US Presidency
1910

In determining what the tolls should be we certainly ought not to insist that they should at once amount to enough to pay the interest on the investment of $ 400,000,000 which the United States has made in the construction of the Canal. We ought not to do this, first, because the benefit to be derived by the United States from this expenditure is not to be measured solely by a return upon the investment. If it were, then the construction might well have been left to private enterprise. It was because an adequate return upon the money invested could not be expected immediately, or in the near future, and because there were peculiar political advantages to be derived from the construction of the Canal that it fell to the Government to advance the money and perform the work. In addition to the benefit to our naval strength, the Canal greatly increases the trade facilities of the United States. It will undoubtedly cheapen the rates of transportation in all freight between the Eastern and Western seaboard.