Part 11

The legacy of this untrodden expanse is unlimited productiveness of soil, waterways and forest. The solitary explorer with pack horse and canoe spyed out a winding trail which the railways’ impedimenta of progress has speedily straightened and made easy for the quasi pioneer. The rolling ground and gentle slopes in the vicinity of Haileybury are pleasant to see. Here the clay belt and husbandman replaces rock and miner and the view from this town and farmer’s mecca--which boasts the unique feature of a floating market place--out and over Lake Temiskaming and across to where the mists conceal a quaint French settlement, Villa Marie, is indeed charming. On learning that the mission bells pealed and a convent dwelt within the borders of Quebec just over that moonlit expanse of inland sea, I confess my conception of interprovincial geography seemed out of alignment. Englehart, a divisional point, bears the name of the Railway Commission’s astute, public spirited Chairman, Jacob L. Englehart, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio, who made his Canadian debut in the Petrolia oil belt, and some forty years ago supported Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt when he was married in the Tecumseh Hotel, London, Canada, to the beautiful Mrs. Crawford of Baton Rouge, La. Jacob Englehart inaugurated the system of greenhouses which flourish in those leagues of loam and clay but the plants which predominate in that “neck of the woods”, however, are those that grow into thousands of cords of coveted pulpwood, cut in certain districts by private owners and on reserves with Government sanction. As this commodity underlies in a vital way the immense paper and publishing interests of America and Europe the supply, method of treatment, market and duty tax has become a burning topic in factory and forum both sides of the international boundary.

Those wind tossed forest monarchs and old pines on the hill tops that once beheld naught save the Redskin stalking an hundred animate creatures of the wild, will if spared, witness a mighty trek northward. The caravan of the white man of every clime and craft shall push past haunts of black bear, moose and trapper, portaging enroute near Cochrane beside Frederick House River. At this spot an incident at Barbers Bay in the semi-savage days of the old trading posts of the north country, has become a fearsome tradition among the indians of the Abitibi. Many years ago when the Hudson Bay Company were extending trading posts southward from Moose Factory, Frederick Barber with Indians and voyageurs established a store beside a bay perpetuating his name, at Frederick House Lake. One Christmas eve Macdougall, a halfbreed, and two companions reached the post to trade their autumn catch. Together with gifts Barber unfortunately dispensed rum. When refused more liquor the trappers murdered all hands and seized the fort. Fearing discovery and punishment of their crime, the drunken half-breeds killed every Indian who came to the post with furs. Growing anxious, several squaws who had not accompanied their braves on the midwinter journey, snow-shoed to Barbers Bay and were imprisoned by Macdougall. One woman escaped and organized an avenging party which did not arrive in time to prevent the massacre of the remaining squaws nor the flight of the halfbreed scoundrels. Then began a long chase down the Black and Abitibi Rivers. Macdougall who was tobagganing loot from the fort, was nearly overtaken in camp. He saw the trackers coming and started across Lake Abitibi, disappearing during a brief snow storm and was never seen after. The Indians gave evil spirits the credit when he vanished and they suppose the half-breed’s ghost still lingers over the lakes. It is across these trackless fastnesses, under whispering Northern Lights, that the newest national highway, the National Trans-continental & Grand Trunk Pacific Systems, dreamt of by the patriot the Right Honorable Sir Wilfrid Laurier, gradually assumed reality and now hasten communication westward with tidings from the east.

Yea, the crusade will not cease until little old Ontario is linked with the Aurora Borealis and the venturesome commoner at Frisco, New Orleans and Toronto may side step the soaring bovine market, and after an all-rail journey, harpoon his own walrus meat in James and Hudson’s Bays.

❦ ❦ ❦

MONSIEUR WILLIAM P. DUPEROW

General Passenger Agent, Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Government Railways

Text of an address presented to him at Toronto on the occasion of his transfer May, 1910, to “Grand Trunk Pacific” service at Vancouver, B.C.

Mr. Gladstone declared “A book that will move many people of different temperaments, and different degrees of intelligence, must have power.” So it is with the individual: and because your friends in the complacent East think you undoubtedly possess the magnetic current and a warm heart, we are loth to separate from so much animated sunshine.

Colleagues, small and great, recount your generosity and regret departure, while those distressed mortals who knew your kindly assistance pour full the measure of credit.

If the public, and this galaxy of happy-go-lucky railroaders who foregather have imperfectly recited how they will miss you at quilting bees, it is not because they are hostile, but they lack Chantecler’s brazen crow.

As a scout of broad gauge calibre, tracking business to its lair, reconnoitering Indian bands or negotiating with sinner, saint and suffragette, you have been all things to all men, and along the tortuous trail they do say your sang froid, ingratiating manner and elegance of diction ranked not as common garden varieties.

The King’s currency, bestowed in embarrassing quantities, is apt to jolt one’s system into repudiating labor’s noble avocations; hence the modest proportions of this accompanying bag of francs, which your confreres--elderly, youthful, handsome--unhesitatingly tender you with earnest protests of regard.

