so much nearer Spain that many more Spaniards went out there to make their fortunes, and they robbed the natives so energetically that the latter started a series of insurrections that did not end until after the islands became American. No man can tell what the ultimate results may be of the opening of the Panama Canal. But the benefits which we expect to derive from it may be divided into two classes: military and commercial.
Even if it should prove an utter failure commercially, the Canal would still be worth all it has cost us, for military purposes alone. Without it, Uncle Sam is in the position of a householder who has to run around the block to chase a tramp out of the back yard. With it, we can keep our navy concentrated in one powerful fleet, and move it from the Caribbean to San Francisco, or back again, in a couple of weeks. More than two months was required for the battle-ship Oregon to steam at full speed round South America from San Francisco to Cuba, where she was sorely needed at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. Had the Panama Canal been in existence in 1898, she would have had to go only four thousand, six hundred miles, instead of thirteen thousand, four hundred, and she would have been ready to meet the enemy's fleet six weeks earlier—and a lot of things can happen in the first six weeks of a modern war.
To prevent any foreign fleet from capturing the Isthmus, and using the Canal against us, heavy fortifications are being built at both the Atlantic and Pacific ends. This work is being done by Lieutenant George R. Goethals. the elder son of the builder of the Canal.
