henry, and their collaborators, Geo. W. Hardisty, Geo. McCaskey and Geo. Barnes. Guided by Armand Lalonde, the “B. & M.” scored often. They could tell you of long drives in good and indifferent weather into the surrounding country seeking prospective passengers and good locations for the half and quarter sheet style of advertising so much used then; of hard and fast arrangements upset in a thrice accompanied by restitution of deposits given to clinch the deal and of mysterious cheques which seemed to spring from nowhere in particular when the management forbade their acceptance. They smile when recounting methods used to test if agents were sticking to tariff. I remember the case of one stool pigeon who, after obtaining the favor of a ticket at a rate partially unconfirmed, selling it with intent to a rival organization to be utilized in trapping the enemy. He made a required affidavit as to purchase price and the subterfuge, with its charge of irregularity hingeing thereon, had not been operative an hour before the resourceful agent who sold him the ticket, effectively turned the tables causing the spotter’s arrest on the grounds “false pretences,” and that worthy received his liberty under suspended sentence together with a reprimand.

While these diversified events were finding a niche in history, M. V. McGinnis and Major E. M. Peel, a lover of horseflesh, were on the war path for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and their contemporary, W. T. Dockrill, present T.P.A., C.P.R., was a “big issue” in another direction. A busy man with a portable railroad in his “carpet-bag” ticket case, he created quite a furore years ago in the vicinity of Brockville. From November, 1883 to June 1885 he traveled on the “C.P.R.” trains between that city, Ottawa and Smiths Falls exchanging prepaid orders and ticketing westbound business. In July, 1885, the C.P.R. was completed to a point beyond Jackfish and from track-end there, the heroes of the Battle of Batoche marched across the arm of Lake Superior before the bridge linking up the western extension was erected. During the time the different contracts were completing, the builders released at intervals, 10,000 laborers and navvies in lots of fifty, one hundred and two hundred, who traveled via Carleton Junction to Brockville on orders issued by the agents appointed after each station had been established behind the scene of operations. These exchange orders were seldom fully routed and Mr. Dockrill thus controlled heavy business which he, in competition with G.T.R., directed round the horn via ferry and Morristown, N.Y., thence Utica & Black River Railway, an abbreviated but prolific “feeder” to “Canada Southern” through St. Thomas and “L.S. & M.S.” by the way of Buffalo.

Traveling Passenger Agent, Canadian Pacific Railway.]

In 1881 rumors of consolidation of existing railway systems in Ontario were bruited about by those “in the know” and the steady, westward extension of the “C.P.R.” sowed uneasiness where the interests via “Chicago-St. Paul Route” were cherished. August 11th and 12th, 1882, witnessed the amalgamation of “Great Western” and “Grand Trunk.” William Edgar then was “G.P.A.” at Hamilton and Mr. Geo. T. Bell, present Passenger Traffic Manager, Grand Trunk Railway System, made stenographic hooks and crooks for him.

November 2nd, 1885, marked an epoch in the annals of the prairie provinces. Although previously used for transportation of troops, it was the date when Canadian Pacific Railway equipment first rolled into Winnipeg under a schedule. The event was fraught with much import to Manitoba and forged an item of significance in the history of the Dominion. The national character of Van Horne’s project and the prestige of the sponsors of this great pioneer, western Canadian line attracted to it the major portion of freight traffic which had been moving via other channels, and by demanding the privilege of preferential passenger rates, based on newness, geographical position and inaccessibility, the patronage of the “Homeseeker” was diverted, practically en masse, from United States lines which had enjoyed the pickings unmolested for eight years. This reversal of conditions left not even all the “Dakota” business to the latter, and with a single exception, the Chicago-St. Paul and allied systems, one by one, abolished Canadian agencies and withdrew their representatives from active participation in the chase.

Then it was that General Passenger Agents Carpenter, Charlton, St. John, Stennett and Barnes, in the seats of the mighty at Chicago and St. Paul, felt a temporary modification of interest in Canadian passenger affairs. Geo. Barnes afterwards resigned from the Northern Pacific Ry, entering commercial life as a piano manufacturer, and, I believe, made a fortune.

District Passenger Agent, Mich. Cent. Railway, St. Thomas, Civil War Veteran. Formerly connected with “Atlantic & Great Western,” “Erie & Pittsburg,” “Canada Southern.”]

These changes, however, did not impair the business relations then budding between “U.S.” merchants and Canadian importers, and the railroads of the neighboring republic realized that it behooved them to look jealously after their individual share of lumber, broom corn and cotton goods from the Southwest, seeds, citrus and deciduous fruits from California, tinned salmon and shingles from the North Pacific Coast and consignments of matting, silks, bamboo, rice, etc., disembarked along Puget Sound.

The man in the street might puzzle over the price of his breakfast orange if he reflected that some days 20 carloads of this marmalade fruit now and then gluts the local markets at Montreal and Toronto.

