Clarence Bagley

“ For nearly seventy years the canoe and the bateau, the ox team or the horse team attached to the prairie schooner, were the instruments whereby the pioneers searched out the country and peopled its valleys and plains. ”

“ Portland is the overshadowing city of the Columbia basin, and has always handled most of its business, while on Puget Sound trade and commerce have been divided. It is all a vast harbor and its cities have had access almost equally to the sea. Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, Everett, Bellingham, Anacortes, Olympia, and Port Townsend are credited with an aggregate of nearly three-quarters of a million of inhabitants. ”

“ The canoe and bateau gave place to the steamboat, the steam cars took away from the steamboat much of its business, and in the last quarter century the city and interurban electric cars have taken over much of the short haul traffic, while to-day the motor car is dividing the passenger service and almost monopolizing the transportation of garden and dairy products into and about the cities. Who shall predict how soon some other method of transportation shall make the land and water traffic of to-day seem as archaic as the ox team compared with a high power racing car? ”

“ The streams of Oregon and Washington afford one-third of the available water power of the United States. A small part of this is now being used to develop electric energy, transmitted at long distances at high voltage, though not comparable with one line in California that is transmitting electricity at a voltage of 150,000 a distance of about 250 miles. The potential possibilities are so vast they can scarcely be estimated. In the North one of the transcontinental railroad lines is formulating plans to operate its trains electrically between the Rocky Mountains and Puget Sound. ”

“ Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Tacoma, and Vancouver in British Columbia, appeared on the map years after a dozen of their early rivals had been thriving little towns, and the most successful were founded by farmers from the Mississippi valley who, perhaps, had never seen a large city. ”

“ Paul, Northern Pacific, Oregon Shortline and Southern Pacific railroads had all reached Pacific coast terminals, and in consequence the great Northwest had gained remarkably in population, wealth and volume of trade and commerce.
In the Willamette valley the water power afforded by the streams of the Cascades and Coast ranges served to operate the early wood working and flouring mills, the woolen mills and small [300] manufacturing plants, but on Puget Sound it was more economical to operate the saw-mills by steam where the ships could reach the docks easily and quickly. ”

“ Had this opening up to navigation been completed prior to the building of the railroads along the banks of the rivers and across the mountains, it would have been of inestimable benefit to the tributary country, but until its present population shall have increased ten fold, perhaps twenty fold, and the railroads shall be unable to handle the traffic; when the waterway craft shall be aids to the railroads, not competitors, I believe transportation of freight by steamboats or by barges with tugs will be impracticable. ”

“ It contains a vast deal of land, it is true, that is barren and worthless; but not a little that is highly productive. To that may be added its commercial advantages, which will, in time, prove to be great. We must not overlook the important events to which I have alluded as having recently occurred in the eastern portion of Asia. As great as they are, they are but the beginning of a [307] series of a similar character, which must follow at no distant day. ”