Minister Ties Columbia River Rapids to Costly Freight

No man has labored more zealously to promote the commerce of the Columbia River, as tending to the prosperity of Portland, than has Rev. Dr. Atkinson. In a communication to the Oregonian, dated Wallula, November 21, the Dr. says: 'One needs to take a trip in November to know the rapids and the improvements demanded. Every week one or more boats get more or less broken. The largest must stop. Others can hardly take half a load up or down. The rapids, shoals, and fogs add 100 percent to the cost of freights up and down. This statement of facts presents an eloquent and conclusive argument in favor of a railroad from Snake River to Puget Sound. The distance to the Sound from any point on Snake River is less than to Portland. A railroad to the Sound, subject to no obstruction, could be constructed for less than the estimated cost of opening free navigation on the Columbia River. The distance from Seattle or Tacoma to Snake River by surveyed railroad lines is less than 200 miles. The cost of constructing and equipping a narrow-gauge railroad would not exceed $4,000,000. Here we have a saving to the farmers of that section of 25 percent a year upon the cost of the road in the single product of wheat. This would make a difference to the farmers of the upper Columbia and Snake rivers of $2,000,000 annually, which would pay for the road in two years. This, with its interchange of freights, would be the best paying line of railroad upon the continent for its cost; and yet the people are too poor to build it, all the capital on the coast is controlled in the steerage interests of Portland and San Francisco, and the General Government takes no heed of its colonial dependencies which have no representation in Congress or vote for President.