Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 26–30. Wayne Larsen
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to eight shares. He also inserted a penalty clause stipulating that shareholders who did not contribute an additional 40 percent of their investment when they were asked to do so would have to sell their shares. Unfortunately, recurring shortages of funds later caused him to regret he had not asked for more start-up capital.
To line up the necessary capital, Van Horne made a pilgrimage to New York, where he found himself “in the position of a small boy with his pockets full of bonbons, and all the shares [he] would not let go willingly were taken away from [him].” It seems that everyone he invited to purchase stock did so immediately. As a result, Van Horne had to ask some of the larger subscribers to drop a few of their shares in order to accommodate the wishes of more recent parties. His appeal was ignored. When he returned to Montreal, he had but a small holding for himself, but had managed to line up probably the most impressive list of subscribers ever associated with any commercial enterprise in the Americas.
One of these subscribers was James Jerome Hill, Van Horne’s long-time rival from earlier days in the American Midwest. They remained good friends, however, with genuine respect for each other in all things related to railroading. Another subscriber was Thomas Ryan, the vice-president of the Morton Trust Company, though initially he did not jump at the opportunity to join the roster. In fact, he ridiculed Van Horne’s bold gambit, contending that “it was a waste of time for him to turn his back on an Empire and go chasing a Rabbit.” Van Horne’s legendary energies should, he said, be deployed in a scheme that would produce a real empire for him to rule over. The scheme called for Ryan and some of his associates to obtain control of the CPR and then to invite Van Horne to return to it as president. In this capacity Van Horne would work with Ryan’s group to extend the CPR further into the United States and so secure for the railway a virtual monopoly of railway activity in North America.
When Ryan described this scenario, Van Horne was both startled and appalled. Then, regaining his composure, he told Ryan that his proposal made a mockery of everything the CPR stood for and that for him to participate in such a scheme would reek of the most vile treachery. Canadians, he curtly informed the financier, regarded the CPR as the backbone of their country, and they would go to any lengths to prevent it from falling under American control. Under no circumstances would he have anything to do with the proposal. This strong rebuff seems only to have impressed the American promoter more, and he immediately reversed his stand on the Cuba Company. He purchased shares in the newly formed company and supplied it with the important backing of the wealthy Morton Trust.
Although Van Horne located the Cuba Company’s head office in New York, he incorporated the company in New Jersey because its laws were well adapted to the multiplicity of purposes he had in mind for his new undertaking. He saw the building and operation of the railway as the first step in his plans for Cuba’s overall development. Just as the CPR had spawned a host of subsidiary enterprises, so would the Cuba Company. Should his dream be realized, the holding company would develop not only a pioneering railway but also resource-based industries, ports, hotels, telegraph lines, and town sites.
In assembling the management team for the new company, Van Horne, as president, assigned the second top spot to Percival Farquhar, the man who had conceived the idea of a railway to serve Cuba’s interior. His unflagging optimism, drive, creative spark, and presence made him the ideal choice to be Van Horne’s second-in-command and field commander. Moreover, his generous and mild temperament, the product of his Quaker upbringing, equipped him well for dealing with proud and sensitive Latin Americans.
Once the Cuba Company was established, Van Horne set off on still another trip to Cuba. In the years to come he would shuttle back and forth to the island two or three times a year. Sometimes he made the trip in the company of family members, such as Bennie, but usually he travelled with business or railway cronies he had persuaded to make the voyage. He also made countless visits each year to New York, where much of the Cuba Company’s business was conducted and its annual meetings were held. Most often he stayed at the Manhattan Hotel, where he would make himself accessible in the saloon during the evening to anyone who would drink innumerable tankards of German beer and listen to him talk about Japanese pottery, Dutch art, cattle breeding, bacon curing, Chinese script, the ideal planning of cities, and any other topic that interested him. He also mounted several missions to Washington to consult with Americans prominent in Cuban affairs and to lobby on behalf of his railway.
To make this railway a reality, an existing railway had to be purchased, surveys launched, and land acquired. Construction would come next. Van Horne argued that once the necessary authority was obtained to operate a railway and to cross rivers, roads, and other public property that lay between the Cuba Company’s parcels of land, very little would remain to be done. In other words, he hoped — and probably expected — that, as soon as an elected legislature had been established in Cuba to replace the U.S. military government, the railway would be so far advanced that no authority could or would want to kill it.
The Cuba Company’s first emissaries to Cuba were engineers and land surveyors who arrived in the spring of 1900. The results of their preliminary surveys inspired an enthusiastic report from the chief engineer, who remarked that the country through which the railway would pass was admirably adapted to agriculture. He cautioned, however, that labour would have to be imported as would most of the railway ties and bridge timber. Moreover, because of the prevalence of tropical diseases, notably malaria, hospitals would have to be maintained for the men. It was also likely that most of the water would have to be hauled or wells dug to supply it to the construction camps.
Within a few weeks, developments were unfolding so rapidly that Van Horne found himself busier than he had been in years. From both Montreal and Covenhoven he dispatched a steady stream of letters relating to his Cuban venture. In one letter to a friend he confessed, “The Cuban matter is the most interesting one that I have ever encountered and I am looking forward to a great deal of pleasure in carrying it through and perhaps profit as well — a few dozen Rembrandts and such things, which I think will quite fill my capacity for enjoyment.” As the undertaking gathered momentum, Van Horne resorted to his usual passion for detail. Just about everything came under his scrutiny, from the unexpected to the mundane. When one of the project’s engineers was taken fatally ill, he monitored the situation closely, instructing the attending physician to spare no expense and keeping the engineer’s wife up to date on all developments. Nothing escaped his attention. The treatment of railway ties, plans for wooden culverts, the disposition and care of three hundred mules — these were just a few of the day-to-day questions that utterly absorbed him.
When he was dealing with the Cubans, however, Van Horne recognized that their culture and way of life were markedly different from those in Canada, and he went to great lengths to assert the gentler, more sensitive side of his nature. Instead of his usual bluntness, he demonstrated a remarkable finesse and subtlety. To have done otherwise might well have imperilled the whole undertaking. Van Horne knew that, without land expropriation powers, he could not construct a railway unless the Cubans gave their blessing to the enterprise and were prepared to sell him land. He therefore became a model of courtesy and diplomacy in his dealings with the Cubans. When doing his rounds on the island, he always took his hat off when he met a Cuban, and when one of them bowed to him, he returned the bow twice. He also urged Cuba Company employees to show the same courtesy and consideration.
Van Horne made it abundantly clear to company officials that they must avoid any involvement with politics. The Cuba Company, he reminded them, was a strictly commercial enterprise. He was determined that it and its offspring, the Cuba Railroad, would adopt the CPR’s official policy of non-involvement in politics — one that had been compromised only occasionally. Still, non-involvement with politics did not rule out cultivating good relations with General Wood and his administration.
Although he steered clear of overt politicking, Van Horne nevertheless conducted his own public-relations campaign. Often this took the form of soothing letters to governors of provinces through which the railway would run. To assuage any potential fears about the scheme, the letters outlined the Cuba Company’s objectives and noted that its shareholders were both American and Canadian capitalists who had the greatest faith in Cuba’s future. Company plans included not only the building of a railway but also the development of timber resources, the promotion of sugar planting and other industries,