The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-07-08
CHAPTER XVI:
Our Laxe Suspended.

 AT or until the city of New York INN actually was surrendered did
 the people of the middle and
 far west become startled into a really acute perception of the catas- trophe that had fallen on the whole country.
 Though they were hery with patriot ism and anger, and, though they were giving not only layishly but exEav-5 agantly Of their wealth and men, they were free. unconquered and untouch5 ed They had seen no invader. With a suddenly freshened realization of the hugeness of the country, they had at tained the conviction that there was little danger that any foe possibly could reach them from the Atlantic.
 Their commerce could go and enter through their own ports unimpeded, for happily In this crisis there was no danger threatening from across the Pa etfic. They needed not to fear that they would be taken in the back
 There9ore, though the surrender of Boston had shaken them it had not terrified them The great inland coun try elung to the belief that the army would do something. During the enc myS slow movement through Connecti- cut in the advance toward New York the people of the west remained inspir: ed by that hope, as men in the past ages, str1cken dumb by a darkened heaven and a smoking mountain, sttn chung to the belief that kindly mira cle would interpose to save them. though the earth of their market places was trembling under their feet
 That spiritual self defense with which men armor themselves against inevitable fates had not -sGHen way unz til the administration announced the surrender of the city of New York and it's two great forts, with the statement 'sThe president assumes full respon- sfbfity. After a careful examinat ton of the situation in person he issued or A ders, as commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States, that the army in the field should offer no opposition. 7
 Then the west began to fear with a great fear that it's Pacific coast was not safe after all. 1t thought, ap- paNed, that an enemy so formidable and successful, confronting opposition so futile, might succeed in breaking the defenses of the Panama canal as easily as he had broken the defenses of the Atlantic.
 But the Panama canal was being
 
 held. The United States fleet, having failed to prevent the hostile landing on the New England coast, had turned at once to defend the one vital spot that tt could protect even aga inst superior numbers. That was the Caribbean en- trance to the canal
 It raced there under forced draft, It surprised and destroyed an inferior force of cruisers and battieships that the enemy had stationed there for x blockade. Again it was mathematics. The foe, forced to assure himself against attack on his transports off the New England coast, had held all his powerful ships north of the Amer ican fleet The weaker blockaders in the south, facing guns of superior range, ships of superior speed and su- perior volume of gun fire, went down to destruction without even the satls- faction of biting hard as they died.
 The Panama defenses were perfect. This precious possession was one American possession at least that could be held to the last. Its guns were fully installed. It had ammunition. Its range finding systems and its sys- teIns of fire control were complete. Without the navy it, too, would have been sorely weak in men and would have been open, like Americas conti- mental defenses, to attack from the land. But with the naval forces it was able to hold out.
 CTo Be Continued.)
 FrrTNTrsD n Y nrcr-NS