A certain percentage of such incoming cars, after unloading, are returned laden with hides to Milwaukee’s greatest tannery, clay, cordage, fish, lumber and sand; pedigreed sheep for Idaho and Oregon ranchmen, hair for San Francisco plasterers, gums, glass, nuts, salt, and tinplate from Atlantic Coast wharves; also with ton upon ton of coveted Canadian woodpulp which reappears as the basis for newspaper headlines.

Historians of railroad progress chronicled continued extension until the ramifications of the “G.T.R.” and subsidiary properties, gradually gridironed the Province of Ontario with a network of branches, despite obstacles, not always anticipated. A most deplorable happening, and severe financial setback, was the accident which occurred on February 27th, 1889. In the evening of that date “G.T.R.” eastbound express, No. 55, en route Hamilton in charge of conductor Dan Revells, crashed through a bridge at St. George, snuffing out the lives and injuring more than two score passengers. Mr. J. A. Richardson, widely known as Canadian Passenger Agent, Wabash Railroad, and a veteran business getter, had, under pressure on the part of friends, left his train at London. The seat he vacated there was taken by William Wemp, Immigration Agent of “C.M. & St. P.R.” Poor Wemp was numbered among the killed. This proved to be the worst Canadian railroad disaster since March 12th, 1857, when sixty people died in the Des Jardins Canal wreck.

From 1891 to 1898 seven lean years spread stagnation and hard times abroad in the land, discouraging operations of “U.S.” corporations in Canada, but 1900 beheld a restored confidence pulsating the arteries of trade. British Columbia felt the stimulus, the optimistic Northwest clamored for improved transportation facilities, while J. J. Hill surveyed from afar the possibilities in duplicating portions, at least, of “C.P.R.” Later, his policy got the wedge’s thin end into “Kootenai” and Vancouver, which quickly resulted in heavier tonnage prospects from Ontario and Quebec for his trains. Canadian Northern Railway activity in Manitoba followed by the deal that province’s government entered into with President Mellen of Northern Pacific Railway, threw open a previously restricted area giving United States lines to the south larger opportunities and scope, which compelled their attention once more.

The complexion of things had undergone a change in twenty-five years and the traffic the returning “American” railroads now seek and appreciate comprises not only settler’s outfit and pressing needs, but everything from a car of seaweed to a circus train and the variety runs the gamut of raw and manufactured products. Your westerner unconsciously imbibes large ideas with the unpolluted ozone of the boundless prairies. He courts sleep in a metal bed from Ontario, bathes in a porcelain-lined tub and eats well. If he has them, he freely parts with his ducats for carloads of biscuits, butter, bacon and eggs; cheese, flour, canned vegetables, condensed milk, syrups, marmalades and sweets which come from the east. Recently a train of cars containing John Barleycorn’s headache provoker flaunted boldly across the horizon heading due west to the opulent personage who imports his pianos and autos in big lots regularly. Mark you, more than 200 carloads of “Niagara” grown grapes, peaches and mixed fruit roll out to the blooming prairie every season over bridge and ferry and into the tunnel’s insatiable maw at Sarnia.

The substantial growth of Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie, Brandon, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton and Pacific Coast cities, and the mushroom proclivities of many a lesser burg, has given a marked impetus to the spirit of competition in manufacturing and railway circles. In the face of an exaggerated propaganda about bounding difficulties, and the like, and a strong but diminishing pro-Canadian sentiment, the men behind the gun annually dispatch and receive by way of Rouse’s Point, Suspension Bridge, Port Huron, The Sault, etc., merchandise worth thousands of dollars which our cousins eagerly solicit, working for the haul in conjunction with Canadian railway lines. Eight hundred carloads a year would be, according to some men’s estimate, a modest shewing, but, after all, conditions considered, it is a tidy, “found” business in and out of Canada for an individual “U.S.” line to secure or relinquish. I have known a single railroad’s catch in Ontario to exceed, on several occasions, three hundred carloads a month, 95 per cent. of this tonnage going to Manitoba and British Columbia destinations, the fresh fruit receiving exceptional attention and other commodities making scheduled runs to Winnipeg well within five days, and to Vancouver in twelve days’ time. It is estimated that via the various avenues between the two nations, from Coast to Coast, two carloads of freight a minute pass into the republic to the south as a result of the crusade of its railroad corporations.

In more than one tight pinch “U.S.” railways have come to the fore, furnishing an expeditious alternative when shipper and consignee have been stewing over congested yards, crippled motive power, notorious scarcity of cars, strike and snow disadvantages which trouble every line sooner or later and which are not unknown to the men piloting the Canadian railway interests to success.

