The two lines of railroad running north and south up and down the Willamette Valley not being as yet absorbed, a lively competition existed so far as river and railroads ran parallel. Outside the limits of competition the corporations took it out of the people by what they thought were oppressive exactions.
Further, the headquarters of both companies being in the city of Portland, and their course of transportation carrying all the traffic of the State in and out through the Portland gate, the continuance of this state of things, and the support of the Railway and Navigation Company, became the great object of the Portland members of the Legislature, as well as of those members who were for any reason influenced by the corporations. Hence a deep-lying division of interest between them and the country members.
COMMON CARRIERS.These last desired to pass the bill in question, not only to rectify existing unfairness, and to prevent the repetition of former oppressions, but as rendering more easy the task of whoever should propose to create competing lines, which might connect with or intersect those of the present companies. This end was to be gained by providing that all transportation agencies, of whatever kind, should convey, without preference in time, rates, or method of delivery, all passengers and goods presented for transit over the whole or any portion of their lines. It left the hands of all companies entirely unfettered as to what rates they should charge on fares or freights, but insisted that all traffic should be evenly and proportionately charged.
The bill was introduced in the Senate, and passed its earlier stages triumphantly. Then the corporations and the Portland merchants awoke to the possibilities of competition; stimulated also by the knowledge that the passage of the bill was desired by the promoters of the Oregon Pacific Railroad, designed to bisect the State from east to west, and to have its outport at Yaquina Bay. What an outcry arose! Every argument that could be tortured by the lobbyists into a criticism of the bill was openly and secretly brought to bear on the members. Its enemies got it referred to a hostile committee, from which it was with great difficulty recalled. Time was asked to understand a bill which consisted of but twenty-four lines. Motions for adjournment were made, and divided on again and again to waste time. But the most ridiculous scene was reached when after the debate on the third reading had virtually closed, and the final vote to determine the fate of the bill under the "previous question" was just going to be put, the President of the Senate, a stout Jewish gentleman from Portland, of German extraction, descended to the floor of the Senate to deliver a panting, incoherent tirade of abuse, not on the merits of the bill, but against the Oregon Pacific Railroad and every one connected with it; denouncing as a "lie, and a fraud of the first wather, ghentelmen," a statement made by a body of traders and farmers in the valley, and submitted by them to the United States Board of Engineers, that the grain which would seek an outlet over the proposed road would amount to six million bushels annually—which statement had been quoted by the Oregon Pacific Railroad Company in their prospectus. Shall I ever forget the look of blank amazement on the faces of the Senators while the President's five minutes lasted, and he gesticulated and foamed! However, the bill was lost by a vote of 16 to 14; one Senator having "ratted" at the last moment, to the disgust of a large body of the members of the House, who were waiting to seize the bill and carry it up-stairs into their chamber.
SOME LEGISLATIVE ACTS.Among other resolutions carried was one in favor of woman suffrage—a triumph celebrated immediately by a supper and reception given to the members of the Legislature in the Opera-House at Salem by the ladies who had been pressing forward the resolution, and advocating it in some cases by a form of lobbying which, however legitimate, I should fancy some of the members must have found it hard to resist. Heaven forbid that it should ever fall to my lot to hold opposing views and bring forward hostile argument to a group of ladies whose heads were as full of logic and sense as their faces and forms of smiles and attractiveness! To give some general idea of the scope of the State legislation, let me quote the titles of a few of the acts of the session of 1878:
"An act to amend an act entitled 'An Act to provide for the Construction of the Willamette Valley and Coast Railroad.'
"An act to promote medical science.
"An act to protect the stock-growing interests of the State of Oregon.
"An act to regulate salmon-fisheries on the waters of the Columbia River and its tributaries.
"An act to secure creditors a just division of the estates of debtors who convey to assignees for the benefit of creditors.