of the ‘Short Line,’” he exploded in a letter to Sir John A. Macdonald in July 1889, only one month after the line began operating. “Nearly nine millions are now invested in that line which such an attitude on the part of the officers of the Intercolonial Railway will make absolutely valueless, or worse than valueless.” And in October of that same year, he declared, “The CPR has been grievously wronged.”
In Ontario, CPR expansion continued to rouse the ire of its long-time antagonist, the Grand Trunk Railway. In their attempts to harmonize their expansion plans and execute them smoothly, Van Horne and Joseph Hickson, the GTR’s forceful general manager, both had to make concessions. These compromises required them to meet face to face in sometimes gruelling negotiations. In one such session, two months before Van Horne assumed the CPR presidency, the two men begged, cajoled, bluffed, and argued for four hours. Another round so exasperated Van Horne that he forwarded a copy of a letter from Hickson to George Stephen, fuming: “It has been a repetition of the old story — carrying on the negotiations up to the very last minute and then raising a new point relating to an outside matter.”
Notwithstanding the prolonged depression, the CPR spent huge sums of money during Van Horne’s presidency to improve its main line and to build or acquire branch lines linking it to parts of Manitoba and the northern prairies. Thanks to these expenditures and to links forged in southwestern Ontario and the Atlantic, the basic system was complete by 1890.
Expansion in the United States led, not surprisingly, to a renewal of clashes with Van Horne’s old friend and railroading rival, James Jerome Hill. Their rivalry reached new heights after the CPR snapped up the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railroad, commonly referred to as the Soo Line, along with another small railway, the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic. Even before these acquisitions, Van Horne’s company was taking westbound freight in the American East and Midwest from American carriers bound for San Francisco. After the acquisition of these lines, the rivalry between the Great Northern, Hill’s celebrated railway, and the CPR increased. It became even more intense after Van Horne scooped up the Duluth and Winnipeg, which the CPR would later surrender to Hill. However, even after the CPR gave up this company, its Soo Line harassed the Great Northern mercilessly. This encroachment prompted Hill to turn his attention to the West. Soon he built Great Northern branch lines northward towards the British Columbia border, angling for the rich coal deposits in the Crows Nest Pass area. Van Horne was furious. Looking at a map of British Columbia that showed the approaching lines, he bellowed at an engineer, “Look at these … like hungry hounds ready to jump in!”
The problem of international railway relations in the Northwest could have been resolved by a contract that divided traffic equitably between Hill’s railway and the CPR. Neither side, though, was prepared to cooperate. As a result, the struggle between the two companies — and between Van Horne and Hill — continued throughout the 1890s. Ironically, Van Horne and Hill, by their own admission, admired each other. In their personal dealings, they would exchange passes, visit each other’s railways, call on each other in their homes, and swap news about their latest art purchases. But when it came to operating rival railway systems, the two dynamos engaged in fierce, bare-knuckled competition. Contemplating the looming struggle with the Great Northern, Van Horne remarked in 1892 to Thomas Skinner, a London financier and CPR director: “I think just as much of Mr. Hill personally as it is possible for me to think of anybody who is opposed to the Canadian Pacific, but I would rather see him hung, drawn and quartered rather than have the Canadian Pacific lose ten cents through his Great Northern Railway.” Given the tensions of bitter competition, it is a wonder that their mutual regard for each other managed to survive — but survive it did.
James Hill was not Van Horne’s only American foe in the ruthless railway expansion game. In pressing his competitive edge so fiercely, the CPR president also attracted the hostility of other American railways — those companies that felt threatened by the CPR’s success in forging strategic American connections. Van Horne’s acquisition of the Soo Line and the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic crystallized much of this opposition. Indeed, it stirred up the agitation so effectively that, in 1889, the U.S. Senate’s Interstate Commerce Committee embarked on a study of Canadian railway operations in the United States.
In an effort to quell the opposition, Van Horne engaged an American lawyer to look after CPR interests in Washington, and he himself journeyed to the American capital to present his company’s case. Ultimately, the Senate committee made only one recommendation relating to railways. As a result, and because of the failure of the U.S. Congress to take decisive steps regarding Canadian competition, American agitation persisted for years. In the face of one particular storm, Van Horne even arranged for the Canadian Pacific’s case to be presented directly to President Benjamin Harrison, who had been threatening to issue a proclamation against Canadian railways. Fortunately, the president finally withdrew his threat. George Stephen was quick to commiserate with Van Horne, writing in January 1893: “It is very satisfactory to find that your record is so clear and clean. It is very annoying and trying to be obliged to suffer from grumbles and unfair interpretations.”
Railway competitors were not the only antagonists that Van Horne had to deal with in these years. He also had to confront the organizers of a railway strike that erupted in 1892 over wages. On this occasion, as in previous strikes, he revealed his antiunion prejudices. In the ensuing struggle, the CPR employed strike breakers, hired special police to guard its property, and had auxiliary police sworn in by cooperative police magistrates in almost every major centre the company served. On March 21, 1892, Van Horne and Thomas Shaughnessy — now vice-president of the CPR — raised the ante still further. They ordered company officials to administer a loyalty oath to workers in the CPR’s Eastern Division. This demand decided the issue for the men in northern Ontario, who, despite having no previous grievances against the company, voted to go out on strike. As a result, Van Horne and other CPR officials awoke on March 22 to the news that another seven hundred and fifty-two miles of track had been tied up. Faced with this setback, the company capitulated. On March 23, Van Horne ratified an agreement that represented an outstanding victory for the unionists. He had reluctantly, but pragmatically, concluded that further resistance would be drawn out and costly.
Van Horne was in the prime of life in 1894. Fifty-one years of age, he had put on weight over the years. The stocky body of youth had yielded to spreading girth, the result of too many hours at his desk, lack of exercise, and a gargantuan appetite. The receding hairline had long since been replaced by a bald pate, and his clipped beard was now flecked with grey. In fact, he bore a striking resemblance to the third Marquis of Salisbury, who was then Britain’s prime minister.
Notwithstanding the signs of middle age, Van Horne continued to be a high-voltage dynamo, driven by ambition and determination. He still toiled incredibly long hours, whether at his desk or rushing across the continent. But his body, which he had abused so often, had begun to register the occasional protest. In 1894 he experienced the first of them — a prolonged attack of bronchitis that threatened to take up “permanent quarters” if he did not escape to a warmer climate. In the hope of regaining his health, Van Horne left Montreal on December 5 for England and the Continent. He planned to be away for five or six weeks.
During his brief sojourn in England, he visited his friend Robert Horne-Payne, a financial genius who was frequently called upon to handle loans for Canadian railways. Before leaving rain-soaked London for the Continent, Van Horne also met with his old colleague and friend George Stephen. Unfortunately, the former CPR president was worried by this meeting, and he later wrote an alarming letter to Shaughnessy:
It is quite evident that Sir William, either from failing health or from allowing other things to occupy his mind, is no longer able to give the affairs of the company his undivided attention. His want of grasp and knowledge of the true position of the Company was, painfully, twice shown at our conference on Tuesday last, and can only be explained on the assumption that he had never given his mind to the matter…. His actions gave me the impression that he felt like a man who knew he was in a mess and had not the usual courage to look his position in the
