Читать книгу Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 26–30 - Wayne Larsen - Страница 14

In the spring of 1906, Van Horne took Bennie and Lord Elphistone, a Scottish peer and CPR shareholder, to dinner at Henri’s, the celebrated restaurant in Paris. When the Van Horne party arrived, the head waiter rushed forward to receive them, and, to Van Horne’s embarrassment, the orchestra played the opening bars of “God Save the King.” Such was the price the railway magnate occasionally paid for resembling the portly Edward VII.

Although neither a crowned monarch nor a member of the British or the European landed nobility, Van Horne was a leading member of Canada’s financial aristocracy and one of this country’s most influential men. As a result, he was frequently invited to accept honours. Because of his odd shyness in formal social situations and his dislike of public speaking, he frequently turned down these invitations. Despite his disdain for pomp and ceremony, however, he did agree on occasion to serve on committees that were charged with a variety of public duties.

In the early autumn of 1901, for instance, he helped to arrange the Canadian tour for the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall (the future King George V and Queen Mary). Van Horne played a role in planning the two days of elaborate ceremonies and festivities that took place in the flag-bedecked city of Montreal. The “new imperialism” then in full swing stressed the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race and Great Britain’s civilizing mission in the world, and the reception committee spared no effort to cement still further Montrealers’ ties to Great Britain and the empire. On the third morning of the visit, Van Horne rose early and went to Windsor Station to see the duke and duchess board a special train to Ottawa. He took great pleasure and pride in the royal train that the CPR had provided for the royal couple’s transcontinental journey. Two of the seven cars that had been specially built for this trip boasted elaborate interiors complete with telephones and electric lights as well as royal crests on the exterior.

Four years later, in the autumn of 1905, Van Horne again helped to arrange a royal visit to Montreal — this time for Prince Louis of Battenberg, the grandfather of the present Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip. From Montreal the prince left for Fredericton and St. Andrews, where he stopped off at Minister’s Island to enjoy Van Horne’s hospitality.

Although he was now in his sixties, Van Horne found himself even busier than he had been as president of the CPR. Now at the height of his career, he was involved in a staggering number of business enterprises — his supervision of the Cuba Company and the construction of the Cuba Railroad; the administration of his estates in New Brunswick, Manitoba, and Cuba; and his participation in various schemes of municipal and national advancement. There were times, even for Van Horne, when the demands made by these various commitments seemed overwhelming, especially when he experienced health problems.

One of the highly touted federal schemes in which Van Horne became involved was a scheme promoted by Canadian farmers and politicians to construct a shipping canal from Montreal to Georgian Bay. This Georgian Bay Canal Project simmered for decades until the Laurier government publicly committed itself in 1904 to provide funds for it. Van Horne initially embraced the project warmly and did whatever he could to make it a reality. When he studied it more closely, however, he began to doubt the feasibility of constructing a canal twenty-eight feet or more in depth and adapting facilities for it at lake ports. As it turned out, the canal was never built and, in 1917, it was voted down by a special Commons Committee on Railways, Canals and Telegraph Lines.

Notwithstanding the enthusiasm with which he embraced new ideas and schemes, age was catching up with Van Horne — and he knew it. In the wake of the Equitable Life Assurance Society fiasco, he began to relinquish numerous company directorships and, by the spring of 1910, he had withdrawn from about thirty boards. The only severance he regretted was his resignation in 1910, at age sixty-seven, from the chairmanship of the Canadian Pacific Railway. When he retired as president of the railway in 1899, the company’s stock sold for $110 a share. Now it was fetching $181.50 a share. As an optimist, he had always believed in the CPR’s prosperity, even in the depths of the financial panic of 1893–94. At last it seemed that his unwavering faith in its prospects was more than justified.

