THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL PROBLEM 91 



While this bill was pending, the examination of the three 

 rival companies was progressing in the committee room, and 

 the facts developed there tended very considerably to modify 

 the ideas held by many in Congress upon the subject of the 

 canal problem. The original draft of the Senate bill was 

 entirely stricken out, and an amended form, entitled, "A 

 Bill to provide for the construction of a canal connecting the 

 Waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans," was reported. 

 This amended bill made no mention whatever of the Mari- 

 time Compan}^, nor of any existing schemes in Central 

 America, but provided simply for the govermental purchase 

 of a portion of territory along the proposed canal route in 

 Nicaragua, and called for an appropriation of the funds nec- 

 essary for the United States Government immediately to 

 undertake the work as a national project, irrespective of the 

 claims or rights of any private company. Here, then, for 

 4he first time, the Senate had reached that point to which it 

 had for so many years been tending, a declaration for an 

 American canal to be constructed by the government as a 

 national undertaking. The bill passed the Senate by a safe 

 margin, and, attached as a rider to the River and Harbor 

 Bill, was turned over to the mercies of the House. There, 

 however, it encountered the unyielding opposition of Speaker 

 Reed, and immediately became involved in the meshes of an 

 endless controversy over matters political, diplomatic, and 

 technical. It was consigned to the waste-basket on the last 

 day of the session. 



In the meantime, the Nicaraguan Canal Commission, of 

 which Admiral Walker was the chairman and which had been 

 sent to Nicaragua under Act of June 4, 1897, had returned, 

 and submitted to the President a preliminary report relative 

 to its progress " in investigating the question of the proper 

 route, the feasibility, and cost of construction of the Nicara- 

 gua Canal" (January, 1899). Three months later the final 

 report was prepared ; a synopsis of it, furnished by the 

 State Department (May 31, 1899), gave the results of the 

 two years' examination of the Nicaragua routes. It appeared 

 by this synopsis that the three commissioners agreed as to the 



