Moreover, we do not want it neutral in a quarrel in which we are involved. The Canal is dug by our money and in our territory and is part of our line of defense. We do not propose to permit its passage by an enemy. That would be strict neutrality indeed, but it would make the Canal a weakness instead of a defense. Without it our Pacific Coast is practically safe from European aggression; our Atlantic coast protected by thousands of miles of ocean from any foe whose naval strength is in the Pacific. To throw open the Canal to our foes as well as to our friends would be like supplying the key to the bank vaults to the cracksmen as well as to the cashier.
Photo by American Press Ass’n
GATUN LAKE, SHOWING SMALL FLOATING ISLANDS
The parallel with the Suez Canal strenuously urged by the advocates of neutrality does not hold. The waterway between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea was not dug as a government enterprise. It was a distinctly commercial enterprise, with its shares listed upon the exchanges and bought and sold in the open market. By the purchase of a majority of those shares the ownership of the Canal passed into the hands of the British government, but all the nations had joined in the international agreement to protect their individual rights before the British ownership was effected. Moreover, Great Britain is by no means content with the safeguards provided by the Constantinople convention, but has planted her great fortresses at Malta and at Aden, near the ends of the Canal, and maintains in the Mediterranean a naval force equal to that of any other two nations. The Caribbean is to be the American Mediterranean, and the visible and effective power of the United States in those waters must be equal, probably vastly superior, to that of England in Europe’s great inland sea.
A SPECTACULAR BLAST
Nor does the existence of a powerful navy, even the material multiplication of our present naval force, obviate to any considerable degree the necessity for powerful forts at either end of the Canal. Our fleet cannot be anchored during the continuance of a war to any one fixed point. The navy is essentially an offensive force, its part in the defense of our country being best performed by keeping the enemy busy defending his own. Farragut said that the best defense against the attack of any enemy is the rapid fire of your own guns. Extend this principle and it appears that the best way to defend our own coasts is to menace those of the enemy. This principle was not applied in our recent war with Spain, but we had not the navy then, and diplomatic considerations further intervened to prevent our employing against Spain’s sea coast cities such vessels as we had. Should we rely wholly on the navy to defend our Canal entrances a mere demonstration against those points would tie up a considerable portion of our floating force, while an enemy’s main fleet might ravage our thickly populated sea coasts.
THE FIRST VIEW OF COLON