Letters to His Children — 49. On Board U. S. S. Mississippi, October 1907 - Trials of a Traveling President, Changes of Three Centuries, Pecularities of Mississippi Steamboats

In the fall of 1907 the President made a tour through the West and South and went on a hunting-trip in Louisiana.

In accordance with his unvarying custom he wrote regularly to his children while on his journeyings.

TRIALS OF A TRAVELLING PRESIDENT

On Board U. S.

S.

_Mississippi_, October 1, 1907. DEAREST ETHEL:

The first part of my trip up to the time that we embarked on the river at Keokuk was just about in the ordinary style.

I had continually to rush out to wave at the people at the towns through which the train passed.

If the train stopped anywhere I had to make a very short speech to several hundred people who evidently thought they liked me, and whom I really liked, but to whom I had nothing in the world to say.

At Canton and Keokuk I went through the usual solemn festivities--the committee of reception and the guard of honor, with the open carriage, the lines of enthusiastic fellow-citizens to whom I bowed continually right and left, the speech which in each case I thought went off rather better than I had dared hope--for I felt as if I had spoken myself out.

When I got on the boat, however, times grew easier.

I still have to rush out continually, stand on the front part of the deck, and wave at groups of people on shore, and at stern-wheel steamboats draped with American flags and loaded with enthusiastic excursionists.

But I have a great deal of time to myself, and by gentle firmness I think I have succeeded in impressing on my good hosts that I rather resent allopathic doses of information about shoals and dykes, the amount of sand per cubic foot of water, the quantity of manufactures supplied by each river town, etc. CHANGES OF THREE CENTURIES

On Board U. S.

S.

_Mississippi_, October 1, 1907. DEAR KERMIT:

After speaking at Keokuk this morning we got aboard this brand new stern-wheel steamer of the regular Mississippi type and started down-stream.

I went up on the texas and of course felt an almost irresistible desire to ask the pilot about Mark Twain.

It is a broad, shallow, muddy river, at places the channel being barely wide enough for the boat to go through, though to my inexperienced eyes the whole river looks like a channel.

The bottom lands, Illinois on one side and Missouri on the other, are sometimes over-grown with forests and sometimes great rich cornfields, with here and there a house, here and there villages, and now and then a little town.

At every such place all the people of the neighborhood have gathered to greet me.

The water-front of the towns would be filled with a dense packed mass of men, women, and children, waving flags.

The little villages have not only their own population, but also the farmers who have driven in in their wagons with their wives and children from a dozen miles back--just such farmers as came to see you and the cavalry on your march through Iowa last summer.

It is my first trip on the Mississippi, and I am greatly interested in it.

How wonderful in its rapidity of movement has been the history of our country, compared with the history of the old world.

For untold ages this river had been flowing through the lonely continent, not very greatly changed since the close of the Pleistocene.

During all these myriads of years the prairie and the forest came down to its banks.

The immense herds of the buffalo and the elk wandered along them season after season, and the Indian hunters on foot or in canoes trudged along the banks or skimmed the water.

Probably a thousand years saw no change that would have been noticeable to our eyes.

Then three centuries ago began the work of change.

For a century its effects were not perceptible.

Just nothing but an occasional French fleet or wild half savage French-Canadian explorer passing up or down the river or one of its branches in an Indian canoe; then the first faint changes, the building of one or two little French fur traders' hamlets, the passing of one or two British officers' boats, and the very rare appearance of the uncouth American backwoodsman.

Then the change came with a rush.

Our settlers reached the head-waters of the Ohio, and flatboats and keel-boats began to go down to the mouth of the Mississippi, and the Indians and the game they followed began their last great march to the west.

For ages they had marched back and forth, but from this march there was never to be a return.

Then the day of steamboat traffic began, and the growth of the first American cities and states along the river with their strength and their squalor and their raw pride.

Then this mighty steamboat traffic passed its zenith and collapsed, and for a generation the river towns have dwindled compared with the towns which took their importance from the growth of the railroads.

I think of it all as I pass down the river.

October 4. .

.

.

We are steaming down the river now between Tennessee and Arkansas.

The forest comes down a little denser to the bank, the houses do not look quite so well kept; otherwise there is not much change.

There are a dozen steamers accompanying us, filled with delegates from various river cities.

The people are all out on the banks to greet us still.

Moreover, at night, no matter what the hour is that we pass a town, it is generally illuminated, and sometimes whistles and noisy greetings, while our steamboats whistle in equally noisy response, so that our sleep is apt to be broken.

Seventeen governors of different states are along, in a boat by themselves.

I have seen a good deal of them, however, and it has been of real use to me, especially as regards two or three problems that are up.

At St. Louis there was an enormous multitude of people out to see us.

The procession was in a drenching rain, in which I stood bareheaded, smiling affably and waving my drowned hat to those hardy members of the crowd who declined to go to shelter.

At Cairo, I was also greeted with great enthusiasm, and I was interested to find that there was still extreme bitterness felt over Dickens's description of the town and the people in "Martin Chuzzlewit" sixty-five years ago.

PECULIARITIES OF MISSISSIPPI STEAMBOATS

On Board U. S.

S.

_Mississippi_, Oct.

1, 1907. DEAR ARCHIE:

I am now on what I believe will be my last trip of any consequence while I am President.

Until I got to Keokuk, Iowa, it was about like any other trip, but it is now pleasant going down the Mississippi, though I admit that I would rather be at home.

We are on a funny, stern-wheel steamer.

Mr. John McIlhenny is with me, and Capt. Seth Bullock among others.

We have seen wild geese and ducks and cormorants on the river, and the people everywhere come out in boats and throng or cluster on the banks to greet us.

October 4. You would be greatly amused at these steamboats, and I think you will like your trip up the Mississippi next spring, if only everything goes right, and Mother is able to make it.

There is no hold to the boat, just a flat bottom with a deck, and on this deck a foot or so above the water stands the engine-room, completely open at the sides and all the machinery visible as you come up to the boat.

Both ends are blunt, and the gangways are drawn up to big cranes.

Of course the boats could not stand any kind of a sea, but here they are very useful, for they are shallow and do not get hurt when they bump into the bank or one another.

The river runs down in a broad, swirling, brown current, and nobody but an expert could tell the channel.

One pilot or another is up in the _Texas_ all day long and all night.

Now the channel goes close under one bank, then we have to cross the river and go under the other bank; then there will come a deep spot when we can go anywhere.

Then we wind in and out among shoals and sand-bars.

At night the steamers are all lighted up, for there are a dozen of them in company with us.

It is nice to look back at them as they twist after us in a long winding line down the river.

THE LONE CAT OF THE CAMP

Stamboul, La.

, Oct.

13, 1907.