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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



world has yet to reap the full fruition of 

 its peaceful pursuits. 



the: toastmaster 



There probably is no traveler, thinker, 

 and writer better informed as to the 

 social, political, and economic conditions 

 East, West, North, and South, from any 

 geographic point on the map of the 

 world, than William Eleroy Curtis, or 

 who has done more to educate the people 

 of his own country with regard to popular 

 geographic knowledge. He will respond 

 to the toast of "The Greatest Event of 

 the Year." 



THE GREATEST EVENT OF THE YEAR — BY 

 WILLIAM E. CURTIS 



There is no doubt a wide difference of 

 opinion as to which event of the year 

 1908 is of the greatest importance. It 

 depends entirely upon the point of view. 

 I know a young lady who considers her 

 engagement to be married of greater im- 

 portance than any other event that has 

 occurred in a century, and I know a 

 mother who thinks that the prize awarded 

 to her boy in college is of greater impor- 

 tance than the discovery of a new world. 



Unfortunately we have no common 

 standard of comparison ; we cannot meas- 

 ure the importance of events by rod and 

 chain, nor compute the weight of influ- 

 ence by logarithms, or test the sincerity 

 of congratulations by chemical analysis. 

 A tear is composed of salt and water; a 

 sigh is sometimes the result of external 

 rather than internal pressure ; and the 

 Nobel Institute some years ago decided 

 that the most important event in the phy- 

 sical world was the invention of a new 

 method of correcting the errors of the 

 mariner's compass. 



A man who wants to fly will probably 

 consider the success of the Wright 

 brothers in the navigation of the air of 

 greater importance than anything that 

 has occurred down on this prosy old 

 earth, and I know malefactors of great 

 wealth who think that nothing could 

 be of greater importance than the retire- 

 ment from office of the present execu- 

 tive. To the people of the United States 



the event of most importance is the eight 

 thousand million dollar crop that has 

 just been harvested by the American 

 farmers — a sum that is incomprehensible 

 to the human mind — the largest reward 

 that was ever received for human labor 

 in any land in any age ; but that is a 

 mere local affair, and concerns the rest 

 of mankind only indirectly. On the other 

 hand, the voyage of the American fleet 

 through all the seven seas is of more 

 significance to other nations than our 

 own, and is Theodore Roosevelt's method 

 of advertising the fact that the United 

 States is now one of the great powers of 

 the earth. 



Since July Fourth, 1908, it has been 

 possible to travel in a railway car from 

 Washington to the boundaries of Guate- 

 mala, and the President of that republic 

 has recently made a contract with Amer- 

 ican engineers to connect the Mexican 

 railway system with his own at Quesalte- 

 nango. 



The Argentine Congress has appropri- 

 ated two hundred million dollars for rail- 

 way construction and other public works 

 during the next five years. 



Bolivia and Peru are both building new 

 lines and extending old ones towards the 

 Atlantic and to the north and southward 

 within their own territory. Since the first 

 of October it has been possible to travel 

 by rail from La Paz, the capital of Boli- 

 via, to the Pacific Ocean, and within 

 two years one may go by rail from La 

 Paz to Buenos Aires. 



The first permanent court ever estab- 

 lished to adjudicate differences between 

 nations is now in session at Catargo, 

 Costa Rica. The defendant in the case 

 is trying to settle out of court, but Mex- 

 ico, the United States, and three of the 

 Central American republics are deter- 

 mined that a new precedent in inter- 

 national law is to be established. 



The regeneration of Ireland is proceed- 

 ing slowly but surely. The most impor- 

 tant event in the United Kingdom during 

 the year is the declaration of the policy 

 of the Liberal government to spend five 

 hundred million dollars more in breaking 

 up the great estates of the Irish land- 



