Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1891-02-28
Extravaganza in Railroad Management


1t is u rrcr compliment to the
management of the Union Pacific
Railway Co. that l2O cars Of wheat,
on an average, are daily shipped
from the Walla Walla country to
eastern markets and the shippers of
that wheat are able to pay three
cents per bushcl more for it than can
the buyers for the Portland market.
In other words, the Union Pacific
exact three cents per bushel more
for carrying wheat from Walla Walla
to Portland, n distance ofabout two
hundred miles, than does the North
ern Pacific for carrying it nearly ten
times that distance. 1t is possible
that the Northern Pacific are doing
this business for the pleasure uf
taking it from the hands of the
Union Pacific, or is the Union
Pacific simply choking its own
throat in an attempt to swallow al
the profits of wheat raising? With
country, naturally tributary to
this road which, with the least en-
couragement in the world, can give
1t all the freight business it can
handle with double its present roll
ing stock, with people to deal with
who are not less intelligent, enter
prising and fair than the inhabi-
tants of other states, it makes no
effort to encourage settlement with
in its natural territory, and is regard
ed by its patrons as their most
powerful enemy and unmerciful
master. The entire population
along the portions of its road in Ore
gon and Washington are today
aroused as never before to resist
what seems to them the efforts of
this corporation to drive them from
their farms and their homes. Their
apprehensions may be and perhaps
are oyerdrawn in measure, but the
plain, indisputable fact nevertheless
remains that its rates are dispropor-
tionate to those of other roads and
that little or no profit is left to the
producers when their products are
marketed, So strong has become
the feeling against the company
that when it appears as a litigant
before the courts the average jury of
farmers cannot be led to see any
merit in its claim, and it is motor
ious that all that is necessary for the
opposing party is to make case
sufficiently strong to go to the jury |
in order to prevail. So strong Is the
feeling that the company are capable
of injustice alone, that most men
deem it entirely legitimate to avail
themselves of any and every oppor-
tunity to get even; to steal from the
company and to aid others in steal.
ing from it, are deemed proper
means of revenge with men other
wise honest; in fact it has about as
few friends among its patrons as had
the secessionists in New England
when Sumter fell. This condition
Of affairs may be necessary result
Of operating q railroad but we do not |
why it should be so any
more than in the carrying on of amy
other large enterprise. Under the
present eXactions upon producers of
this country there is nothing to en-
courage the further settlement of |
the country and in the absence of
such settlement the business of the |
road cannot increase; the bitter pre-
Iudice and ennlity will grow until IA
union among the producers is ce-
nented strong enough to enable
hem to open the Columbia to naYi-
cation and thus break the bonds in
which this company now holds the
commerce of the country.-TheI
Dalles Chronicle.