The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1909-08-17
RAILROAD WAR
IN NORTHWEST

For nearly two years past there
have been rumors and counter
rumors concerning the Hill and Har-
riman interests in the northwest.
First word comes that the two great
captains are at war, then creeps in
1.-The hint that they are about to COM
bine. Possibly a solution of the
problem may be found in the new
Milwaukee, st. Paul & Puget Sound,
if one assumes, for which there
seems to be much ground, that this
line. is merely a branch of the Can
adam Pacific, a railroad foe that
will need the combined. powers of
Hill and Hartman to combat.
Within the past ninety days it is
understood that the Canadians have
purchased entrance into Chicago
from st. Paul over a heretofore ig-
nored line of rails. They have al
ready their own track from st. Paul
to Winnipeg, and, farther west,
from the boundary line down into
Spokane. Given this as a through
line, they are practically free from
control of the interstate commerce
commission. True, the commission
can compel them to make. the same
rates as Hill or Hartman while on
United States soil, but there is moth
ing to prevent the willy Canadians
from granting rebates on Canadian
soil on through traffic from Chicago
to Spokane or Puget Sound, If they
have or can get their rails to the
Sound ports. Was it Canadian mon
ey that drove the Taft tunnel with
such costly speed?
Even today merchants in Boise
are shipping to Portland On Can
adam Pacific waybills, and then back
to Boise over Hartman tracks, at
fifty cents per ton cheaper than the
direct Hartman rate from Chicago
to Boise. At one time Hill fancied
that he was overload IL all traffic
from Chicago to the Sound; then he
was forced to realize that Hartman
by building down the Snake river
from Huntington to Lewiston, could
make him water-level haul for water
level haul.
Suddenly out of the north comes
a new enemy, n common to both
Hill and Hartman. 10 find any
thing in common must have been a
novelty to these two masters, who
for so long have regarded each other
as commercial enemies; but a line
of rails free from congressional con-
troll and owned in London, that
fears not all Wall street-this COM
non foe needs must make them both
pause and look to each other for
needed help. 1t somehow reminds
one of the warning factions of ancient
Britain suddenly face to face, dis
mayed, against the n~ew-landed Dane.
Today Canada is in no mood to
compromise with the United States.
i Within ten years she will have wheat
to sell to the United States that this
country must buy, just as England
does today. She can lay Pacific
lumber down in Chicago from her
own stumps, over her own rails al
prices that under the present traffic
laws in the United States, neither
Hill nor Hartman, uor the two
combined, can hope to equal. All
the railroads might, and probably
will. be under one management; yet
from the greatest inland mart
| Chicago, to the greatest Pacific port,
F., Puget Sound, controlling the traffic
not only between these two points
but also between the United States
itself and her greatest detached
possession, Alaska, between all THESE
American markets runs a line OF ralls
over which, commercially, the United
States has practically no control
In the Canadian Pacific the American
railroads have a foeman worthy OF
their best laid steel.