130
THE WEST SHORE.
years become of equal importance with the parent houses,
while new enterprises founded there will acquire equal
stability. The immense dry goods house of IL B. Clailiu
& Co., of New York, is already constructing a four-story
brick building in which a branch wholesale store will be
established. The completion of the railroad is all that is
necessary to set in motion the forces destined to work
out this indisputable result Work upon the Cascades
Division is progressing rupidly. The road is steadily
advancing westward and will soon reach the mountains.
The route through the Cascades embraces a long tunnel
which cannot be completed under two years, but the
company has announced Unit a temporary track will be
laid over the mountains, which will give connection with
the line already constructed from Taooma to their eastern
base within a year, and enable them to operate the
through line without waiting for the tunnel to be com
pleted. Ah a shipping point for the wheat, Hour and other
products of all that xrtion of the great Iulund Empire
reached by the Northern Pacific, Taooma will, within a
year from tho completion of that road, become of great
imxrtauce. The entire Yakima and Kittitas regions,
now being ojxmed up, will be solely tributary to the
Sound, also the Dig Vend and tho greater portion of the
region north of Huake Ilivcr, while with the contemplated
branch from Aiusworlh to Walla Walla, Taooma will
have an equal chance of drawing trade and products
from the magnificent wheat bolt lying along the base of
the lilue Mountains south of Snake River. Direct ship
ment by rail to her grain elevators, and direct loading
ink) largo vessels floating in deep sea water at her
wharvos, aro tho facilities Taooma will offer to the wheat
shipers of the interior, and there is no question but that
an enormous quantity of grain will find it cheaper to
seek tho terminus for shipment than to follow the prosent
channels. Reciprocity is groat law of commerce, and it
naturally follows that tho vast region which will find an
outlet in Taooma for its products will also find there a
base of supplies for great quantities of merchandise and
manufactured articles now drawn from other sources.
Taooma is to-lay the most prosjierous city in the
Northwest and suffers the least from the effects of the
prevailing business depression. Her business men are
young, tmorgetio and watchful of their opportunities.
They are auimated by that spirit of regard for the genoral
publio welfare which is the very life-blood of a business
community. No public enterprise of merit is permitted
to languish for want of support, and every projocted in
dustry which is calculated to benefit the city is given
hearty welcome and sulmtantial encouragement They
Lavs orgauised a Chamber of Commerce, with a member
ship fee of 1100, which is about to erect a magnifioent
three-story brick structure. With such vigorous business
men to guard her interests, pushing their trade into
very possible chanuol, forcing openings where none
ustad before, and on the alert to grasp and hold every
advantage to be derived from the completion of the rail
road, who can doubt the future of Taooma?
It is often asserted by those who pretend to view the
matter in a "philosophical" light that Tacoma has not,
like Portland, a great agricultural country to back her,
and therefore can never become a city of equal import
ance. Granting the accuracy of the argument, it is easy
to show the fallacy of the premise upon which it is
founded. Tacoma has an agricultural country to back
her, equal, if nqt greater, than that tributary to Portland.
In the valleys of the Puyallup and other rivers flowing
into the Sound, in the long-settled and productive regions
of Cowlitz and Lewis counties and the great valley of the
Chehalis, besides numerous other, arable tracts, Taooma
MssesBes a tributary region as near as is the greater por
tion of the Willamette Valley to Portland. Taken in the
aggregate, these tracts make an agricultural area of vast
proportions. The regions that will be rendered tributary
by the completion of the road have been spoken of above.
The large and fertile valley of Kittitas lies as near as
Lane County to Portland, the great Yakima country as
near as the Umpqua, while the centre of the great region
east of the Columbia and north of Snake River, as well
as the AValla Walla region, is as near as Rogue River
Valley to Portland. It is easily seen that Tacoma will
have fully as great an agricultural region solely tributary
to her, with an equal chance in that vast country accessi
ble to both cities. Her territory, too, is undergoing more
rapid development, and is being settled by a more ener
getic and vigorous class than those who have so long held
Western Oregon in an unprogressive state. Besides this
she already has lumbering industries far superior to those
of Portland, and is the shipping point for large coal
mines, of which Portland has none whatever. To say
that Taooma has no country to back her is to display the
densest ignorance on the subject She is blessed with all
the elements requisite to a large commercial city, and it
is the part of true wisdom to acknowledge it
The immigration question is a very complex one. In
formation is disseminated in so many different ways, and
through such varied agencies, that when wrong ideas are
oonveyed it is almost a matter of impossibility to deter
mine whore the responsibility lies. That many people
come to this region with inflated imaginations and absurd
ideas of what they will encounter is true, and tho problem
of how such impressions took possession of them is a
difficult one. Immigration literature is, of course, open
to the charge of dwelling more upon the advantages than
the defects of the region of which it treats. Unfavorable
conditions are lightly touched upon or ignored entirely,
while much stress is laid upon all favorable features.
This should be expected by every one. People in this
world advertise their advantages, not their failings. Yet
there seem to be many intelligent people who do not pos
sess sufficient knowledge of human nature and enough
good judgment, based upon au acquaintance with those
innumerable geographical, scientific and simple facta