Friends expected that Van Horne would now devote more of his time to public service. The Laurier government pointed the way in 1903, when it offered him the chairmanship of the National Transportation Commission. The temptation to accept was great, but Van Horne declined the invitation, claiming prior commitments. When Sir Lomer Gouin, the premier of Quebec, asked him to become a member of Montreal’s Parks Commission, however, he agreed. The commission, made up of politicians and businessmen, was established in 1910, when a wave of enthusiasm for city planning, garden suburbs, and parks was sweeping across Canada. Van Horne was an ideal choice, given his long-standing interest in the beautification of towns and cities and his passion for designing structures and gardens, and he welcomed the opportunity to serve on it. Regrettably, the commission’s work was hampered by a perpetual lack of funding, accentuated by the recession of 1913. As a result, the body in which Van Horne had invested so much hope was unable to discharge its ambitious mandate. Disheartened, his goodwill utterly exhausted, he suggested in April 1914 that it be dissolved.

The whole experience was certainly disillusioning for Van Horne, especially as his sardine fishery enterprise had also recently collapsed. Fortunately, the other public causes with which he was associated progressed more smoothly. They included the Royal Victoria Hospital, which he served as a governor; McGill University, on whose board of governors he sat; and the St. John Ambulance Association, where he was vice-president.

Outside the public sphere, Van Horne was able to assist the daughter of a prominent liberal friend, J.D. Edgar, to realize her dream of establishing a private girls’ school in Montreal. Maud Edgar had taught at Havergal Ladies’ College in Toronto, where she found a soulmate in the English-born Mary Cramp, who shared her ideals and advanced thinking about teaching. These two friends began to dream of establishing a school grounded in their teaching philosophy, and they set out to find a suitable building. They finally found one on the western edge of Montreal’s Square Mile. The building was available, and soon negotiations were under way with Samuel Carsley, the builder’s son. Although Edgar and Cramp had the necessary enterprise to found a school, they lacked practical knowledge about the complexities of leases and risk capital. Here Van Horne came to their rescue: he purchased the Carsley property and assumed the lease that Edgar had taken out with Carsley.

Disaster struck in late January 1913, when fire raced through the school, allowing boarders and the two founders to escape with only their night clothes. In the early hours of the morning, Maud Edgar and Mary Cramp made their way to the Van Horne mansion, where they were provided with overnight accommodation and clothes. Van Horne was in Cuba at the time, but when he was notified of the conflagration, he immediately contacted the insurance adjustors. He also got in touch with his favourite architect, Edward Maxwell, and asked him to direct the necessary repairs. Next he instructed Bennie to look after the Carsley property in his absence, keeping in mind that his father was “anxious to help Miss Edgar in any possible way without throwing away money.” Van Horne continued to assist the school in its rebuilding program until January 1914.

Still, despite his kindness to many individuals, Van Horne was downright stingy in terms of charitable donations to hospitals, colleges, welfare organizations, and other organizations that serve the community. His will, drawn up in January 1915, made no provision for bequests to non-profit organizations or charities, nor did it provide for friends or family retainers. By contrast, Lord Strathcona’s will listed a large number of generous bequests to colleges, college professorships, and hospitals in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. During his lifetime, Van Horne did make one or two noteworthy donations to public institutions, but, overall, he hated to part with money that he could use to purchase yet another painting or Japanese vase.

In the final decade of his life, Van Horne continued to shuttle constantly between Montreal and New York and Montreal and Havana. Interspersed with these excursions were transatlantic voyages in luxuriously appointed ships. When he made the crossing to England, it was primarily for business, the renewal of old friendships, and for viewing paintings and other art objects.

In the summer of 1912, Van Horne, accompanied by Addie and young Addie, journeyed to Joliet to participate in the homecoming festival timed to coincide with the July 4 festivities. It had been forty-eight years since he left the town, where he had spent a good part of his youth and where, in his last job, he had been the ticket agent and telegraph operator for the Chicago and Alton Railroad. Now he was the centre of attraction at a public meeting in the town’s library — and there he regaled his audience with recollections of his first visit to Joliet as a boy. What most impressed those who had known him half a century earlier was his total lack of pretension. He was still the same Will Van Horne they recalled from earlier days, a man of rough-and-ready comradeship.

The Joliet reunion was so exhilarating that Van Horne returned to Montreal feeling energetic and rejuvenated. He turned his attention with renewed vigour to the construction of his Cuban home, San Zenon de Buenos Aires. Once it was completed, he planned to make it his retreat during Montreal’s long, harsh winters.

