Chapter III: Part 3

All this is without precedent. But it is American. It is progress, and takes the necessary risk to leave the world better, at least in a material way, than we found it. In the proposed deep waterway, which is certain some day to be built to connect the uttermost ends of the Great Lakes with tide-water on the Atlantic, able and competent engineers of the largest experience have designed locks with a lift of 52 feet.[4] That will be without precedent. On the Oswego Canal, proposed as a part of the new barge canal of the State of New York, there will be six locks, two of which will each have a lift of 28 feet,[5] and that will be without precedent, but neither dangerous nor detrimental to navigation interests.

Need I further appeal to the facts of past canal history? Is it necessary to recite one of the best known and most honorable chapters in the history of inland waterways--I mean the problems and difficulties inherent in the great project of constructing the canal of Languedoc, or "Canal du Midi," which forms a water communication between the Mediterranean and the Garonne and between the Garonne and the Atlantic Ocean, one of the best known canals in France and in the world? Need I refer to that pathetic story of its chief engineer, Riquet, one of the greatest of French patriots, who, in his abiding faith in this great engineering feat, stood practically alone? Need I recall that he met with scant assistance from the government, with the most strenuous opposition from his countrymen; that he was treated even as a madman and that he died of a broken heart before the great work was finished?

That canal stands to-day as an engineering masterwork and as a most suggestive illustration of man's ingenuity and power to overcome apparently insuperable natural obstacles. It has been in existence and successful operation, I think, since 1681. For a sixth part of its distance it is carried over mountains deeply excavated. It has, I think, ninety-nine locks and viaducts, and as one of its most wonderful features it has an octuple lock, or eight locks in flight, like a ladder from the top of a cliff to the valley below. If in 1681 a French engineer had the ability and the daring to conceive and construct an octuple lock, will any one maintain that more than two hundred years later, with all the enormous advance in engineering, with a better knowledge of hydraulics and a more perfect method of transportation and handling of materials--will any one maintain that we are not to-day competent to construct successfully a lock canal such as is proposed to be built at Panama upon the judgment of American engineers?

Mr. President, the overshadowing importance of the subject has led me to extend my remarks far beyond my original intention. I express my strong convictions in favor of a lock canal and of the necessity for an early and specific declaration of Congress regarding the final plan or type of canal which the nation wants to have built at Panama. I am confident that it lies entirely within our power and means to build either type of waterway; that our engineering skill can successfully solve the technical problems involved in either the lock or the sea-level plan; but there is one all-important factor which controls, and which, in my opinion, should have more weight than any other, and that is the element of time. If I could advance no other reasons, if I knew of no better argument in favor of a lock canal, my convictions would sustain the project which can be completed within a measurable distance of years and for the benefit and to the advantage of the present generation. Time flies, and the years pass rapidly. Shall this project languish and linger and become the spoil of political controversy and a subject of political attack? Can we conceive of anything more likely to prove disastrous to the canal project than political strife, which proved the undoing of the French canal enterprise at Panama?

Shall the success of this great project be imperiled by the possible changes in the fortunes of parties? Shall we incur the risk that changes in economic conditions, hard times, or panic and industrial depressions may bring about? Time flies, and in the progress of industry and commerce, in international competition and the growth of modern nations, no factor is of more supreme importance than the years, with new opportunities for political and commercial development. Shall we, then, neglect our chances? Shall we fail to make the most of this the greatest opportunity for the extension of our commerce and navigation into the most distant seas which will ever come to us in our history, because of the demands of idealists, who, with theoretical notions of the ultimately desirable, would deprive the nation and the world of what is necessary and indispensable to those who are living now?

Vast commercial and political consequences will follow the opening of the transisthmian waterway. In the annals of commerce and navigation it is not conceivable that there will ever be a greater event or one fraught with more momentous consequences than uninterrupted navigation between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Little enough can we comprehend or anticipate what the far-distant future will bring forth, but this much we know--that it is our duty to solve the problems of _to-day_ and not to indulge in dreams and fancies in a vain effort to solve the problems of a far-distant future.

But _money_ also counts. Can we defend an expenditure of an additional $100,000,000 or more for objects so remote, and upon a basis of theory and fact so slender and so open to question, when a plan and a project feasible and practicable is before us which will meet all of our needs and the needs of generations to come? Shall we disregard in the building of this canal every principle of a sound national economy and commit ourselves to an enormous waste of funds and to the imposition of needless burdens upon the taxpayers of this nation and upon the commerce of the world? At least $2,000,000 more per annum will be required in additional interest charges, at least $100,000,000 more will be necessary as an original investment. Do we fully realize what that amount of money would do if applied to other national purposes and projects?

I want to place on record my convictions and the reasons governing my vote in favor of the minority report for a lock canal across the Isthmus at Panama. I entered upon an investigation of the subject without prejudice or bias and have examined the facts as they have been presented and as they are a matter of record and of history. I have heard or read with care the evidence as it has been presented by the Board of Consulting Engineers and the vast amount of oral testimony before the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Affairs. I am confident that the minority judgment is the better and that it can be more relied upon, because it is strictly in conformity with the entire history of the Isthmian canal project. I am confident that the objections which have been raised against the lock plan are an undue exaggeration of difficulties such as are inherent in every great engineering project, and which, I have not the slightest doubt, will be successfully solved by American engineers, in the light of American experience, exactly as similar difficulties have been solved in many other enterprises of great magnitude.

I am not impressed with the reasons and arguments advanced by those who favor the sea-level project, for they do not appeal to me as being sound, and in some instances they come perilously near to being engineering guesswork characteristic of the earlier enterprises of De Lesseps. I cannot but think that bias and prejudice are largely responsible for the judgment of foreign engineers so pronounced in favor of a sea-level project. Furthermore, I am entirely convinced that the judgment and experience of American engineers in favor of a lock canal may be relied upon with entire confidence, and that such an enterprise will be brought to a successful termination. I believe that in a national undertaking of this kind, fraught with the gravest possible political and commercial consequences, only the judgment of our own people should govern, for the protection of our own interests, which are primarily at stake. I also prefer to accept the view and convictions of the members of the Isthmian Commission, and of its chief engineer, a man of extraordinary ability and large experience.

It is a subject upon which opinions will differ and upon which honest convictions may be widely at variance, but in a question of such surpassing importance to the nation, I, for one, shall side with those who take the American point of view, place their reliance upon American experience, and show their faith in American engineers.

Pioneer of Industrial Insurance in America]

THE PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA

Incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey

FORREST F. DRYDEN, _President_

HOME OFFICE, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Report of the New Panama Canal Company of France; Senate Document 188, 56th Congress, 1st session, February 20, 1900.

[2] The Maritime Canal of Suez, from its inauguration, November 17, 1869, to the year 1884, by Prof. J.E. Nourse, U.S.N., Washington, 1884 (Senate Document 198, 48th Congress, 1st session).

[3] For a history of American canal building enterprises see History of New York Canals, ch. 5.

[4] Report of the Board of Engineers on Deep Waterways, H. of R., Doc. No. 149, 56th Congress. 2d session, Atlas.

[5] History of New York Canals, Appendix L. Annual Report of the State Engineer and Surveyor. Vol. II, Albany, N.Y., 1905.