The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1907-07-27
AsToRIA's GALL OREGON" FIGHT.

The government department OF COM
merce and labor furnishes some figures
that put backbone in the Astoria fight
for the re-aehievement of 0regon's one
time supremacy in the matter of north
western imports and exports, the gross
statements alluded to in this relation
being as follows, and taken from Gus
toms district reports:
Willamette & Oregon Puget Sound
1896 s 6,502, ,l07 Sl2,33S,553
1906 l297l,GO5 62,S49,299
These figures indicate that in the past
10 years the Oregon access has been
practically 100 per cent to that of 500
per cent for the Sound country; raw
discrepancy that must be amended by
whatsoever method is at hand. And the
vital method is the creation, within the
compass of Oregon, of the cheapest
ocean port that can be used. There is
but one place On the Oregon coast where
the facilities for this great purpose are
directly at hand and that is at Astoria,
and if Astoria answers the call of the
state in this behalf, what is there to
urge against it?
This is the substance of our conten-
ton: That this port is the best, north,
or south of San Francisco, and equal to
that great harbor in every detail OF
feasibility and commercial utility, save
in scope of actual measurement, our bay
being the smaller OF the two, and yet
large enough to quarter all the fleets
that may ever seek harborage here at
any given time We are within 10 miles
of the Columbia bar and blue water;
here. and hereabout, are vast acres OF
terminal grounds; endless facilities for
dockage, warehouses, elevators, and all
equipments for great and permanent
commercial ends; we lie at the sea-end
of the magnificent Columbia River with
its thousands of miles of prolific tsrri-
tory; we lie at the lowest level of the
thousand -mile-down- grade rail-haul from
the wheatfelds of four state, and Nature
herself has made us the logical gateway
of an empire so vast and 50 rich that
only folly and greed and false pride can
utilize any other avenue in and out OF
the superb domain; there is nothing arti-
fetal about this harbor, it lies where
Gods own handicraft left it and with all
the primal and prime requisites of
safety, convenience, comfort and des-
patch, and all things that 60 to make
noble refuge, and superior point of
departure, for the commerce of world.
As between San Francisco and Puget
Sound and Portland, the great differences
of distance, convenience, time and labor,
in the despatching of ships and cargoes,
as against the two northern ports, there
lies a tariff diffepntial of three shill-
ings and six-pence; and it is to obliter-
ate this embargo against the commerce
of Oregon, that Astoria, with her marine
qualifications absolutely as good as
those that create the preferential in
favor of San Francisco, demands that
she be made the gateway of the state
and of the Inland Empire, and upon
exactly the same terms that prevail at
the California metropolis.
To accomplish this every city and
town in the state should help, Portland
included and if a sacrifice is necessary
it must be made to SO great an end. 1t
is not the advantage of any one place
or section that we are looking for; we
want to see ports on the banks of the
Columbia from Hammond, in CIatsop,
to Umatilla, and beyond; and from
Portland to Eugene on the other COM
mercial arm of the state. But for the
sake of the whole state we are fighting
for the position of the one, available,
cheapest, and handiest ocean port, to
which, and through which, the torren-
tial volumes of a revivifed commerce
will ebb and flow upon the most favored
rates and terms within the purview Of
the world of business, with the profits
and prestige lying to the south of the
Columbia River at all times.
And not until this port is placed in
the same commercial category with San
Francisco will the balance swing to the
Oregon side of the federal, or any other,