Van Horne also continued to take a lively interest in the fate of the CPR. Any perceived danger to the company immediately roused him to action, as did any implied threat to Canadian manufacturers or to Canada’s ties with Britain. When reciprocity — free trade with the United States — resurfaced during the 1911 election, Van Horne marshalled all his forces to fight it. Canadians were bitterly divided over the issue: the farmers demanded a broad free-trade agreement to eliminate duties on a wide range of natural products and to lower them on some fully manufactured and semi-finished articles; they were opposed by manufacturers and other ardent supporters of the National Policy, who considered tariffs essential in order to nurture Canada’s infant industries. Van Horne loudly supported the protectionist side: as he told one reporter, “I am out to do all I can to bust the damn thing.” That included addressing public meetings in Montreal, St. Andrews, and Saint John and striving to convert friends and acquaintances to his anti-reciprocity position. In addition, he feared that free trade with the United States “would loosen the bonds which bind Canada to the Empire and ultimately destroy them.” When the Liberal prime minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, lost the election, Van Horne was ecstatic. He declared: “Canada’s first great trial is ended and she now stands out in brilliant sunshine without a cloud in the skies.”

Van Horne was quick to offer the new Conservative prime minister, Robert Borden, advice on how best to run his government and even the men he should appoint to certain powerful positions in the Cabinet. Borden ignored his ideas, however, along with his suggestion that the money-losing Intercolonial Railway be administered by three competent commissioners along strictly business lines. Van Horne had stature as a pre-eminent businessman and railway manager, but he could be politically naïve with regard to making Cabinets and fulfilling election promises. Despite rebuffs, however, he continued his efforts to influence Borden’s thinking on various issues of the day.

No social democrat, Van Horne believed that just about anything could be accomplished through effort, determination, and goodwill. To one interviewer he observed that able men have always “appropriated a large amount” of the world’s goods and that to deny them these just rewards “would be to send us back to chaos.” As a devout family man, however, he was prepared to lobby for legislation that would, he thought, help to preserve the family — the basic unit of Canadian society. Discipline, along with industry, undivided attention to duty, and unswerving loyalty to family, friends, and the CPR, were the tenets that governed Van Horne’s life. He attached the greatest importance to discipline, for, to him, it was the foundation of character. It had made possible his climb to lofty heights. He also believed, though, that to reach such heights, men had to be masters of humbug — and among such masters he included his friend and railroading rival James Jerome Hill.

While engaged in a stunning array of activities, Van Horne had to cope with recurring health setbacks and the nagging realization that his overall heath was not good. There had been attacks of bronchitis, but potentially much more serious was the onset of diabetes and a kidney disease, glomerulonephritis, which Van Horne always referred to by its more common name, “Bright’s disease.” Especially irksome was a lengthy bout of “inflammatory rheumatism” that confined him to bed and home for weeks on end in the winter of 1913–14. Unfortunately, as soon as the rheumatism abated, a carbuncle developed on one of his knees and confined him once again to his bedroom. Never a submissive patient, he openly defied his physician’s order not to smoke more than three cigars a day.

When he was finally able to resume his normal life, Van Horne headed directly for Cuba. There, the island’s sun and his focus on beautifying San Zenon des Buenos Aires hastened his recovery. In early June, four days after his return to Montreal, he headed for Europe. Accompanied by Bennie, he made what would prove to be his last visit to London. Although business matters absorbed much of his attention, he also sandwiched in a meeting with his old colleague Lord Mount Stephen, an interview with the art dealer Stephan Bourgeois, and a visit to the theatre to see a play selected by Bennie.

