Charles M. Hays

Charles M. Hays

Charles Melville Hays (* 16th May 1856 in skirt Iceland , Illinois ; † 15. April 1912 in the North Atlantic in the sinking of the Titanic ) was an American railroad - entrepreneur and most recently president of the Grand Trunk Railway . He oversaw the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway , of which he was appointed president in 1904. However, he did not live to see the inauguration, as he was killed in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 .

Beginnings

Charles M. Hays was born in Rock Island, Illinois, on the Iowa border in 1856 . He began working for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in 1873 at the age of 17 . In 1878 he became secretary to the general manager of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and in 1884 he took the same position with the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway . In 1887 he rose to general manager of the subsidiary Wabash Western Railroad and in 1889 to vice-president of Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway.

Hays lived in Canada for many years and worked there for the Grand Trunk Railway , one of the largest railway companies in Canada at the time . When the company was reorganized in 1895, he was appointed General Manager with effect from January 1, 1896. With a brief interruption in 1901, Hays held the position of General Manager from 1899 to 1910. From January 1, 1910, he was President of the entire company.

Charles M. Hays.

Hays went to Canada during a period of economic recession . His plan was to steer the management and operation of the Grand Trunk Railway in a more aggressive, US-friendly direction. The growth of the American railroad in the first half of the 20th century is attributed to this fact among other things. He also wanted to compete with the Canadian Pacific Railroad , which had record numbers of passenger transport due to an immigration boom in rural areas.

1907 Charles Hays was awarded the highest medal of Japan , the Order of the Rising Sun , excellent. In 1910 he was offered the knighthood , which would have made him Sir Charles Hays. However, he declined this honor because it would have resulted in the loss of his US citizenship. Hays was also interested in health care, education, and charity. Among other things, he was head of the Montreal General Hospital , the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University in Montreal .

Construction of the transcontinental railroad

In 1899, the two Canadian railroad entrepreneurs Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann merged several smaller railroad companies to form the Canadian Northern Railway and planned the construction of a second transcontinental rail link. However, they refused financial support from the Canadian government because they wanted to do it on their own. Under pressure from Hays, the Grand Trunk Railway accepted government support, which it had strictly refused to do in the 1870s. Because of this, the government had turned to the Canadian Pacific Railroad at the time. Realizing that it was a mistake not to expand west, Hays accepted the government offer to build a railroad from Prince Rupert in British Columbia (West Coast of Canada) to Moncton in New Brunswick (East Coast of Canada). This line was to be called the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway .

In October 1903, the National Transcontinental Railway Act passed the Canadian Parliament. Hays was then involved in overseeing the construction of the section west of Winnipeg . Grand Trunk had taken responsibility for the western portion of the route while the government took over the eastern portion from Winnipeg to Moncton, including the costly construction of the Quebec Bridge over the Saint Lawrence River . However, the entire connection should be managed as one system by the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1904, Hays was named President of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.

The groundbreaking for the construction project was made on September 11, 1905 in Fort William , Ontario by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier . From there, the Grand Trunk Pacific Construction Company built a 190 mile stretch of road to the vicinity of Sioux Lookout . The project proved controversial and Hays was criticized for some of its decisions, including the choice of Prince Rupert as the terminus. There was also a lack of funding despite government funding. At the end of 1911, the company had millions in debt. Several new ventures should bring Grand Trunk back into the red, including building a chain of luxury hotels in Canada. Hays had already built Château Laurier in Ottawa and six more were planned, including Fort Garry in Winnipeg and the Hotel Macdonald in Edmonton .

Despite the difficulties, the line was completed, but not until April 1914, two years after Hays' death.

Private life

On October 13, 1881, in St. Louis , Missouri , Hays married Clara Jennings Gregg, 22, who was from that city. They had four daughters: Orian (later Mrs. Thornton Davidson), Clara (Mrs. Hope C. Scott), Marjorie (Mrs. George D. Hall) and Louise (Mrs. A. Harold Grier).

In 1912, Charles Hays spent the Easter holidays in Paris with his wife, daughter Orian and son-in-law Thornton Davidson . As he should attend in Ottawa on April 26, 1912 at the opening ceremony of the Château Laurier, the group went as passengers on April 10, 1912 in Southampton aboard the RMS Titanic , the largest ever ship in the world, for its maiden voyage after New York set sail. Another reason for the return trip was the difficult pregnancy of the Hays daughter Louise Grier, who might have a caesarean section .

The group occupied a total of four first class cabins on the B deck. The Hays lived in cabin B-69 and the Davidsons lived in the neighboring cabin B-71. Clara Hays 'maid Mary Perreault was housed in B-73 and Charles Hays' secretary Vivian Payne was in B-24. On the evening of April 14th, Hays was sitting with Colonel Archibald Gracie and the ship magnate Captain Edward Crosby in the first-class smoking room and discussing the rapid technical advances in transportation with them. He expressed his concern as follows: "The trend to play faster and easier with bigger and bigger ships will end in tragedy".

About 20 minutes later, the Titanic rammed the iceberg . Hays didn't seem to think that the ship would sink quickly. When he put his wife and daughter on a lifeboat , he told them that the ship would be "buoyant for at least 10 hours". Clara Hays, Orian Davidson and Mary Perreault survived in lifeboat No. 3. This boat was launched on the starboard side , where First Officer William M. Murdoch supervised the disembarkation. In contrast to Charles Lightoller on the port side, Murdoch also let men in the boats if there was still room after boarding the women and children. Charles Hays, his son-in-law and his secretary stayed on board anyway. All three were killed in the sinking. The three women, along with the other survivors, were taken aboard the RMS Carpathia to New York, where the ship called on April 18.

Posthumously

On April 25, 1912, the entire Grand Trunk Railway was given a five-minute break in silence for the late company president. The following day, the cable layman Minia , who was tasked with rescuing the dead along with other ships, found the body of Charles Hays (# 307) in the North Atlantic . On May 8, 1912, the funeral took place in the Mont-Royal cemetery in Montreal . Funeral services for Hays were held that same day at the American Presbyterian Church in Montreal and the Church of St. Edmund King and Martyr in London . He was buried in the Pine Hill Section of Mount Royal Cemetery (grave # 246).

The city of Melville in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan was named after Hays, as was the Charles Hays Secondary School in Prince Rupert. Clara Hays did not remarry after the death of her husband and lived mainly in Maine until her death in 1955 . She was buried next to her husband. Orian Davidson was also buried next to her parents after her death in 1979.

swell

• Full biography of Charles Hays
• Summary details and related links in Encyclopedia Titanica
• Article on Charles Hays from the Montreal, Pictorial and Biographical (1914)

Web links

Commons : Charles M. Hays  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files