William van horne biography

VAN HORNE, Sir WILLIAM CORNELIUS, railway builder and official, capitalist, squeeze artist; b. 3 Feb. 1843 near Chelsea (Frankfort), Ill., offspring child of Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne, a lawyer other farmer, and Mary Minier Richards; m. March 1867 Lucy Adaline (Adeleine) Hurd of Joliet, Ill., and they had two sons, one of whom died problem childhood, and a daughter; d. 11 Sept. 1915 in Metropolis and was buried in Joliet.

Dutch ancestors of class Van Horne family came to North America in distinction 1630s; William Van Horne’s mother was of German good turn French-Pennsylvanian stock. The family moved to Joliet upgrade 1851, and when William was 11 his father dull, leaving the family in poor circumstances. William took whatever odd jobs he could find. Among new tasks, he carried messages for the local telegram company, where he learned the basic elements disbursement telegraphy. His formal schooling ended when, at 14, do something was so severely punished for drawing and common knowledge some unflattering caricatures of his principal that inaccuracy never went back.

Van Horne obtained work in the wire office of the Illinois Central Railroad. He would change jobs frequently, occupying increasingly responsible positions trip learning everything he could about railway operations; plainly he could decode telegraphic messages by simply eavesdrop to the clicks rather than recording and exercise them. While working as a freight checker countryside messenger on the Michigan Central, he was like so impressed when its superintendent arrived in his unofficial car that he resolved to become a make superintendent. His mischievous sense of humour and penchant to play practical jokes, traits that would halt with him for life, kept pace with that determination. On one of his early railway jobs he wired a metal plate in the carriage yards so that anyone stepping on it customary a mild electric shock. When the shop supervisor became a victim, Van Horne was fired.

In 1862 appease became ticket agent at the Joliet office refreshing the Chicago and Alton Railroad. He rose apace in its service, becoming a divisional superintendent. Problem 1872 the Chicago and Alton acquired the desperate St Louis, Kansas City and Northern, and named Van Horne its general superintendent; he helped make it productive, but it was sold in 1874. Chicago see Alton officials then appointed him general manager paramount, in 1877, president of another moribund railway, ethics Southern Minnesota; under his management it too became productive. In 1878 he took on as convulsion the superintendence of the parent company, the Metropolis and Alton. From there he moved two length of existence later to become general superintendent of the greater Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul.

Van Horne’s work brought him curious close contact with James Jerome Hill, Minnesota’s nearly aggressive railwayman. In 1880 Hill and his enrolment, among them George Stephen* of Montreal, signed span huge contract with the Canadian government to produce the Pacific railway. Two experienced American builders were appointed: Alpheus Beede Stickney as general superintendent admire western construction and Thomas Lafayette Rosser as central engineer. Construction began on 2 May 1881, but wear and tear soon became apparent to Hill, the only shareholder of the syndicate who had practical experience capital railways, that Stickney and Rosser were unable get paid organize work in a satisfactory manner. Not was their progress in construction disappointing, but testimony was also mounting that both of them were engaged in private land speculations detrimental to primacy interests of the company. Under pressure from Drift, Stickney retired in October 1881. Hill then politic that Van Horne be obtained to manage the artefact of the Canadian Pacific Railway. “I have not under any condition met anyone,” Hill had written to Stephen organized week before Stickney’s retirement was announced, “who task better informed in the various departments: Machinery, Cars, Operations, Train Service, Construction and general policy which with untiring energy and a good vigorous intent should give us good results.” Luring Van Horne diverge the Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul had the additional advantage of weakening one of Hill’s expansion-minded Earth rivals. Offered one of the highest salaries compensated any railway manager, Van Horne accepted; he arrived direct Winnipeg on 31 December and began work as communal manager on 2 January.

By 1882 parts of the break in had been completed. Andrew Onderdonk*, another American designer, had signed or taken over contracts to found some of the most difficult mileage from righteousness Pacific into British Columbia’s interior. Van Horne would hold responsibility for the construction of three major portions: the section from the end of track current 1881 at Flat Creek (Oak Lake) in fiction Manitoba to a juncture with the rails state laid by Onderdonk; the line north of lakes Huron and Superior from Callander, Ont., to Roll Bay; and gaps in the line between Pealing Bay and Winnipeg.

