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 THE PANAMA CANAL AND THE COMMERCE OF THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 ADDRESS OF 
 THE HONORABLE PHILANDER C. KNOX 
 
 SECRETARY OF STATE 
 AT THE ANNUAL BANQUET 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CALIFORNIA DEVELOPMENT BOARD 
 
 IN 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, MAY 7, 1912 
 
THE PANAMA CANAL AND THE COMMERCE OF THE CARIBBEAN 
 
 ADDRESS OF 
 THE HONORABLE PHILANDER C. KNOX 
 
 SECRETARY OF STATE 
 AT THE ANNUAL BANQUET 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CALIFORNIA DEVELOPMENT BOARD 
 
 IN 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. MAY 7, 1912 
 
2 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen: 
 
 On a recent official visit to the countries 
 of the Caribbean I enjoyed the privilege and 
 advantage of personal association with the 
 men who control their destinies. I am filled 
 with appreciative recollections of the good 
 will with which those Latin -American 
 peoples testified, through me, their warm 
 feeling for the people of my country. Im- 
 pressed with the deep interest there shown in 
 the achievement of the centuries-old dream of 
 an interoceanic waterway through Caribbean 
 territory, it becomes now an even greater 
 privilege, on returning home, to speak also to 
 my countrymen of the Pacific coast of the 
 great work which is soon to be appropriately 
 commemorated here in your beautiful city 
 the Queen of the Eastern Pacific. 
 
 s 1077- 
 
Seeing your noble bay, and thrilled by 
 the impressive beauty of your Golden Gate, 
 through whose august portal the wealth of 
 the Orient finds a passage to our land, I am 
 impressed anew by the fitness of choosing 
 this spot above all others to celebrate the 
 achievement of the stupendous task we are 
 accomplishing in opening another Golden 
 Gate to the interoceanic commerce of the 
 world. The benefits of this titanic work 
 are so far-reaching as to be well-nigh incal- 
 culable. Its completion crowns the wonder- 
 ful progress which, within the lifetime of men 
 still young, has been wrought in breaking 
 down the barriers that divided the peoples 
 of the Newer and Older Worlds, and 
 brings together, in the unity of peaceful 
 purpose, communities that from a remote past 
 
 have existed aloof and apart, sundered by the 
 
 
 
 seemingly invincible traditions of ages and 
 kept in isolation by the vast wastes of the 
 
ocean routes between them. Aside from 
 the interminable route around Cape Horn, 
 these tracks between the East and West have 
 converged naturally toward a common center 
 at Panama, there only to be arrested by the 
 cosmic barrier of the Isthmus, involving the 
 heavy costs of transshipment and land transit. 
 It had become a vital need for the nations of 
 the earth that the unobstructed freedom of 
 interchange of thought and speech, effected 
 through the time-annihilating agency of the 
 electric waves, should be measurably approxi- 
 mated by effacing the existing obstruction to 
 the material movements of commerce; that 
 the steadfast and seemingly eternal rampart 
 of the Isthmus should, like the wall of Jericho, 
 fall before the bugle blasts heralding the 
 irresistible march of enterprise, and that in 
 its place should be an open pathway, acces- 
 sible to all mankind a veritable Golden 
 Gate for peaceful world-trade. 
 
Besides its high office as an avenue 
 through which the far-divided productive 
 agencies of the East and the West may flow 
 unrestricted for their mutual advantage, the 
 Isthmian Canal fulfills a local purpose of 
 transcendental importance to the communi- 
 ties of the Occidential Hemisphere. I speak 
 not only of the inestimable benefit to this 
 country of making its Atlantic and Pacific 
 coasts practically continuous for our mercan- 
 tile and naval fleets, but of the change it is 
 destined to produce in the relations of the 
 peoples of the Caribbean and the tropical 
 Pacific toward each other and toward their 
 more northerly neighbors, Mexico and the 
 United States. In the case of those States 
 fronting on the two oceans, like Colombia, 
 Panama, and four of the five Central Ameri- 
 can Republics, its immediate effect, like 
 that so far as the United States and Mexico 
 are concerned, is to give them a virtually con- 
 
