The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-24
HISTORIC MOBILE
 HONORS ROOSEVELT
(Costinued from Page one.)


  and communication between the Att lantic and Pacific speedily established.
 Tt seems to me evidence of certain things I see in a portion of the daily press that those sources are still active and that they are going to try to be- cloud the issue with the hope of putting off for ten or fifteen years or over the digging of that canal.
 Canal Opponents Will Fail.
 Their weapons will be. and are. every form of misrepresentation. And. gentlemen, they will fail. You need not have the slightest alarm. Uncle Sam has started to dig the canal and it will be dug, and soon. The people who are largely, by the circulation or false rumors and by direct misstate- ment. seeking to create confusion such as will defer the building of the canal. will be disappointed.
 We have as a people the right to feel a genuine satisfaction with the progress that has already been made. Let me point out something of which you here will appreciate the signffi- canoe, the sanitation of the Isthmus. Do you remember that couple of years ago men said you could not dig that canal because yellow fever was epi- demic always there. We are digging 1t and with a cleaner bill of mortality than the world has ever known before. I am happy to be able to tell you from information received this day. I find that those who have just returned from the Isthmus are not only pleased but astonished at the excellent trim in which the project is. That 1t is going on well and that it will go along even better in the future.
 Now of all things said about me, they are more than kind. in the over- kind allusions to me. perhaps l was specially pleased by what Colonel Rus sell said as to my attitude toward crooked public servants. I will take advice about appointing men. but If l find they are crooked I do not take any advice at all about removing them. We have Scriptural authority for saying that offenses must come and the Good Book says Woe to them through whom they come.'
 VIII Fire the Grafters.
 T cannot guarantee. and no human being can, that there will not be a man of an improper kind appointed or a well-meaning man. who after being ap- pointed, goes wrong. But I can say that every effort within the power of the Government will be made to hunt such a man out of the public service and to punish him to the fullest extent of the law.
 Here in this seaboard city I want to say another word, and that is about the United States Navy. Again, Judge Semmes, in passing by the monument of your illustrious father, I felt the thrill of pride that all Americans must feel that the names of the combat ants in that famous ship duel are com memorated, the names of the Kearsarge and Alabama, in the United States Navy now, and that if they ever have to go into action. they go into action side by side, manned by Americans against a common foe. I know that an audience composed as this audience is, of men either who themselves fought or whose fathers fought in the Civil War, appreciate to the full the sound na- tional policy eff I may use the vernac- ular) of never bluffing unless you mean to make good.
 We undertook to build the Panama Canal because we said that owing to our position and interest and standing we were the only nation that could or should do 1t. That means that we have got to protect it and police it ourselves. We must. therefore, bring up and keep up our navy to the highest point of ef- iciency. We can afford to have a small army, although we must insist upon its being kept up to the highest point of efficiency that I am glad to say our