R. G. MacBeth

“ The big Republic to the South of us has done some amazing things, such as the Panama Canal in recent years, but even that commercially daring country only attempted a transcontinental railway when it had nearly forty millions of people. Canada undertook the task when her population was less than four millions. To the onlooking world the attempt must have appeared like “a forlorn hope”—a sort of a “Charge of the Light Brigade” against batteries bristling with obstacles of a wholly unprecedented kind. But there are always some men who are unafraid, and the dream of seers was to be realized. ”

“ One cannot remember that fiery era without recalling how fortunate it was for the Canadian Pacific Railway that its Western representative was William Whyte, a princely type of man, whose courage, imperturbable coolness and inflexible determination made him a tower of strength. People might fight the railway, but no one of right mind could dislike William Whyte, whose high character and immense personal popularity with all classes, including especially all employees of the road, made him unassailable. ”

“ Van Horne seemed to be everywhere. Now in his office in Winnipeg and now on the plains, riding on flat cars or hand cars or in cabooses or, where the rails were not laid, in wagons and buckboards over the prairie. He knew railroading from the ground up and did not hesitate to ventilate his views forcibly if necessary. He would discharge, off-hand, men who were indifferent to their work or who were disposed to shirk carrying out his orders. He sometimes ordered the impossible; but he expected men to try the impossible without question. ”

“ It is a striking comment on the thinking of President Shaughnessy, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, that while others in various places hesitated he at once put the resources of the Company, with its world-wide system on land and sea, at the disposal of the Empire. This was all the more remarkable when we recall that he was foreign born and had only come to Canada when he had grown to man’s estate. The fact was that he had become intensely Canadian. It seems a law of human life that people come to love the cause for which they make sacrifices. ”

“ S. S. McClure, in New York, almost in praise of war as a creator of heroisms and an inspiration to valiant endeavour. But as he studied the Great War, with its horrible engines of destruction, high explosives and silent, stealthy weapons of death on land and sea and in the air, he began to see the monstrous side of such a method for settling international differences. He saw the frightful annihilation of some of the brightest young men whose record he knew in his own organization, and whose services to the country, had they been spared, would have been beyond price. ”

“ War Service The Canadian Pacific Railway was and is a triumph of constructive endeavour in the days of peace. We have spoken of the army of men at work, from the turning of the first sod, all through the grading, the tracklaying and the operation of the road, as a peaceful mobile army which moved with tireless tread in the march of civilization. It was the business of these men to build and not to destroy, to gather together and not to scatter abroad, to conserve and not to dissipate the natural assets of Canada. ”

“ We have faithfully done our duty. We have fought the battle of Confederation. We have fought the battle of unity. We have had party strife, setting Province against Province. And more than all, we have had, in the greatest Province, every prejudice and sectional feeling that could be arrayed against us. I throw myself on this House; I throw myself on this country; I throw myself on posterity, and I believe that, notwithstanding the many failings of my life, I shall have the voice of this country rallying around me. ”

“ This immense task of opening new lines and establishing new industries has been continued by all Van Horne’s successors till the Dominion and a good deal of the States knows the Canadian Pacific as it knows its city streets and country roads. In fact the Canadian Pacific is so ubiquitous that men take with the utmost gravity the old joke that the clocks of the country are set to the railway time as if the road was in control of the calendar. ”

“ But, despite all its horrors, war has, for human society, some compensation in the fact that it reveals suddenly certain elements of good in the world whose existence we had only dimly realized before. I remember how, as a boy, riding on horseback over the prairie in dark nights, I used to conjecture in a vague way as to the character of the trail ahead and as to what life of man or animal might be shrouded in the blackness. ”

“ All over the immense system I can see the faces of men in all departments who were and are contributing to the success and boundless efficiency of this world-wide organization. They do not tolerate carelessness, in themselves or others, and, to an extraordinary degree, they are imbued with the spirit of the great leaders of the Company who sought to make the whole system a builder of Empire and a contributing factor to the well-being of the world. ”

