The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1915-06-03

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ARE WE A % SHELL
IN A A RIFLE?
Well, the river is open, the oppor-
tunity is at our door, the boats come
up and down the river and it looks
good to see them pass by, but are we
Of size to seize upon our opportun-
ity? This is the question for Kenne-
wick to answer.
Suppose that some big firm of San
Francisco or Portland should make in
quiries as to our facilities to transfer
freight. Some one might want to ship
a few carloads of goods to some point
in the Inland Empire. He would be
told-by shipping through Kennewick
by the water route, we could save so
much, and he wauld like to ship
through your town, if the freight can
be transferred at reasonable cost;
and then we would be asked, what
would the transfer from boat to car
cost per ton. What could we answer?
Why the cost of transfer with our
medieval means would be so great
as to make the proposition ridiculous.
We would have to load from the boat
on teams and haul the goods to the
freight depots, to be there put on the
cars. The cost of such an operation
would more than absorb the differ
ence in freight. With our baby outfit
of dock, what can we do? We would
have to throw away the opportunity as
soon as it would be offered US. But if
we had large dock, with a large
and cars coming right to
the boat with modern facilities to load
and unload we could ourselves adver-
tise to handle freight and seize the
by the forelock.
The freight agent for the river
transportation companies could see
his way clear to hunt for freight by
the car load and by the boat load.
For, as sure as we could save, if only
fifty cents a ton to the trade, it would
naturally gravitate toward Kennewick
and we would become great jobbing
center.
The first point on the Columbia, be-
tween here and Alfalfa, well provided
for means Of transfer will get the job
and then the rest can sing for it.
The cities on the Mississippi, if
they want to compete with New York
and other Atlantic or gulf cities, for
the trade Of the Northwest, will have
to devise boats from six to ten feet
of draught, which will be able to COM
bine river with ocean traffic carrying
freight straight from Mississippi cit
les, through the Panama canal to the
Pacific coast-and why not up the
Columbia river? We should be ready
for them. No one can tell how great
would become the future Of Kenne-
wick as an industrial and commercial
center. Portland and San Francisco
are interested in seeing a jobbing CEN
ter established somewhere around here
but it is doubtful if they will come and
do it for us.
Have any one of you tried to shoot
% shell through a. rifle? That is
what we are trying to do with our
foolish and inadequate means of trans
fer. Our opportunities are of the Al
calibre, but if we do not come up to it
and are satisfied to be a % shell, our
opportunities will laugh at us and
leave US in the cold.
If we need a $4,000 dock to handle
the proposition, then a $4,000 dock
and freight handling facilities we
ought to have-and have it quickly.
We must provide the shell which fits
the calibre of our proposition.
the calibre of our opportunities.
Some people have become so used
to an easy-going, worldly-wise skepti-
cism about everything, that they have
not the grit or nerve to go for any
thing worth having.
Why does not the Commercial club
go to work and investigate the posi-
bilities for US. If no one has the time
to push such an investigation, then
we ought to pay somebody whom we
can trust to carry it on, make report,
show the figures and give us some
thing to go by, and then, if there is
something, go for it.
It is not the Strawberries which are
going to make Kennewick-they mere
ly help to keep us alive, that we might
make something of Kennewick. It is
not even wholesale trade, though this
helps nightly. What will make Ken
newick is the jObbing proposition, the
transfer of freight from water to rail
and from rail to water. But we can
do nothing. It would be insane to try
to do anything in this line until we
have the facilities to handle the trans
fer on such an economical basis as