The San Francisco call., 1898-05-22
LYMAN E. CooLEY's VIEW.
THE ROUTE BETWEEN OCEANS
 SHOULD BE SHORTENED.
With the Completion of the Water way Uncle Sam Would Be Supreme in the Atlantic
 and Pacific.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

CHICAGO, May 21-Lyman E. Cooley, the well-known engineer who spent two months of last winter on the route of the proposed Nicaragua canal, in an interview says:
 As a bluff, if nothing more, the Nicaraguan canal in operation to-day would be worth $10O, ,OOO,0 900 to this Gov ernment. Completed we could perpetu- ally say to all nations that our fleets in a moment of necessity could com mand the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as no other fleet in the world would be able to do.
 Tn a race for Manila, we, starting at New York and Spain at Cadiz, we, with the Nicaragua camel, could reach the Philippines before any fleet pass ing through the Suez canal could do so.'
 Mr. Cooley has studied the journey of the battle-ship Oregon around South America with extraordinary in- terest, since if the Nicaragua canal had been completed the Oregon might have been with Sampson weeks ago, or in an emergency any part of our navy could be dispatched to the Pa cific Coast with the saving of thou sands of miles of journey.
 Suppose" said MT. Cooley, that it costs at the least 54,0OO, 900 to construct this canal, or at the most $133 ,000, 900, what would that amount to, in view of the fact that at the present moment every city on the Pa cific Coast could be destroyed by a hostile fleet before a battle-ship of ours could round Cape Horn? When we could reach the ruins of San Fran cisco the enemy would be at Hawaii, and when we were there they would be at Manila or anchored safely at home.
 Leaving aside all question of the value to us of the canal as powerful agency for developing our commerce, look at it's construction from a war point of view. The Atlantic coast will always be the concentration point for the cream of our navy. New York City is II, 900 miles from San Francisco with out the Nicaragua canal; that Is, via the Straits of Magellan, steamers leav- ing New York are over 13, 900 miles from San Francisco, and sailing vessels via Cape Horn, 15,600 miles away. The canal would shorten one route 8267 miles and the other route 10,753 miles. A man-of-war sailing ten knots an hour, or 240 miles per day, would save in the one instance forty-four days, and. in the other thirty-four days time. In other words, if the Oregon is at Bar badoes, sixty-two days were occupied by her in reaching that point from San Francisco, via Cape Horn. With the Nicaragua canal completed, forty-four days time would have been saved over one existing route and thirty-four days over the other. The journey from San Francisco to New York could be made in eighteen days by slow vessel and in nine or ten days by swift one.
 Would not this be of value to the Government in time of war, when so much depends on the rapidity with which our vessels must be moved from point to point?"
 MT. Cooley also said that the charges through the canal would be less than the wages paid the men on the vessel and the coal consumed in a trip around Cape Horn. In conclusion MT. Cooley said:
 "We could create a naval station at Lake Nicaragua second to none in the world, and from which our vessels could pass for the protection of either of our coasts with g. rapidity un- equaled The Spanish war and the journey of the Oregon will awaken the general public to the necessity of hay- ing the canal as nothing else could have done. Once built the canal. from strategic or commercial point of view, means that our flag and our ship ping will enter every port in the world and we will be the maritime power of the twentieth century"