other roads. The only strike of any consequence was in 1894. It grew out of the fact that the prevailing business depression of 1893 had made necessary a reduction in the pay roll of the Great Northern Railroad Company, and this was brought about in part by reducing the salaries of its officers and the rates of pay of its employees.

During the winter, representatives of the American Railway Union, formed in 1892, had been active in the work of organization on the lines of several railroads, among others the Great Northern. The work was conducted with great secrecy, and none of the officers of the company had knowledge of it. The company, for years having recognized the old unions, had no knowledge of complaints, or of any considerable dissatisfaction on the part of its employees, who at that time numbered about eight thousand.

When the cloud finally broke, there were many misconceptions, therefore, to be cleared away; and it was not for some two weeks that Mr. Hill and the strike organizers came to understand each other. When they did the whole trouble was promptly and finally settled by arbitration. Through the whole incident Mr. Hill's was the guiding mind in every detail, and his clear head, tact, firmness, and fairness were successful in bringing to a happy issue a matter which might have had permanently unfortunate results in the hands of a man of less generous mould.

In connection with the general offices, there has been established a school of railroading, where young men are given a thorough knowledge of every department. When a new branch road is organized, or a department is created, the man needed for its head is immediately forthcoming; for at the same time Mr. Hill foresaw the future need he foresaw the man for the place, and began to train the boy. The motto of the Great Northern road should be, "The child is father to the man"; for Mr. Hill believes that strength and swiftness. are in the feet of young men. His son, James N. Hill, is president of the Spokane & Northern Division, and third vice-president of the general system. His son, Louis Hill, is vice-president of the Eastern Minnesota Division. Both are young men of great promise, who have served their apprenticeship in every branch of railroading; and upon them Mr. Hill is gradually unloading the enormous burden which he has carried so long.

During those years of apprenticeship in the steamboat office he was preparing himself to fill in the canvas which then contained but the sketchy outlines drawn by his imagination. Days filled with labor were succeeded by nights of unremitting study. The subjects devoured were so far apart in interest, so abstruse and apparently impractical in application, that nothing but the preparation of an encyclopædia would seem to justify his selection. This omnivorous appetite for reading, joined to a phenomenal memory, makes his learning prodigious. Question him on almost any subject and you are overwhelmed by a steady flow of information, detail, statistics, until the finite mind reels. No man is so versed in his own specialty that Mr. Hill cannot teach him something therein. This course of study was to prepare him not only for a successful business career, but also to provide resources of enjoyment for his dearly-bought leisure. He may, like Carlyle, be described as a sledge hammer with an æolianharp attachment; for, while his knotted muscles are battering away for the world's commerce, his delicately strung sensibilities never fail to give answering music to each wandering wind of beauty or fancy. He is essentially domestic and lives amid his regal surroundings a life of rugged simplicity.

Mrs. Hill, who was Miss Mary Mahegan, is a woman of beautiful face and more beautiful character, and is universally beloved. She possesses a rare combination of quiet humor, tact and executive ability. To these qualities, and the consequent, thrift, discipline, and comfort in their domestic affairs, Mr. Hill ascribes no small measure of his success in life. A family of nine interesting and gifted children have grown up about them. To each has been given the best preparation which America offers educationally to fit them for the wide opportunities of their lives.

Several years ago Mr. Hill built in St. Paul one of the handsomest houses in America. It is baronial in style, massively built of brownstone, and contains every interior perfection known to science. With his characteristic love of detail he spent a fortune on plumbing, heating, lighting, and ventilation. The interior finish is simple and rich as the exterior. The house is filled with the rarest and costliest of art treasures, tapestries, rugs, vases, wood-carving, antique furniture; all

are of the choicest selection and of quiet taste. His art gallery ranks second or third among the private collections of the United States. He has a fondness for French art, and among the gems are some of the best specimens of the modern painting of that country. Some of the notable ones are Corot's "Biblis," Ribot's "Descent from the Cross," Diaz's "Storm," Rousseau's "Mont Jean de Paris." Added to these are some of the masterpieces of Millet, Delacroix, Deschamps, Troy on, Bouguereau, Henner, Laurens, and Jules Breton. Of every picture Mr. Hill will give you the conception, the technical and artistic value, as no one but a painter can do, as well as every fact of interest concerning each artist. His adeptness as an art critic is equaled only by his skill as a lapidary; he has one of the choicest private collections of jewels in America, and can detect at a touch any flaw, however obscure. These jewels he collects for the pleasure he takes in their perfection, as the members of his family seldom wear them. All these treasures of their superb home Mr. and Mrs. Hill enjoy and share without ostentation or vanity- a constant object lesson and benignant influence to those about them.

One of Mr. Hill's dearest ambitions was to be a soldier, and it was a bitter blow at the outbreak of the rebellion that, owing to a defect in his vision, he was not accepted for service. Upon this fact, doubtless, his whole career hinged. In hardships and hairbreadth escapes, traveling by dog sledge and on foot, he sought to forget this disappointment in fighting his country's battles against wilderness, desert, and mountain.

Mr. Hill's order of intellect does not permit him a recreation that is purposeless; every pastime develops into a science. Thus his farming, which he began as a relaxation, has developed an experimental station. His North Oaks farm, within easy driving distance of St. Paul, contains 5,500 acres, inclosed by a single fence. The land is wooded or under cultivation, and seven lakes are included within its limits. The buildings are unpretentious and simple, like those of the surrounding farms, but so numerous as to form a good sized village. They consist of a house for the family, another for the workmen, horse and cow stables, pigsties, hay-barns, extensive greenhouses, a marble-fitted and refrigerated dairy, a bowling alley and boathouse. In the interior