“ I have known the West all my life, but I do not recall any period more generally discouraging than that after-the-boom period in the 80’s, during which the Canadian Pacific Railway was begun and carried to an amazingly successful completion. The sudden drop in everything, as well as the rumblings and then the outbreak of the Riel Rebellion on the plains, put, in large measure, a damper on immigration; and railway building through an uninhabited land is not exhilarating work. ”

“ In consequence there was such considerable loss of human life along that wild section of the railway that those who now enjoy the pleasure and the profit of travel and traffic by the picturesque inland fresh-water sea of Superior, ought to recall that the splendid road-bed was laid, not only at vast cost in substance, but with much sacrifice of that infinitely greater thing, human life. ”

“ The business world is sometimes as drab and dead and unemotional as a sand waste, but it has its oasis spots, and words like those just quoted mark one of them. During those years, however, it is a notable thing, that whenever a proposal was made even by Mount Stephen to Van Horne, that the business administration of the Canadian Pacific Railway should be conformed to English methods, the bluff railroader refused point-blank. ”

“ A great army of men are at work and thousands of horses. But it is a beneficent, constructive army of men, with their lumbering artillery of horses and wagons engaged in the gigantic task of sending food supplies to the great centres of population all over the world. The elevators are the peaceful headquarters of a great staff employed to transfer foodstuffs from these prairie commissary stores to the railway trains which carry them in rushing torrents of speed to the great lakes, the canals and the open sea. ”

“ Van Horne, during all those difficult months when it looked as if the Company, owing to the unexpected and terrific cost of construction, was facing financial disaster, refused to stop or even lessen the work. When times were darkest he put on more men and made a bigger effort to get ahead. As long as Stephen and his associates could raise any money and Shaughnessy handle it to the best advantage, Van Horne turned a deaf ear to all admonitions to slow up in construction operations. ”

“ When Van Horne left that meeting of Directors in Montreal he hurried back to Winnipeg with the fire of a great railway-building battle in his eye. He felt he had the support of a strong and determined body of men, and they were fully satisfied that they had in Van Horne a man worth backing. They all began to realize very vividly, from the attitude of the financial world as above outlined, that the fabled achievements of Hercules would have to be made real in the building of the road. ”

“ Now that the smoke of battle has cleared away and that both Confederation and the Railway are running smoothly, we can look back and see the giants who fought victoriously to create the conditions we now enjoy. Some of these great men did not live to see the realization of their dreams, but they died in the faith that their dreams were so good that they would come true some time. ”

“ And I recall how fascinating it was to have flashes of lightning break recurrently now and then from the clouds, each flash burning its way into the darkness, revealing the trail, showing cattle and horses and the humble homesteads of pioneers who were beginning to settle on the plain. It has sometimes seemed to me that war is a flash of lightning which reveals much hitherto only dimly imagined as existing in society. That it reveals many mean and disquieting features and qualities in human life goes without saying. ”

“ Andrews-by-the-sea, in New Brunswick, swings an Indian name into the orbit of the fashionable tourist traffic of Canada and the United States. Bungalow camps all through the mountains furnish for the tourist, resting places at points so amazingly splendid from a scenic standpoint that they summon annually hosts of tourists who wish to get “near to nature’s heart,” and “far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife.” ”

“ Such days, it seems to me, have been found in Canadian history in the period of the heroic men and women who pioneered in all the provinces, in the period when strong men grappled with the problems of confederating the scattered colonies of British North America into one Dominion, and in that period when the young Dominion, with only a few millions of people, undertook and accomplished, with incredible speed, the gigantic task of binding the provinces together by a band of steel. ”

“ One regrets the impossibility of placing on these pages a full roll of honour on which is emblazoned not only all those more or less conspicuously connected with the enterprise, but the names of the unknown warriors who, in a great host, moved gallantly forward in as brave a fight against obstacles as the world of industry has ever known. Thousands of these men were under the stress and strain of intense endeavour, or engaged in work where their lives were constantly in danger. ”

“ I can see past the decision of this House, either for or against me, but, whether it be for or against me, I know, and it is no vain boast of me to say so, for even my enemies will admit that I am no boaster—that there does not exist in Canada a man who has given more of his time, more of his heart, more of his wealth, or more of his intellect and power, such as they may be, for the good of this Dominion of Canada. ”

