t--that I was wrong. But he has been long enough with it to know
that the surging ideals and aspirations of a young, healthy man in his
own office are pretty rudely shaken down by the practical operation of
a great system in a time of financial difficulty.

We talked for nearly an hour. He seemed to have the time and the
interest. His big office was as quiet as a library. His desk was
almost devoid of signs of labour. Not a paper to be seen that required
immediate attention; every item neatly disposed; himself smoking--a
fairly strong pipe; scarcely a telephone call to interrupt. He seemed
the sculptor's embodiment of strength in reserve; a man who never could
be tuckered or peevish or unable to detect either the weakness of an
opponent, the penetration of a critic or the need of a man who came to
ask him for advice. There was a big instant kindliness about him that
would have won the cordiality of the stolidest of interviewers, as we
talked about railways, government ownership, the needs of journalism
and the value in business of the personal equation--his own phrase
which he repeated so often that it seemed to contain something of
prophetic intention. He paid his venerating respects to the founders
of the C.P.R., but he seemed to have more enthusiasm for Lord
Mountstephen than for Van Horne.

I heard him say some strong, sincere things about the uselessness of
rich men who would sooner use their money on the gratification of
vanity than upon public service. He meant that. He repeated such
things at various interviews. In doing so he proved that he himself
had always made a god of very hard work, discipline and self-denial,
for the sake of giving his own personality a square deal, without
regard to the money he could make. He had the strength and he used it.
As solicitor and chief counsel he became almost a machine to win cases
for the railway. He must win, and know how to lose. Fighting a
corporation's battles is a good way to believe that the system can do
no wrong. But I don't think Beatty was ever blind to the native
defects of the C.P.R.

Railroading is a great university of character. Nothing else in our
practical affairs attracts such a variety of men. None of our
railwaymen have climbed to the peak of the railway operation business
quite so successfully and so Canadianly as E. W. Beatty. Most other
transportation magnates we have imported from either Scotland or the
United States. This one