The Washington times., 1905-12-24
The Everlasting Flood.

why is pump like Viscount
Castlereagh? asked Tom Moore, in
one of the metrical political squibs
he was always writing. And he fur
nished this answer:
Because it is an awkward thing of wood
That up and down slender arm doth
sway
And calmly spout. and spout. and spout
away
In one weak. washy everlasting food.
There will be no quarrel with the
desire of the Senate to investigate
the expenditure of the money appro-
priated for the construction of the
Panama Canal. That desire, found
ed upon real regard for the integ-
rity Of the nations business admin
istration, should meet with no op-
position in its execution. But If it is
made an excuse for delaying needed
appropriations, fer hampering con-
struction, for involving in confusion
and dismay the whole plan of opera
ton, and indefinitely deferring the
time of the canals completion, the
situation will present an aspect
wholly different
That is the danger. The business
of this country is TO build the canal
The canal should be adequate to its
purpose and destiny, as the highway
of commerce from East to West. and
it should be fashioned in accordance
with the engineering plans that best
will meet the need Expedition and
economy should go hand in hand.
| There should be no trifiing with
futile and Improbable experiments
no careless waste of the public funds.
But, still, we should build the
canal. When the President so de-
clared, he merely announced the fix
/ ed and unchanging will of the people.
What does it profit us that old
scandals are revived and revamped-
that abandoned schemes and locali-
ties are dragged out into the open ?
This is the proposition: The United
States has bought the needed slice of
| territory across the Isthmus of Pan
anna, and in that purchase and the
preliminaries of construction has
expended already SEQ, ,000, 900. 1t is as
certain as anything terrestrial can be
that if the canal is not built at Pan
anna it will not be built anywhere,
in this or the next generation. 1t is
waste of breath 10 talk about
Darien or Nicaragua. 1t is a waste
of time to endeavor to compute the
exact amount of chicanery that was
involved in the birth of the republic
of Panama 1t is idle to strive to
estimate the profits of this or that
CRATER at any particular stage of the
old enterprise.
Let us have honesty and economy
of administration, by all means. Let
us have efficiency and zeal and an hon
orable purpose on the part of com
+ missioners and laborers, and all in
termediate ranks, to do the day &
work. These ambitions the Senate
I if it will make up its mind resolutely
to the task, may do much to aid
though nothing, it may be said, OF
( larger helpfulness than its own
adoption of a consistent policy.
The time for talking about this
matter ought to be past. This is the
time for doing. Let Congress safe
guard as it viii, but let it fix upon
the policy it approves and then abide
+ it, furnishing the money needed tc
make it efficient The performance in
( progress is strongly reminiscent oi
the old charge that in the Senate
there are statesmen. Of power and in
/ fluence who do not want the cana
built at all
/ INST = lfffIc moro of fIa ,--Hfte mon z