The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-12-10

But still we are as far from Bimini
as ever. Quite as far from being salts
fed. Imagination runs as hard a race
as ever with any possible natural deyel-
opment Being in possession Of so much
we expect rs much more. Already
the officials are planning how the sched
ule along the line may he made faster;
swifter engines are being ordered,
more luxurious cars built and the track
Strengthened and ballasted all along the
line; and finally an extension of the sys-
TEN ON to the extreme South and the
great Southwest to gather UP the
mighty stream Of commerce that must
some day, in the distant future, float
through the Panama Canal, and hurt
it Nortnward fer distribution.
Some of these expectations are only
Bfminis of the present. but when they
have vanished you will find the canal
built. the South restored to its original
and natural position Of dominance and
wealth Our material advantages once
noted viii be recognized readily and ap-
propr.ated with ayidity. In the ebb and
low OF human affairs it is impossible
to say exactly what the result will be,
but it is not too soon to note present
conditions and call attention to the fact
that the prospects for the future are
most promising.
And the Panama Canal is one of
the Biminis that the whole South is
aldently locking FOR and earnestly seek
ing for.
The caribbean Sea is the MENUS where
will meet the chords binding the East
to The West, the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The isthmus with all that depends upon
tits canal and its approaches on
either hand-wll link the eastern side
Of the American continent to the west
ern as no net work Of land communica-
ton ever can. Through the South must
pass much Of the great volume Of COM
MERGE that floats through this canal.
| And il it passes through the South
| it must 20 over one or the other Of its
great railway systems-the Southern or
the Seaboard.
But not in material advantages
alone consists the value of these great
railway lines. There is higher,
nobler purpose served by them in
| teaching the brotherhood of man.
| Too long the North and the South
have been running on wholly diyerging
lines; animated by conceptions in many
cases radically different and CON
trolled by entirely foreign conditions.
| TO bring them into correspondence in
| that. the most important realm of ideas,
| there was needed ON both sides not
| growth, hut relationship. We grow like
| what we feed upon, and those who as
| sociate together will think alike. With
| the modern facilities for travel afforded
| by steam, the North has come to visit
more frequently the South and the
| Southerlier has gone North, and the
| close of the nineteenth century reveals
such conyerging of standards be-
| tween the two sections that have not
| been known since long before the Civil
| War. The North is rapidly coming to
| appreciate our material advantages and
| the political traditions which once uni
| ted to confer power upon this section,
/ and with this knowledge has come first
| tolerance. then sympathy.
And so from the diversities of these
/ two sections has come a formless force
that may be counted upon in the future
to insure substantial unity of impulse,
/ which, combined with it's mass, will
give tremendous import to any move
ment common to the whole.
And these are some of the great bene-
/ fits the great railroad systems are CON
1 ferring upon us today.
FRED l.. MERRITT.