Nothing runs itself unless it is running down hill. This saying may be contradicted by advocates of “blind chance” theories, but, generally speaking, it will be accepted as a practically accurate statement of all movements. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company has never allowed things to run themselves. Strong minds and resolute hands were always at work, and nothing was permitted to run unguided and uncontrolled. If this vast transportation system has become one of the wonders of the modern world, it has not just happened, but it is the result of a deliberate and a well-ordered plan in which an intelligent sense of personal responsibility for one’s own share of work is recognized as imperative in order that the whole system may be a success. A human being is not, as is sometimes said, a cog in the wheel, but a living link in the chain of business causation. Every one’s work in every occupation is monotonous in one sense, and in many cases it seems to the worker that his or her task is of very little importance. But one can never estimate the value of work by superficial standards, for the man or woman who gives a telephone number or raps out a message on the key may be the means of transmitting messages that will change the face of the world. The Canadian Pacific has endeavoured, with a large measure of success, to magnify the significance of every worker’s task and create a feeling of _esprit de corps_ in its great army of over one hundred thousand workers. Hence, for instance, I was not surprised to hear that in a certain city when a merchant had made a foul public attack on the Company, a host of the Company’s employees stayed away from that merchant’s store. They were of the company that had been unfairly attacked, and they were not going to stand for it. It was in that spirit, I suppose, that Mr. Van Horne’s faithful porter, already mentioned, used to put himself along with his “boss,” and speak of both in the expression “we railway men.” All this means that, from the beginning, the Company knew that it would owe its success not to any one man, however great, but to the many who, though guided generally by one dominating force, would be in particular directed by the heads of the various departments.