tinuous water frontage on both seas. Beyond 
 this is the larger advantage of bringing the 
 Pacific coasts of all the countries of America 
 north of the Tropic of Capricorn into direct 
 water communication with the Atlantic coasts 
 of all. To you, of the Pacific coast, whose 
 sea intercourse with the Latin- American com- 
 munities has perforce been limited to the 
 trade with the Pacific countries, the Canal 
 means that the whole territory west of the 
 Rocky Mountains is to be brought into 
 touch with the Atlantic coast of South 
 America; in short, that the trade of Vene- 
 zuela, the Guianas, and Brazil is to be brought 
 as nearly within your direct reach as that of 
 Eucador and Peru, just as our producers of 
 the Atlantic and Gulf States and of the fer- 
 tile Middle West, for which the Mississippi 
 and its tributaries are water highways to the 
 sea, gain direct commercial access to the 
 western markets of Latin America. It is 
 
 s 107; 
 
this aspect of the matter that appears to 
 have most keenly excited the interest of the 
 Caribbean States I have so recently visited. 
 The beneficial possibilities of the future are 
 doubly enlarged by opening the Isthmian 
 Golden Gate for the material and profitable 
 interchanges of all the communities of the 
 three Americas. 
 
 Intimacy of mutual intercourse between 
 diverse peoples is one of the most active de- 
 veloping influences yet devised by man. The 
 march of the old Romans toward universal 
 civilization was, to put it practically, over 
 good roads. They built time-enduring high- 
 ways in and across every territory they in- 
 vaded and conquered. They brought diverse 
 and often hostile peoples together in a most 
 businesslike way. While the direct purpose 
 was the aggrandizement of imperial Rome, 
 one of its effects was the better association 
 of conflicting peoples and the implanting of 
 
 8 
 
ideas of progress among them. The down- 
 fall of Rome was wrought, not by the peo- 
 ples they had trained in the rudiments of 
 civil advancement, but by the resistless 
 hordes of far-northern barbarians who had 
 never seen a Roman road or imbibed a Latin 
 idea. Had Rome not yielded to luxurious 
 indolence and fallen into the decadence that 
 too often follows the success of the opulent 
 conqueror, the nations of the earth might in 
 time have been brought more closely together 
 in pursuit of their common advantage, and 
 progress toward a more enlightened era 
 might have been uninterrupted. There 
 might have been no Dark Ages to de- 
 plore, and no protracted agony of renais- 
 sance. The prophecy of the Cordovan 
 Seneca, which I am glad to believe makes 
 the quest for the Golden Fleece symbolical 
 of the yearning of man for the " federation of 
 the world" in peaceful concord, might have 
 
been on the pathway to fulfillment as the inti- 
 macy of the peoples increased under a com- 
 mon favoring influence, leading up to an era 
 when all boundaries should be effaced, and 
 when the Hindu might indeed "drink of the 
 waters of the chill Araxes and the Persians 
 of the Elbe and the Rhine". The nations 
 would have more intelligently understood one 
 another through the commingling of ideas and 
 purposes that follows from cordial intercom- 
 munication. The Canal can and should be 
 instrumental in furthering such moral and 
 material association and be an agent for the 
 actual realization of Seneca's dream : 
 
 " The time shall come in the long 
 course of years when ocean shall 
 strike off the chains of earth and the 
 vast world be opened." 
 The function of the Canal in promoting 
 the good mutual relations of different com- 
 munities is hardly to be exaggerated. It 
 
 10 
 
can not be doubted that it will be a poten- 
 tial factor in cultivating the spirit of neigh- 
 borliness among the Pan-American States, 
 especially between those lying within the 
 sphere of its influence and sharing in its 
 immediate benefits. It has a noble mission 
 in encouraging the internal development of 
 all those countries, aiding each to attain by 
 its own effort a higher degree of stability and 
 prosperity alike beneficial to itself and to its 
 neighbors. In this regard it will accomplish 
 more good than the mere facilitation of 
 transit across an inland border can effect. 
 
 History teaches that the prosperity of a 
 nation is in almost constant proportion to 
 its capacity for taking advantage of com- 
 mercial water transit. The opulent era of 
 Solomon was marked by the building of a 
 11 great navy of ships at Ezion-geber, which 
 is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, 
 in the land of Edom", by which traffic was 
 
 11 
 
so greatly stimulated that " the weight of gold 
 that came to Solomon in one year was 
 six hundred three score and six talents of 
 gold" nearly twenty tons. The merchants of 
 Tyre were princes. Phoenicia and Greece 
 conquered the world's trade with their fleets. 
 "Many a distant land looked to the Winged 
 Lion's marble piles" when Venice was the 
 world's center of trade. Their commerce 
 was, however, carried on within a confined 
 sea area and in vessels of what are now called 
 small-cargo capacity and of limited speed. 
 In our days, when the productions of remote 
 lands are carried by great steamers across 
 vast regions of*ocean, trading countries are 
 brought closer together in point of time. 
 