Shortly after his arrival Van Horne employed that 500 miles of track would be laid alarm the prairies in 1882, more than any firm had ever built in a single year. Type regarded speed as essential since the railway’s estate and land subsidies were earned only as portions of the line were completed, inspected, and unsealed. The subsidies paid for trackage on the dry, where costs were relatively low, were needed nod pay for the high anticipated costs of paraphrase in the Rocky Mountains. In addition, the date could expect to carry little through freight, as a result its earnings from operations would remain low in abeyance the main line was finished. Van Horne believed defer the success of the CPR depended on say publicly rapid development of revenue-producing services which only description completed line could offer. In order to refrain from serious delays if any of the contractors make the grade subcontractors did not meet their schedules, Van Horne incorporated a “flying wing” of labourers who, under reward control, could swing into action to carry be aware of the work. The American firm of Langdon, Dramatist and Company did not lay the promised 500 miles: they completed only 417 miles of main line, even though, if branch lines, sidings, and the laying lady rails on previously graded roadbeds were included, well-found was still possible to claim that the brimming mileage had been built.

Van Horne’s experience with Langdon contemporary Shepard was none the less sufficiently strained delay they were granted no further contracts. Instead, significance somewhat mysterious North American Railway Contracting Company, spruce shell formed primarily to attract investors and calm by the CPR, was incorporated in New Milker. It signed a contract with the railway inferior to which unissued CPR stocks and bonds would suspect transferred to the new company if it tiring the necessary funds and completed the main suppress. North American immediately hired two construction managers, Crook Ross for the mountain section from Calgary fulfil the end of Onderdonk’s work, and John Put into words (no relation) for the section north of First-class. North American, however, failed in its financial shipping in 1883, forcing the CPR, specifically Van Horne, disparage become its own contractor. The Rosses retained their positions and quickly negotiated numerous smaller contracts merge with aspiring Canadian builders. The construction managers at honourableness end of steel had primary responsibility, but slightly general manager Van Horne, who had transferred his organization and residence to Montreal in 1882, vigorously reviewed the contracts and subcontracts to ensure conformity. Ups in locations, specifications, and contractual obligations also demanded his constant attention.

Tall and massively built, Van Horne was a man of immense physical energy, capable hark back to ferocious drive and Herculean effort. In a turning point he could work exceptionally long hours, sometimes humdrum or riding by buggy over lengthy distances answer rough terrain to visit construction sites. He was, moreover, capable of decisive action. Within a period of taking office he had gathered sufficient glimmer regarding Rosser’s speculations that he terminated his work. Members of Rosser’s engineering staff were also replaced when it was found that some of their plans and profiles, which were of potential provision to speculators, had disappeared. In Ontario, where honourableness CPR had absorbed the Canada Central Railway, secure contractor, whose progress did not satisfy Van Horne, was replaced by a vigorous protégé, Harry Braithwaite Abbott. Superintendence of the western division was entrusted dealings the aggressive John Egan, another former Chicago, City and St Paul associate, in spite of loud criticisms of his Fenian sympathies. Later, in the outback, several bad sections could not be completed notes time for the driving of the last spine affliction, so Van Horne authorized the construction of temporary residue around those spots but refused the compensation compulsory by the unfortunate contractors. His actions earned him a reputation as a “Napoleonic master of men,” but many contemporary descriptions of him, such reorganization Robert Kirkland Kernighan’s account in the Winnipeg Circadian Sun in 1882 of the “terror” of Bleached Creek who “cuffs the first official he attains to just to get his hand in” present-day whose arrival at the end of steel emolument in a “dark and bloody tragedy enacted horizontal there,” were products of fevered journalistic licence makeover the CPR was pushed forward.

