The Sentinel=record., 1909-10-30
Tafts Speech at Natchez.

Tafts Speech at Natchez.
 President Taft said
 MT Chairman, ladie sand gentle men:
 I am very much impressed with my preesnt environment I wish to ex. press to the good people of Natchez and especially their committee on ar engagements my congratulations on this method of coming together with your visitors. It is certainly a uniuue scene and taken with the trip which
 Ihad the honor to take with your hospitable mayor, brings me, 1t seems, into the very heart of the southland
 'Natchez-under-the-hill (laughter) we know of by rerort, historic lore, stor wand poem. Even that rough hero, Jim Bledsoe, had a wife, as recall, one at Pike and one at Nat chez under the hill And then from the scene of those-tragedies shall call them-certainly not as tragedies to come tc Natchez on the hill and find the evidence of chivalric life: that honest life of the south. The memory of those who enjoyed that life Is a pleasure that can be known lO AtW QtutlS III iIilS WOllu.
 After the beauty of this scene I hate to come to the commercial and one of the features of Natchez that for the moment 1 must enjoy is the presence of the old and that is here almost beyond any other city that l know of in the Mississippi Valley. But we cannot get along without clothes and we can't get along with out bread and meat, and the practical side of life must admit itself to us for we cannot live on poetry and mem. ory and while this trip, undertaken under the auspices of the waterways association combines most of of the beautiful. 1t has also a deeper pur. pose and that i sto draw to the at tention of the country the need for some action in developing the utility of the great waterway that flows at the base of these bluffs.
 "The problem is not solved but I believe if is in the process of solu- ton. I believe it because we, of the American nation admit no obstacle that we cannot overcome.
 We do not overcome obstacles by minimizing their difficulty, but we ov- ercome them by a close investigation of what those things are and then determination to destroy them, no matter what burden we may have 10 assume in order to do so. \
 'Fhe Mississippi river l was going to say (and we do say on the trip you know because we do not have la dies with us1, in it's power, in its will. ingness tD make eddies and trouble, in its beauty, for it has great beauty, as we say when we came down. re- minds one-dare I say it?--of beau tiful and powerful woman.
 Properly directed onle by sugges- tion she is the greatest aid to progress and happiness that we have in life. Treated without discretion. sought to be hemmed in where she will. by tse force of her character break ont. she loses the opr0rtuniv for usefulness and sometimes wrecks everything she strikes.
 And now that is the kind of a ere ature that the waterways association invites the speaker of the house and his associates, a quorum, I may say, of the committee of the whole of the states of the Union, to study. with view to controlling so we may make the most of her And we are going to do fl. Just how, neither the speak CT nor l are inclined to confide in you at present But such a movement as this gathering, which gathers force not alone in the Mississippi Valley, but throughout the country, is certain to bring about results. which carrot but be useful not only to the country at large, but especially those who are locally affected by the streams.
 Now. my friends. l have got to make a speech at New Orleans on the subject ~ the Mississippi river and if l have not dealt in figures here, not arithmetical but other figures. it is because am trying to save those mathematical figures that I have for the sordid consideration of men who insist on knowing the facts. instead of kindly audience like this. com posed of ladies who realize, shall | say, the exigeney of spreading them clear down the Mississippi river from Sf | 0tic fo Nauy Orlaapo