 The Canal lessens the obstacle of distance 
 by taking traffic through the backbone of the 
 Western Hemisphere instead of leaving it to 
 go around Cape Horn or around the world 
 the other way. What will happen when a 
 
 12 
 
goodly part of the total carrying trade of the 
 world is saved thousands of miles of sea voy- 
 age is almost beyond conjecture. How the 
 change will affect the yet inadequately de- 
 veloped commercial opportunities of the 
 countries in and near the new pathway is 
 more certainly predicable. It must stimulate 
 them to make practical use of their enormous 
 resources the better to meet the improved 
 conditions of demand and supply. As Ophir 
 contributed to Solomon's opulence and bene- 
 fited by it, so should the resourceful countries 
 of the Caribbean be advantaged by the enter- 
 prise of American traders. It is for you, 
 my countrymen, to do your part in the great 
 work of opening new worlds to the peaceful 
 reign of commerce, now that the opportunity 
 is within your grasp. It is the hope and wish 
 of the Caribbean peoples that we shall do 
 this. In my recent association with the rep- 
 resentative men of those countries I found 
 
 13 
 
them deeply impressed with a realizing sense 
 of the benefits to accrue to them as a natural 
 result of the successful achievement of the 
 Canal. 
 
 My assigned topic being the Panama 
 Canal and its relation to the commerce of the 
 Caribbean, it is appropriate that I should draw 
 attention to this particular phase of the mat- 
 ter, so far as I can do so without wearying 
 you with a prosaic array of facts and figures. 
 
 The most immediate commercial benefits 
 to the United States will come naturally to 
 the Pacific coast and to the Mississippi Val- 
 ley. As I have already said in other words, 
 the opening of the Canal extends the Pacific 
 coast line along the Caribbean, just as it ex- 
 tends the Atlantic and Gulf coast line down 
 the west coast of South America. It may 
 confidently be said that it also makes all the 
 northern coast of South America, as far as 
 Trinidad at least, and probably farther, com- 
 
 14 
 
mercially tributary to the California coast, and 
 includes the Leeward and Windward Islands 
 within its affected area, not to mention 
 British, French, and Dutch Guiana, and the 
 upper reaches of Brazil. Although all these 
 territories, being geographically nearer to 
 Europe than to California even with the 
 opened Canal, are likely to continue to draw 
 from Europe the bulk of the supplies which 
 the Old World habitually furnishes, and to 
 send thither in return the staples peculiar to 
 those tropical regions which Europe regu- 
 larly consumes, still the door is opened for 
 reciprocal and lucrative traffic in the prod- 
 ucts and commodities which the Pacific 
 coast supplies and consumes. The oppor- 
 tunities for new trading ventures is not 
 limited to the western Caribbean coasts. 
 Colombia has a water front of 400 miles on 
 the Caribbean, and Venezuela substantially 
 a thousand miles. Behind them lies a vast 
 region almost untrodden, rich in manifold 
 
 s 1077- 
 
 15 
 
opportunities, which under the impetus of in- 
 creased exportation must invite settlement and 
 develop increased capacity for the consump- 
 tion of the productions of other countries. 
 
 At present fully 80 per cent of the for- 
 eign commerce of Colombia, which ranges 
 from $25,000,000 upward, is through the 
 Caribbean ports, chiefly Cartagena, Barran- 
 quilla, and Santa Marta. Of this foreign com- 
 merce about $ 1 0,000,000 is with the United 
 States. 
 
 Venezuela's total foreign trade averages 
 about $30,000,000 annually, and of this 
 one-third is with the United States. When 
 the Canal is opened the Pacific coast will be 
 able to ship without breaking bulk to all the 
 ports of Colombia and Venezuela. Those 
 countries are especially good consumers of 
 wheat flour. The Pacific coast, with the 
 Canal open, will be able to ship flour to the 
 north coast of South America just as easily 
 
 16 
 
as it does now to the west coast. It may 
 also count on a traffic in certain classes of 
 lumber, in various forms of provisions, and 
 many other things. There is no reason why 
 its petroleum output should not also find a 
 market along this coast, and some of its 
 machinery an opening, since the present 
 handicap of breaking bulk and transship- 
 ment would be avoided. 
 
 As for the West Indies, they form an 
 integral and most important component of 
 the zone immediately affected by the Canal. 
 The north shore islands adjacent to the con- 
 tinent are also to be taken into account. 
 The whole West Indian system will neces- 
 sarily be part of the extended area which is 
 made by the Canal commercially accessible 
 to the Pacific coast line. 
 