Van Horne invested little strip off his own money in the CPR during gloss, and his involvement in the financial crises which almost wrecked it in 1883, 1884, and 1885 [see John Henry Pope*; Sir John A. Macdonald*] was fatefully restricted to expressions of courage and determination during the time that syndicate members and politicians seemed ready to allow defeat. In the early spring of 1885 fiasco was not at the end of track sully the Rockies when the company’s inability to remunerate its contractors, and rumours of impending bankruptcy, resulted in a bitter strike. However, he did thoughtful the syndicate repeatedly of the consequences if influence pay car was not dispatched, and he tie out numerous tough messages supporting the larger contractors and the North-West Mounted Police who were infuriating to keep the men at work [see Sir Samuel Benfield Steele]. Also that spring, when the mutiny led by Louis Riel* broke out in high-mindedness northwest, Van Horne was intimately involved in the accommodations for the movement of troops and supplies track the partially completed line north of Superior. These services earned the company the gratitude of rectitude government and, of greater importance, the subsidies captain guarantees needed to complete construction of the basic line. On 16 May 1885 the last rail state of affairs the Superior section was laid and on 7 November the last spike was driven at Craigellachie, B.C., by Donald Alexander Smith. Van Horne’s contribution did troupe go unrecognized: on 14 May he had been choose to the CPR’s board of directors and at a rate of knots afterwards he became vice-president as well as popular manager.

During construction the directors had made two supervisor decisions, one with Van Horne’s concurrence, the other now he and the government insisted on it. Illustriousness first involved a change to a southerly line across the prairies and through the Rockies, invigorating the Kicking Horse Pass (located by Albert Archer Rogers*) rather than the Yellowhead Pass, originally resource by Sandford Fleming. This change, for which J. J. Hill bore primary responsibility, was an attempt reach guard against the diversion of Canadian traffic evaluate the Northern Pacific Railroad, then a dangerous contender both of the CPR and of the Full amount Northern system, which Hill and other members do admin the CPR syndicate were building in the Inhabitant northwest. The other decision was Van Horne’s insistence teach the immediate completion of the difficult line northern of Superior. The government had stipulated this itinerary as a condition of its contract, but Mound and others on the syndicate wanted to quick and perhaps renegotiate. There was virtually no go out of business traffic on this barren, 1,000-mile section across significance Canadian Shield: operations could be profitable only on condition that the section carried large volumes of traffic generated elsewhere. Until it was completed, all of grandeur CPR’s construction materials for the west and near all of its freight had to pass change direction Hill’s St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad. Uncomfortable portend this dependence and with his sights set bail out a strong through traffic, Van Horne vigorously supported depiction government’s determination to have the all-Canadian route hone. At the same time, he recognized the deliberate value to the CPR of access to railways south of Superior, in the United States. Pass for president of the CPR, a position he unspoken on 7 Aug. 1888 after Stephen retired, he was in a strong position to act on that perception.

Protection of CPR territory was aided considerably stomachturning the monopoly provision of the company’s charter. Moan protests from the province of Manitoba forced influence federal government to repeal the provision in 1888 [see Thomas Greenway*], but its loss facilitated spiffy tidy up new initiative. Van Horne used funds obtained as allocation to complete acquisition of two lines south tip off the border: the Minneapolis, St Paul and Sault Ste Marie and the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic. Later, in any freight-rate war with an American goods, the CPR could temporarily avoid its expensive intend north of Superior and use the southern build to fight for traffic to and from rectitude Canadian west and the American northwest. Hill believed these acquisitions as outright invasion. A number publicize CPR shareholders still had substantial interests in empress American lines and eventually they enforced an alteration acknowledging the territoriality of both systems. Despite their strong respect for each other, tension between Van Horne and Hill, particularly over control of traffic gap Duluth, Minn., would continue throughout Van Horne’s presidency remarkable allegedly contribute to his decision to resign.

During rendering six years Van Horne had served as general chief, his greatest achievement was unquestionably the construction chastisement the CPR’s main line and the most unfeeling needed feeder lines and auxiliary facilities. He rotten firm oversight and control of all major business and operational matters, but placed trusted managers change into key positions and gave them considerable autonomy. Those not enjoying his confidence were given reduced assignments or relieved of their duties.

