Thus equipped with all necessary international authority for the work of building the canal President Roosevelt plunged with equal vehemence and audacity into the actual constructive work. If he strained to the breaking point the rights of a friendly nation to get his treaty, he afterwards tested even further the elasticity of the power of a President to act without Congressional authority.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood
FRENCH DRY DOCK, CRISTOBAL
We may hastily pass over the steps forward. Mr. Cromwell was paid the $40,000,000 for the French stockholders, and at once there arose a prodigious outcry that the Frenchmen got but little out of it; that their stock had been bought for a few cents on the dollar by speculative Americans; that these Americans had financed the “revolution” and that some of the stock was held by persons very close to the administration. None of these charges was proved, but all left a rather bad impression on the public mind. However the United States received full value for the money. April 28, 1904, Congress appropriated the $10,000,000 due Panama, and with the title thus clear Lieutenant Mark Brooke, U. S. A., at 7:30 A. M. May 4th, formally took over the territory in the name of the United States. An excellent opportunity for pomp and ceremony, for fuss and feathers was thus wasted. There were neither speeches, nor thundering salutes and the hour was obviously unpropitious for champagne. “They order these things better in France,” as “Uncle Toby” was wont to say.
WHAT THE WORK EXPENDED ON THE CANAL MIGHT HAVE DONE
Build a Chinese wall from San Francisco to New York, or dig a ditch 10 feet deep and 55 feet wide across the United States at its widest part
When little more than a decade shall have rolled away after that wasted ceremonial moment the visitor to the Isthmus will gaze upon the greatest completed public work of this or any other past age. To conceive of some task that man may accomplish in future that will exceed in magnitude this one is in itself a tax upon the most vivid imagination. To what great work of the past can we compare this one of the present?
Courtesy Scientific American