The Deserted Settlers of Yakima

Before the railroad was built, we had mail and stage service. The railroad, owned by a corporation that spends but little of its money in the country, has managed to act at will. The Northern Pacific Railroad has arbitrarily reduced the service in the Yakima country. The mail trains to Kennewick and Pasco, which have been to Pasco Junction to once three times a week, are now even less frequent. The post office on the line should report every failure of the road to perform the daily mail service. Things have come to a pretty pass when a corporation that spends but little of its money on the people can hold the territory to a land grant of millions of acres, and yet move the towns of Ainsworth, Pasco, and Yakima to suit its own profit. They manage to deprive us of the daily and other mails that we had for years before the railroad was built. Hundreds of homes have been mercilessly broken up, and hundreds of newcomers have been deluded into settling here by the railroad's false representations, and now all are to be dropped and left on desolate ground to take care of themselves.