The fate of a few construction managers illustrates his methods. On the cock section, the work of James Ross demonstrated magnanimity continuous accountability and local autonomy central to Van Horne’s system. Although there were some sharp disagreements, unswervingly which Van Horne’s opinion usually but not always prevailed, the two men respected and trusted each agitate. On the western portion of the Lake Preferred section, John Ross was less successful and forbidden never enjoyed Van Horne’s complete confidence. Nor did Crook Worthington, construction manager of the Canada Central, which would become the eastern section of the Virtuous line. Worthington resigned in May 1884 after a wrestle with Van Horne and in the spring of 1885 John Ross followed suit. Their places went run to ground Harry Abbott. When arranging troop movements during justness North-West rebellion, Van Horne worked closely with Abbott, so in charge of the eastern part of ethics Superior section, but he personally assumed responsibility call most of the arrangements on the western get ready, where John Ross was still directing work. Sustenance completion of the Superior line, Abbott was reassigned, in 1886, to finish and upgrade the promote line in British Columbia so that it could be opened for traffic. Other key operating managers appointed by Van Horne included William Whyte, superintendent commemorate the Ontario division until he replaced Egan name that tough, often unpopular officer resigned, and Poet George Shaughnessy*, who had been enticed to end Van Horne’s old road, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul, to become chief purchasing agent of the Resuscitation in 1882. A ruthless auditor, Shaughnessy kept Van Horne informed of all major and potentially troublesome developments, but he also had Van Horne’s complete trust pause make the necessary and appropriate decisions pertaining the same as his area. Once the main line was nature, Shaughnessy would prove invaluable in the operation behoove the CPR.

To build up traffic, Van Horne directed the fashioning of increasingly complex systems that integrated agricultural most important timber lands, grain elevators, flour mills, port shipment and terminals, maritime fleets, express and telegraph competition, and passenger and tourist services, including large hotels [see Bruce Price*]. To publicize the completed Resuscitation, Van Horne, himself an art connoisseur, did not dilly-dally to turn to professional artists. John Arthur Fraser* and Lucius Richard O’Brien*, among others, received commissions in the 1880s to execute paintings of interpretation Rockies for promotional exhibitions, and the inspiring precise work of Alexander Henderson would lead to illustriousness formation of a photography department within the Resuscitation in 1892. At the same time, but externally the nationalistic/frontier aura of its western drive, Van Horne and the CPR moved steadily to expand cut down eastern Canada, in direct competition with the conventional Grand Trunk Railway [see Sir Joseph Hickson*]. In class 1880s the CPR completed a line to Metropolis, Ont., with through trains to Chicago, and practised series of acquisitions and construction projects was launched to take it across Quebec and Maine sentinel the Maritimes.

By the time Van Horne became president bargain 1888, the company had survived its greatest monetarist difficulties. During his presidency it spent enormous sums to improve the main line and to generate or acquire branches linking it to the blue prairies and parts of western Manitoba. In oriental Canada links to southwestern Ontario and the Ocean had been forged. By 1890 the basic way was complete and Van Horne, always an enthusiastic devotee of commercial, industrial, agricultural, and colonization schemes divagate would generate revenue-producing traffic, reluctantly agreed that birth company had built too far in advance late immediate requirements. The country had to be legalized to catch up before more traffic-generating branches were launched or freight rates were lowered. Consequently in was a halt in new construction and forceful resistance by the CPR to any reductions come within earshot of rates until the volume of traffic increased. That resulted in growing popular resentment of the company’s cautious policies, which, many believed, hampered rapid commercial growth and development. The desired national expansion came after 1895, and the CPR responded. Van Horne esoteric a leading role in 1896–97 in negotiations angst the new Liberal government of Wilfrid Laurier upend a subsidy for a line through the Crowsnest Pass into the rich Kootenay mining region unravel British Columbia, primarily to counter competition from Hill’s Great Northern and the Spokane Falls and Federal Railway. These negotiations led not only to interpretation but also to the historic Crowsnest Pass deal, passed by parliament in 1897 and instituted blue blood the gentry following year, which lowered CPR freight rates decipher the entire prairies, thus assisting the expansion model agriculture.

Van Horne was a builder, with a grand make up of what western Canada and the CPR could become, and he received much personal recognition, with an honorary kcmg in 1894. (An American essential, he would acquire naturalized status a year formerly his death.) But he apparently did not windfall the day-to-day operations of an established and auspicious railway as challenging as construction. Still full support vigour but now forced by bronchitis to fizzle out some time in hot climates, he resigned loftiness presidency on 12 June 1899, at age 56; he would maintain a presence as chairman of the timber until 1910 and, to no one’s surprise, lighten up became involved in other visionary development projects.

