68 



The National Geographic Magazine 



days, and within 21 days of any English 

 port, instead of 35. 



The west coast of South America will 

 be 3,000 miles nearer to our ports than to 

 those of Europe, opening to our products 

 an entirely new field of commerce which 

 has in it great possibilities. These are 

 the broad, general facts in the case, and 

 I need not explain to you that they have 

 in them opportunities which are of in- 

 calculable value. They open to the 

 United States new markets for its pro- 

 ducts, new opportunities for that enlarge- 

 ment of foreign trade which our rapidly 

 growing production is demanding year 

 by year. 



In this enlargement of industrial and 

 commercial activity the whole nation will 

 share. All railway lines, including the 

 transcontinental, will be benefited by 

 the increased traffic which will surely fol- 

 low. New steamship lines will be opened 

 to accommodate the new trade between 

 the two Americas, and the expanded 

 trade with Australia and the Orient. 

 The world's traffic will be changed to 

 new currents, and in the change all the 

 nations of the earth will profit. 



The population of the world one hun- 

 dred years ago was estimated at 800,- 

 000,000; today it is estimated at 1,600,- 

 000,000. In other words, the growth of 

 the world's population during the past 

 century has been equal to its accumulated 

 growth during the previous ten thou- 

 sand years. If this ratio of increase shall 

 be continuous, the new population of the 

 globe will find its home, not in the 

 densely populated districts of Europe, but 

 in the sparsely settled countries of North 

 and South America. The development 

 of these countries and of their trade with 

 the Orient, as well as with Europe, will 

 all pay tribute to the Panama Canal, for 



it will be in the heart of this new growth 

 and the pathway of its commerce. 



But great and world-wide as will be 

 the material benefits of the canal, the 

 moral and political effects will be no less 

 remarkable and no less salutary. In the 

 United States the inevitable effect will be 

 to develop a stronger and deeper senti- 

 ment of national unity than this country 

 has ever known. New and larger trade 

 relations will join the Atlantic seaboard 

 and the Pacific coast more closely than 

 even the transcontinental railways have 

 accomplished, and will tend to unify in 

 interest and sentiment all the Americas. 



With the canal open, there will be no 

 Atlantic and no Pacific fleet, either in the 

 navy or in the merchant marine, but an 

 American fleet. As an object lesson in 

 the need of an isthmian waterway, the 

 trip of the Oregon in the spring of 1898 

 from San Francisco to the coast of 

 Florida was the most convincing argu- 

 ment ever adduced. With her powerful 

 machinery working to its utmost limit 

 and everything in her favor, including a 

 commander of the first rank, 68 days 

 were consumed in the voyage. With the 

 canal open, she could have made the trip 

 in ten or twelve days and without need 

 of special haste. Instead of two navies, 

 we shall have a double navy ready for 

 all emergencies. The ability to assemble 

 our warships quickly will act as a power- 

 ful influence in the direction of peace, 

 for it will operate constantly as a pre- 

 ventive of war. The high position as a 

 world power to which this nation, under 

 the guidance of McKinley and Roosevelt 

 and Hay, has advanced during the past 

 few years will thus be strengthened and 

 enlarged, and American influence upon 

 the civilization of the world and upon 

 the welfare of the human race will be 

 immeasurably extended. 



