ry in our efforts to complete a
canal across the Isthmus of Panama upon similar pretensions of assumed
dangers and possibilities of disaster, all more or less the result of
engineering guesswork? Shall we take fright at the talk about the
mischief-maker with his stick of dynamite, bent upon the destruction of
the locks and the vital parts of the machinery, when history has its
parallel during the Suez Canal agitation in "the Arab shepherd, who,
flushed with the opportunity for mischief and with a few strokes of a
pickax, could empty the canal in a few minutes"? Shall we be swayed by
foolish fears and apprehensions of earthquakes or tidal waves, and waste
millions of money and years of time upon a pure conjecture, a pure
theory deduced from fragmentary facts? Again the facts of canal history
furnish the parallel of Stephenson and other engineers, who successfully
frightened English investors out of the Suez enterprise by the statement
that the canal would soon fill up with the moving sands of the desert,
that one of the lakes through which the canal would pass would soon fill
up with salt, that navigation of the Red Sea would be too dangerous and
difficult, that ships would fear to approach Port Said because of
dangerous seas, and, finally, that in any event it would be impossible
to keep the passage open to the Mediterranean.

It was this kind of guesswork and conjecture which was advanced as an
argument by engineers of eminence and sustained by one of the foremost
statesmen of the century. How absurd it all seems now in the sunlight of
history! The Panama Canal is a business enterprise, even if carried on
by the nation, and with a thorough knowledge of the general facts and
principles we require no more expert evidence, so called, nor additional
volumes of engineering testimony. The nation is committed to the
construction of a canal. The enterprise is one of imperative necessity
to commerce, navigation, and national defense, and any further
discussion, any needless waste of time and money, is little short of
indifference to the national interests and objects which are at stake.

Of objections to either plan there is no end, and there will be no end
as long as the subject remains open for discussion. To answer such
objections in detail, to search the records for proof in support of one
theory or another, is a mere waste of time which can lead to no possible
useful result. Among others, for illustration, there has been p