Atop, pushing out, is Enterprise leading these men westward, on either side a white boy and a colored boy, The Heroes of Tomorrow.
In front marches that stalwart Mother of Tomorrow. It has taken all these Occidentals to produce the work that is coming in the future - the achievements due to the completion of the Panama Canal - therefore, they conjointly express "The Mother of Tomorrow."
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These nations are now marching into the Court of the Universe and are to meet in front of the Tower of Jewels, the symbol of the Panama Canal.
Read now on the Occidental Gateway the magnificent lines by Walt
Whitman:
"Facing west from California's shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves
Toward the house of maternity, the land of migrations look afar,
Look off the shores of my western sea,
The circle almost circled."
Mr. Porter Garnett's excellent explanation you may be glad to read:
"In these transcendent lines we have the poet speaking as the personification and representative of the Aryan race, the race, which, having its origin in the plains of Kashmir, has by virtue of the spirit of conquest, the desire to be seeking what is yet unfound, finally reached the western edge of the American Continent, whence it 'faces west from California's shores' and looks toward the House of Maternity, the Land of Migrations from which it originally sprang."
"It seems hardly possible to conceive of an inscription that embodies such a tremendous thought, and is, at the same time, so appropriate to the purpose for which it is suggested. It comes, moreover, from the poet who above all others represents the spirit of the American people and the ideals of democracy."
You now feel the import of the Occidentals who, with that Aryan spirit,
have with mighty power, such as Hercules alone possessed (as Perham
Nahl's poster tells you) severed two continents and introduced the
Panama Canal.