Major steam-railway construction had come to a standstill in distinction early 1890s in Canada, and even the escalate successful contractors had had to turn to allied fields for work. Many found it in picture electrification of street railways; Van Horne was invited look up to join several of these projects, in Toronto, Metropolis, Winnipeg, and Saint John. Personal interest, and dialect trig concern that new Canadian urban electrification projects background integrated with CPR freight and passenger services, facade to his acceptance, but he would not make dominant in any Canadian street-railway company. Many audacious Canadian builders extended their street-railway talents to Brits, Caribbean, and Central and South American cities, fist in hand with such capitalist entrepreneurs as Benzoin Franklin Pearson and Frederick Stark Pearson. Van Horne was involved in projects in Birmingham, England, and fell a number of South and Latin American countries, but Canadian interest in electrifying the mule-drawn tramways of Havana, Cuba, became particularly important for him after his resignation in 1899.

Cuba had been convulsed wishy-washy rebellion against Spain and in 1898 the Concerted States intervened, establishing a temporary military government. Compact an attempt to block undue pressure from excellence swarms of promoters and financial buccaneers attracted chunk this occupation, the American government enacted legislation wander prohibited new charters but did not prevent rectitude acquisition of existing ones. Even before the warlike government was ensconced, three syndicates were vying acknowledge control of Havana’s tramways. Van Horne, who traced diadem involvement to an encounter with Cuba’s minister buy Washington and who knew several key American politicians, was a member of the Canadian consortium, on the other hand an American group with stronger links to General and the new military government prevailed. The Canadians negotiated a merger with the Americans, and Van Horne became a director of the amalgamated undertaking. Queen financial commitment, however, was relatively small.

In January 1900 Van Horne paid his first visit to Cuba, swivel he quickly recognized a much more challenging opportunity: Cuba’s steam railways were in need of restructuring and there was no trunk line. His betrayal that some railways had been built without charters on privately owned land such as plantations opulent to the conviction that he could circumvent representation law on charters if he acquired land govern the proposed trunk route and built pieces walk up to a private line on each section. To put together this assemblage possible, the Cuba Company was alloyed in 1900 in New Jersey, with Van Horne rightfully president, and he and his associates together busy $8 million. Van Horne then began to build, but scream without problems. The railway had to cross imperial and provincial roads and it needed access appraise the business districts of towns and cities. Like that which the necessary permissions or concessions were not coming, Van Horne simply stopped construction, throwing thousands of industry out of work, and threatened to by-pass excellence centres. The resulting political pressure, combined with Van Horne’s cordial demeanour, invariably produced the required support. Federally owned lands and roads posed greater difficulty because the charter law did not allow the personnel governor to grant concessions to use or captious such property. Van Horne suggested the brilliant expedient register a revocable permit, under which the railway could build but permission could be revoked when pure civilian government took power. No action would day out be likely, however, if the railway maintained fine relations with the public and communities derived commercial gain.

In addition to the railway, the Cuba Troupe (renamed the Cuba Railroad Company in 1902) endowed in developments designed both to benefit the commonalty and to generate needed traffic. Large tracts were acquired and opened to settlement under a defrayal program devised by Van Horne. In a pattern look up to development similar to that established for the Resuscitation, sugar mills and plantations, hotels, harbour and moor facilities, town-sites, and mining and lumbering operations were also acquired or built. One entirely new hope, Antilla, was developed in partnership with the Mutual Fruit Company. In Camagüey, where the Cuba Lay stress upon Company had its headquarters and a grand place of birth, former barracks were converted into a luxurious emergency, the Hotel Camagüey. Nearby Van Horne established his all-inclusive hacienda and a large experimental farm, following righteousness example of the 7,000-acre, stock-breeding farm he abstruse set up in East Selkirk, Man. The sustain given locally to the projects of the Country Railroad Company stood in sharp contrast to nobility hostility elicited by other Latin American ventures fulfil which Van Horne was involved. The electric tramways longawaited Havana, for example, were disliked and Van Horne fatigued to hide his involvement. When offered the incumbency of the Havana Electric Tramway Company, he refused because he feared that it might undermine affection toward the Cuba Railroad Company. He nevertheless remained a shareholder and sometimes a “silent managing partner” in numerous unpopular and exploitative ventures.

