The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1907-10-02
THE USUAL FALSE PREMISE.

Ihe Oreg0nlan OF MOnuay iasC con
tanned a peurile complaint alleging tha
because of the failure of the Port o
Columbia law, Portland would be de
MED the advantage of a feet of steam.
ers plying in the Alaska trade; the
predicate being SO densely hidden as te
leave the best informed people down
here all at sea as to what that notorious
measure might have contributed to the
desired situation. The only thing that
seems at all plausible, being, that the
pilots on the Columbia bar are in some
hypothetical way, responsible for the
fact that Oregon has not, today, an
Alaska Portland line. This fact is ad-
judged to be the cause, because when
the Oregonian has no other line OF mean
attack on Astoria it jumps on this fine
body of men and assesses them with
any old delinquency it cannot palm off
on any other set.
Portland knows pretty well why it
has no steamship line to Alaska, and if
it does not know, Seattle and Tacoma
are not so far away as to preclude a
quick and certain explanation; or, the
records Of the Portland Board of Trade
might be utilized very conclusively, if
not happily.
1t certainly was not denied on any
score of pilotage fees or quality of serv-
ice in that line, for it is common fame
that all coastwise steamers are free of
such charges from the sea to Astoria,
and only meet them when the vessels
60 above Tongue Point, or in other
words. to Portland and way ports; and
by the way, the pilots in that special
behalf all reside at the metropolis.
Such bottoms are, by law, exempt from
bar pilotage charges, and the big daily
viii have to seek another cause, if it
has one, for even sailing vessels in that
service are also exempt.
Since the "Port of Columbia" bill be-
came a matter of interest to people on
the river, the especial promise of its
authors and friends has been that once
it was passed they would correct the
vicious evils inseparable from the bar
pilot service, and these promises have
been accompanied by repeated insulting
illusions to the Columbia River Bar
Pilots Association, the reading of which
TRADES would convince an outsider that
this particular group of men were
pirates instead of pilots and used their
franchise, and licenses, for the deliber-
ate robbery of everything ahoat and
within sight and hail Of the bar.
Whereas, the real fact is, there is no
ADLER set of men on the Pacific Coast
than these same skillful seamen, every
one of them a master of his craft AMI
respectable, law-abiding citizen, to
boot, whose incomes are fixed by law
and the coming of ships to this river,
from abroad; but, unhappily for the
Portlander they all live in Astoria, and
for this reason alone, they are utterly |
discredited at the metropolis, and this
despite the fact that the records of this
great barrier at the mouth of the Colum-
bia are clearer of wreck, loss and death
annals, than any other port-bar on the
coasts Of America.
The whole system of fraud and greed
that inspired the sport of Columbia"
bill. is charged with just such eontem-
tible elements as this, and that it went
to the ash-heap upon the clean and
simple pretext Of its fragrant "uncon-
stitutionality," was handy road to
salvation for the men who framed it
for, had 1t succeeded, it would have
crusade of bitterness on this
river that would have ended only in
something quite beyond the purview of
those responsible for it.