Two Years in Oregon

by Wallis Nash

Columbia, above the Lower Cascade.

But another factor is intended shortly to come into play. The Northern Pacific Railroad is vigorously at work, and in a year or two will compete with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company for the Washington Territory and extreme Eastern Oregon trade. The passengers and freight intrusted to the Northern Pacific line will be carried from Wallula, the Columbia River point above referred to, to Tacoma, on Puget Sound. By this route a saving of one hundred and fifty-one miles in actual distance will be effected, and the traffic will reach the deep and still waters of Puget Sound, far away from the troubles and stickings of the Willamette and Columbia mouths, and the delays, dangers, and expenses of the Columbia bar. It is true that before this result is gained the line must cross the Cascade Mountains, but it is well known that a pass at less than thirty-four hundred feet exists, and the engineers have no doubt whatever that this piece of road will keep pace with the rest to the port.

HOW TO GET "CONTROL."Mark now another feature in the case. The East and West Side Railroads on either side of the Willamette River compete with the boats of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company for the trade of the Willamette Valley. The railroads naturally divert the passenger traffic almost entirely, and carry a large quantity of freight. They would carry more and earn a fair profit for their owners, the German and English bondholders, but, instead of a fair competition, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, as I have said, put down the freights from Corvallis downward to Portland on grain to one dollar per ton—of course, an impossible rate for either river or railroad to profit by.

Why is this? Because what Mr. Villard calls the "control" of these railroads is vitally necessary to the future continuance of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company's stocks in their exalted dividends and consequent enormous market value. Therefore, it is sought now to destroy the earning powers of these railroads, to force the owners into succumbing to the "policy of control."

One more step. The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company owns practically no land—that is to say, it is interested speculatively in the rise of value in property in Portland by having invested a large sum (I believe $199,000) in the purchase of 484 acres of land in and near the city. But, outside this and its railroad-track, the company owns altogether about 3,055 acres of land in scattered pieces, only about 850 acres of which lie in Oregon; the rest in Washington Territory, and a bit or two in Idaho. We will not omit to mention its wharves at the various stopping-places of the boats, as they represent the expenditure of a considerable sum. Once again: if anything at all is clear, it is that the inflated value of this company's securities depends solely on the continuance of their monopoly. I have shown that on the Columbia River this is threatened by the Northern Pacific, and also by themselves in effect, by the substitution of the costly railroad line for the inexpensive boats, and the consequent devotion of both investments, namely, that in the boats and that in the railroad, to the same traffic, which the competition of the Northern Pacific is certain to reduce in gross volume.

Now turn to the Willamette Valley traffic, and scrutinize the position there. Not only is there the existing competition of the railroads, which is fatal, so long as it is genuine, to the earning of large profits from the north and south traffic of the valley, both in passengers and goods, but here come in two competitors more.

The Scotch narrow-gauge system also centers everything in Portland, and has succeeded, after a hard fight with the city authorities, in securing a large tract of land for depot or terminal purposes. It had the audacity to claim a right of way right through the tract purchased by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, and, under the law of eminent domain as it exists in Oregon, it would have got it, ay, and used it, too, with but scant regard for the feelings of the high and mighty corporation which had marked it for their own. But a working arrangement was with much difficulty made, by which the Scotch line runs, free of charge, alongside the other, right through its land, to the terminus of the narrow-gauge.

This Scotch line has put boats on the Willamette also. They ply between Ray's Landing, about seventeen miles up the Willamette, and Portland. The narrow-gauge also has an East-side and a West-side line through the Willamette Valley. The East-side line runs north and south a short distance from the foothills of the Cascades, and has now got as far as Brownsville, about one hundred and twenty miles from Portland. Their West-side line runs through the rich farming country in Polk County by Dallas to Sheridan, and a junction with the Western Oregon broad-gauge near by. This is also an ambitious company, who are pushing surveys across the Cascade Range.

The narrow-gauge system is yet by no means complete, but, when it is, it will become at once a very dangerous rival both to the East and West Side roads, and also to the boats of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company on the Willamette.