"The Milwaukee & St. Paul are coming to the Coast--and we are glad they are there. At different times, when people largely interested in that enterprise talked with me, I said, 'By all means build to the Coast; extend your road--if you do not, somebody who has more enterprise than you will take the business and will keep it on their own rails and you will not get a share of it.' But when that enterprise is finished, I do not know, north of the Platte River, where there is room for another railroad or occasion for one. There will be branches built, and they are necessary for the development of the country. You had expended, and there is being expended now, a very large sum during the last two years. "The Northern Pacific and the Great Northern, within the State of Washington, have spent millions of dollars between Portland and Spokane. It ought not to frighten you; it will not wipe you out; you have your roots deep in the ground and they will stay there. TACOMA IS WAKING. "Now, I find in summing up the present population of the new country between Blaine and Vancouver--Portland is on the other side of the Columbia, although, fortunately, the state line does not limit our commerce or our right to trade with each other--there are over 700,000 people living on the line of the railway between Blaine and Vancouver. Portland claims 200,000, and I feel sure that she must be near that figure. Portland has grown rapidly, and I think possibly the young men have taken a sheet out of your book. There was a time when they were altogether too wealthy in Portland. Every man had business of his own to attend to and was so deeply engaged in it that he overlooked the business of the city. They did not take hold. You could come there if you were willing to bear all the expense and take what you could get. But Portland has had an awakening, and I believe that Portland, notwithstanding its remoteness from the sea, will have a good growth. It has a good country behind it and there is no reason why it should not have a good growth. "Another city down here where we were beautifully entertained last night, Tacoma--I remember when we came out here they really did not need us and we did not want to force ourselves on them, and so we stayed right here. But I think, and I hope, that Tacoma is getting its eyes open and that it wants more railways. We don't ask much; we want the privilege of a place for foothold, a place to do our business at our own expense; and I think that we will probably succeed in getting it--I hope so. GROWTH PLEASES HIM.