The Sentinel=record., 1914-03-04
BIG MEN OF THE NATION MEET TO PAY TRIBUTE TO BUILDER
 OF THE CANAL.
WILSON PRESENTS A MEDAL
Voted Col. Goethas by the National Geographical Society In Honor of His Great AchieVement--Puhli Men Honor Army Engineer.

Washington, March 3.--Washington tonight paid tribute to Col. George Washington Goethals, builder of the Panama canal. The occasion was the annual banquet of the National Geo graphic Society, with Col. Goethals as the guest of honor, and to receive from the hand of President Wilson a special gold medal awarded him by the society in recognition of his won derful achievement
 Secretary Bryan was toastmaster. and gathered about the banquet tab e with distinguished scientists of the society were President Wilson and his cabinet, justices of the supreme court, members cf the diplomatic corps, high officers of the army and navy, lead CTS in both houses of congress and other notable figures in the life of the national capital.
 During the evening Jules ], Jusse- rand, the French ambassador, and dean of the diplomatic corps, was for mally notified of his election to hon. orary membership in the society. The banquet hall presented a strik- ing scene. At one end. raised high | above the table, the words, Atlantic Goethals-Pacific" blazed in brilliant electric letters, as all other lights were eXtinguisaed
 Ice cream was served the diners from miniature dredges carried by walters dressed in the uniform of the United States engineer corps, and fol- lowed by sailors bearing a tiny bat tleship. Individual dishes of cream appeared moulded in the shape of the Panama canal dump car.
 The medal awarded Col Goethls was given as an expression of the ap- preciation of the society and the na- tion of the army engineers distin- guisAed service. It's presentation was the final act of President Wilson's first year as chief executive of the United states
 Inscribed on the medal were the words:
 This medal of the National Geo graphic Society is awarded to George Washington Goethals, to whose abil- ity and patriotism the world owes the construction of the Panama canal, March 8, 1914"
 Presenting the medal, President Will son said:
 "I am here to do what I suppose is an unusual thing for a society of this sort. It generally confefs its honors upon those who have disclosed geography rather than upon those who have altered it. It is a sort of ad- vertiser and custodian of the globe, but it is now about to honor a gen tleman who has had the audacity to change the globe. The engineering profession is one of the few creative professions. Those of us who have attempted to be literary men conceive that we have created conceptions or the mind but we never can produce them in court. They are never visi- bly, upon exhibition. But the magic of the engineer is that he can change the face of nature and show the work of his hands and that it Is In some deep sense creative in character The life of mankind in the globe is al- tered, for exampl. but tn cutting and use of the Panama canal.
 "It fills the imagination to think or what this work will accomplish. It will create new neighbors. It WIT generate new friends, it will make ne atmosphere of rivalry and of gen erous association The hole tendency of the routes of trade will be chang ed and the routes of trade are the routes of enlightenment. Only when neighbors touch one another do they cease to be provincial and look out upon the great tasks of humanity in- stead of co1fining themselves to the relatively selfish tasks of ftheir own domestic development, and is only as we export and import ideas that CIV ilization becomes thoroughly estab- lished.
 We have. therefore, to honor to- night the greatest living representa- tive of this extraordinary profession. It seems to me to be natural, If may say so, with apologies to some of our friends present, that the greatest en- gineer should come from the United States. The United States is not one