is Canadian from his cradle up. He embodies
the best characteristics of the average Canadian in a very high degree.
He is an amateur athlete whom hard work has never been known to make
weary. At the end of any perfect day of hard work he has as much
strength in reserve as he had in the morning when he came to it. Even
in his talk he wastes never a word, states everything clearly and in
forcible language, but is seldom curt at the expense of courtesy. He
does not talk like any big American executive whose equal or superior
he may be in administration. He copies nobody. The day's work has
always been his exemplar. He has no desire for mere personal success.
Years ago he could have made more money by exporting his brains to the
United States. But he preferred Canada where he has made less money,
justly earned more fame, and where he can continue to do more work that
counts for efficiency in himself and in other people. He is the kind
of man--like Arthur Meighen--who inspires other men to go in with him
on a heavy task to get it done in a big way.

Beatty's type of mind, though somewhat dry and legal and at times
judicial, is also capable of an immensely quiet enthusiasm that
transmits itself to other people. He invites discussion, but not
familiarity. Not personally careful just to maintain traditions, he
profoundly respects the men who created them--and goes ahead to
transact business now, and to hand out decisions immediately, that get
to-day ahead of yesterday and as near as possible to the day after. He
believes in the square deal in action and in the high common sense of a
decision. There is no public question upon which his opinion might not
be sanely valuable, though one would never expect him to succeed as a
leader in politics. As a business reorganizer of McGill University he
is bound to consider a college as a "going concern". As Chancellor of
Queen's, he upsets all traditions as to the dignity of pure scholarship.

It seemed like a long stride from being Chief Railway Counsel to
becoming Chief Executive. But to his practical personality the stride
was only a step. On an average this is no lawyer's job. Judges in the
United States can preside over big corporations. The chief executive
of the C.P.R. works. He must know the system, its men, its technique.
Railroading is a complex of specialities. A good president must enter
into the spirit of the man who builds a locomotive and of one who
con