Twenty-two foreign railroads, nine operating in the east and central States, and thirteen western companies, each maintain one to six passenger and commercial offices in this country. Affairs pertaining thereto are supervised by Canadian Agents, Division, General and Travelling Agents, Contracting Representatives, Solicitors, City Canvassers and Counter Clerks. The combined staff numbers 100 men. With few exceptions, they are natives of the soil; familiar with local conditions, and are liberal dispensers of a good deal of salary, rentals, incidental expense monies and sunshine. [A]In rounding up traffic the tactics which obtain include direct solicitation with shipper, consignee and traveller; the assiduous cultivation of the man who pays the freight or buys the tickets, and canvass of stationary railway agents, whose judgment often dictates via what junctions and lines unrouted shipments, and passengers without pre-arranged itinerary, should be routed. Prompt dispatch and trains “on time” are cardinal requisites in luring trade and holding a continuance of favor. The personality and perseverance of the foreign road agent has an important bearing on results. Changeable climatic conditions divert certain commodities and influence the warm zone hunter from one channel to another. Warehouse and track facilities play a part in the scheme of convenience, and that indefinite quantity, sentiment, colors calculations, though shifty as smoke. Unsettled claims occasionally rile the temper and switch a lot of business to the lynx-eyed competitor who watches while he works. Friendly, but contending factions, lock horns for the haul of a single carload. San Francisco and Vancouver agents, acting in concert with their confreres at Winnipeg, Halifax or Hamilton, keep the wires sizzling. Perhaps, some of the “big wigs” put a finger in the pie, and to score a point, resort to every permissable ruse save, let us hope, that dishonorable weapon, the bogus telegram.

[A] Owing to exigencies of the war, and responding to a law
enforced by W. G. McAdoo, Director General of Railroads,
all United States railway agencies have again been
withdrawn from Canada.

Necessity has slowly convinced numerous hesitating shippers and travellers that the canvass of those United States railroads, looking to Canada for business, has more behind it than a cloven hoof; that sometimes an extra string to one’s bow is a really effective precautionary measure.

The pack animal, oxen and primitive implements of the pioneer who pierced the wilderness and first scratched the surface of the last west, have steadily given place to the steel ribboned highway and thus, on “easy street” when compared with his progenitor, the modern colonizer is linking the old with the new and accomplishing, by successive stages, the development of our pregnant western heritage.

Nowadays, discriminating tourists, individually or in parties, the banker speculator, merchant prince in his own car, and commercial man having business in Europe, at the Pacific Coast or in Manitoba, more and more frequently requests that the New York or Chicago gateway should figure in their itinerary to permit enjoyment of the unsurpassed service and scenic environment of those routes which justly deserve the public’s endorsement.

Trade relations between United States and Canadian railroads systems constantly grow more intimate and wield an unmistakable influence in the strengthening of those bonds, commercial and sentimental, which make for the good of all concerned. This interchange broadens our knowledge of each other and tends to more completely harmonize the aims and aspirations of the two nations.

1. B. H. BENNETT, General Agent, C. & N.W.R., Toronto, Ont.

2. E. T. BOLAND, Manager, Robert Reford Co., Toronto.

3. R. CREELMAN, General Passenger Agent, Canadian Northern
Railway, Winnipeg, Man.

4. GEO. COLLINS, Superintendent, C.N.R., Trenton, Ont.
Ex-General Manager, Central Ont. R’y.

5. A. D. HUFF, Traffic Manager, Canadian Export Paper Co.,
Montreal, former D.F.A., G.T.R., Ottawa.

6. L. MACDONALD, Division Freight Agent, Grand Trunk Railway,
Toronto, Ont.

7. M. MCGREGOR, General Canadian Freight Agent, Erie Railroad,
Toronto, Canada.

8. C. E. MCPHERSON, Ass’t Pass’r Traffic Manager, Canadian
Pacific Railway, Winnipeg, Man.

9. P. G. MOONEY, Assistant General Freight Agent, Canadian
Northern Railway, Toronto.

10. H. P. SHARPE, General Agent, Dominion Express Company,
Toronto.

11. H. G. THORLEY, Passenger Agent for Ontario, White
Star--Dominion Line, Toronto.
]

A WIZARD WHEN IN BUD

THOMAS A. EDISON

The G.T.R.--G.W.R. Conductor, on whose trains “Tommy” Edison was newsboy and juvenile publisher. Conductor Draper ran through London for 44 years.]

Napoleon Bonaparte on isolated St. Helena, when rebelliously pacing beside his titled and devoted aide one gloomy day exclaimed “Montholon! Montholon! the world has produced but three great generals--Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar and myself.” What monumental self esteem. Strategist and tacticial genius though he proved himself, such plannings and ambition at that period meant the circumvention and bloody ruin of his fellow men and their household gods. Introducing here the Little Corporal’s egoism, the chaotic condition of the times and his campaigns of destruction serve to emphasize the wonderfully constructive and scientific achievements so quietly evolved for man’s benefit by the brain of another but unwarlike genius, Thomas Alva Edison. Until Armageddon, his has been a peaceful era with ploughshares replacing swords and commerce expanding unmolested.

