THE CELILO CANAL 117
in Idaho and British Columbia. In a report of the transporta- tion committee of the Chamber of Commerce for 1906 (the committee consisting of T. D. Honeyman, L. A. Lewis, A. H. Devers, Henry Hahn, Edward Newbegin, S. M. Hears and J. N. Teal, counsel), I find these paragraphs:
"This committee is more convinced than ever that if Port- land is to be a great commercial seaport, if the interior is to receive the benefits of reasonable rates, and to reach its proper development, it will be brought about only through a deep and safe channel to the sea and the opening to navigation of the waterways of the Northwest.
"This committee will further all they can an intelligent understanding of the subject to the end that the works affecting the Northwest may be speedily completed, and it confidently relies upon the support of the entire Northwestern country in its efforts to bring about a condition which will result in such enormous and continuing benefits to all the people."
The first boat of the Open River line was purchased in 1906, the little steamer Columbia, afterwards rebuilt and called the Relief. She carried about 120 tons of wheat, but lacked power to go above Umatilla rapids. She did succeed in fur- nishing the Portage Railway some business, and she was bought after Theodore Burton, then chairman of the river and harbors committee of the house, had declared the Portage Railway must show some business or the appropriations for the Celilo canal would cease.
The Mountain Gem, second boat of the line, made her first trip in September, 1906, bringing 566 sacks of wheat from the Arlington Interior Warehouse Company. It was the under- standing that these boats would make lower river connections with the Regulator line, controlled by the Northern Pacific, but the fallacy of depending upon a railroad for co-operation in opening up a river to navigation was shown first by fitful and irregular service, and next by a one-day notice that con- nections could not be made. Immediately the J. N. Teal, which was to have been built above Celilo, was built at Portland.