 There is no reason why California and 
 her sister States should not share in supplying 
 all these countries, including Cuba, Jamaica, 
 
 17 
 
Haiti, and Santo Domingo. Our own 
 American territory of Porto Rico of course 
 will be brought within the sphere of geograph- 
 ical accessibility. All these countries are good 
 buyers of wheat flour. Cuba, for instance, is 
 now taking annually $5,000,000 worth of 
 American flour. With the preferential tariff 
 reduction of 30 per cent which we have under 
 the reciprocity treaty, the market will con- 
 tinue to belong to the United States unless 
 that treaty in the meantime should be abro- 
 gated. It seems certain that Pacific coast 
 flour can be shipped through the Canal just 
 as well as down the west coast, since the 
 geographical radius as between, say, San 
 Francisco and Cienfuegos, on the south coast 
 of Cuba, is shorter than between San Fran- 
 cisco and Valparaiso. 
 
 The region lying between Mexico and 
 the Darien Isthmus presents a field that may 
 be made advantageous to the commerce of 
 
 18 
 
the Pacific slope. The trade of the Pacific 
 ports of Central America, which thus far 
 has alone been directly accessible from our 
 western shores, represents no more than 
 the importation of such commodities as are 
 demanded by a very limited actual necessity, 
 and the exportation of but a small fraction 
 of the resources of these countries. 
 
 When we consider the status of the 
 national credit of Guatemala, Honduras, and 
 Nicaragua, the three largest of the five 
 Republics; the frequent revolutionary up- 
 heavals which render both foreign and local 
 merchants averse to long-time commitments; 
 the resultant weakness of their mercantile 
 credit abroad; the low purchasing power of 
 the people, owing to their comparative pov- 
 erty through want of opportunity to take ad- 
 vantage of their great natural resources; the 
 present lack of competitive steamship facili- 
 ties; the resultant high rates and irregular 
 
 19 
 
service; and the generally inadequate port 
 facilities, we may immediately perceive why 
 the trade of Central America is in its infancy. 
 The natural resources and products of the 
 Central American Republics are well 
 known; their latent wealth of agriculture, 
 mines, forests, and stock raising can hardly 
 be estimated; their future demand for arti- 
 cles of foreign manufacture, such as dry 
 goods, mining machinery, railroad equip- 
 ment, hardware, farm implements of all 
 kinds, road-making machinery, and lumber- 
 mill equipment, may, under the stimulus 
 of increased opportunity, become almost 
 incredible. 
 
 In those countries of Central America 
 where fraternal strife has left its scars (and I 
 do not speak now of all of them) we find prac- 
 tical paralysis of natural resources. The na- 
 tive agriculturist dares not produce more than 
 the amount actually necessary for his own 
 
 20 
 
consumption, or at the most that of his near- 
 est neighbors, for the fear of conscription in 
 times of war, and the subsequent and inevi- 
 table destruction or appropriation of his prop- 
 erty stares him in the face. Regions of 
 incalculable fertility now lying idle will soon 
 hear the stimulating call of improved trans- 
 portation facilities for their products, if only 
 domestic tranquillity and financial stability 
 enable them to heed that call. 
 
 Foreign merchants resident in these coun- 
 tries can not, in the face of impending revo- 
 lutions, with prudence commit themselves to 
 mercantile purchases for future delivery, 
 which may arrive when the country is in the 
 throes of such conflicts. Their trade is 
 therefore limited, their negotiations relatively 
 small, and their credit, under such conditions, 
 seriously affected; while present steamship 
 facilities are inadequate, freight rates high, 
 and time of transit unnecessarily protracted. 
 
 21 
 
It is inconceivable that such local conditions 
 can longer be suffered to restrain the eco- 
 nomic development of certain of these coun- 
 tries, particularly when they find themselves 
 ideally situated upon the highway of com- 
 merce between two hemispheres. 
 
 For the immediate amelioration of the 
 local conditions we must consider, in the case 
 of both Nicaragua and Honduras, the pend- 
 ing conventions between those countries and 
 the United States. The national and com- 
 mercial benefit that would thus accrue to 
 them, and, by very force of example and by 
 relieving all of the need of disproportionate 
 military burdens, to their sister republics, is 
 apparent. The inevitable effect upon the 
 commerce of the United States with the 
 Caribbean may also be judged. 
 
