Taft's position on developing inland waterways

Prior to the convention Taft expressed a wish to see more development of waterways as a means of creating competition to railways that would motivate rails to improve service and lower rates, thus reducing the temptation of states to over-regulate rails.  Taft saw railroads as an essential force in development of rural areas across the country and warned against letting over-zealous regulation impede.  He likened interior waterways to the Panama Canal in importance, a signature issue for Taft, and freely admitted that past waterway expenditures had been piece meal.  He argued for a Panama-type implementation plan.^▼2

Flotilla logistics

Taft rode aboard the U.S.S. Oleander.  Busse's delegates were one of three groups from Chicago to attend the event, two traveling by steamer and one by train.  The delegates were originally expected to travel in their own steamer but Davis instead traveled on the G.W. Hill steamer with the Illinois Manufacturers Association.  The Chicago Tribune newspaper brought a team of reporters aboard the Florence II.^▼3

scheduled to disembark for two hours in Memphis then board the G.W. Hill as the flotilla's moved on to Helena, Arkansas but a three-hour delay upset and ultimately destroyed the schedule.  Taft didn't make it onto the Hill, nor did the Illinois Manufacturers Association disembark to meet with business people in Memphis.

Political high jinks

In a speech in the wharf district of Memphis on October 28, 1909 Taft chided shippers for using rails even where rivers were navigable and questioned the wisdom of investing money in inland waterways that weren't being used.  Newspapers attributed Taft's remarks to argumentativeness but I wondered if a speech the day before had soured the president's mood some. When Gifford Pinchot, chief forester for the U.S. spoke to a portion of the governors about the U.S.S. St. Paul, he expressed his disagreement with Taft's plan to first target the Ohio River for waterway improvement. Pinchot pointed out that thirty years of work on the Ohio had failed to make it navigable, and cited grants of perpetuity to contractors as the problem. He asserted federal or state governments should control all water powers and that soil erosion on river banks was as critical as river depth.  Pinchot's lack of support was predictable given his allegiance to Roosevelt.^▼5

Discrepancies and addendum

1. Will J. Davis had history with the Mississippi River and several of the destinations of the Taft flotilla.  He'd served as a payroll clerk aboard the U.S.S. Blackhawk during the Civil War, Admiral Porter's flagship, and saw action from aboard the ship in the Battle of Vicksburg, the Red River Run in Louisiana, and was onboard the ship in 1865 when it was destroyed by fire in Cairo.  It ended with his brief career with the Revenue Service in Natchez in 1871.

2. The word cusp was intruding in my thoughts so I looked for some statistics to tell me what the combustion engine was up to in 1909 insofar as cargo transport.  Turns out it was headed down the birth canal and would crown the following year.  As tempted as I am to wander in the history of tractor trailers, it's a bit of a rabbit hole relative to 1909 waterways, so I'll summarize.  The first haulers came in 1898 from a Cleveland auto manufacture who needed to deliver cars.  Technology moved quickly for the next decade and in 1913 the May issue of Traffic World magazine laid out a persuasive case for the financial savings of trucks over horse-drawn wagons — with the emphasis was on trucks, not trailers.  In 1909, stake-bed trucks had started to appear but Fruehauf wouldn't create semi-trailers until 1914.  In 1909, pictures of city streets show automobiles, streetcars, and horse-drawn wagons.  Wikipedia offers a good description of the obstacles that would have faced semi-trailer transport then, involving road materials, tires and speed limits.  There were those who predicted a growth market for trucks, but no one guessed that in the future 69% of America's freight would be transported over paved roads rather than by rail (14%) or water (3%).  If Taft could speak from the grave it would be interesting to hear his thoughts on inland waterways in a future dominated by eighteen wheelers and climate change, and with an upside-down trade balance.

3. In the St. Louis area Tribune reporters interviewed business people who demonstrated resentment of Chicago and ridiculed talk of a channel between Chicago and St. Louis.  Potato and watermelon growers had been fighting for improved cargo passage for a quarter century without success.  They would have defined success as year-round navigability in the hundred mile stretch between Beardstown, IL and St. Louis.  People in Beardstown and Havana, IL favored dynamiting the La Grange and Kempsville dams to relieve the overflow.  Most surprising to the Tribune was that due to poor mail coverage, their newspaper was not to be found in the countryside.  Later in the tour, surprise would turn to panic for the Tribune journalists.  When the flotilla's schedule collapsed, with it went the capacity to predict when Taft would reach destinations.  Poor telegraphic communication, minimal printing and typesetting capacity of small-town newspapers, and late-arriving reporters made production of nightly editions dicey.

4. Taft ate the possum out of courtesy but later confessed that he wasn't really a fan.  The confession was "leaked" to newspapers, probably intentionally in an effort to prevent being served possum at every stop.

5. No love lost between Taft and Pinchot.  Pinchot was a Teddy Roosevelt loyalist and Taft didn't trust him.  When Pinchot embarked on a months-long campaign against a Taft appointee, Taft dismissed him, freeing Pinchot to campaign against Taft for Roosevelt leading up to the 1912 election and help form the Bull Moose Progressive Party that backed Roosevelt for a third term as president, splitting the republican vote and giving the oval office to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

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