in 1896. The railroad then charged 7½ cents a hundred-weight to carry salt in carload lots to The Dalles, and 37½ cents a hundredweight to Umatilla, 90 miles farther. The rate per hundredweight in less than carload lots was 15 cents to The Dalles and 60 cents to Umatilla. The same disparity applied in the shipment of sugar, canned goods, loose wool and other commodities. After the Portage Railway was opened, the rate, on salt to Umatilla was reduced from 37½ cents to 21 cents a hundredweight, sugar from 51 cents to 35 cents, canned goods from 51 cents to 35 cents, grain from 15 cents to 13¼ cents. An active factor in bringing about these reductions, supplementing the Portage Railway, was the open river line of the Open River Transportation Company. The company was incorporated April 20, 1905. In its incorporation you find the names of the same little group that had been carrying on the Portage Railway and Celilo Canal campaigns. Henry Hahn, J. A. Smith and A. H. Devers were the incorporators. The first directors were William J. Mariner, Arthur H. Devers, T. D. Honeyman, L. Allen Lewis, J. A. Smith, Leo Friede, D. C. O'Reilly, Herman Wittenberg and W. H. Moore. The first officers were L. Allen Lewis, president; Herman Wittenberg, vice president, and Joseph N. Teal, secretary and treasurer.
Frankly, all the records and comments seem to show that the open river line came into existence because the campaigners realized it was not enough to have a portage railway. There had to be boats to bring business to the portage railway, so that the reports on river commerce which went back to Washington might be favorable. Whenever I discuss the matter with the organizers, I find them speaking rather injuredly of their surprise at finding it necessary to go into the river transportation business in order to justify the portage railway.
Not that there was then or at any time question or doubt of the warrant for the long striving to make the Columbia free and open to all navigation from the sea to its uppermost reaches
