When the Panama Canal is completed the commerce and trade of the
world will be revolutionized. San Francisco will be brought nearly
9000 miles closer to New York than it is today and European ports
nearly 6000 miles closer. It is estimated by statisticians skilled in
transportation and in carrier service, that the cost of transporting
the great mass of bulky products from the Pacific Coast to Eastern
seaboards of the United States and to European points will be reduced
nearly two-thirds. In other words, freights that now cost approximately
$1.00 per 100 pounds over the transcontinental railroads from Pacific
Coast ports to Eastern markets, may be carried through the canal for
about 33 1/3 cents.
It is estimated that this saving of freight on timber alone, which is
still standing in California, would pay the cost of the canal, great as
it is, three times over. We can hardly estimate the effect that this
shortening of water rates will have on all the countries fronting the
Pacific Ocean.
It would seem as if the Western hemisphere was at last coming into
its own in dignity and progress, in its relation to all the world.
Certainly the tides of people of enterprise and of business have been
steadily pressing westward since long before Bishop Berkeley declared
that “Westward the star of empire takes its way,” and that Western wave
is rushing onward today more strongly and steadily than ever before in
the world’s history. Men of even middle age today probably will live
to see the fulfillment of the dreams and prophecies of the olden time
in the opening up of our coasts and land to ship commerce with every
country on the globe.
In ancient days it was the fact that seas divided nations, because of
the difficulty of ocean travel. In those days the only safe routes were
those over the land, but in this modern time of gigantic ocean vessels,
capable of carrying thousands of passengers and hundreds of thousands
of tons of freight, water travel and transportation is the cheapest and
most agreeable of all forms. And therefore, today it is a fact that
seas unite the countries of the world instead of dividing them.
[Illustration: PRESIDENT TAFT SIGNING JOINT RESOLUTION DESIGNATING SAN
FRANCISCO AS THE PLACE TO HOLD THE WORLD’S FAIR IN 1915.]
The completion of the Panama Canal will be only the completion of one
link of the chain of three great improvements that are in contemplation
by the statesmen of America.
On the eastern side of the continent all the States bordering on, or
tributary to, the Mississippi river are engaged in the propaganda for
the deepening of that river to a depth of 14 feet from New Orleans
to St. Louis, and 12 feet from St. Louis to St. Paul, as well as the
improvement of the tributaries thereof, so that ocean-going vessels may
penetrate to the very heart of the American continent and discharge
their cargoes there.
The up-to-date and progressive city of Chicago, the mighty metropolis
of the center of the continent, is alive to the possibilities of the
near future, and has made provision for the issuance and sale of bonds
to the amount of $24,000,000, the proceeds of which are to be used
in the deepening and widening of the Chicago drainage canal and the
Illinois river, so that ocean-going vessels may not only penetrate as
far as St. Louis, but may also proceed to Chicago, and place that great
city in direct water communication with any part of the world.
The improvement of the Mississippi and its tributaries, then, is one
of the links of the chain. The Panama Canal is the central link. The
third link must be and will be, if the projects of the most eminent
and patriotic American statesmen are carried out, the re-establishment
of the American merchant marine, so that American ships may be used as
the agency for the distribution of the products of our great industrial
country to all the lands fronting the Pacific Ocean, as well as to all
other parts of the earth.
I believe that it has been a well recognized policy of all the
Presidents and statesmen of our country for the last twenty years to
urge the accomplishment of these improvements. They come slowly, of
course, but all large projects take time in their development, and
those of us who today are so fortunate as to live in California, or
anywhere upon the Pacific Coast, may easily look forward to the time,
not far distant, when California will be at least the second State of
the American Republic in wealth, and industrial and commercial power,
and San Francisco the second city in importance under the American flag.
Transcriber’s Note:
--Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.