far in the future?
How far is _too_ far? The Panama Canal is open for traffic, and there
is not a harbor of first rank in the United States, Atlantic, Pacific,
or Gulf of Mexico, that does not bank on, that is not spending millions
on, the expectation of Panama changing the Pacific from a back into a
front door. Either these harbors are all wrong or Canada is sound
asleep as a tombstone to the progress round her. Boston has spent nine
million dollars acquiring terminals and water-front, and is now
guaranteeing the bonds of steamships to the extent of twenty-five
million dollars. New York has built five new piers to take care of the
commerce coming--and the Federal government has spent fifty million
dollars improving the approaches to her harbor. Baltimore is so sure
that Panama is going to revive shore-front interests that she has
reclaimed almost two hundred acres of swamp land for manufacturing
sites, which she is leasing out at merely nominal figures to bring the
manufacturers from inland down to the sea. In both Baltimore and
Philadelphia, railroads are spending millions increasing their trackage
for the traffic they expect to feed down to the coast cities for Panama
steamers.

Among the Gulf ports, New Orleans has spent fifteen million dollars
putting in a belt line system of railroads and docks with steel and
cement sheds, purely to keep her harbor front free of corporate
control. This is not out of enmity to corporations, but because the
prosperity of a harbor depends on all steamers and all railroads
receiving the same treatment. This is not possible under private and
rival control. Yet more, New Orleans is putting on a line of her own
civic steamships to South America. Up at St. Louis and Kansas City,
they are putting on civic barge lines down the rivers to ocean front.

At Los Angeles twenty million dollars have been spent in making a
harbor out of a duck pond. San Francisco and Oakland have improved
docks to the extent of twenty-four million dollars. Seattle attests
her expectation of what Panama is going to do on the Pacific by
securing the expenditure of fifteen million dollars on her harbor for
her own traffic and all the traffic she can capture from Canada; and it
may be said here that the Grand Trunk Pacific of Canada--a national
road on which the Dominion is spending hundreds of millions--has the
finest docks in Seattle. Portland has gone farther than any of the
Pacific ports. Portland