To the Land of Evangeline, his Netherlands forebears are said to have treked with the United Empire Loyalists in Revolutionary times. A generation later they left Nova Scotia and settled in that part of the Province of Ontario now registered as the County of Norfolk. Near the little town of Vienna, close to Lake Erie’s shore, where I believe relatives still reside, Thomas Edison’s elder brothers were born, but not until after 1837, when Robert Edison transferred his family to Milan, Ohio, twelve miles from Lake Erie, did the lad Thomas and his sister first behold the sunshine, the birth of the former occurring February, 1847.

Evidently his elementary education began in that state, but the fact that his brother Pitt Edison, managed a street railway at Port Huron, Michigan, probably accounts for the lad’s presence thereabouts and furnished an incentive to his precocious, nomadic predilections. Joseph Draper from the County of Tipperary, ninety-year-old veteran, living in Toronto, recently deceased, who was in 1855 a giant conductor with the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron Railroad, (Northern Railway), told me he remembered well how young Thomas Edison later on sold newspapers between Detroit and Port Huron, on his trains running through to Sarnia and London. He declared that the embryo merchant was an active, well behaved and likeable stripling who, even during the chrysalis stage, nourished a specific bent by carrying with him a portable telegraph key. During the weary months of the Civil War, 1862–3, he obtained in Detroit a printing press, old type, with accessories and learning the contents of war bulletins, etc., from station to station, set up and printed the news and jokes which he sold along the line under the caption “Grand Trunk Herald.”

Conductor Draper said he was often compelled to reprimand the boy for tinkering with chemicals and for his untidiness with bottles in that corner of the baggage car where he kept his stock of magazines and candy. He intimated also that about this time the young experimentor risked his life in saving the child of the Grand Trunk Railway Agent at Mount Clemens, Michigan, from an onrushing train and the grateful father taught him telegraphing.

Living in an atmosphere of daily contact with keys and sounders, he took to “jerking lightning” like a sailor to the sea, soon becoming proficient.

“This is the song of the wire--
The electric wire:
The slender thread with a soul of fire,
With the wings of light that shall never tire,
With a power and grandeur awful and dire;
The electric wire.”

In 1867 he worked on the wire, covering the “night trick” at Stratford, Ont., and was also at Park Hill, where the late George B. Reeve, of Grand Trunk--Southern Pacific prominence, picked up operating. In the autumn of 1913 when the Stratford, Ont., yard limits were extended and reorganized to conform to the requirements of the new “Grand Trunk” station, opened in December of that year, the old eastend ducat, (dovecote-do’ecot), in which young Edison is said to have served a part of his apprenticeship as an operator, was torn down to make way for a modern signal tower.

Every railroad telegrapher is said to experience once, sooner or later during his career, being temporarily petrified with alarm on finding he has ordered two trains to pass “head on” or from the rear on a single track. Railroad rumor only is my authority for repeating a report that young Edison figured in such a collision on paper. The publication “Railways and Other Ways” quotes an interview given by Mr. Edison at London, Canada, many years ago in which the great inventor referred to his oversight when a youth at Stratford in overlooking the delivery to conductor of a train order the result of which permitted two trains to approach on a single track. Fortunately the line between Stratford and St. Marys Junction was straight and an accident may have been averted by quick thinking and rapid action.

In many guises I have heard repeated the story of his original device for answering his dispatcher’s call though wrapped in the arms of Morpheus for forty pilfered winks. He was working in Western Ontario and the rule declared that each operator should keep in touch with the dispatcher every hour while on duty, write “6” and sign their telegraphic signature of a letter or two. This meant the next thing to eternal vigilance during the quiet, lonesome hours of the night. It would appear Edison attached an extra wheel to the mechanism of the office clock, governing it by an independent spring. Around the rim of this wheel he cut dots and dashes spelling the stereotyped message and his code “Sig.”, arranging the wheel’s position so that it made one revolution each hour at the time agents usually flashed “All well.” From the clock pinions a series of wire coils connected with a weak solution jar battery, were rigged and thence passing over the telegraph key joined the charged main wires leading therefrom. When the clock struck each hour the supplementary wheel sent the necessary intermittent ticks along the temporary mediums and were in turn transmitted via the trunk wires to headquarters. The version given me by another “oldest inhabitant” would indicate that he had the night watchman trained to turn the wheel hourly by hand. With such ingenuity did the budding inventor abbreviate his nocturnal vigils and conductors Mammoth Johnston and silk hat Dick Thorpe never knew the difference as they whizzed past into the encircling gloom. This anecdote bears the hall mark of a measure of probability and has been vouched for by some of Edison’s contemporaries, but the yarn that he once affixed to the telegraphic office door a contrivance that made it collide with the nasal organ of a spying superintendent is likely spurious. When working at Fort Gratiot he introduced without fuss or feathers, an improvement in relaying messages across the River at Sarnia which reduced the labor involved by half, evincing in this test an early aversion to ponderous method and high costs, which has characterized his subsequent experiments and helpful discoveries.

