The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1900-03-29

one hundred. He planned waterway
across the isthmus, and one of his sue
cessors, one of the Pto1emies, actually
dug the great ditch. Trojan renewed
it. The lines of that old canal we're
traced by Lesseps engineers in the
Nineteenth century.
A similar problem has agitated the
Western Hemisphere, more or less,
ever since the time of Columbus. If
Columbus dream had been realized he
would have gotten east by sailing
west and anchored in the 1agoons OF
far Cathay: only a narrow isthmus,
| through which there were no straits
obstructed his path. For the last half
a century the commercial world shas
been eager to cross that narrow neck
of land, say 116 miles. that separates
ocean. Every mariner as he looked to
steer his ship to golden California, as
he stood on his deck in the Gulf of St.
Bias, and could almost look into the
mirror of the Bay of Panama, would
have given great deal, and spared
his feelings more than could be de-
scribed. had there been a natural strait
or al artificial canal, and If he were
not compelled by the unfriendliness OF
continental formation, to sail for
many weary weeks, by stormy Magellan
or stormier Cape Horn, southwark
along the Atlantic coast and north
ward along the Pacific coast of South
America. Why travel ten thousand
perhaps twelve thousand miles to make
a point only one hundred miles away!
The empires of the earth took it up.
Portugal, Spain, France, England,
United States. Surveyors were sent
there. France sent Lesseps, brim full
of enthusiasm, and poured her wealth
by millions, into a ditch, afterwards
abandoned, that was intended to be
the mid-water-way of the Western
Hemisphere. England seized the
mouth of the San Juan River, the
country of Nicaragua, Costa RIGA and
the Mosquito Coast, believing that
some day a ship canal must be con-
structed across that part of Central
America.
This interoceanic waterway is the
vital necessity of the hour. The busy
progressive world needs and demands
it. But to no empire is it so impera-
tive as to the United States. For pur-
poses of war, for the privileges of
commerce it is absolutely necessary.
For protection against the designs of
possible enemies, for the honor of our
position as a great world power, for
the sake of an enlarged and just share
of Pacific trade (which now amounts
to 100000 100000 annually, of which the
United States has only about one
tenth, while she is entitled to one
half and for the more rapid elevation
of the 100000 human beings who
live beyond it, this great Republic, To-
Gated midway between the continents
of Europe and Asia, must dig and own
the ditch.
England and the United States have
made treaties with the idea that both
nations should cooperate in building
the canal and control it as CONNER
cia1 benediction to the world. The
Clayton Bu1wer treaty contemplated
this. By the Hay-Paunceforte treaty
England agreed to resign dominion in
Central America on condition that the
United States construct the waterway,
own it, and open it to all peoples of the
earth, without fort on either end,
without defences in the route, the one
spot on the great globe that never
should be traversed by the waving
dogs of war.
Now the Republic desires, not only
TO construct at its own expense, and to
exclusively own the ship-cana1 at
Nicaragua, but also to fortify X, to
command it with fortresses, cannon,
and batt1eships, and to expe1 from: it,
and prohibit the entrance into it, all
vessels, and all peoples that might ap-
pear to her to be inimica1
But there are two facts TO be seri-
ous1y considered-the relation of Eng
land to the new proposition and the
possible effect on ourselves.
Great Britain, so it is recognized, by
the United States, both in the Clayton
Bu1wer and the Hay-Paunceforte
treaties, legally has some kind of
dominion in the very countries through
which the ship canal must pass. If, in
consequence of the Hepburn Morgan
Amendment, she should see fit to stand
by the original treaty, the Clayton
Bu1wer, that fact might postpone in
definitely the construction of the cou-
temp1ated waterway. Thus far Eng
land has granted all we have asked,