 With the establishment of stable condi- 
 tions in these countries practically all present 
 limitations to both import and export trade 
 
 22 
 
will be removed. In the ensuing increase in 
 trade the manufacturers of this country should 
 share in fact, they should enjoy it wholly, 
 for those on the Pacific will have it at their 
 doors, while those on the Atlantic may reach 
 these markets at less expense and delay than 
 is now necessary to place their products at 
 Pacific tidewater after transshipment across 
 the Isthmus of Panama. 
 
 The completion of the Panama Canal 
 will place both coasts of the Republics of 
 Central America within easy international 
 commercial intercourse; manufactures of all 
 kinds will have ready access to the con- 
 stantly growing markets of those countries; 
 their products and perishable fruits will have 
 frequent and rapid transportation facilities 
 awaiting them. The adoption of the pend- 
 ing conventions with Honduras and Nica- 
 ragua, from which such permanent benefits 
 will most certainly be derived, should rectify 
 
 23 
 
forever the conditions which directly and 
 indirectly throttle the natural development of 
 Central America. It is indeed time for 
 the manufacturers, merchants, farmers, and 
 exporters of this country to consider the tre- 
 mendous possibilities that the construction of 
 the great waterway between the two oceans 
 by the United States has placed within their 
 grasp, and to consider also, as directly affect- 
 ing their interests, the diplomatic and com- 
 mercial policies by which their Government 
 is striving to serve them. 
 
 The present commercial relations of the 
 United States, the stimulus that these rela- 
 tions and the commercial interrelations of all 
 American republics are soon to receive, and 
 the future accessibility of many new ports 
 not only to ourselves but to the commerce 
 of the world deserve more than passing 
 consideration. This new proximity of the 
 commercial ports of other nations should 
 
 24 
 
command attention. With the route via 
 Cape Horn no longer necessary, and under 
 the conditions now imposed so unhappily by 
 the status of our merchant marine, the freight 
 steamers of the world will have much easier 
 access to the doors of a region whose future 
 commercial possibilities are as yet inesti- 
 mable, and whose greatest trade should be 
 with the United States. We should not 
 lose sight of this collateral consideration. 
 
 San Francisco, speaking and acting for 
 the whole territory of the Union west of the 
 Rockies, has taken time firmly by the fore- 
 lock and allowed three years for the prepara- 
 tion necessary to the adequate celebration 
 of the opening of the Canal. The time 
 allowed for the accomplishment of the work 
 undertaken by the Pacific States, aided by 
 all the others of our Union, is none too long 
 if the end is to crown the work and afford 
 to the world an exposition that will rival and 
 
 25 
 
even transcend in its magnitude and com- 
 pleteness any previous international con- 
 course of the world's productive and 
 creative forces. In like manner and with 
 equal energy it behooves you to make the 
 most of these three years, so that when 
 the time comes you will celebrate not 
 merely a rose-tinted prospect of future 
 trading advantages, but can point to actual 
 achievement in the way of reaping a remu- 
 nerative share in the rich harvest that is 
 to be gathered from the treasure and toil our 
 nation has planted on the Isthmus. It is 
 truthfully said that opportunity knocks but 
 once at any man's door, and the aphorism 
 that there is a tide in the affairs of men that, 
 taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, is of 
 apt pertinence. It will not do for you 
 Far- Westerners to relax your preparative 
 activities and sit idly amid the splendors of 
 your great exposition, watching your alert 
 
 26 
 
competitors responding instantly to the knock 
 of opportunity and passing through the 
 newly opened Golden Gate of the Isthmus 
 on the favoring tide of fortune. Your agen- 
 cies should be seasonably active in every 
 country where you have a chance to gain a 
 fresh commercial footing, either by supplying 
 its needs from your own abundant resources, 
 or by attracting a share of its exports to your 
 shores, or, better still, by doing both. In ad- 
 dition to the energetic, capable men whose 
 services you require to build up a new trade, 
 you need the ships to carry your wares and 
 to bring back lucrative returns. 
 
