HOW TO GET "CONTROL.”

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Mark now another feature in the case. The East and West Side Railroads on either side of the Willamette River compete with the boats of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company for the trade of the Willamette Valley. The railroads naturally divert the passenger traffic almost entirely, and carry a large quantity of freight. They would carry more and earn a fair profit for their owners, the German and English bondholders, but, instead of a fair competition, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, as I have said, put down the freights from Corvallis downward to Portland on grain to one dollar per ton-of course, an impossible rate for either river or railroad to profit by.

Why is this? Because what Mr. Villard calls the "control" of these railroads is vitally necessary to the future continuance of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company's stocks in their exalted dividends and consequent enormous market value. Therefore, it is sought now to destroy the earning powers of these railroads, to force the owners into succumbing to the "policy of control."

One more step. The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company owns practically no land-that is to say, it is interested speculatively in the rise of value in property in Portland by having invested a large sum (I believe $199,000) in the purchase of 484 acres of land in and near the city. But, outside this and its railroadtrack, the company owns altogether about 3,055 acres of land in scattered pieces, only about 850 acres of which lie in Oregon; the rest in Washington Territory, and a bit or two in Idaho. We will not omit to mention its wharves at the various stopping-places of the boats, as they represent the expenditure of a considerable sum.

Once again if anything at all is clear, it is that the inflated value of this company's securities depends solely on the continuance of their monopoly. I have shown that on the Columbia River this is threatened by the Northern Pacific, and also by themselves in effect, by the substitution of the costly railroad line for the inexpensive boats, and the consequent devotion of both investments, namely, that in the boats and that in the railroad, to the same traffic, which the competition of the Northern Pacific is certain to reduce in gross volume.

Now turn to the Willamette Valley traffic, and scrutinize the position there. Not only is there the existing competition of the railroads, which is fatal, so long as it is genuine, to the earning of large profits from the north and south traffic of the valley, both in passengers and goods, but here come in two competi

tors more.

The Scotch narrow-gauge system also centers everything in Portland, and has succeeded, after a hard fight with the city authorities, in securing a large tract of land for depot or terminal purposes. It had the audacity to claim a right of way right through the tract purchased by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, and, under the law of eminent domain as it exists in Oregon, it would have got it, ay, and used it, too, with but scant regard for the feelings of the high and mighty corporation which had marked it for their own. But a working arrangement was with much difficulty made, by which the Scotch line runs, free of charge, alongside the other, right through its land, to the terminus of the narrow-gauge.

This Scotch line has put boats on the Willamette also. They ply between Ray's Landing, about seven

THE "BLIND POOL."

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The

teen miles up the Willamette, and Portland. narrow-gauge also has an East-side and a West-side line through the Willamette Valley. The East-side line runs north and south a short distance from the foothills of the Cascades, and has now got as far as Brownsville, about one hundred and twenty miles from Portland. Their West-side line runs through the rich farming country in Polk County by Dallas to Sheridan, and a junction with the Western Oregon broad-gauge near by. This is also an ambitious company, who are pushing surveys across the Cascade Range.

The narrow-gauge system is yet by no means complete, but, when it is, it will become at once a very dangerous rival both to the East and West Side roads, and also to the boats of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company on the Willamette.

So seriously did Mr. Villard feel the impending danger that it is no secret in Oregon that a confidential agent was dispatched by him to Scotland, to endeavor to put the Scotch investors out of conceit with their property, and, failing that, he attempted to secure some of their stock, so as to gain a footing inside their camp. But there also he failed.

Shortly before these pages were written, occurred the episode of what is known in financial circles in America 66 as the blind pool." Mr. Villard caused it to be known among his circle of followers that he desired the use of eight million dollars. According to statements made on his authority, he not only secured it, but in all fifteen millions were offered him. Quietly and secretly he used the eight millions in buying up stock of the Northern Pacific Railroad in the New York market, nor did he show his hand until he had thus secured