Part 22 (1/2)
From all that has gone before, the deduction is plain that on the solution of the transportation question in the interests of the fixed and industrious population of the State depends absolutely the growth and prosperity of Oregon. Nature has done her part.
The words of Messrs. George M. Pullman, of Chicago, and William Endicott, Jr., of Boston, in their report of August 1, 1880, to the stockholders of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, will be echoed by every man who is now or has been in Oregon with eyes to see.
They wrote as follows:
”Our observations afforded, in the first place, ample confirmation of all we had previously heard and read of the propitious climate, great attractions of scenery, and wonderful agricultural resources of Western and Eastern Oregon, and Eastern Was.h.i.+ngton Territory. We believe that in these respects those regions are not surpa.s.sed, if equaled, by any other portion of the United States. It can, indeed, be safely said that nowhere else in this country do rich soil and mild climate combine to the same degree in insuring such extraordinary results of almost every agricultural pursuit as regards quant.i.ty, quality, and regularity of yield.... The striking evidence of past and present growth which we found everywhere, forced at the same time the irresistible conclusion upon us that we were beholding but the beginning of the sure and rapid progress in population, productiveness, and prosperity which will be witnessed in the immediate future within the vast stretch of country watered by the great river Columbia and its numerous tributaries.”
The reader of this book will, I think, admit that the facts herein detailed go far to justify the conclusions summed up in these few but carefully chosen words.
How does this transportation question now stand, and what (if any) matters are in progress or contemplation to affect it?
In the first place, the companies are all free to manage their own business in their own way; they charge what they like, favor what persons and places they choose, and load on others burdens heavy to be borne.
I have before indicated what was the purpose of the bill introduced in the Legislature of 1880, to prevent discrimination by common carriers.
”The Oregonian” commented on the loss of the measure in these terms: ”We present to-day the report of the (hostile) Senate committee on this bill. The report shows why the proposed measure was both an unjust and an impracticable one. It should be apparent to every one that railways never can be operated in this way. The confusion and disorder would be endless; besides, every railroad which is undertaken and constructed as an actual business enterprise is ent.i.tled to make fair earnings.
Instead of being annoyed by straw railroads got up for speculative purposes, it ought to have protection from such annoyance.”
[Sidenote: _OREGON RAILWAY AND NAVIGATION CO._]
In further ill.u.s.tration of the working of the present system, I would instance the fact that from Corvallis to Portland for about a year the freight on wheat by the river steamboats of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company has been one dollar a ton, and of this fifty cents had to be paid for pa.s.sing the locks at Oregon City; the rate immediately previous to this was three dollars and a half. This ridiculously low rate was put on in order to destroy the traffic of the East and West Side Railroads, and is in strong contrast with the rate from Corvallis to Junction City, some twenty miles up the river, where no such reasons existed, and which stood through this period at about tenfold the one-dollar rate.
No sooner did the President of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company think he had secured ”control” of the two railroads, than steps were prepared to quadruple the previous rate. The question of ”control”
stood adjourned, and the one-dollar rate was confirmed. But, having seen reason to think his acquisition secure, the rates from Portland to Corvallis (ninety-seven miles by railroad), both by railroads and steamboats, have just now (April, 1881) been raised to six dollars per ton--a rate equal to that charged in the infancy of the business, twenty years ago.
The lion's share of the carrying business of the State is in the hands of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, and with them are closely identified the hopes of the city of Portland. This company owns two of the steamers plying between Portland and San Francisco--the Oregon and the Columbia. With these two steamers, or with the George W. Elder as the predecessor of the Columbia, they carried from the 1st of July, 1879, to the 30th of June, 1880, 17,333 pa.s.sengers, and 101,661 tons of freight. The gross receipts were $636,888; the net profits, $286,459.
As we know from the published circular of Mr. Villard, the president, that the cost of the Columbia was $400,000, and the Oregon is a smaller and decidedly less expensive s.h.i.+p, the proportion of net earnings of the vessels in question to their total cost will be seen to be about enough to pay ten per cent. per annum on their cost, and to buy the vessels out and out in three years and a half. The fare from Portland to San Francisco, even while these earnings were being made, stood at twenty dollars the first-cla.s.s pa.s.senger. News has just arrived that these fares are to be raised to thirty dollars a head. If the same rate of expense is maintained as during last year, the earnings at the higher figure now put on will be increased by about $100,000, and enough will be realized to pay for the fleet in about two years and a half.
With twenty-five steamboats (stern-wheelers) navigating the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, and twelve barges and two scows (several of the boats being old, and laid up in ordinary much of the time, reducing thus materially the fleet in real service), the company earned $1,992,836 gross, and $1,101,766 net profit. If $50,000 is deducted for the earnings of the barges, it will be seen that the average net earnings of the twenty-five river-steamers are positively $44,070 each.
The fleet could be replaced for less than the sum of the net profit of one year. Like Oliver, ”asking for more,” they are positively raising these freights also!
[Sidenote: _RAILROAD ALONG THE COLUMBIA._]
The railroad possessions of the company for the year in question consisted of but forty-eight miles, and of these the line from Walla Walla to Wallula on the upper Columbia, a distance of about thirty miles, was the longest; the other two being short strips of portage railroad round the Cascades or rapids on the Columbia. The pa.s.sengers carried were 12,588; the tons of freight, 72,149; and the net profits, $269,004, or $5,604 a mile.
The company is engaged in constructing a line of railroad along the south bank of the Columbia; the portion from Celilo (the upper end of the rapids, at the lower end of which the town of the Dalles is situated) to Wallula, just over the Was.h.i.+ngton Territory border, a distance of one hundred and fifteen miles, is just completed. The line is being extended to the city of Portland, the works between the Dalles and the western end of the pa.s.s through the Cascade Mountains being of the most severe and expensive character. At least two tunnels and mile after mile of blasting and cutting through solid rock, where the mountains tower perpendicular above, would inspire dismay in the soul of any ordinary railroad-man.
But the word has gone forth that the road has to follow what is facetiously called the pa.s.s of the Columbia through the Cascades, and doubtless it will be done. Several thousand Chinamen are at work; steam-drills are busy perforating the rocks; scows have to be moored alongside in the river (there not being even room for the track between mountain and water), while the perpendicular faces of the cliffs are being tormented and torn. And thus about seventy miles of construction of this nature have to be got through. When completed, of course, the result will be at once to transfer nearly all of as many of the 117,000 pa.s.sengers as traveled in the company's boats on the Columbia, to the cars; and a vast quant.i.ty of the freight must follow the same route.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Was.h.i.+ngton Territory and extreme Eastern Oregon trade. The pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.s 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.
[Sidenote: _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 pa.s.senger traffic almost entirely, and carry a large quant.i.ty of freight. They would carry more and earn a fair profit for their owners, the German and English bondholders, but, instead of a fair compet.i.tion, 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 succ.u.mbing 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 subst.i.tution 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 compet.i.tion of the Northern Pacific is certain to reduce in gross volume.