No sooner had they returned to Montreal than the First World War broke out. The pugnacious Van Horne had always thought that wars were inevitable and, indeed, a good thing. In 1910, as tensions rose in Europe, his friend Samuel McClure, the American publisher, had raised the topic of war in a letter. In reply, Van Horne stated that he had no use for universal peace and nothing but praise for war as a promoter of man’s highest qualities. If worldwide peace reigned, he continued, “I feel sure that it would result in universal rottenness…. All the manliness of the civilized world is due to wars…. All the enterprise of the world has grown out of the aggressive, adventurous and warlike spirit engendered by centuries of war.” In 1914, however, he was certain there would not be any war. He had high regard for Kaiser William II and considered him the greatest emperor of all time — he particularly admired his business acumen and economic skills. Van Horne predicted, therefore, that there would be no war with Germany: “The great wars of the future will be in trade and commerce,” he declared. He was appalled when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria gave way to ultimatums, mobilizations, and declarations of war by major world powers. The aging mogul soon changed his attitude towards war, however, when he realized how awful was its destruction and how tragic was its annihilation of a generation of promising young men.

To escape from the shadow of war and Montreal’s harsh winter, he hurried off to Cuba in December 1914. The following year, he made two more visits, one in February and one in May. He also took his grandson, William, on a tour to New York. Other than these trips, he busied himself in Montreal, all the while regretting that he could not play an active role in the war effort. He did, however, put his fertile mind to work creating a detection device that would enhance the Allies’ ability to hunt German submarines. He forwarded his suggestion to the British Admiralty, which considered his proposal but then turned it down.

Fortunately, another avenue of service opened up to Van Horne — Prime Minister Robert Borden asked him to chair a federal commission that would examine agriculture, immigration, transportation, the borrowing of capital, and the marketing of food products. Van Horne accepted the invitation, but then hesitated, concerned that his deteriorating health would not allow him to take on two years of almost continuous work. But no other nationally known figure had more qualifications for the job or a deeper interest in the topics to be covered. Borden knew that Van Horne’s name would lend influence to the commission’s work and credibility to its report, and he responded that arrangements could be made to accommodate Van Horne’s absences during the winter months in Cuba. On July 9, 1915, Van Horne cabled the prime minister that he was willing “to take chances” if Borden thought that best.

Shortly after his return from Cuba in early June, however, Van Horne came down with a fever that baffled his physicians and forced periods of rest on him. When his activities were not sharply curtailed by the fever, he made several visits to Covenhoven and continued to manage his various business enterprises. Then, on the night of August 22, he was rushed to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where early the next morning he was operated on for a huge abdominal abscess. To the great relief of the family and anxious friends, the operation was judged a success. Once he rallied from the shock of the operation, he began receiving visitors, some of whom he entertained with plans for the new type of hospital he would build when he regained his health. On September 7, however, he took a turn for the worse and, four days later, he died. He was seventy-two years old.

Messages of sympathy poured in from around the world, while across the far-flung CPR system, from Montreal to London and Hong Kong, flags on company buildings drooped at half-mast. Across Cuba, church bells tolled for the passing of the man who, “in little more than one year had done greater work in Cuba than the Spanish government had accomplished in four hundred and fifty years.”

The funeral took place on the morning of Tuesday, September 14, from Van Horne’s Sherbrooke Street home, where the service was conducted in the great drawing room by the minister of the Church of the Messiah — the church Addie and his sister Mary attended. The funeral procession then set out for Windsor Station by way of Stanley Street, which was thronged with onlookers. Flower-laden carriages headed the procession, testimony to Van Horne’s great love of flowers, particularly lilies and roses. At the station, the coffin was transferred to a special train whose locomotive was draped in black crepe. The train then departed for Joliet, where Van Horne was to be buried in Oakwood cemetery, the place where other members of his family had been buried. The last car on the train was the official car, the Saskatchewan, which he had used since 1884. As the funeral train made its way across Canada, groups of men who revered Van Horne’s memory greeted it at station after station. In homage to him, all traffic on the CPR system was suspended at an appointed hour.

A year after Van Horne’s death, George Tate Blackstock of Toronto, his legal counsel during the frenetic years 1885 to 1892, wrote a fitting epitaph for his friend: “Canadians even today have no realization of the work he did or of what they owe him. He was a Napoleonic master of men, and the fertility of his genius and his resource were boundless, as were the skill and force with which he brought his conceptions to realities.”