It was at the third session of the Forty-fifth Congress, January 16, 1879, that Mr. Robinson made his first considerable speech.  It was upon the bill relative to the improvement of the Mississippi River.  He was very deeply impressed with the magnitude of the problems presented by that great river, and, while he was willing that the public money should be wisely expended for the improvement of the ‘Father of Waters,’ he did not wish that Congress should be committed to any special plan which might prove to be part of a great job, until an official investigation could be had.  The interest with which this first speech was listened to, and the endless questions with which the Southern men who favored absolutely the levee system plied him, showed that they understood that great weight would be given to Mr. Robinson’s opinion, and that they did not wish him to declare, unconditionally, against their cause.  The speech was a broad and liberal one, but extremely just.  It had been intimated in the course of the debate that Eastern members, who did not favor the improvement of the river, refused to do so on account of a narrow provincialism.  Mr. Robinson showed them that New England is both just and generous, and that the country is so united that a substantial benefit to any portion of it cannot be an injury to another.  He made some keen thrusts at the Southern State rights advocates, who were so eager for the old flag and an appropriation, and he reminded them that whatever might be thought of the dogma of State sovereignty, “the great old river is regardless of State lines, of the existence of Louisiana, and, whenever there is a defective levee in Arkansas, over it goes into Louisiana, spreading devastation in its course.”  Mr. Robinson insisted that “Congress has no right to spend $4,000,000 out of the public treasury immediately without investigating a theory and a plan which proposes to render such an expenditure wholly unnecessary,” and he maintained that the greatest possible safe-guards should be provided against any extravagant expenditure on the part of the Government.  The relations of New England to such an undertaking he thus broadly stated: 

“I am not deterred by any considerations that when the great river is open to commerce to an enlarged extent more freight will go down its bosom and be diverted perhaps from the great cities on the Atlantic shore.  I am willing that the whole country shall be improved and opened for its best and most profitable occupation.  This territory, whose interests are affected by this, is greater than the whole of New England.  I am not afraid that whatever improvements may be made there New England will be left out in the cold.  Whatever conduces to the prosperity of the West or South will benefit the East and North.  We are parts of one great whole, and, if it is necessary under a proper policy to spend some money from the Treasury of the United States to meet the wants of those States lying along the Mississippi River, I hope it will not be begrudged to them, but it should not be done, and the Government should not be committed, until the plans, have received a careful consideration and the indorsement of the proper officers.”