n fine, the earthquake argument has little or no force against a
lock-canal project, and it has never received serious consideration as
such or been used in arguments against a lock canal until the recent San
Francisco disaster brought the subject prominently before the public. It
is a danger as remote as a possible destruction of the proposed terminal
plants at Colon and Panama by flood waves equal in magnitude to the one
which destroyed Galveston in 1900, but such dangers are inherent in all
human undertakings. They must be taken as a matter of chance and remote
possibility, which for all present purposes may be left out of account,
except that the subject should receive the due consideration of the
engineers and perhaps be made a matter of special and comprehensive
inquiry by the Geological Survey. In any serious consideration of the
facts for or against a lock canal, I am confident that the earthquake
risk may safely be ignored. The comprehensive report of the minority
members of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Affairs is a sufficient
and conclusive answer to all the important points which are in
controversy, and it remains for Congress to cut the "Gordian knot" and
put an end to an interminable discussion of much solid and substantial
conviction on the one hand and of a vast amount of opinion and guesswork
on the other hand. All of the evidence, all of the supplementary expert
testimony which may be obtained upon the merits of the two propositions,
will not change the position of those who rest their conclusions upon
American experience and upon the judgment of American engineers, and who
favor a lock canal. While there is no doubt that such a canal can be
constructed and can be made a practicable waterway, there is a very
serious question whether a sea-level canal can be constructed and made a
safe and practicable waterway, at least within the limits of the
estimated amount of cost and within the estimated time.

The view which I have tried to impress upon the Senate is nothing more
nor less than a business view of what is, for all practical purposes,
only a business proposition. If a lock canal can be built, useful for
all purposes, at half the cost and within half the time of a sea-level
canal, then I can come to no other conclusion than that a lock canal
would be decidedly to our political and commercial advantage. A
decision, however, should be arrived at. The canal project has reached a
stage where the fi