 Moreover and this is an important 
 consideration you should comprehend the 
 almost axiomatic proposition that the mer- 
 cantile possibilities of the countries with 
 which you seek to cultivate commercial in- 
 tercourse are inseparably bound up with the 
 tranquillity and undisturbed prosperity of 
 
 27 
 
those countries. "Do men gather grapes of 
 thorns or figs of thistles?" Can you expect 
 an impoverished, perturbed, and embarrassed 
 community to throw open wide the door 
 of practical opportunity? Your thoughtful 
 public men should realize the vital interest 
 our vast body of producers and consumers 
 have in the stable prosperity of their neigh- 
 bors and see to it that no act or thought or 
 speech on their part shall run counter to the 
 earnest efforts of this Government to make 
 true international friendships of respect, good 
 will, and justice, and to aid certain less for- 
 tunate commonwealths at our doors to guard 
 themselves from the embarrassments of alien 
 indebtedness, to build up their national credit 
 on the firm foundation of responsible good 
 faith in all their transactions with the outer 
 world, and to free themselves from the cark- 
 ing malady of domestic insurrection. These 
 efforts, exemplified in the Nicaragua and 
 
 28 
 
Honduras conventions to which I have re- 
 ferred, are not mere academic theories. The 
 soundness of their principle has been prac- 
 tically demonstrated through the sympathetic 
 assistance we so successfully lent to Santo 
 Domingo in her struggle to extricate herself 
 from the quagmire of foreign debt and to 
 throw off the hideous burden of political 
 instability. 
 
 The measure of the benefits of the Do- 
 minican treaty is shown by the remarkable 
 growth of the commerce. In 1903, a year 
 before the modus Vivendi went into effect, the 
 total Dominican foreign trade was approxi- 
 mately $6,000,000. In 1911, according 
 to the message of the President of the Re- 
 public, it had grown to more than eighteen 
 millions. The United States has shared in 
 this peaceful prosperity. Our exports to the 
 Dominican Republic have increased from 
 relatively two millions (at the time the treaty 
 
 29 
 
went into effect) to nearly four millions, and 
 the proportionate share of the United States 
 in the trade of the Dominican Republic has 
 materially increased. 
 
 So much for the commercial and morally 
 potential results to come from the Canal, if 
 individual effort and governmental policy work 
 intelligently together. In its physical aspects 
 the marvel of the thing is almost beyond 
 conception. In fulfillment of the charge 
 intrusted to me by the President to bear to 
 the nations of the Caribbean and, through 
 them, to all Latin America a message of 
 fraternal good will and to assure them of the 
 deep concern of the Government and people 
 of the United States in all that might tend to 
 promote their enduring welfare, my first 
 halting place was naturally at Panama, the 
 site of the colossal undertaking so preg- 
 nant with inestimable benefits to the New 
 World. Opportunity was thus afforded 
 
 30 
 
to see the astounding progress that had 
 been made. It is a sight to inspire awe; 
 the mind is whelmed on beholding how 
 puny man, a pigmy in presence of the 
 Cyclopean powers of created nature, has 
 grown to titanic stature, and to realize 
 how, with mingled skill and daring, mind 
 has successfully contended against matter, 
 achieving in a few months results which 
 have taxed the cosmic forces of earth un- 
 numbered centuries to bring about. The 
 first impression is one of disappointing in- 
 ability to grasp the wonder of the achieve- 
 ment. Accustomed as we are to the 
 spectacle of the gigantic works of nature 
 the stupendous gorges of the West and the 
 victorious surge of the mighty Niagara 
 through rock-hewn channels to the graving 
 of which untold centuries have been given 
 one does not at once realize that on that 
 narrow strip of ocean-sundering land the 
 
 31 
 
supreme inventive capacity of man has accom- 
 plished, in a space of time measurable by 
 the brief life of a child, a task commensu- 
 rable with those of nature. Take, for exam- 
 ple, the Gatun Dam, unrivaled in the world. 
 No towering wall of Cyclopean blocks con- 
 fronts the observer; only a gentle, rising slope 
 is seen, mounting so gradually that an infant 
 might toddle to its summit. Astonishment 
 grows when it is learned that the dam is, as 
 has been well said by its builder, a veritable 
 hill, moved from its secular position and 
 stretched, by human hands, across the plain 
 through which the torrential Chagres has 
 flowed for ages. 
 
 It was fortunate for us that the Act under 
 which the Canal was undertaken provided 
 that it should be built with locks. Opinion 
 was long divided as to which was the more 
 feasible, a canal with lifts or one at sea level. 
 We ought to be thankful that the sea-level 
 
 32 
 
alternative was finally eliminated. Its im- 
 practicability has been abundantly demon- 
 strated in the course of the present work. 
 The difficulties at the Culebra Cut would 
 alone have made it perhaps impossible. The 
 lock system once decided on, the task was to 
 meet the natural problems, like that of the 
 impetuous Chagres. Radical changes were 
 made; the old tunnels and spillways to 
 divert the torrents were abandoned, as was 
 the larger part of the channel which the 
 French had begun to dig. The new school 
 of engineering evolved the happy plan of 
 converting the destructive Chagres into a 
 helpful agency by harnessing it to do much 
 of the work. The Gatun Dam makes of the 
 rebellious river a placid inland sea on which 
 the world's navies might float in safety, thus 
 fulfilling one of the ideal conditions of the 
 Nicaragua route, with the advantage that the 
 surface is 20 feet lower than that of the 
 