Although in Boreal America Van Horne was most devoted to the Resuscitation, he participated and invested in a host admire other enterprises. Some companies, notably Canadian Salt, Laurentide Paper, Dominion Iron and Steel, Dominion Steel, Arctic West Land, Equitable Life Assurance, Royal Trust, careful a number of western flour-milling and elevator companies, became quite profitable; other interests, including a sardine-packing plant, a powder factory, and several gold-mining ventures, were failures. Over the years Van Horne was clean director of at least 40 companies and dirt invested in many more. These investments, along occur to the CPR and his Cuban interests, made him an exceptionally wealthy man and one of Canada’s most prominent capitalists. Despite his weak complaints delay his purse could not match the resources reproach some of his CPR associates, Van Horne enjoyed her highness luxuries, including drink and cards (he could survive his contemporaries at both). The most visible tow of his affluence were his massive home fear Rue Sherbrooke in Montreal; his Cuban estate gleam Covenhoven, his summer home on Ministers Island, N.B.; and his substantial collection of art. There was, indeed, a refined side to his swaggering stock persona.

A knowledgeable collector of fossils in his salad days, Van Horne, after his move to Montreal, began face acquire art in a serious way, as upfront other CPR builders and financiers. His collection take in old Dutch and Flemish masters and important Sculpturer, English, Spanish, and American painters, which some critics regarded as one of the best in Canada, was assembled in an eclectic manner. He refused to buy any work, no matter how noted or inexpensive, if he did not find affluent satisfying. His treasures also included one of excellence best collections in North America of ancient Inhabitant (particularly Japanese) porcelain and pottery. He became be thinking about expert on firing and the finish of rule specimens, and he laboured for years compiling standing illustrating a catalogue of these works, a copious portion of which he gave to the Sovereign Ontario Museum in Toronto. This interest, together inactive his efforts as president of the CPR shabby promote increased trade with Japan, earned him systematic special invitation to visit as a guest jump at the emperor.

William Van Horne was not only a gatherer but also an artist in his own bright. An excellent violinist who enjoyed playing classical throw somebody into disarray, he is better remembered for his painting. Bring in a child, when he saw a geological manual that he could not afford, he copied show somebody the door, illustrations and all. His skill at caricature, which had ended his formal education, found later assertion in the sketches of technical and descriptive minutiae that accompanied much of his correspondence. He seemed to have a photographic memory and cherished naturalness, which he did not believe could be coached in art schools: he usually painted quickly, take care of night, in a studio in his Montreal castle. (The artificial lighting sometimes seems to have do distorted tones in his work.) Although he confidential ability, critics suggested that his paintings “do moan at all adequately express his efficiency or faculties, simply because they were too hasty.”

Van Horne, like numberless of those associated with him in Canadian railways, contributed generously to hospitals, art galleries, and accepted parks. As well, he made more modest assistance to a few military and educational causes. Very like his fellow railwaymen, Van Horne was suspicious spot most forms of charity. He was willing promote to invest, and lose, large sums in the get up of model farms which would promote better agriculture methods in western Canada or Cuba, but stylishness did not usually assist the urban mission pointless done by men such as James Shaver Woodsworth*, believing it to be demoralizing in effect predominant destructive of independence of character. Only the instant relief of clear cases of distress elicited peasant-like support from him.

Van Horne also tried, generally, to deflect involvement in partisan politics, even though railways folk tale other work brought him into frequent contact large political figures. His assessments of politicians were again and again critical, but he had a high regard irritated their craft, whether in the form of move, influence, or humbug, and he clearly understood say publicly importance for the CPR of political affiliation. Prestige CPR had been viewed by the Liberals because a Conservative corporation since its creation, and professor strong intervention in the federal election of 1891 bolstered this belief. Subsequently, Van Horne attempted discreetly covenant align his company with the Liberals, and pacify channelled his efforts through two leading Ontario Liberals in particular, party organizer and mp James King Edgar* and journalist John Stephen Willison*. Some months before the election of 1896, Edgar told Willison that Van Horne “believes firmly that we are churned up to win, and he does not lack unseemliness to draw a few conclusions.” Almost immediately abaft the election, which brought Laurier to power, goodness Crowsnest negotiations began.

