Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/764



a later general view of progress, I find that the multiplication of railroad enterprises had become in 1887–8 a striking feature of Oregon's, unfolding. In this sudden development, the Northern Pacific had taken the initiative, causing the construction of the lines of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, the formation of the Oregon and Transcontinental and other companies, and finally the control for a time of the Northern Pacific by the Oregon interest. That these operations miscarried to some extent was the natural sequence of overstrained effort. The city of Portland, and to a considerable extent, the state, suffered by the neglect of the Northern Pacific Terminal Company to construct a