“ Hence there are occasions, unhappily, when the peaceful have not only to stand on the defensive but to carry war into the enemy’s country, so as to compel the inciter to war to remember that other people have a right to life and liberty and happiness on this round globe. On such occasions the machinery of traffic has to be temporarily diverted, in some degree, from its accustomed employment and swung into the conflict for ultimate peace. ”

“ But in reality each man fills his own place, and by the full play of his own individuality makes his own contribution to history. Each may do work his predecessor could not have done, and, while keeping up a continuity, each brings a new force into the march of human progress. It may be interesting in this connection to recall and summarize the work of these men who, up to this date, have headed the Canadian Pacific. ”

“ Mackenzie was perfectly sincere in this, as he was in everything. The plan was not without merit under the circumstances, but it had defects which arose out of a lack of knowledge of the Western country generally, and particularly of the attitude of the people of British Columbia. It also ignored the strange, but characteristic, impulses of human nature in regard to migration. Every now and then in history some section of humanity strikes its tents and goes on the march, railway or no railway. Especially does the Star of the Empire draw people westward. ”

“ His bigness in ignoring any prejudice against him, his hearty, magnetic and utterly unaffected personality, soon won the respect of his men in all ranks and he in turn came swiftly to have a high respect for the courage, ability and initiative of the Canadian people. For a while he had to have around him some experts from his own country, like that Master-Superintendent, John M. Egan, whose ability as a practical railroad builder was a great asset to the new enterprise. But Van Horne soon had a small army of Canadians in training under his own leadership, and to them he became deeply attached. ”

“ Van Horne’s army became unlimited as to time, because there were relays working in the night, building bridges and culverts and laying track when conditions allowed—a sort of sleepless army that moved on without cessation. In this way some three miles a day were finished enough to allow the construction trains to follow up with their gigantic loads of material and food for men and horses. In the spring-time there was not much grass for the horses, and all grain had then to be imported to a country which is now the greatest grain-exporting region in the world. ”

“ Populous China and the rich East are beyond; and the sails of our children’s children will reflect as familiarly the sunbeams of the South as they now brave the angry tempests of the North. The Maritime Provinces which I now address are but the Atlantic frontage of this boundless and prolific region. God has planted Nova Scotia in the front of this boundless region—see that you discharge, with energy and elevation of soul, the duties which devolve upon you in virtue of your position. ”

“ And I think in that connection of all the maintenance-of-way or section men, whose faithful labours through summer heat and winter cold keep the road-bed in amazingly perfect order. I have seen them fighting blizzards on the prairie and watching washouts or slides in the mountains, and all with such astonishing success that there is no more safe roadway in the world than the Canadian Pacific. ”

“ The Railway Company which in 1886 chartered three tramp steamers for the Pacific Ocean trade, now has an immense fleet of its own on the great oceans, on the Mediterranean, Carribbean, Adriatic and South China Seas, as well as upon the wide coasts and inland waters of this broad Dominion of Canada. From the small beginning the Canadian Pacific has become the world’s greatest transportation system under one management by sea as well as by land. ”

“ The task they accomplished in the making of Canada into a great Confederacy of Provinces, linked indissolubly together as a noble Dominion, must not be allowed to pass into oblivion. The coming generation must not miss the tonic power that comes from a knowledge of great achievement in a nation’s life. ”

“ He felt that to give Hill’s road the haulage of through Canadian traffic over a section of his track would make the Canadian Pacific a sort of subsidiary of his line, and such a situation was abhorrent both to Van Horne’s railroad instincts and to his estimate of his ability to run his own road. In a proper sense of the word Van Horne was always egoist enough to assert his own dignity when occasion required. In fact he would let no man rob him of the opportunity of boasting on any occasion when it seemed legitimate and necessary. ”

“ The souls of the men who then assembled yearned beyond the sky-line of their own immediate surroundings and, thinking of the extent of British Possessions in North America, they were inspired and attracted by the greater task of confederating them all into one great Dominion from sea to sea. ”