You are now at the Hemisphere’s portal, where you can, without obstruction, behold the Fates unfolding your future; where old Sol, with blushing countenance, sinks in the “Pacific” without his bathing suit, and all supplicate you not to trip o’er the guy ropes when gazing at comets with the astronomers.

We trust the doors to preferment, now open, will disclose to you and yours the uneven highway of life growing smoother and wider, and may the blessing of good health crown all.

The Committee:--R. S. Lewis, L.V.R.; A. J. Taylor, C. M. & St.P.R.; J. J. Rose, C.P.R.; J. A. Richardson, Wabash Railroad; B. H. Bennett, C. & N.W.R.; C. E. Horning, G.T.R.

THOSE UNDIGNIFIED BOX CARS

Some methods of the men who control their movements

When Mademoiselle Susanna Vere de Vere, haughty and capricious, talcumed and beflounced, rides east at 10:00 a.m., ensconsced in green plushed parlor car comfort, think you she recognizes as she rolls along, the significance of the irregular hedge that flanks for miles her chosen pathway? Can she see in that jagged sky line of uneven box car roofs, so unlike the matched uniformity of the coral beads in her necklace--the source of the revenue which purchased the ornament? Probably not. Does Oliver Opulence across the isle, with fattening jowls and the latest periodical, attribute his golfing privileges and bank balance to the agency of the lowly freight car? No, not in the fullest measure.

The routine duties of John Jones Limited in to-day’s strenuous commercial struggle are based entirely on what freight service has done or will accomplish for them, and during conferences with their purchasing and traffic assistants, concrete equipment needs are dealt with daily but the vital usefulness of each empty car as a retainer and carrier are thought of only in an abstract way, yet they are as essential as the “G.T.R.” or three daily meals. Not until such time as the advent of an industrial calamity that will destroy them all, leaving coal man, merchant and bacon baron stranded high and dry, will shippers unanimously appreciate their individual worth, and not until then will cease the desire of corporate interests to haul their valuable loads along this or that favored highway of steel. Not a pulley in manufacture could turn without their direct aid, meagre would be the housewives’ meals and pelts again be their children’s portion if the wheels refused to whirr: then indeed, would Mademoiselle Susanna Vere de Vere understand the sudden death of Pullman palaces from commercial paralysis.

A tortuous string of seventy freight cars in motion is not what you would designate as a “harmonious whole” in appearance. They remind you of a herd of elephants with baggy pants traveling trunk to tail, nor do these incongruous, ill-at-ease assortments of traffic _proletariat_ pick their company. The tall and the short, the lame, the halt and the blind they have always with them, and if a trig, shiny aristocrat once, costing approximately $1,200 to $1,500, (but to-day twice as much) that should be on his owner’s tracks, strays into line with this perambulating Coxey’s Army he soon gets the spots knocked off him, like a “rookie” enlisted with the regulars. They all receive awful treatment, they are side tracked, snubbed and roughly handled and though doctored, patched, likewise overburdened, they return more good for evil by feeding mice and men and machinery than any other medium. The funniest feature about these democratic go-betweens is that a loose jointed, squatty old party, rocking from side to side with the load in his protruding stomach and hardly able to keep step with the tribe, may have his “innards” stuffed with silks and satins to bedeck some slavish goddess of fashion who never appreciates what ship brought the feathers and finery to port--and such is human nature.

However, the officials of every railroad company from the president, traffic manager and “G.F.A.”, down the ladder to the journal oilers, make recompense, court the freight cars and strive mightily for the privilege of transporting their variegated contents and these are the men who make them make millions. It is a game with far reaching ramifications, a contest of competitors where brains and dispatch, service, sentiment and cold figures diversify the play. Some times it is as uncertain and exciting as draw poker with a brazen bluff cropping up, but the line that can deliver the goods usually scores and gathers in the ducats. The nets are out every hour of the twenty-four and they are out at every important geographical centre on the continent, making the sport in variety and complexion, more devoid of monotony than most mundane pursuits.

Traffic men seek every commodity from a carload of lemonade straws to a shipment of zinc dust from Japan for the Porcupine Mines, they talk on every topic from tunnel clearances to the effect of the Budget, and have interviewed specimens of the _genus homo_ as yet uncharted by the phrenologists. They study tact and diplomacy, but few have equalled the art of a Manitoba farmer whom it has been said, kept himself in coal for the winter by making faces at the passing “C.P.R.” firemen and engineers. Customers’ wishes, siding accommodation, enclosures, cartage, part lots, classification, temperature, icing and a thousand other conditions influence the movement. Among freight men resourcefulness is an ever present adjunct in devising ways and means to enlist adherence, placate the public, overcome delay and get around an obstacle, recalling the expedient of a new shedman who was puzzled as to how he could load in the “way” car a piece of crated machinery too large for the door. He resorted to the alternative of removing the casing, then easily transferring the unwieldly consignment inside and after recrating, left the later problem to the man who would deliver the goods.