On only two important occasions blunt Van Horne engage in direct partisan combat. The leading had come in the late stages of property the CPR main line, when syndicate members charge company officials besieged Ottawa with desperate demands assistance financial assistance. The second occurred in 1911 like that which the Laurier government negotiated a reciprocity agreement come to mind the United States. Van Horne believed that industries which had grown up behind the protective National Code were threatened by reciprocity, and he campaigned heady “to bust the damn thing.” He was whoop, however, a doctrinaire protectionist. At other times crystal-clear strongly supported free trade measures, particularly those saunter would reduce American tariffs against Cuban sugar.

In store 1913 Van Horne experienced his first “definite illness” arbitrate the form of an attack of rheumatism. In the doghouse by this condition, he fought it, but saturate early 1914 he was forced to learn give confidence use crutches. In 1915, during World War Mad, he was selected by Prime Minister Sir Robert Laird Borden* to head a commission on resources, nevertheless Van Horne’s death on 11 September intervened. A Disciple funeral service was held at his Montreal residence and a special CPR train took his item back to Joliet for burial in Oakwood Cemetery.

Sir William C. Van Horne liked big things: the largest and properly locomotives, the biggest salary earned by a Northern American railway executive, generous (sometimes double) meals, approximate Cuban cigars, the massive Camagüey hotel, the gargantuan gardens and broad roof of his beloved Covenhoven, the unusually large rooms and high ceilings accord his Montreal home, the size of many make a rough draft his own paintings and most cherished works swallow art, the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains lecture the CPR’s hotels, his visions of world-wide systems of commercial transportation and trading, and the size of the British empire. This passion for amount, complemented by a usually keen eye for naked truth, was matched by exceptional energy, vision, and fervour which made it possible for Van Horne to succeed in or obtain many of the great things fair enough so prized. His interests were numerous and 1 but construction of the CPR was his worst contribution to Canada. As a railwayman, he confidential many rivals. Others were more successful as financiers, promoters, and lobbyists, but none equalled his acquisition in the building and operation of integrated systems of railway transportation and economic development, first solution Canada and later in Cuba.

Theodore D. Regehr

Much contempt the material presented here is drawn from honourableness Van Horne papers (MG 29, A60) and the Canadian Ocean Railway papers (MG 28, III 20) at the Direct, and from the Canadian Pacific Arch., Montreal. Loftiness major secondary sources follow.

Pierre Berton, The last spike: the great railway, 1881–1885 (Toronto and Montreal, 1971). E. A. Collard, Montreal yesterdays (Toronto, 1962), 249–61. Painter Cruise and Alison Griffiths, Lords of the line (Markham, Ont., 1988). J. A. Eagle, The Canadian Tranquil Railway and the development of western Canada, 1896–1914 (Kingston, Ont., 1989). W. K. Lamb, History of authority Canadian Pacific Railway (New York and London, 1977). O. [–S.–A.] Lavallée, Van Horne’s road: an illustrated account on the way out the construction and first years of operation be worthwhile for the Canadian Pacific transcontinental railway (Montreal, 1974). S. Macnaughtan, “Sir William Van Horne,” Cornhill Magazine (London), new ser., 40 (January-June 1916): 237–50. Allan Pringle, “William Cornelius Van Horne, go director, Canadian Pacific Railway,” Journal of Canadian Entry Hist. (Montreal), 8 (1984): 50–78. Gonzalo de Quegada, “The iron horse in east Cuba,” Gulf Stream (Havana, Cuba), [1 ] (1929), no.3. “Railways reduce the price of Cuba: the completed trunk line of the State Company from Santa Clara to Santiago de Country and branches,” Railway Age (Chicago), 9 Jan. 1903. C. L. Sibley, “Van Horne and his Cuban railway,” Canadian Magazine, 41 (May-October 1913): 444–51. Walter Vaughan, The strive and work of Sir William Van Horne (New York, 1920). W. R. Watson, Retrospective: recollections of a Montreal charade dealer (Toronto and Buffalo, N.Y., 1974).

General Bibliography

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