684 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ciety for it, I accept it and thank them in 

 the name of every member of the canal 

 army. 



SECRETARY BRYAN 



The Isthmian Canal is an international 

 work. It connects the oceans that wash 

 the shores of every land, and through it 

 will pass the commerce of all the nations. 

 It is fitting, therefore, that we shall have 

 as participants in the program of this 

 evening those who in an eminent way 

 represent the nations which will take 

 conspicuous advantage of the opportuni- 

 ties which this canal will offer, and at 

 our table tonight we have as one of the 

 speakers the representative of one of the 

 great nations of Europe, one of the na- 

 tions whose growing fleets are known in 

 all the corners of the earth. I have the 

 honor to call upon His Excellency, the 

 Ambassador from Germany, to give his 

 testimony to the greatness of this under- 

 taking and pay his respects to the genius 

 under whose guidance the work has been 

 accomplished. 



ADDRESS BY THE GERMAN AMBASSADOR, 

 AMBASSADOR VON BERNSTORFE 



When I received the kind invitation to 

 attend this splendid banquet, I accepted 

 with the greatest pleasure because it af- 

 forded me the occasion to renew my 

 friendly relations with Colonel Goethals, 

 the greatest engineer of these days, who 

 has presented to the world an engineer- 

 ing feat which in ancient days would 

 have been called one of the Seven — I do 

 not know how many wonders of the 

 world we have now. 



I had also wished to meet the charm- 

 ing wife of Colonel Goethals, with whom 

 I had formerly spent a very pleasant 

 week on the ocean. I was not disap- 

 pointed in that, as I had the pleasure of 

 sitting next to her at dinner. 



In one way, however, I must confess 

 that I was very much disappointed this 

 evening, because I had been told that I 

 was to have a very good time tonight and 

 a night off from speaking. A quarter of 

 an hour ago, however, I was asked to say 

 a few words to you, and I am very glad 

 to have this opportunity to thank you for 

 the splendid hospitality afforded me. 



The presiding officer of your Society 



told me before that this Society was car- 

 rying on an investigation — one of the 

 many investigations of these days— 

 which was to result in finding a way by 

 which people should work only two 

 weeks in the year and live in happiness 

 and plenty all the rest of the time. Now, 

 if your Society manages to achieve this 

 wonderful result I hope it will be applied 

 to the foreign ambassadors to the United 

 States, because that would mean only 

 fourteen speeches a year instead of about 

 one hundred or more. 



These diplomats always feel at home 

 in a society of geographers, because we 

 are what I might perhaps call practical 

 geographers. Without knowing where 

 we are going or whence we come, we are 

 sent all over the globe and we regard the 

 whole universe as our home. It is not 

 always so pleasant as it is here, and we 

 are therefore very glad when on this 

 large globe we find such a pleasant and 

 hospitable home as we all find in the 

 United States. 



As a German, I would like to remind 

 you of an incident in the life of perhaps 

 the greatest of my compatriots, Goethe, 

 who a hundred years ago, shortly before 

 his death, was sitting among his most in- 

 timate friends, and had just received a 

 book written by Alexander von Hum- 

 boldt, a name which is familiar to geog- 

 raphers all over the world. It gave a de- 

 scription of Mexico and the surrounding 

 countries, and after having read this 

 book Goethe said to his friends, "I am a 

 very old man, and I have only one wish : 

 that is that I could live long enough to 

 see the Panama Canal built." 



He added that he was sure this canal 

 would be built by the people of the 

 United States, because he saw by the 

 energy and enterprise with which they 

 colonized the whole west of this great 

 country that they would surely not miss 

 the opportunity of building this canal. I 

 wish I could evoke his spirit to be among 

 us today. He might find it a queer coin- 

 cidence that his name is so much like the 

 name of the great man who built this 

 canal. 



Before sitting down I wish to thank 

 you once more for your kind hospitality 

 and for the great pleasure you have af- 

 forded me tonight. 



