Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1909 — TAFT’S DELAYED ADDRESS IS DUE [ARTICLE]

TAFT’S DELAYED ADDRESS IS DUE

He’s In Spokane and Conservation Speech Is Expected. PRESIDENT DOWN IN A MINE Wrench That the Chief Executive Gave His Ankle at Beverly Bothers Him Slightly Now—Golf Club of Copper, Silver and Gold, Given to the White House Occupant, Is Inscribed as Follows: “Champion 1909-1914 and Then Some.”

Spokane, Wash., Sept, 28.—1 t Is expected that President Taft in this city today will deliver his speech on conservation. It was his intention to speak on this subject in Denver. Since leaving Colorado he has had conferences with Secretary Ballinger and Chief Forester Pinchot and it is expected that the differences which caused these aids of the administration to see one another without speaking in Salt Lake City will be discussed by their chief. Attired in a linen duster, an old black slouch hat and swinging an electric lantern at his side, the president was locked in a narrow iron cage and dropped 1,200 feet through midnight blackness into the depths of the famous Old Leonard copper mine at Butte. He had the rare experience of seeing miners at work with a giant drill in d vein of high grade ore that sparkled green with its wealth of mineral. < Close to Mine Fire. During his journey through the mln* the president was within seventy-five feet of a fir* which has been burning for four years and which has defied all I efforts to extinguish IL

Taft walked with a limp when he first got off the train at Anaconda, the result of a sprained tendon in his right foot. The sprain was acquired at Beverly, but this was the first time it bothered him. The injury is not serious. At Butte the president was presented with a full sized golf club—a driver —mcde of. copper, silver and gold, the three metals that have made the Butte camp famous. On the head of the driver the following inscription was engraved: ' "William Howard Taft, Champion 1909-1913 —and then some.” In his remarks at Butte the president said: Mention* His 300 Pounds. “To come out to this awful looking desert from the green fields of the east and see a city spring up like magic out of what is seemingly nothing, is a revelation in the possibilities of American manhood and American energy. I am going to visit your city under ground. I am going to assume that you have a rope that is strong enough to let down 300 pounds. lam going to see that wonderful system of galleries from which you have taken the wealth that has been a marvel to the world.’’