The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-10-02
MISSOURI SHOWS OUR
CONTINUED from Page -
Complete In Five Years.

| Complete In Five Years.
For over year past We have been
engaged in making the dirt fly in good
| earnest, and the output of the gait
steam shovels has steadily increased.
| 1t is now the rainy season, when work
is mos difficult on the Isthmus, yet in
the month of August last we excavated
over a million and two hundred thou
sand cubic yards of earth and rock,
greater amount than in any previous
| month If we are able to keep up sub
| stantially the rate of progress that
| now obtains we shall finish the actual
| digging within five or six years,
| though when we come to the great
Gatun dam and locks, while there is
| no question as to the work being feas-
| ible, there are several elements enter
ing into the time problem which make
it unwise at present to hazard pro-
phecy in reference thereto.
Now gentlemen, this leads me up to
another matter of national considera-
tion and that is our navy.
Must Have a Big Navy.
This country is definitely committed
to certain fundamental policies-to
the Monroe doctrine, for instance, and
to the duty not only of building, but,
when it is built, of policing and de-
Tending the Panama canal. We have
definitely taken our place among the
great world powers, and it would be
sign of ignoble weakness, having ia
ker. such a place, to shirk it's respon-
sibilities.
Therefore, unless we are willing to
abandon this place, to abandon our in
sistence upon the Monroe doctrine, to
give up the Panama canal, and to be
content to acknowledge ourselves a
weak and timid nation, we must stead
lily build up and maintain a great
fighting navy.
Keep Ships Together.
SO long as our navy is no larger
han at present, it must be considered
as an elementary principle that the
bulk of our battle fleet must always
be kept together When the Panama
canal is built it can be transferred
without difficulty from one part of our
coast to the other; but even before
that canal is built it ought to be thus
transferred to and from from time to
time
In a couple of months our fleet of
great armored ships starts for the
Pacific. California. oregon and Wash
ington have a coast line which is our
coast line just as emphatically as the
| coast line of New York and Maine, of
| Louisiana and Texas.
Among all our citizens there is no
| body of equal size to whom we owe
quite as much as to the officers and
the United States, and l bespeak from
you the fullest and heartiest support,
in the name of our nation and of our
| flag, for the services to which these
men belong.
Control Of Interstate Commerce.
/ believe that the nation has the
whole governmental power over in
| terstate commerce and the widest dis
erection in dealing with that subject;
of course under the express limits pre-
scribed in the constitution for the ex-
ercise of all powers, such for instance
as the condition that due process of
law" shall not be denied.
The nation has no direct power over
purely intrastate commerce, even
where it is conducted by the same
agencies which conduct interstate
commerce. The courts must deter
mine what is national and what is state
commerce. The same reasoning which
sustained the power of congress to
incorporate the United States bank
tends to sustain the power to incor-
ate an Interstate railroad or any other
corporation conducting an interstate
business.
Sovereign for Corporations.
The chief economic question of the
day in this country is to provide a
sovereign for the great corporations
engaged in interstate business: that
is, for the railroads and the interstate
industrial corporations.
At the moment our prime concern
is with the railroads All the most i'm
| portant railroads are no longer state
roads. but instruments of interstate
commerce. Probably IS per cent of
their business is interstate business.
1t is the nation alone which can
with wisdom, justice, and effectiveness
exercise over these interstate railroads
the thorough and complete supervision
which should be exercised.
Shortsighted Railroads.
h. il..co il l.