 33 
 
lakes of Nicaragua and Managua, thus per- 
 mitting fewer and lower locks, conveniently 
 grouped with a view to more practical opera- 
 tion. Thus, the serious work of excavation 
 was limited to the Culebra Cut. Some of 
 the French excavation could be utilized in 
 that quarter, but perhaps not more than 
 about 2,000,000 cubic yards out of more 
 than a hundred million to be dug out on the 
 new theory of construction. The Gatun 
 Dam contains some 2 1 ,000,000 cubic yards. 
 The locks at Gatun Dam require 2,000,000 
 yards of concrete, enough to build a fair-sized 
 city. 
 
 The Culebra Cut is rapidly approaching 
 completion. The scale on which operations 
 are conducted is made clear by the state- 
 ment that in one year, 1909-10, nearly 
 32,000,000 yards, much being shattered 
 rock, were taken out. At Culebra one 
 realizes what has been done. The vista of 
 
 34 
 
the cut is that of a natural valley, with slop- 
 ing, terraced banks and with a level bottom 
 some 300 feet wide, instead of the narrow 
 1 1 feet planned by De L esseps. Indeed, 
 all the dimensions of the Canal are far in 
 excess of the old plan. The sea-level chan- 
 nel to Gatun, 7 miles long, is 500 feet wide 
 at bottom and 41 feet deep. The lake 
 channel, mostly artificially excavated, is 32 
 miles long and from 500 to 1 ,000 feet bot- 
 tom width and 45 feet deep. The Culebra 
 passage, the narrowest part of the Canal, 
 is to have 300 feet of bottom width, giv- 
 ing a channel in which the Olympic and 
 Mauretania could pass each other, with 
 room to spare. On the Pacific end the 
 depth is 45 feet, the width 500 until it 
 reaches the ocean, where the tide rises and 
 falls some 20 feet. The total length of the 
 passage from sea to sea is approximately 50 
 miles. 
 
 35 
 
Everything about the Canal is on a 
 scale of great magnitude. The six systems 
 of locks are in pairs, each lock having a 
 usable length of 1 ,000 feet and a width of 
 1 1 feet. The Gatun spillway alone could 
 carry off the highest flood of two or three 
 rivers like the Chagres; and its capacity is 
 perhaps an overabundant prevention, since 
 the surface evaporation of the lake and the 
 flow into the locks make it doubtful if its 
 surface can rise to the safety spillway, even 
 if rain should fall a whole day at the rate of 
 5 inches an hour, as it sometimes does in 
 that quarter. 
 
 The most impressive thing about the 
 Canal is the practicability of all its workings. 
 I do not speak alone of the mechanical per- 
 fection which is evident on every hand, or of 
 the astounding development of the forces of 
 steam, electricity, and explosive force far 
 beyond any previous application by human 
 skill to such a task. I speak also of the 
 
 36 
 
administrative system which has been organ- 
 ized in the Zone. For efficiency and com- 
 pleteness it is unrivaled in the world. In 
 sanitary and educational development it is 
 ahead of any other community on the face of 
 the earth. It is an example of organized 
 effort and whole-souled, devoted, intelligent 
 work for a common purpose that we ought to 
 emulate in our national life here at home. 
 Its army of workers is an army of progress. 
 
 It is to be hoped that, on the completion 
 of the task, the force necessary to its main- 
 tenance and operation will continue the 
 same perfection of organization. The Canal 
 Zone, incapable of agricultural production, 
 is not a fit spot for promiscuous settlement. 
 The Zone should be treated as a part of the 
 Canal itself and be reserved in its entirety 
 for canal uses. The civic structure that has 
 been built up, like the Canal itself, in less 
 than seven years, for the most part within the 
 
 37 
 
last three years, under the wise direction of a 
 single administration and under the efficient 
 control of one man, providentially fitted for 
 the task, should not be permitted to deterio- 
 rate. The sturdy, healthy, and law-abiding 
 cosmopolitan community which has been 
 implanted along the track of the Canal 
 should not be suffered to perish in the foul 
 atmosphere of a camp of sordid adventurers. 
 As scum drifts with the tide, so the new 
 world currents of traffic will carry to the 
 Isthmus many undesirable elements. It re- 
 mains for Congress to enact wise laws for 
 the governance of the Zone as an enduring 
 model of municipal administration. 
 
