Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1909 — TAFT HAS TRULY WILD WEST DAY [ARTICLE]

TAFT HAS TRULY WILD WEST DAY

Sees Girl In Knickerbockers Triumph In Horse Race. SHERIFF FLOURISHES BIG GUN One of the President’s Colorado Guards Knocks Down Superintendent of the Gunnison Tunnel When That Gentleman Attempts to Shake Hands With the Occupant of the White House. Executive Surprised at the Wonders Wrought by Irrigation. Salt Lake City, Sept. 24. —Gifford jPlnchot will be here while President Taft is a guest of this city. It is stated this circumstance is not the result of any arrangement Taft tells his intimates he thoroughly enjoyed his wild western day in Colorado. The president visited the Montrose county fair and after some formal speech making, in which he and the mayor and governor and several others participated, he was given a touch of western life —a relay race of cowgirls. A girl of sixteen was matched against two older riders and won the two and a half-mile race with three changes of horses by almost a quarter of a mile. The winner, Bertha Elsie Hull, wore knickerbockers while her opponents wore undivided skirts. At Grand Junction and at Montrose the president visited the fruit exhibits of the county fairs and was told the almost unbelievable story of the season's yield. Enormous peaches, apples, pears, plums and vari-colored grapes as well as enormous vegetables were shown. At almost every stop the baggage car was laden with fruit One little box, a yard long, was just big enough to hold ten peaches arranged in a row.

Sheriff Flourishes Revolver. One little incident marred the president’s visit. One of the thirty-two Colorado sheriffs who have accompanied the president across the state got Into an altercation with H. L. Daniels, superintendent of the Gunnison tunnel, when Daniels was trying to ehake hands with Taft. Daniels was knocked down. During the scuffle the officer pulled an enormous pistol from his belt. Taft shook hands with several Ute Indians. In his Grand Junction speech the president said: “You look at the country in some places and it would seem as If it was the most God-forsaken spot there was on earth. Then you progress a mile or two and you see the influence of water and it seems a paradise. “Now what has been done here has been done largely or entirely by private enterprise, but there are a good many enterprises that involve the outlay of capital so large, or require so much risk, that it Is probably better to have the government help. Taft’s Identity Questioned. “The government of the United States must move slowly. It is a great body. It has to move with deliberation and it has to move—or its agents have to move—witliin the lines of law: but ordinarily the government ultimately does justice, if you can live until that justice comes. I agree sometimes that it Is a little difficult, but we shall struggle to do the best we can in Washington. “T have been laboring under the impression for the last four or five days that 1 was generally, known to the people of the I'nlted States so that they could not mistake me. but it remained for a gentleman of your coinmitt e. when he and I were presented, to question my identity and I had to getwell I ven t say a certificate—but I had to protest that 1 was what 1 seemed to be. Now, that is a good thing. A man goes along in life and thinks he has achieved a certain position and then every jnce in a while he gets a jolt. He may get ft from his wife. The truth is in my family that is one of the most useful functions that she performs.” l He made the trip to the west portal of the Gunnison tunnel over the nar-row-guage railway. At the conclusion of his speech the flow of water through the tunnel which will irrigate 200,000 acres of hitherto arid lands was started by the president.