“Work well begun is half done” saith the old saw, and the sage was right. Starting on a few calls some pleasant morning with the outside atmosphere exhilarating, if your initial visit happens on one of those considerate, business gentlemen who can devote three to thirty minutes of his time to your mission, and concluding the X.Y.Z. road might be worse, promises a share of the traffic he has offering, you usually approach the balance of the day’s duties with optimism. Experiences multiply, but this feeling will probably carry you past the resentful individual who holds a little stock of your Company and refuses business because his security is temporarily dropping and it will likewise help to cement acquaintance with the cautious man who would like to but fears his couple of cars would be held up or lost should Canada and the United States drift into war. Emboldened to continue the good work, you harken to the complaints of one of your local agents, both officious and secretive--who sends all his correspondence in under separate cover and wonders why it don’t receive prompt attention when the chief is away. If diminuitive this representative might become a detriment and antagonize trade and his running mate is the agent appointed by the operating department who proves a thorn in the flesh of the Division Freight Agent by snarling, rat-terrier, dictatorial demeanor until the shipping body in unanimous resolution declare “that agent cannot leave quick enough to suit me”. Hot on the heels of the visiting “D.F.A.”, who is supposed by many to always have an easy time, bobs up an obsequious Hebrew at the period of great car shortage, with a tale of woe about a man coming upon him just as he was loading a few bales and shouting “Here, what are you doing with my car?” It developed that the blusterer could not procure a car himself and bethought him to pounce on the inoffensive rag man and purloin the coveted empty box car.

Fortified by an agreement with an anxious fresh fruit buyer, whereby he is guaranteed forty refrigerator cars in return for their haul homeward a few hundred miles, a call is made on a canned salmon distributor. This is his acknowledgment to your opening salute. “Who told you I had a car of salmon? I have no salmon and am not thinking of fish just now--this isn’t Friday”. However, he proved amenable to reason and issued a routing order.

A Grand Trunk Railway commercial agent related to me recently the following outline of a verbal castigation administered to himself by a mourner who must have been wearing indigo spectacles: “The idea of giving business to ‘U.M.C.’ lines, we’ll have no truck or trade with them. It is very indiscreet of you to dare to try; when you can compete on an equal basis with the ‘C.P.R.’ then come in”. A well intentioned, but premature overture earned one young general agent, new to his territory, an undeserved rebuke in response to his civil enquiries: “Well, I guess I hav’nt anything to say to you to-day”.

“I came in primarily to ask you to take luncheon with me, would you join me at one o’clock?”

“No, I had my lunch at the proper hour” came the quick rejoinder. Fortunately, the balance of the day was spent among “white men” of whom there are 95 per cent. naturally inclined to transact business with reason and decency, and their broad guage tendency seems to expand in proportion to the magnitude and responsibility of their undertakings.

Another gentleman occasioned a good deal of laughter telling on himself the story of taking his new chief on an introductory tour and being embarrassed to learn that the first manufacturer they called on had been dead for a year, and the second one, whom our friend knew to some extent, asking him what his name was. It takes time to talk away or live down these little incidents. Now and then a modest shipper with about one car a year traveling in your direction, will unblushingly suggest that he be loaned one of your annual passes for a little trip down to New York, and I recall hearing of a wallet of transportation, in the wrong hands, being lost in the railway yards near Rochester.

A number of the boys remember certain shippers who have had an insatiable longing for some substantial token in reciprocity for the traffic they could control, with a leaning towards a variety of household furnishings and what-nots.

Patronage lists and their influence, if operative the wrong way, are often the invention of the evil one and nullify the efforts of a conscientious worker, otherwise in good standing with all parties. One day Billy A----, General Freight Agent of the Canadian Pacific Railway, called with a traveling representative on a certain undesignated Canadian biscuit factory: out came the list with the statement of the egregious young manager that “Your road is not using our product on its diners.”

“Well,” promptly responded the truthful William, “It may be they are not good enough”.

To elaborate further, a contractor erecting a building in a distant city for a firm doing a large outfitting and general selling business, routed twelve carloads of structural steel that he required, via the “P.D.Q.R.” A wide awake, aggressive competitor coveted the haul of the material and meant to have it. They promptly placed an $80,000 order for hotel requisites with the outfitting firm and the latter, feeling the pressure where it was intended to be felt, capitulated, assuaged the contractor’s rising ire in a monetary but lesser degree, which, of course, jilted the expectations of the “P.D.Q.R.”

A competing line with heavy purchasing appropriations has been known to often frustrate genuine tonnage hopes by wiring that the name of a shipper interested in a transaction, be removed from their patronage lists unless he immediately saw the error of his ways and banished consideration for a rival route or an M.P., in Victoria, B.C., we’ll say, may exert some influence he may have and busy himself by telegraphing to forward specific public works supplies from the east this way or that.

The staff of a district freight department may do considerable preparatory work regarding, for instance, the movement of Australian and New Zealand wool for Europe to find their plans upset by a necessary war-time embargo affecting the transport of sheep skins and crossbred wool through this port or that country.