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Show DELEGATES STARTLED Taft Favors Spending Fifty Millions in Mississippi Mis-sissippi Valle3r. Washington, Dec 4. President Taft today told the delegates to the National Na-tional Rivers and Harbors congress In session here that ho personally was opposed to any scheme of Improvement Improve-ment for the Mississippi river which did not contemplate, as a primary object, ob-ject, the prevention of floods. Floods Must Be Prevented. The president made the opening address ad-dress at tho congress. Ho favored the expenditure by the United States government gov-ernment and the states in the Mississippi Missis-sippi valley of between forty and fifty fif-ty million dollars for the Mississippi's improvement. He said that before all other considerations must be placed the idea of preventing floods like those of last spring, which flooded the country from Cairo to New Orleans. Or-leans. He declared further that his indorsement in-dorsement of improvements would be forthcoming only if the work were placed in tho hands of the army engineers. en-gineers. So far as other waterway projects were concerned, the president said, his approval would be lacking unless their backers could show as good a case as tho Mississippi river. "Well," concluded the the president, "I guess fifty million dollars is enough for one morning " Speech Startled Delegates. Many of the delegates were startled by the president's speech. So far as they knew it was' the first time he had recommended appropriations for improvements of waterways contingent contin-gent upon flood prevention. Notwithstanding Notwith-standing that it did not meet the views of scores of delegates, the speech was warmly applauded at several sev-eral places. |