The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1910-11-29
SUPREME EPOCH IN HISTORY
OF MANKIND
BY Benjamin Ide Wheeler.

President University of California.
The opening Of the Panama canal
marks a supreme epoch in the history
Of mankind. The celebration of that
event, if there is to be one, must pay
heed to the historical meaning of what
is being celebrated. Otherwise it will
ali be a perversion, a violence, and a
vanity.
The canal means, first of all, that
our land joins the two ocenas and
looks out Janus-facel towards it's
rights and it's risks on both. Fol- the
exercise of it's rights and the facing OF
its perils it must unite the waters OF
the W oceans. 1t is one nation and
its two oceans must become one high
way. Our existence hitherto has been
shapened by our position on the Allan
tic facing Europe; it is likely that
the coming years in increasing measure
will take their form and color from
our position on the Pacific facing Asia.
The opening of the canal yields its
significance in terms of our nations
new outlook through the Golden Gate
upon the Western ocean,, and it is only
at the Golden Gate that the event can
tell its meaning to the world.
And there is q second consideration.
When Columbus started across the seas
he was seeking, not America, but the
old Orient OF India and China and
their gold and spices. Men had always
desired the East and the gold and the
pepper. There was nothing new
about the object Of search. All that
was new vas the direction. Columbus
went west. Judged in terms OF its
original purpose his voyage was a
total failure. He started for Asia, but
ran upon the long broad dyke of land
we now call the Americas. 1t has cost
more than four centuries for him and
those that swarmed after him to trav-
erse and conquer the hindering dyke
which arose in his path and forbade
him Asia. The opening Of the canal
is the first cutting Of this dyke-the
avenging of Columbus-the end Of the
four-century halt the resumption OF
the advance toward the Orient. 1t
would be a pity and a shame to cele-
brate this event from behind the
bunker. We have been there -four
hundred years. Let us out now into the
open air Of the Pacific.
But there Is q third consideration
W~eightier than all. The civilization
which we inherit, in which we are
shapen and made to be what we are,
and to do what we do, lid its origin
in the valleys OF the Euphrates and the
Nile and on the hillsides OF Syria and
Greece. With its back turned toward
the old Orient Of India and China, it
pushed its way westward around the
globe. 1t passed from Greece to Rome,
to Spain and France and Germany, to
England and to America across the
seas. The opening Of the canal means
that it has entered the Pacific; and
this 10 the area in which the two
world-halves, the Orient and the Oc-
cident, are to stand, no longer back
to back, but face to face, and no man
can forsee the issue thereof. But ev-
cry MAI who sees and thinks, can
know that with the opening Of the
canal the history Of the human races
passes to its last and final phase. Such
an event must be celebrated at a
place where it has signifcance-where
the races meet, where the area, be it
mart or battlefield, is prepared and fix
ed, where the look is straight out west
ward-not averted or askance, but
straight out westward toward the duty
which awaits this nation.