An American fleet of warships in the spacious bay of Vera Cruz, only two hundred miles away from Washington, was enabled in 1999 to steam through the canal into the Pacific in only a few hours’ time and proceed to Hawaii and the Orient in short order. This was a great improvement on the “good old days” of 1899 when war vessels and transports, leaving New York to go to Manila, had to crawl around the tempestuous Horn or travel via. Suez.
The construction of the interoceanic canal added greatly to the importance of the new location for our National capital in the State of Mexico. Vera Cruz became the rendezvous of the world’s commerce. The central location of Washington in the State of Mexico, midway between the two great continents, proved an advantageous and commanding one and was eminently satisfactory to all sections of the great American Republic in 1999.
In considering the vast importance of ocean canal navigation to the Americas, it is well to ascertain what became of the Philippine Islands and China in 1999.
In that year of our Lord, the world was practically governed by three great powers. Three Great Powers in 1999. The first and greatest of the trio was the vast American Republic, which in that memorable year extended from Alaska to Patagonia. Next came Great Britain, whose sway was undisputed over the vast continents of India, Africa and Australia, along with valuable islands of the seas, like the articles of a traditional auction bill, “are too numerous to mention.” The third great Power in 1999 was Russia. The ruler of all the Russias was not only Czar of the European and Siberian domains, but he was also crowned at the sacred Kremlin as the Emperor of China. A glance at the map of the world will show that in 1999 Russia was in possession of nearly one-fourth of the globe’s real estate. Not satisfied with this, Russian ambition had designs upon India, intending to employ China as her base of operations. England, however, was always alert and ready to frustrate her designs.
When the nations of Europe in 1898 were carving up China, (even Spain and Italy joining in the scramble for pieces of China-ware,) Russia, her nearest neighbor on the north, was careful to secure the biggest share of the booty. In 1895 Russia saved China from the clutches of Japan, for the philanthropic purpose of doing the stealing act herself. After appropriating China’s best provinces on the north, and profiting by the completion of the Trans-Siberian railroad in the year 1905, Russian influence at the court of Pekin, overshadowed all others. The Chinese, like all other Orientals, believe only what they see. Russia had long been their only neighbor in Siberia but when the great Russian railroad was completed to Port Arthur, in a very short period an army of 450,000 well drilled Russian soldiers was bivouacked near the great wall of China, within rifle shot of Pekin.
Once firmly seated on China’s neck, Russian The Russian Emperor of China. diplomacy moulded the Middle Kingdom as clay in the potter’s hand. Its enormous population obeyed implicitly the Czar’s ukases, and in 1999 China became a Russian province as completely as the Crimea.
Russia, however, had always entertained a warm friendship and cordial regard for the United States of America ever since the rebellion of 1860–65 and her good wishes were reciprocated on the part of all Americans. Russian respect for America became firmer and more binding as the young American Republic attained its enormous dimensions. Russia, great herself, realized that she had a right to be regarded in the same class as our noble country. As an evidence of Russian esteem for America, during the period from 1920 to 1999, Russia granted to Americans special trade privileges in China in which other nations were not permitted to share.
As a result of these generous concessions to Americans our trade with China in 1999 attained gigantic proportions and nine-tenths of it passed through the Nicaragua canal. So important did our Oriental trade become in the twentieth century that the inter-oceanic canal would have been built even though it had been necessary to pave its channel with bricks of gold and silver. American wheat had largely supplanted rice as the staple food of China, and in 1999 the American export of wheat to China was estimated at a value of $95,000,000. America monopolized nearly the entire Chinese trade in farming implements, electrical machines, cotton goods, dyes and chemicals.
As to the Philippines, the trade with that Peace and Prosperity Restored. archipelago was entirely controlled by America. After the proud flag of America had floated one century over those islands, the transformation scene was wonderful. The Filipinos had long learned, after the fall of Aguinaldo, that the American Constitution was broad and big enough to amply protect and to give them that measure of liberty to which all nations are entitled. Long before 1920 they became a docile, patient and laborious people and prospered in an amazing degree. Their exports of hemp, rice and tobacco attained immense proportions and the culture of sugar-cane became so profitable that the Philippines were famed in 1999 as the “Sugar Bowl of the Pacific.” America proved a Godsend to those islands. The names of Dewey, Otis and Lawton were held in high esteem for many centuries after Dewey’s great victory, which awakened America, electrified the world and gave birth to the grandest Republic the world had ever seen.