The Sentinel=record., 1909-10-31

iieHt VIII. Nost 9uV5VVVsVVV' MI. J aAt said that he also favored bonds for all other improvements, including the Mississippi, just as soon as reas. ible prpject can be decided upon, and can be shown to be necessary and jus tfiable The Ohio river gives the bulk of both to the Mississippi and the president declared every improve ment of tributary tended to increase the value of the great water highway to tn gulf.
 The president told of the improve ments to the Mississippi on the way down, especially in protecting the banks from a further sloughing off at the outside of the bends. The engl- neers say they need S2,00O, O09 more year to carry on this beneficial work as it ought to be done and that it was a shame congress did not give it to them.
 Tn conclusion President Taft de clared that the time for oratory was past and that it was now time to get down to brass tacks. He said:
 "It is now up to you gentlemen to decide what you want, what it will cost. how long it will take and what the result will be. Once that is done you can command any task"
 He paid compliment to the women of New Orleans. and predicted that if the delegates to the convention re. mainded two or three days here, they would forget that there was such a thing as river
 In his address this afternoon Presi- dent Taft said:
 q am delighted to be present (you see we adopt in our administration the Roosevelt policies to the fulD and to head the highly honorable delega- ton that has come from St. Louis to the gulf. We have passed through all the dangers of the navigator of the river. and they are not confined to the shoals, sand banks and the bends, and we are here without the loss of sin gle man There are some few of us who have believed the whole way and hesitate to speak of those, who re- sorted to the humiliating device O. taking land transportation to get here. I hope that will be suppressed in the minutes of this meeting. When Uncle Joe addresses this honorable body do not ask him where he left the rieer and when he got back to it.
 But testing aside. our coming indi- cates what we hope may be an epoch in the change of the character of transportation in this country. Do not misunderstood me. 1 don't think we are going to fill the bosom of the Mis- sissippi with barges and ocean steam CTS tomorrow morning. The change which is bound to be effected with re spect to that stream will come grad ually It will come with the demand that is certainly growing for an i'm provement in our transportation ana the cheapening of that kind of trans. portation, to.wit, bulky merchandise that ought to be carried more cheaply than it is today
 "We have seen human ingenuity turned and developed to the highest degree in the growth of our railroad transportation and the economy of the conduct of railroads. But the condi- tion of our rivers. the apparently hopeless task of making them useful. has turned the public attention from them. and there is not in reference to 1 river construction or river navigation. that improvement that we ought to have had in the last forty years. I ask you what progress has been made in the last thirty or forty years in reference to river improvements.
 Now we have reached point where we are bound 70 use the rivers because the amount that is required to be carried will necessitate it. In Germany and in foreign countries. to which we are pointed to show what can be done with river navigation, the government exercises control and says that with respect to rates, certain of them shall be such on the river that bulky merchandise must go that way
 What do we do? Why, we say to the railroads. if you will only arrange your rates so as to compete with the river, we will permit you to make them so as to drive the river out of business Now that Is what has been done, and while the river has served ! the purpose of regulating rates to q certain extent and reducing them, 1t 1 nevertheless has not exercised that power and that influence that it might If it were actually used for the pur- | nose