Year: 1879




Knowing the people of Oregon to be
''straws" that indicate the possible
early completion of our railroad con-
nectiOn with the east, | venture to
offer you a few impressions gained at
this end of the route.


| through visits at the general office in
New York and at the home of the
genial president, Frederick Billings,
in Woodstock, VT, that the Northern
Pacific people mean business. Mr..
Billings declares that they mean to
put the Pen d'Oreille division through
to the lake meet gear if it is possible to
get the material on the ground. The
vastness of this undertaking will be
realized when it is understood that all
the iron and rolling stock for that two
hundred miles of road must be shipped
up the Columbia. The fact that the
company has already commenced
grading on that division and has pur-
chased the material with which to
finish it, is one of the surest indica-
tions of their confidence in the enter
prise as a whole. Asa business enter
prise the building of this section would
be the hight of folly except on the
theory that very few years will
make it part of through line.


On the eastern division the track
laying is being pushed forward as
fast as possible, the principal difficulty
seeming to be to get the material
across the Missouri river as fast lis
| is wanted.


From all that | can learn, the policy
of the company seems to be an honest
and earnest one. 1t is their determine
alton to make it simply railroad
enterprise. The company will aim to
do legitimate business with their
road, but not to get jobs through con-
gress, to profit by the rise and fall of
stocks, or to speculate in lands. The
policy of the president is to sell the
lands at government prices to actual
settlers, with the belief that it is the
surest way to fill up the country and
make the railroad pay.


AS to the matter of location, the
road will be built over whatever
routes skillful engineering decides to
be the best. The Columbia river
branch will doubtless be built first,
but there will finally be branch over
the mountains to the sound. The
questions of termini will be settled,
not by the chickering's of opposing
towns or the schemes of spectators,
but by Il careful study of geographical
and typographical facts and natural
laws. Whatever town happens to be
so situated as to command the trade
of the sound, or of the Colum bia river,
or of the road, will get it. Even if
some spirit of favoritism or specuia-
| Il n "a I
improper point it could not remain
there. The people of various points
ought. to Join together in the simple
work of helping this great national
enterprise to a completion, letting the
special benefits fall where they will
and believing that ample general
benefits shall fall to all alike. The
company cannot make Il terminus
for every town that Claims 1t any
more than the Columbia can empty
into the sea at dozen places. Il is
as absurd to throw difficulties in the
way of the road because it does not
touch this point or that as ii would be
to stop the boats on the Columbia
because they do not put in at every
wood pile or skiti landing.


Aside from the general spirit of the
company itself. find in the better
informed circles everywhere feeling
of confidence in the early completion
of this enterprise. People seem gen
orally and largely interested in the
northwest, and look anXiously for
such railway connections "a shall
open our great and favored region to
settlement. In the general air of
confidence which now surrounds busi-
ness interests in the east, this enter
prise has its full share. And | believe
the company is inspired by that conf
dence, and that President Billings i
moved by an honest and well
grounded conviction when he brings
his hand down with emphasis and
says, "Tell the people of Oregon for
me, that four years will see that road
finished through


Taking the hopes that lie in this
direction in connection with those
that are offered by the Oregon Pacific
and the Winnemucca routcs-the as
surance that the activity of one Will
stimulate the other-the people of the
northwest may feel assured that the
period of their isolation Is near its
close. The sleeping energies of our
fair domain will soon be reused to
activity by the warm life-blood poured
in through railway arteries from the
beating heart of the world.


:. =. KNIGHT.