Address of President Roosevelt at St. Louis, Missouri, October 2, 1907

by Theodore Roosevelt

Transcriber’s Note: The cover image was created from the title page by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AT ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

OCTOBER 2, 1907

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1907

It is a very real pleasure to address this body of citizens of Missouri here in the great city of St. Louis. I have often visited St. Louis before, but always by rail. Now I am visiting it in the course of a trip by water, a trip on the great natural highway which runs past your very doors—a highway once so important, now almost abandoned, which I hope this nation will see not only restored to all its former usefulness, but given a far greater degree of usefulness to correspond with the extraordinary growth in wealth and population of the Mississippi Valley. We have lived in an era of phenomenal railroad building. As routes for merchandise, the iron highways have completely supplanted the old wagon roads, and under their competition the importance of the water highways has been much diminished. The growth of the railway system has been rapid all over the world, but nowhere so rapid as in the United States. Accompanying this there has grown in the United States a tendency toward the practically complete abandonment of the system of water transportation. Such a tendency is certainly not healthy and I am convinced that it will not be permanent. There are many classes of commodities, especially those which are perishable in their nature and where the value is high relatively to the bulk, which will always be carried by rail. But bulky commodities which are not of a perishable nature will always be specially suited for the conditions of water transport. To illustrate the truth of this statement it would only be necessary to point to the use of the canal system in many countries of the Old World; but it can be illustrated even better by what has happened nearer home. The Great Lakes offer a prime example of the importance of a good water highway for mercantile traffic. As the line of traffic runs through lakes, the conditions are in some respects different from what must obtain on even the most important river. Nevertheless, it is well to remember that a very large part of this traffic is conditioned upon an artificial waterway, a canal—the famous Soo. The commerce that passes through the Soo far surpasses in bulk and in value that of the Suez Canal.

From every standpoint it is desirable for the Nation to join in improving the greatest system of river highways within its borders, a system second only in importance to the highway afforded by the Great Lakes; the highways of the Mississippi and its great tributaries, such as the Missouri and Ohio. This river system traverses too many States to render it possible to leave merely to the States the task of fitting it for the greatest use of which it is capable. It is emphatically a national task, for this great river system is itself one of our chief national assets. Within the last few years there has been an awakening in this country to the need of both the conservation and the development of our national resources under the supervision of and by the aid of the Federal Government. This is especially true of all that concerns our running waters. On the mountains from which the springs start we are now endeavoring to preserve the forests which regulate the water supply and prevent too startling variations between droughts and freshets. Below the mountains, in the high dry regions of the western plains, we endeavor to secure the proper utilization of the waters for irrigation. This is at the sources of the streams. Farther down, where they become navigable, our aim must be to try to develop a policy which shall secure the utmost advantage from the navigable waters. Finally, on the lower courses of the Mississippi, the Nation should do its full share in the work of levee building; and, incidentally to its purpose of serving navigation, this will also prevent the ruin of alluvial bottoms by floods. Our knowledge is not sufficiently far advanced to enable me to speak definitely as to the plans which should be adopted; but let me say one word of warning: The danger of entering on any such scheme lies in the adoption of impossible and undesirable plans, plans the adoption of which means an outlay of money extravagant beyond all proportion to the return, or which, though feasible, are not, relatively to other plans, of an importance which warrant their adoption. It will not be easy to secure the assent of a fundamentally cautious people like our own to the adoption of such a policy as that I hope to see adopted; and even if we begin to follow out such a policy it certainly will not be persevered in if it is found to entail reckless extravagance or to be tainted with jobbery. The interests of the Nation as a whole must be always the first consideration.