Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-06-26
ALL-AMERICAN CABLE.
Complete From Here to China and
Japan.


The Tokyo and Guam offices of the Com
mercial Pacific Gable Company are in COM
munication by the new cable Messages
between the President OF the United States
and the Emperor of Japan have been ex-
changed The bridging Of the Pacific and
the encircling of the coast Of Eastern Asia
by an all-American cable is thus complete.
No American enterprise has appealed SO
powerfully as this to the statesmen 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 faint conception. The original
offer to construct cable from San Fran
cisco to Manila without government aid or
subsidy was made by MIR. John w. Mackay
to John Hay, Secretary of State, on August
%, 1901. 1t was plain proposition. made
by man of undoubted responsibility and
of long experience with submarine cables,
to do that which no other private person
had ever offered to do, and which the gov
eminent itself was unwilling to do.
1t had, nevertheless, to encounter opposi-
ton in Congress, and it was not until June
II, 1902, that this opposition was finally
silenced. Undeterred, however. by possible
legislative obstacles. the Commercial Pa
cific Cable Company ordered the construc
ton of the cable, and on the very day on
which the bill was killed which proposed to
commit the government of the United States
to the work of laying a cable across the
Pacific ocean 1t was announced that LOGS
nautical miles of the cable which was to
be laid between San Francisco and Homo
lulu had been manufactured, and that the
work Of making the cable was proceeding
at the rate of twenty-s miles per day.
BY the end of June, 1903, the last section
Of the cable to Manila was landed at Homo
LULU and the entire line from San Francisco
to the Philippine Islands. distance Of over
eight thousand miles, was successfully COM
pieted That is to say, within eighteen
months after the signing of the contract
an enterprise was executed which has no
parallel in the history OF ocean telegraphy.
The route followed is unique for Its lack of
natural stations. and not only traverses the
greatest uninhabited waste OF water on
the globe but has to deal with ocean depths
much greater than any previously encoun-
tered. The message which was sent on
July 4. 1908. by President Roosevelt around
the world by the complet61 line of the
connecting lines between Europe and Asia
went by the Postal Telegraph Company's
land lines from Oyster Bay to San Fran
| cisco. thence by the Commerciaa cable line
to Honolulu, Midway. Guam and Manila.
From Manila to Hongkong the message
passed by the cable which Admiral Dewey
cut In 1898: from Hongkong 1t went to
Saigon, to Singapore. to Penang. to Mad
andria, to Malta, to Gibraltar, to Lisbon, to
the Azores and thence TO Oyster Bay. Be-
tween Hongkong and the Azores the transit
was by foreign cables. and the shortening
of the transpacific communication. both In
respect Of the interruption and Of actual
distance may be inferred from the devious
course which had to be taken by the Pres
idents message in Ats homeward course
from eastern Asia.
I After communication with Manila was
established there remained the task OF ex-
tending the all-AmeIfcAn Pacific cable to
China This was completed by April II OF
supplemented by the extension OF the cable
to Japan. Thus In less than 1--WE years
since the first communication Of Mr.. John
w. Mackay 70 the Secretary Of State the
greatest single ocean cable enterprfse IN
the world has been brought 20 = successful
termination.