Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1907 — DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI. [ARTICLE]

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI.

Brent Pngeant to Honor Roosevelt KnrJy |q October. ' - ( For the first time In history a President of the United States Is going to take a journey bn the Mississippi river, •not for the purpose of getting from one point to another, but to see tlio great river, to meet the people who live along Its banks and to acquaint himself with the conditions as they exist at the present time in that territory adjacent to the “father of waters.” True to his principle of seeing things for himself instead of through the eyes of others. President Roosevelt is coming to the Mississippi valley in October to find out what the needs of this great waterway and those tributary to It really are, and the members of the Lakes-to-Th&Gulf Beep Waterway Association hope to so impress him with the Importance of their project that before he leaves the middle west'ihe will be singing “14 feet through the valley” as lustily as the rest of them.

The entire river from Keokuk, Ind., where he embarks on the river boat Mississippi, to~ Memphis, where his Journey ends, will be en fete to greet him, hut at St. Louis the most elaborate reception will occur. Here the harbor and the city will combine to do him honor, and the decorations as well as the program of events will be on the most elaborate scale possible. The President will leave Keokuk on Tuesday morning, Oct. 1, and will go down the river on the Mississippi river Commission's steamboat Mississippi, arriving at St. Louis about 9 o’clock in the morning of the 2d. Here, he will be met by the Governors of 20 Mississippi valley States, the officers of the Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterway Association and the Executive Committee of the St. Louis Business Men’s League, who are his hosts on this occasion. He will remain in St. Louis a few hours, departing thence for Cairo and Memphis. Along the river every town will be decorated jn honor of the distinguished traveler, and every boat from one end of the river to the other is expected to take some part in the great four-day pageant.