In his commercial wire practice at Detroit his colleagues of other days remember him as a good press reporter whose handwriting resembled printing more than a string of Spencerian script. They tell how he tied the Gotham wiseacres and would be jokers into knots with his deliberateness and speed, the key and its characters being a part of him, like a Centaur and his horse. His demeanor was at times friendly and discursive, followed by spells of dreamy reflection and profound reticence and he would frequently immerse himself in tinkerings with the sounder and key, adding to and endeavoring to make them different and more amenable to his advanced ideas. The reel with a paper ribbon on which a message from the other end was registered by means of dots and dashes indented thereon, had not then been entirely replaced by the sound system.

On February 24th, 1868, Mr. Edison arrived in Toronto en route Boston, and after a brief visit with his former friend John Murray, a well known dispatcher, afterwards some years at Belleville, started eastward. On this date a traffic paralyzing three day storm set in and the “G.T.R.” train was snow stalled, compelling Mr. Edison and several others to return. Expecting improved weather and resumption of train service, he spent considerable time about the old depot and men who met him then state that he was a desultory talker, an inveterate thinker and a chain smoker quite oblivious to the fleeting hours of the night. The late James Stephenson was superintendent at Toronto that winter, Henry Bourlier so long and honorably connected with the Allans, was station agent, W. A. Wilson, erect and active to-day, just recently retired from the “New York Central,” was the Morse Code operator, W. C. Nunn--inventor of a railway signal device in 1856--was agent at Belville and “the admiral,” Mr. Frederick J. Glackmeyer, Ontario Parliamentary Sergeant-at-Arms, December 27th, 1867 (50 years) 1917, had only two months before bid adieu to ticket work in the old station where Thomas Edison purchased his ticket.

On February 27th, he again essayed the sixteen hour journey to Montreal, and at Boston in 1870 the Duplex System appeared, enabling two operators to send independent messages over a single wire. Then came his perfection of the Quadruplex, permitting two people at each end to forward and receive telegrams simultaneously.

His astounding creative mentality seemed to give birth to successive world wonders as regularly as the birds nest in springtime and more or less familiar brain children include the telegraphic button repeater, stock-tickers, an electric pencil with motor for duplicating, the phonograph and waxen records, dictaphone and revolutionizing incandescent light, then the mechanism for taking moving pictures. To-day the speaking cinematographic pictures or kinetophone, steps confidently out of the laboratories at Orange, N.J., to mystify yet convince the incredulous and expectant populace.

Some years ago his friend John Murray paid his respects at New York and was well received by his former acquaintance. Requesting permission to inspect the interior economy of the “Western Union” telegraph office, Mr. Edison introduced him by letter to the proper person asking that every attention be shown him and adding “When Mr. Murray was an operator on the ‘G.T.R.,’ I was a news vendor.”

Thus does this unusual man round out a useful career, his balance an object lesson to conceited prigs and his wizard-like achievements an incentive to rising generations.

SIR GEORGE BURY, Vice-President; E. W. BEATTY, K.C., Vice-President and General Counsel; R. MARPOLE, General Exec. Assistant, British Columbia; C. E. E. USSHER, Passenger Traffic Manager; W. R. MACINNES, Vice-President; W. MAUGHAN, Assistant General Passenger Agent, Montreal; M. H. BROWN, Division Freight Agent, O. D., Toronto; C. B. FOSTER, Assistant Passenger Traffic Manager, Montreal; GEO. MCL. BROWN, European Manager; J. T. ARUNDEL, General Superintendent, O. D., Toronto.]

A GIGANTIC HUMAN HIVE

Is the Canadian Pacific Railway Headquarters

To have one’s activities in office or household likened to the alertness and foresight of the bee is equivalent to a pronounced compliment. From time immemorial the beehive has ever been regarded by the peoples of Occident and Orient as the storehouse and base of the busiest little folks in the animal kingdom--as the distinctive emblem of concentrated industry, where laggards do not abound.

In Windsor Street, opposite the fine cathedral of St. Peter, Montreal, Quebec, stands a spacious stone castle, the handsome, towering Canadian Pacific Railway hive, and verily, it is alive with endeavor and swarms with the spirit of enterprise. Inhabited chiefly by king bees--and a few queens--this host of 2000 flaunt no iron crosses for inefficiency and here drones have no place.

From the pinnacle position in the steeple, ably filled by a shrewd, democratic nobleman, down the scale through a labyrinth of departments to the youngster affixing postage and dreaming of the Vice-Presidency, every official and employee in that busy headquarters of the greatest transportation corporation within the world’s ken, plays his part in the drama “making hay while the sun shines.” Feeling that they are an integral part of a gigantic organization, they play tick, tack, toe with $153,000,000 in rolling stock and participate with sincerity in the annual round-up of 30,000,000 tons of freight that require 95,000 cars of divers shapes to transport, in addition to moving 16,000,000 passengers for $30,000,000 necessitating a string of equipment that would reach forty miles from Toronto to Hamilton. 2255 locomotives pull this traffic. When all hands and the cooks on the dining cars are intensely occupied in harvesting the golden honey, then is the management in clover.

