Francisco, without National aid--Only two years given to construction--
Fifty millions expended.



Human endeavor has supplied no nobler motive for public rejoicing than
the union of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Panama Canal has
stirred and enlarged the imaginations of men as no other task has done,
however enormous the conception, however huge the work. The Canal is one
of the few achievements which may properly be called epoch-making. Its
building is of such signal and far reaching importance that it marks a
point in history from which succeeding years and later progress will be
counted. It is so variously significant that the future alone can
determine the ways in which it will touch and modify the life of
mankind.

First of all, of course, its intent is commercial. Experts have already
estimated its influence on the traffic routes. But these experts, who
can, from known present conditions, work out the changes that will take
place, that are already taking place, in the flow of commerce on the
seven seas, cannot estimate the effect those changes will have on the
life of the people who inhabit their shores. Changes in trade routes
have overwhelmed empires and raised up new nations, have nourished
civilizations and brought others to decay. From the days when merchants
first followed the caravan routes, nothing has so modified the history
of nations as the course of the roads by which commerce moved. Huge as
was the Canal as a physical undertaking alone, it is not less stupendous
in the vision of the effects which will flow from it.

In this vision, the Western shore of the United States feels that it