The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-23

world as well as in the Industrial.
Not even all the great resources of
Mr.. Morgan, whose confidence in Pres
ident Mellen was never shaken, were
sufficient to overcome the disposition
of the people of New England, or Of
many of them, In favor of maintaining
competitive railroad conditions in the
New England states.
Mr.. Mellen's Errors
No one can have talked with railway
managers within the last three or four
years, especially some of those who
have offices in New York, without per-
eeiving that President Mel1en had in
CURED some jealousy, and that fire.
quently his personal characteristics
We're spoken OF in a subdued tone OF
criticism. He was said to be excess
sively arbitrary, unnecessarily brusque.
often intolerant and frequently harsh
in his relations with those with whom
he came in contact. Now and then
ventured to speak somewhat carefully
and yet suggestively of what they
called Mr. Mellen's towering ambition
and his supreme self-confidence.
Not Unlike Others
Tn these personal characteristics,
however. Mr.. Mellen did not differ from
the masters of great railway expan-
sion and ownership, the men who are
sometimes called the constructive
forces in our railroad world. Commo-
dore Vanderbilt could have given Mr..
Mellen points in brusqueness, domi-
neering and arbitrary methods and ap-
parent indifference to the sensitive
ness of men,
With all his noble and generous
qualities and in spite of a tender, al
most sentimental. vein in his character,
the late J. p. Morgan. at least in his
early manhood frequently was brusque
and apparently Indifferent to sensitive
feelings of the men with whom he
came In contact in business relations.
He softened somewhat in his later
years. No American railroad builder
or expander was ever more brusque
and intolerant apparently heartless in
his relations with men, and particu-
larly his subordinates. than was e. H.
Hartman. Mr.. Mellen has not differed
In this respect from the other great
master of railway expansion and con-
struction. Nor has he been exceptional
IN his ambition, for all of these men
were quite as much inspired by the
ambition to accomplish great things
and by the>sense of success along great
lines as they We're by avarice.
Archibald Mcleod was dominated by
a magnificent ambition and had he
succeeded he would have felt that all
of the energy he had expended, all OF
the criticism which he had met and
overcome, all of the anxieties he had
experienced We're amply repaid through
the demonstration of his ability as one
OF the great masters in the field of
American railway constructive work
Mr.. Mcleod intended to make a great
part of New England an ally of or
the property of the Reading railroad
system. 1t seemed to him that the
New England manufacturers would
furnish a magnificent business for the
Reading system through the transpor-
tation of coal and other commodities
needed by those manufacturers Fur
thermore, he aimed at Boston as
great concentrating and distributing
port with possibilities for very great
ocean commerce. He entered New Eng
land with rush. having gained COM
mand of the railroad avenues which
cross the Hudson. He moved with
rapidity, and 1t was not ,in-
til there was satisfactory demonstra-
tion of his intent to capture the rail-
road systems running southeasterly
and southerly from Boston with an un-
questionable hint of further purpose
to capture the Boston and
Maine that Mr.. Morgan and other
friends of the New Haven railroad sys-
tenn had their eyes opened TO the ap-
proach of the Reading railroad into
New England.
Mr.. Mcleod was flanked in one way
or another by the New Haven and yet
his courage never failed. He went so
far as to plan for an extension of
the system into the upper part of New