Concealed in the brains of this directorate of specialists, or tableted in the company’s archives and records, repose secrets pertaining to matters, methods and men, of crowned heads, governments and undercurrents of commerce, finance and future intention which, if given publicity, would make the listener gasp in wonderment and likewise aid him to roll in riches.

Apart from an extensive, intermediate network, (totaling 15,000 miles) her unbroken chains of trains span an additional 3,600 miles of continent from the cod banks of the Atlantic to the salmon spawning beds along the Pacific Ocean, dovetailing there with some of the splendid units of a fleet of a hundred vessels valued to-day at $65,000,000, which circumvent the seven seas carrying “Canadian Pacific” prestige, influence, secret service and international communications between all races and temperatures. There are no fields of production in any clime on the planet known to civilized man that this dynamo of energy, trade and travel has not investigated and if, through development or encouragement, a modicum of reciprocal traffic is extracted or the sweets of industrial success can be promised, rest assured that exploring bees will return to the hive with documentary proof or Marconigrams, cable and mails will herald most recent results.

It is a marvelous modern reality, smacking of the magic of Bagdad caliph eras, that the Windsor Street cabinet of individually expert cosmopolitans, with their teeming clusters of resourceful understudies, command a metaphorical view of the surface of all hemispheres, like a submersible’s captain seated beside the disk of camera obscura scanning the ocean’s bosom. It is, however, only with the searchlights of peace, of barter and trade and commercial expansion, which spell security and comfort for mankind, that the “C.P.R.” sweeps the horizons, feels the universe’s pulse and keeps in touch through the medium of the electric spark, with the aspirations of the world’s brown, yellow and Caucasian children. She underestimates no detail and quietly assumes any legitimate task of magnitude, transferring one unaccompanied child or 100,000 Orientals by sea and land from non-essential avocations in this place or that to other environment and back again without mishap, fuss or feathers.

Composed of forty-five acquired, leased or controlled railways, this immense, corporate body, holding the keys of access to almost any domain and caucus of the sons of Babel, this syndicate that has the _entree_ to exclusive circles and “inside information,” that is rich in agricultural lands and demonstration farms, in timber and tie reserves, rich in gas rights and petroleum areas, that controls coal collieries, smelters and hotels and banks much specie of the realm, has a soul.

In her scattered, flourishing family many are called but few are chosen to attain the exalted places, which are easily memorized. If her sway is uncongenial or her pay seems not enough, you may withdraw and the ranks close up, but for those who remain--and they are 80,000--she offers standards of remuneration far from the foot of the column. Her pensions department, with a fund of $900,000 and a yearly contribution of $500,000 to the reserve, even now protecting 850 former employees, is generous, and I could cite you instances where employees resuming duty partly convalescent, have been relieved indefinitely for recovery, under salary. Several others, permanently incapacitated, have reason to be grateful to the Canadian Pacific Railway for gratuitous aid and acts of thoughtfulness seldom attributed to big interests.

Official Ottawa, Washington and the Court of St. James do not think it judicious to lay bare for public perusal at present, what the Canadian Pacific Railway Company may or may not have accomplished in the realm of finance and loans, apropos the great international struggle of humanity and democracy.

The fruitfulness of the mission of a transportation company with $1,038,074,983.26 of assets, with a property investment of $538,510,563.24 and annual gross earnings of $152,389,334.95 must be well-nigh incalculable, especially to a democratic country--to the last great west, with so vast an area and promising though veiled future. The Canadian Pacific Railway is heavy with import and deeply interlaced with the potentialities of our own Canada.

W. B. LANIGAN

Freight Traffic Manager, Canadian Pacific Railway

A Biographical Reminisence

Freight Traffic Manager, Canadian Pacific Railway, Montreal, Que.]

An Irishman taking home a large goose after a raffle, stopped at a hillside inn in Wicklow to procure refreshment. Laying down the prize he proceeded to satisfy his thirst when a suspicious looking individual seized the fowl and made off with it. Pat at once gave chase and grasping the runaway by the neck exclaimed, “What did you take the bird fore” “Sure!” said the thief, “an’ I took it for a lark”. “Did ye”, said Pat, “begorra then, you’d make a poor judge at a bird show”.

And by the same token, the man or maid who would take W. B. Lanigan for an uncivil, disgruntled misanthrope, who could not enjoy a lark, would be a decidedly poor judge of human nature. He has rubbed shoulders with good and ill fortune, has contended for thirty-three years with almost every variety of railroading obstacle, hewing his way to comparatively smooth sailing under the “C.P.R.” flag and the ordeal has not impaired his optimistic outlook, but finds him to-day a sociable, approachable and happy dispositioned man of affairs.

