Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1909 — ‘PORK BARREL’ OF TAFT A SURPRISE [ARTICLE]

‘PORK BARREL’ OF TAFT A SURPRISE

President's Waterways Speech Has Congressmen Guessing. HE IS CAIRO'S GUEST TODAY

Although the Voice of the Executive Required a Stimulant, His Address Concerning the Bonde to Be Asked For Purpose of Aiding Inland Navi* gatlon Was One of the Strongest He Haa Made on His Bwlng Around the Country,

Cairo, 111., Oct. 26. —A sensation lasting more than a day was the president's pork barrel speech. It is being discussed all along the line. Some among the 177 congressmen who are In the wake of the Taft craft on its trip down the Mississippi are inclined to regard the speech as a notice to Speaker Cannon that the president will oppose any general method of apportioning funds for harbors and river improvements. There was some doubt when Taft arrived in St. Louis whether he would be able to talk at all to the Missouri folks. By having his throat stimulated Just before he entered the Coliseum meeting he was able to make himself heard by about half of the big audience. The president said: "We have spent a great deal of money on waterways. I think that we have now reached a time in the history of the development of our waterways when a new method ought to be adopted.

“I would like to clear away a good many suppositions that I am afraid have lodged In some minds. This matter of waterways Improvements by irrigation of the arid and sub-arid lands and of the conservation of our resources Is not for the purpose of distri buting pork to every part of the coun try. "Smells of the Pork Barrel.” "Every measure that Is to be taken and adopted must be on the ground that it is useful to the country at large and not on the ground that It is going to send certain congressmen back (o congress or on the ground'-that it is going to make prosperous a certrii. part of the country during the expen diture of money. "The method which I favor is that we should determine whether the country in which any project is to be carried out is so far developed as to Justify the expenditure of a large sum and whether the project will be useful when done. “When you have determined that question generally, then I am in favor of doing that work as rapidly as it can be done and I am in favor of issuing the bonds to do it.

“Now there is a proposition that we issue $500,000,000 or a billion dollars worth of bonds for a waterway and then that we apporlion part to the Mississippi and part to the Atlantic, a part to the Missouri and a part to the Ohio. lam opposed to it. “1 am opposed to it because it nor only smells of the pork barrel, but it will be the pork barrel itself. Let every project stand on its own bottom, let it prove itself by means of its friends and by means of those who know whether it is to be profitable or not and then enter upon it, but dfi not let us embark on a plan that will reflect no credit on our business common sense.” Cannon Quotes From TSible. Somebody asked Uncle Joe what he thought of the fight of the insurgents against him. “Get out your pencil and write this down,” he said: "Old Paul, you will recollect if you refer to his journey, finally struck an attitude and said: ‘I have been imprisoned, punished with stripes, met with robbers on land and have been shipwrecked and have met the beast of Ephesus, but none of all these could discourage me.’ That Is all.” Taft started his 1,200 mile trip down stream to the tooting of whistles and the cheers of thousands in St. Louis. Fifteen big Mississippi river steamboats, bearing a notable escort, swung out behind the little lighthouse tender Oleander, on which the president is quartered. Included in the escort are the vice president of the United States, two cabinet members, twenty United States senators, four representatives of foreign nations, the speaker of the house of representatives with I<6 of his fellow congressmen and hundreds of prominent business men. Cannon Puzzled About "Kitty.” On the boats carrying the governors and the congressmen were a few table; with green cloth covers, a St. Loui*. paper said the tallies have “niches Tor chips, stands for bottles and a depression in the center for the kitty.” “What Is a kitty?” asked Uncle Joe Cannon. This is the speaker’s first trip down the river since he was a boy thirteen years old. He md'de the trip then on a flatboat, carrying a load of pork to New Orleans. When he got there they Bold not only the pork, but the flatboat and Uncle Joe had to return on a side-wheeler.