the most valuable source material for a knowledge of this stage of the development of the Pacific Northwest the best legacy to posterity. Such a plan carefully executed would give records that would have a place in the economic and social history of the Pacific Northwest similar to that held by the Domesday Book and Hundred Rolls in English economic history.
The second phase of the work which this society should do for the centennial observance would take the form of a congress of industry and commerce. To this the results of the preparatory work would be brought to be welded by discussion into general principles and practical conclusions. Here also would appear those authorities whose survey takes in the relations of the Northwest trade and industry and transportation to those of the world at large.
A dominant desire connected with the proposed fair is that through it the Pacific Northwest shall be brought into larger and closer trade relations with the rest of the world, more particularly the nations of the Orient. Our friends in consular positions there would be stimulated to make valuable inquiries in the interim, if they understood that their data and conclusions would have dissemination through such a congress. Lectures given before this congress would bring about the selection of materials of real significance for an industrial museum. To show how the idea of a congress of commerce and industry is regarded in the East, I append the communications received from the only authorities that have so far been consulted in the matter:—
Department of State: Isthmian Canal Commission.
Room 75, Corcoran Building.
Prof. F. G. Young, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon—
My Dear Professor Young: I am in receipt of your favor of the eleventh, and am pleased to know that there is a project on foot to have a centennial exposition in Portland, Oregon, in the year 1905. I believe the idea is an excellent one, and I am sure the great wealth of the Northwest, its present commercial importance, and its bright prospects for the future trade with Pacific countries, and with those of the North Atlantic by way of an isthmian canal, afford all the conditions requisite to a most successful exposition. You ask my opinion in regard to the desirability of having a congress of commerce and industry for one of the features of the proposed exposition. Undoubtedly, one of the chief purposes of the exposition will be to present the commercial and industrial importance of the Northwest, and there can be nothing of greater moment to Oregon and the other Pacific Coast States than the development of facilities for transportation and commercial intercourse. It would seem to me highly desirable for the exposition to emphasize this phase of its educational work, I know of
