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
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration: WILLIAM T. DOCKRILL,
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.
[Illustration: S. H. PALMER,
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.
[Illustration:
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
[Illustration: JOSEPH S. DRAPER,
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.