Do not infer from this tribute, however, that the gentleman cannot look after himself, does not jealously protect his Company’s best interests and is incapable of administering a merited rebuke, or even a scorching blast, because he can. An old admirer and personal friend described him to me as a hot-headed Irishman of fine parts with whom he had had many a good natured wrangle in his attempts to circumvent the railway’s rates and regulations.

In Three Rivers, Quebec, October 12th, 1861, William B. Lanigan was born and in due time was educated at St. Josephs College of that city and at Stanstead University in Old Quebec. Sharbot Lake Junction is a quiet place and no doubt, was a lonesome spot that night in September, 1884, when he first put his hand to a man’s task as night operator in the Canadian Pacific Railway station. Undaunted, he obeyed orders and began the foundation for a future that led him through practically every phase of freight traffic work from helping in construction and running a ballast train to shed porter, billing clerk, telegraph operator and undertaking the “trick” of train dispatcher.

Dundalk knew him as agent for a year and liked him, but the canny Galtonians got better acquainted during a longer stay. In Galt they were not averse to sandwiching a little Irish with their Scotch and the ingredients were mixed with success. Mr. Lanigan was accepted at par as a sterling neighbor, a good churchman and a valuable municipal asset. He did much to band the business men together by encouraging and arranging the most pleasant rail outings for merchants and manufacturers which the city ever participated in. He took part with several leading citizens in weekly talkfests on various topics, extending his general knowledge and debating powers and was founder of the Toadstool Club in the days when Bob Scott, Robert Ferrah, Martin Todd, the malster, and others gathered with him to receive John Strachan and Malcolm MacGregor of the “Erie,” John Hunter of Allan Line, Joe Hickson of N.Y.C. & H.R.R., with Jimmie Duthie and Miles Overend of Dominion Line.

When he was agent at Galt the Canadian Pacific Railway opened their depot at London, Ont., with a banquet in the new building to commemorate the event. Officials who had arranged the function requested W. B. Lanigan to respond to one of the principal toasts. He acquitted himself so well in his presentation of the subject then and on another occasion at the Imperial Hotel in Galt, when his name was coupled with the district agricultural interests, that General Manager David McNicol felt convinced that the young man could be better used in more important work and he was soon assigned to the duties of Traveling Freight Agent ensuring gradual advancement and prominence.

On one occasion during the period that Mr. Lanigan was City Freight Agent at Toronto, when cautious agents had to figure four different combinations to obtain the best quotation to British Columbia, the writer, in competition with “C.P.R.”, submitted a shipper an accurate rate but not the current minimum weight, which also fluctuated. Mr. Lanigan soon accidentally stumbled on this error in the course of his day’s rounds and came without delay, only to myself, about the matter, discussing the inadvertent oversight in a quiet, most friendly and gentlemanly way and the incident, which could have been magnified, was heard of no more. This is a sample of one of his traits of character and training that prompts men to say “He pours oil on the troubled waters” and smooths the ripples that inevitably arise between his employers and their host of patrons.

It was George T. Lanigan, a New York Journalist, who some years ago wrote “The Akoond of Swat is dead--that’s what’s the matter”, which made him over night one of America’s high salaried, most talked of newspaper men, and his brother “Billy” has oratorical gifts and is lucid with tongue and pen. He is an effective and witty after dinner speaker who can be depended on to drive home facts in a pleasing manner, and in 1900 when the late Phil. Slatter, City Passenger Agent, Grand Trunk Railway, Toronto, was president of the Canadian Ticket Agents’ Association, Mr. Lanigan delivered to that organization at their annual banquet in the Walker House, Toronto, a humorous and finished address proving that Moses was the first genuine passenger emigration agent and that the very widely known and popular “C.P.R.” official, W. T. Dockrill, was the second because of his marked success in directing large parties of settlers beyond the Red River.

W. B. Lanigan has not been unmindful of former assistants and several from Old Ontario, having merited his imprimatur, followed him westward and are justifying his confidence.

The United States railway world has produced from time to time, and held up to democratic public approval, scores of men of indomitable will and working capacity who have wrested recognition and advancement “from the ground up” to the highest executive honors capital could bestow; for instance, C. W. Brown, president of the New York Central Lines, who once piled ties along the C.M. & St. P.R., for a living, or rodmen who now control the great United States Government affinity, the Pennsylvania System, as well as a few naturalized “Americans” with Canadian lines, but I do not recall a “native son”, laboring always with one company, whose record surpasses the many sided experiences--hard at the time--of the official who has been for ten years Assistant Freight Traffic Manager at Winnipeg. This golden west gateway is a strategical point to the wide-a-wake corporation employing W. B. Lanigan, he measures up to requirements.

