The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-06-29
Work of laying a Cable Across the
Pacific Completed
FIRST MESSAGES EXCHANGED
History Of the Movement as Originally
Started by John w. Mackay-Roufe
Followed by the Cable Unique in
Many respects - Communication
Between President Roosevelt and the
Emperor OF Japan.
Emperor OF Japan.
Especial to The Messenger.)

q 1-O
Washington, D. c., June 26.-The
Toxic and Guam officers CT the Com
mercial Pacific Gable Co, are in COM
m~unicatiOn by the new cable: messages
between the president Of the United
States and the emperor of japan have
been exchanged. The bridging OF the
Pacific and the encircling of the coast
OF eastern Asia by an all American
cable in thus complete.
NO American enterprise has appeal
er so powerfully as this to the states
men and merchants of Japan and every
stage of its progress has been watched
by them with an intensity Of interest
of which Our people have but a faint
conception.
h original offer to construct a ca
bic from San Francisco to Manila
without government aid or subsidy
was made by Mr.. John " .Mackay to
the Hon. John Hay, secretary Of state
on August 22nd, 1901. It was a plain
proposition, made by a man of I'M
doubted responsibility and of long ex-
perlence with submarine cables to do
that which no other private person
had ever offered to do, and which the
government itself was unwilling to do.
1t has nevertheless to encounter oppo-
sltion in congress and it was not until
June 18th, 1902 that this opposition
was finally silenced. Undeterred
however by possible legislative obsta-
cles, the Commercial Pacific Cable.
Company ordered the construction of
the cable, and on the very dav on
WI iab tbn li1I IA -.
posed to commit the government of
the United States, the work of lay
ing a cable across the Pacific ocean, it
was announced that LOGS nautical
miles of the cable which was to be
laid between San Francisco and Hon
Olulu had been manufactured and that
the work Of making the cable was
proceeding at the rate Of twenty six
miles per day. BY the end of June,
1903, the last section of the cable to.
Manila was landed at Honolulu and the
entire line from San Francisco tC the
Philippine Islands, a distance of over
eight thousand miles was successfully
completed; that is to say within eigh-j
teen months after the signing of the
contract an enterprise was executed
which has no parallel in the history of
ocean telegraphy.
The route following is unique for it's
lack OF natural stations, and not only
traverse the greatest uninhabited
waste OF water on the globe out has
to deal with ocean depths much great
Ell h any previously encountered.
The message was sent on July 4th,
1903 by President Roosevelt round the
world by the completed line of the
Commercial Pacific Gable Company,
and its connecting lines between Eu-
rope and Asia went by the Postal Tel
egraph companies land lines from
Oyster Bay to San Francisco, thence
lulu midway between Guam and Ma
message passed by the cable which
Admiral Dewey cut in 1898; from
Hong Kong it went to Saigon to Sin
gapOre to Madras to Bombay to Aden1
to Suez to Alexandria to Malta to Gil
braltar to Lisbon to the Azores, and
thence to Oyster Bay. Between Hong
Kong and the Azores the transit was
by foreign cables, and the shortening|
of trans-Pacif1c communication both in
respect of Interruptions and of actual
distance may be inferred from the de-
vious course which had to be taken
by the presidents message in its home
ward course from Eastern Asia. After
communication with Manila was es-
tablished there remained the task of
extending the all-American Pacific
Gable to China. This was completed
by April 18th of the present year and
it has been promptly supplemented by
the extension of the cable to Japan.
This in less than five years since the
first communication of Mr.. John w.
Mackay to the secretary Of state the
greatest single ocean cables enterprise
in the world has been brought to a
successful termination.