 There is another aspect of the problem 
 of the Canal which is now attracting much 
 attention and begetting a vast deal of dis- 
 cussion, and that is its political status from 
 the international point of view. This dis- 
 cussion began in earnest when the plans for 
 
 38 
 
the fortification of the Canal were brought 
 forward. Much was said about the neu- 
 trality or, to be more precise, the neutraliza- 
 tion of the Canal. As in the case of many 
 interesting discussions, confusion has arisen 
 through the circumstance of its not always 
 being certain the advocates and the oppo- 
 nents of any particular disposition of the 
 question are talking about the same thing. 
 The words "neutrality" and "neutralization" 
 have several different meanings and shades 
 of meaning. All seem to agree that the 
 Canal should be neutral, but as to the way 
 of producing that condition and as to its 
 nature, obligations, and scope when pro- 
 duced, there appears to be a lack of 
 agreement. 
 
 Our treaties, in so far as they relate to 
 the Canal, contemplate its' full and un- 
 impeded pacific use by all nations. The 
 United States, as the occupant and adminis- 
 
 39 
 
trator of the territory traversed by the Canal, 
 assumes for itself the sole right to see that 
 the Canal shall not be misused to defeat that 
 end. Our national policy in this respect is 
 declared by those treaties, wherein we have 
 announced that as a basis for carrying it 
 out the United States adopts substantially 
 the rules for the navigation of the Suez 
 Canal. If any belligerent violates those pre- 
 cepts of the law of nations upon the territory 
 controlled by the neutral state, as the Zone is 
 controlled by the United States, the neutral 
 has the right to prevent such violation, just 
 as he would have the right to prevent it on 
 any part of his sovereign territory. That 
 right is an inherent attribute of sovereignty. 
 The neutrality of transit, which is the par- 
 ticular shade of neutrality intended by the 
 American declarations, can be practically 
 maintained only by the responsible party in 
 possession, and it is the inherent right of the 
 
 40 
 
United States to maintain it, precisely as it is 
 to maintain the innocent freedom of transit 
 through any part of its territory. For all 
 purposes of sovereign administration, the 
 Canal is American territory and a part of 
 the coast line of our country. It stands to 
 reason that the "neutrality" imported by the 
 generous donation which we make to the 
 world of the impartial privilege of transit 
 and of the use of our own property to that 
 end could not have meant and can not mean 
 that the United States, if at war, would have 
 to abstain from sending warships through the 
 Canal or, on the other hand, be constrained to 
 allow the enemy to use it on equal terms 
 with ourselves: The mere statement of 
 such a proposition is its self-reduction to an 
 absurdity. 
 
 I am glad to have had the opportunity to 
 speak to you on this great subject of the 
 Canal, and to share with you the deep inter- 
 
 41 
 
est you feel, in common with all our coun- 
 trymen, in the successful accomplishment of 
 a purpose so dear to every American heart. 
 Its achievement will be bright with happy 
 auguries for our future. You of the Pacific 
 coast have practically testified your keen 
 concern in its success by organizing the com- 
 ing celebration. You had the hearty sym- 
 pathy and active support of President Taft 
 in securing its location here. The situation 
 of the great exposition is singularly favor- 
 able. The converging lines of commu- 
 nication have made Roman roads from 
 all parts of our land to San Francisco. 
 Even from the remote east the distance 
 to be traversed is pleasantly offset by the 
 alluring natural attractions on the way 
 the grand severity of the ice-crowned Rocky 
 Mountains, the wonders of the Yellowstone 
 and Yosemite, the stupendous canons of the 
 rivers, the lakes of the higher plateaus all 
 
 42 
 
replete with interest. Now, through the 
 Golden Gate of the Isthmus we shall have a 
 new road by sea to your own Golden Gate. 
 Many of your visitors may come by way of 
 the Canal itself and see, with unclouded 
 eyes, the work of man outrivaling the great 
 labors of nature. Although your exposition 
 is to open and close in winter, a perpetual 
 springtime, fragrant with bloom and rich in 
 fruitage, will attend the traveler. If we of 
 the East envy your good fortune in the mat- 
 ter of climate, we shall that year have the 
 privilege of sharing it with you. With a 
 full heart I wish you all good fortune and 
 success in your great undertaking. 
 
 43