As this article goes to press his appointment as Freight Traffic Manager, Canadian Pacific Railway, Montreal, is announced.

❦ ❦ ❦

JAMES CHARLTON

The Nestor and Grand Old Man among passenger agents

At no period in the world’s history have those fundamentals of a stable, social structure--morals, fidelity and sympathy--been burdened with more significance to humanity than at present and in alluding to the strengthening bonds which link three Anglo-Saxon nations, it would seem not inopportune to dwell on the characteristics of a gentleman, a Briton who was highly endowed with those basic virtues and who, in passing, left their indelible impress on his personal relations and throughout a long life of active railway experience in England, Canada and United States.

Born 1832 in Newcastle-on-Tyne, James Charlton was reared where steam railway traditions were coined, as George Stephenson the great inventor originated there, shops for the manufacture of the first locomotives were located in Newcastle and the old town became an important railway centre. Then was created a new motive for boyhood dreams and the power and fascination of engines and trains focussed the attention of many men noted later.

In 1845, when thirteen, young Charlton engaged with the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway and from that time ideas of serious business and the elements of a splendid character began to mature and array themselves as convictions.

In twelve years he rose by sheer ability from the threshold to the position of chief clerk and cashier in a period when meteoric promotions in staid old England were most uncommon and following the example of Joseph Hickson, afterwards (Sir Joseph), and W. K. Muir, from the same neighborhood, he answered in 1852 the call of the west, entering the audit office of the Great Western Railway of Canada at Hamilton, Ont., during the regime of Messrs. Brydges, Reynolds and Swinyard. Mathematically alert, his penchant for details won for him the title of General Auditor and to these duties were soon added those of the General Passenger and Ticket Agent of the line.

He was extremely particular as to uniform business methods and required from his staff strict conformity with this rule in the handling of correspondence, files and care of papers. He would not tolerate litter nor unanswered communications, but insisted on a prompt or tentative reply to letters and telegrams the day they were received. If it were not possible to make a definite reply to a communication the writer was unfailingly informed of the receipt of his letter which would be given immediate and further attention. While in Canada, Mr. Charlton made many acquaintances and some intimate friendships that were not interrupted during the balance of his life. He unconsciously attracted younger men, compelling their respect and in commercial circles was classed as one of the young country’s early railway pioneers.

Responding in 1870 to the insistence of Opportunity, he transferred his allegiance to the North Missouri Railway as General Passenger Agent, but only until January 1st, 1871, when he assumed in his fortieth year, the important position of General Passenger and Ticket Agent of Chicago & Alton Railway under President Blackstone, at the time that financier and his associates secured control of the North Missouri Railway. This Railway shortly after became the St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern Railway, and in the late 80’s was merged into the Wabash System. Mr. Charlton attained a unique and deserved prominence in his chosen sphere of progressive “American” railroading, and to these new responsibilities he brought to bear his now well developed, zealous and forceful business axioms, and an absolute loyalty and fidelity to the corporation, and in particular, the officers to whom he reported.

He was naturally inclined towards high ideals in life and loved Right, because it was right. His word was as good as his bond: his YES meant YES and his NO meant NO, and no person was ever able to twist his answer into any other meaning and get away with it. His associates in business never doubted for a single moment any statement he made and relied on his carrying out his promises and agreement to the letter. Figuratively speaking, he was a human prototype to the sturdy oak or a solid English bridge, speeding the multitudes safely on their journey, indulgent to the hurricanes of youthful hastiness and impervious to trivialities.

The first half of a popular expression, “The nineteenth century belonged to the United States, but the twentieth will be Canada’s,” was acknowledged after the close of the Civil War and concurrent with the rapid expansion of American railway facilities, Canada suffered a heavy exodus across the border of youthful brain and brawn in which Mr. Charlton later played a part. He was the friend of young men who would take hold and make an effort in the railroad business and he probably brought from Canada to the United States, and started on their careers there, a larger number than any other official engaged in traffic affairs, who found him painstaking in his efforts to educate them in the right way to handle their work. He was a martinet regarding that important essential Punctuality and it is said of him that he was never known to be late one minute beyond the hour appointed for any meeting or business engagement. Always an early riser, he breakfasted never later than 6.30 in the morning, sat down precisely to the minute at 12.00 o’clock for luncheon and took his dinner at 6.00 o’clock every evening.

When at headquarters he never missed being the first man in his office, 8.00 to 8.15 a.m., thus anticipating the regular office opening hour, 8.30 a.m. He invariably left his office at 5.00 p.m. daily, walking the three and a half mile journey to and from his residence when conditions were favorable. These unusually methodical habits were the occasion of considerable comment among other officers and business confreres. Mr. Charlton hated a lie, scorned misrepresentation of any kind and positively would not permit anyone to remain in his employ who let liquor secure the upper hand, and whose behaviour and home life threatened to bring the railway company into disrepute.