The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram., 1913-12-03
MERCHANTS PREPARE
FOR PANAMA CANAL
Steamship Captains Ready
For Opening of Big
Ditch.
FIGURE NEW PROFITS
Optim istic Regarding In
j cr2oao3 Trade With South
| America.

WASHINGTOE, Dec. with the
hour OF the blooming forth of the
new commerce, which the completion
Of the Panama canal will bring into
being, just around the corner of the
calander, rich men, poor men, begger
men, doctors, lawyers and merchants
are busy inquiring into what the re-
tuvenated and reformed trade cendi-
tions will be. Statisticians who delve
among the worlds archives and live
on an exclusive diet Of facts. now are
busy compiling figures as TO what the
canal will achieve.
Those sidc-whiskered, white-spatted,
eagle-eyed merchants and business
men, manufacturers and statesmen
who hourly bend their mightiest eff
forts toward increasing the wealth of
the world, and thereby their own
wealth, are no less active in discov-
ering what miracles the iianama canal
will conjure forth. Those dignified,
pre-occupied, keen-faced men Of the
upper atmosphere of business, the rail
road builders and opera.or and the
promoters of steamship lines are as
sidGously studying the problem.
Figuring New Profits.
Captains of great ocean craft and
masters of tWo-masteC scIOoners and
small tramp steamers are busy figur-
Ing out winds and courses. Sailor
men, stOkers, stewards and cabin boys
are looking up the possibilities of ell
fertainment in new ports, which will
be made frequent ports of call when
the canal holds up it's beckoning fin
ger. And in your city flats and coun-
try cottages the people, the common
people, are busy figuring, TOO.
All of them are figuring with the
enc supreme idea in nina, to-wit:
''What will | gain from the Panama
canal?"
1t is difficult for the people to grasp
the idea of the Panama canal at first
1T is hard 20 realize that this project
the pet idea of the United States, has
become something tangible. Because
the French government and French
private syndicate made attempts to
pierce the Isthmus of Panama and
failed. the project was for long time
considered by Americans to be an i'm
practicable scheme, and because so
many men, sapital and machinery dis
appeared, the men through fever, the
capital through extravaganza, misap-
plication and issue, the machinery
through wear and tear, rust and acci-
be looked upon as constituting a mys-
terious region whittier men and prop
erty went, never to return.
Agitation, the harbinger of achieve
ment, budded in the United States
through the hard labors of such men
as Senator John Tyler Morgan, of AL
ALBANIA, and General Floyd King, of
Louisiana, and the Isthmian Canal
idea blOssOmed forth in spite of for
eign failures. 1t required strong argu-
ment to show the American people
that they could do what France mad
failed to accomplish for it was claim
ed that the pursuit of this Chimera
would be nothing more than an expen-
give wild goose chase. But the dream
ers who in their minds eye, saw the
seas united, won in the end and work
began.
Progress Begins.
There followed reports as to prog
ress and as to disease, death and ever
Increasing cost But those who became
:downcast at reports of temporary fail
ure were outnumbered many times by
those who waxed jubilant at news of
milestones passed in the construction
work. Then came the era Of real pro-
gress. With everything set at full
speed ahead, the human ants dug away
the land and changed the face of the
earth to their liking.
And now that the hour for the first
passage through the Canal is ap-
preaching the people are just begin
ming to awake. Enthusiasm over this
tremendous engineering achievement
Is breaking the shell of its dormancy.
Everybody is looking toward the Pan
ANA Canal. The steamship companies
are making excursion rates so that the
people may visit the great project and
see with their own eyes what genius
and perseverance have done. From
<he rich man who can steam to Colon
In his private yacht to the street-car
conductor or grocery clerk in the
smallsized town, all are anxious to see
and learn more concerning the Canal.