The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1907-02-09
SAME OLD FRIGHT.

Year by year, with added and proven
degrees of conviction, the sane con-
clusion that the exports from the CO.
lumbia valley must find tide-water de-
livery, is fastening itself upon the
business mind of the maritime world,
The potent logic behind such an as
surance justifies, strengthens and COM
pels the deduction; ii Is invincihle,
from every attitude OF reasoning; and
Portland, naturally. realizes the situa-
ton more than any community Of in
terests involved. The menace has been
glaring at her from the walls of COM
merce for a decade; she knows the
inevitability of it, because the burden
of the loss incident to the change Is all
hers; while, 10 other agencies connect
ed with it, it is purely matter Of
gain, in dollars, time, convenience, and
every commercial attribute appertain-
ing to such a movement.
Columns and pages Of sophistical
and far-fetched reasoning have been
written and sent broadcast to jush-
fy and maintain her, always, unten-
able contention for consideration as a
seaport; parallel after parallel has
been employed and cherished and
fought for; every inland port in the
world has been cited in extenuation
of her plea always barring, of course,
the supreme facts that ninety Of the
100 were in ready, short haul touch
with the sources of freight, behind
them, and had wide, deep channels to
the sea, in front Of them) and ner
wealth and energy and wisdom has
kept the fiction going, until, at last,
the world of commerce has tired Of
the imposition and is gradually, but
certainly, ordaining new and handler
and less costly devices.
Her fright has taken desperate
turn, and finds apt expression in the
Port of Columbia" bill, sent up to Sa-
lem by her Chamber of Commerce for
enactment. The laches, the failures,
the blunders, and worse, for which the
Port of Portland Is answerable, are
to be shouldered upon the Port Of
Columbia, including two counties 100
miles away from the seat Of inter-
est and utterly foreign to every de-
tail Of the business, yet made amen
able for the cost and charges of main
tenance and loss, by direct taxation
that will not yield them single dol
lar of return. The tenor Of this meas
ure indicates all too plainly the des-
perate straits to which Portland Is
driven to save her face" as a sea-
port, and balance her accounts with
the maritime world for her enforced
absorption of the differential Of l shill-
ing and pence prevailing against her
at Seattle, Tacoma and San Francis
co. FsNFN
Not for an hour will her last and
baldest expedient stand the scruntiny
of honest men at Salem, nor anywhere
else. 1t is too radically raw to escape
analysis, structure and condemnation.
It is the first and the worst sign Of
weakness she has ever manifested, and
the transparent audacity Of the thing
is tacit confession Of her defeat in
commercial circles. We wish this
were not so; because Astoria is her
natural and certain successor In the
establishment of the Columbia COM
mercial regimen and we would rather
assume our new destiny in square and
open fight, won upon natural and de-
fensible claims, and issues, than take
It upon the self wrought discredit In
voked by Portlands pitiable choice Of
alternative and wretched misuse Of
that
-O