Aberdeen Herald

MUST KEEP RIVER OPEN
BOOM COMPANY RECEIVES ORDERS FROM WAR DEPARTMENT.

Long Continued Efforts of Settlers for Open River Successful. Attempt to Monopolize Wishkah River Must Cease. Will not Interfere With Logging Operations.

Last week the Wishkah Boom Co. received formal notice from the war department, through Major Chittenden, engineer in charge of this district, that, unless its operations were so regulated by May 20 as to insure permanently a free channel of reasonable width for boat navigation on the Wishkah river, its permit for operating a boom would be cancelled.

The order recited that repeated complaints about obstruction to navigation from the settlers and their attorneys, and the failure of the boom company to grant promised relief, left the department no option but to issue this drastic order.

With this action, the settlers along the Wishkah river win a fight with the boom company that has been continued for years. In the early days of the boom in the river, settlers were few, and logging operations were not of great proportions, and the management of the boom company at that time had little difficulty in dealing with the farmers, but during the past ten years, logging on the Wishkah has grown wonderfully, and the growth of the cities on the harbor has stimulated farming to such an extent as to cause constant friction between the home builders and the boom company.

The feeling between the two interests was not lessened by the "I am bigger than thou" attitude assumed by the management of the company in recent years. When a rancher ventured to complain that his land was being washed away, his fences destroyed, and his cleared land covered with logs and driftwood, the manager had a habit of throwing out his chest and telling them to appeal to the courts if they did not like his style of doing business, usually adding the statement that he had attorneys employed by the year. This, to men of limited means, worked for a time, but, as matters grew worse, they did go into court and appealed to the war department, as it now appears, with a degree of success that will prove not only beneficial to them individually, but to the country at large as well.

The Wishkah river is entirely too important a stream to be permitted to remain obstructed, particularly as no real reason exists why it should not have a free boat channel at all times, unless it is that a comparatively small expenditure by the boom company would be required. All who are familiar with the river agree that it is an ideal stream for logging purposes, and that if the boom was managed properly there need be no interference with navigation.

But this boom has been operated with an eye single to making all the money possible with the least possible cost, and has been satisfactory neither to the settlers nor to the loggers.

While the river has been blocked by logs, to save cost of storing them elsewhere, loggers have been months in getting their rafts to market, and in some instances have been heavy losers by reason of a fall in prices while they were waiting on the economical methods of the company to get their logs delivered.

Since the receipt of this peremptory order an attempt has been made to create an impression that the contention is between the farmers and the loggers, and that the latter would be damaged and possibly put out of business. Nothing is further from the facts. The loggers will doubtless be annoyed while the boom operations are being adjusted to fit the order, and the boom company may endeavor to enlist their aid in an effort to have it modified, but the action of the department really concerns the boom company alone. That corporation must now proceed to do what it should have done years ago—take proper care of the logs without injury to other interests, or give up its permit.

Should it take the latter course, logging would continue without a break. It is one of the best paying propositions in this region, and plenty of men and capital stand ready to boom the river—and do it right.