A CITY OF REALIZED DREAMS 



171 



This nation should be extremely proud 

 of this Exposition. It is in celebration of 

 the greatest material achievement in the 

 nation's history— the construction of the 

 Panama Canal. The building of this 

 canal is a proof that a democracy can be 

 efificient, and that is something very well 

 worth while — proving to a people who in- 

 sist upon efficiency that their government 

 may be a living and real expression of 

 the spirit of the people who compose the 

 nation. 



Thus far in our one hundred and odd 

 years of history we have given full bent 

 to the strong strain of individualism that 

 is in our blood. We have started out as 

 a nation without national purpose or na- 

 tional design. We have had no policy of 

 national aggression or acquisition. Our 

 vigorous frontiersmen have pushed their 

 way further and further west, to the edge 

 of the western sea, and the government 

 has followed lazily after, when providen- 

 tial circumstances opened a clear way. 



When individuals have said "Let us 

 make a highway, a canal, or a railroad" 



our States and our nation have given 

 them countenance, encouragement, and 

 rich bonuses. "Take this and let us have 

 done with you," the nation has said. And 

 so out of the personal initiative of the 

 American pioneer, financier, farmer, en- 

 gineer, and miner our land has been 

 opened to the world. 



In three generations we have marched 

 across a continent wider than Europe and 

 crowned our achievement at our western- 

 most door with an exhibition of the wor- 

 thiest products of our civilization. This 

 we can say proudly is what a democracy 

 can do. 



We are coming to a fuller national con- 

 sciousness not merely as a nation among 

 the family of nations, but as a people 

 who have common interests and can col- 

 lectively do things for themselves which 

 it would be too great a hazard to leave in 

 private hands. The building of the Pan- 

 ama Canal is a long step in the making 

 of this nation, for it has given us pride 

 in our ability as a modern working ma- 

 chine. 



A CHARMING BRONZE) KNIFe; FOUND AT MACHU PICCHU, PFRU 



This interesting instrument, pronounced by experts to be one of the finest examples of 

 the ancient art of working in bronze ever found in South America, is one of the many 

 exceedingly valuable discoveries made by the National Geographic Society- Yale University 

 Expeditions to Peru (see article by Hiram Bingham, pages 172-}-). 



