fundamental condition of all excellence, intimate and profound sympathy with nature. [Cheers.] As regards literature one who is now beginning at any rate to descend the hill of life naturally looks backwards as well as forwards, and we must be becoming conscious that the early part of this century has witnessed in this and other countries what will be remembered in future times as a splendid literary age. [Cheers.] The elder among us have lived in the lifetime of many great men who have passed to their rest-the younger have heard them familiarly spoken of and still have their works in their hands as I trust they will continue to be in the hands of all generations. [Cheers.] I am afraid we cannot hope for literature-it would be contrary to all the experience of former times were we to hope that it should be equally sustained at that extraordinarily high level which belongs, speaking roughly, to the first fifty years after the peace of 1815. That was a great period a great period in England, a great period in Germany, a great period in France, and a great period, too, in Italy. [Cheers.] As I have said, I think we can hardly hope that it should continue on a perfect level at so high an elevation. Undoubtedly the cultivation of literature will ever be dear to the people of this country; but we must remember what is literature, and what is not. In the first place, we should be all agreed that bookmaking is not literature. ["Hear!"] The business of bookmaking I have no doubt may thrive and will be continued upon a constantly extending scale from year to year. But that we may put aside. For my own part if I am to look a little forward, what I anticipate for the remainder of the century is an age not so much of literature proper-not so much of great, permanent and splendid additions to those works in which beauty is embodied as an essential condition of production, but I rather look forward to an age of research. [Cheers.] This is an age of great research-of great research in science, great research in history-an age of research in all the branches of inquiry that throw light upon the former condition whether of our race, or of the world which it inhabits [cheers]; and it may be hoped that, even if the remaining years of the century be not so brilliant as some of its former periods, in the production of works great in themselves, and immortal-still they may add largely to the knowledge of mankind; and if they make such additions to the knowledge of mankind, they will be preparing the materials of a new tone and of new splendors in the realm of literature. There is a sunrise and sunset. There is a transition from the light of the sun to the gentler light of the moon. There is a rest in nature which seems necessary in all her great operations. And so with all the great operations of the human mind. But do not let us despond if we seem to see a diminished efficacy in the production of what is essentially and immortally great. Our sun if hidden is hidden only for a moment. He is like the day-star of Milton: [Cheers.] Which anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore, I rejoice in an occasion like this which draws the attention of the world to topics which illustrate the union of art with literature and of literature with science, because you have a hard race to run, you have a severe competition against the attraction of external pursuits, whether those pursuits take the form of business or pleasure. It is given to you to teach lessons of the utmost importance to mankind, in maintaining the principle that no progress can be real which is not equable, which is not proportionate, which does not develop all the faculties belonging to our nature. [Cheers.] If a great increase of wealth in a country takes place, and with that increase of wealth a powerful stimulus to the invention of mere luxury, that, if it stands alone, is not, never can be, progress. It is only that one-sided development which is but one side of deformity. I hope we shall have no one-sided development. One mode of avoiding it is to teach the doctrine of that sisterhood you have asserted to-day, and confident I am that the good wishes you have expressed on behalf of literature will be reëchoed in behalf of art wherever men of letters are found. [Loud cheers.] GEORGE WASHINGTON GOETHALS THE PANAMA CANAL COMPLETED Address by General Goethals before the Economic Club of New York, March 5, 1914, at a dinner at the Hotel Astor in his honor. Mr. William R. Wilcox, in introducing the speaker said: "Without ostentation or display, free from political intrigue or hint of scandal, with no boastings of what he was going to do, General Goethals has pursued his work, with the results accomplished that command the affectionate regard of all his countrymen and the admiration of the world." Another speech by General Goethals is printed in Volume VIII. I NOTICE that I am down for an address this evening, but I have had no time to prepare anything, and I am going to give you a rambling talk on various matters connected with the Canal, and within the time limit. As the chairman has stated, the preliminary work was that of sanitation and preparation for the construction. In sanitation, the great scourge of the French day was yellow fever, and next to that was the malarial fever, commonly known as the "Chagres" fever. An American by the name of Finley, who had settled in Havana, had advanced a theory that yellow fever was transmitted by the mosquito, but had no means of proving it. Three American surgeons, constituting a board, investigated the matter and demonstrated without question of doubt that the mosquito was the source of infection, determined also the time in which the patient must be bitten by the mosquito in order to inoculate the mosquito, and the period of incubation in the mosquito before which it became dangerous. Many American citizens voluntarily gave up their lives in order to demonstrate this theory, and to them is due the credit for freeing the Isthmus of yellow fever, for it is their rules that have been followed out rigorously on the Isthmus, and which resulted in eliminating the dreaded fever. An Englishman named Ross discovered that the mosquito transmitted malarial fever, and he visited the Isthmus and laid down the rules by which malarial fever can be materially reduced, if not entirely eradicated. On account of the location of the Trans-Isthmian Railroad, and the traffic that has existed across that railroad ever since 1855, the Isthmus has been looked upon as one of the pestholes of the world. The same principles which freed the Isthmus of yellow fever and malaria, applied elsewhere, have met with equal results. The Isthmus is now held up as a model of the work of that character, and one of the lessons learned from it now is that there is no place in the tropics where the white man cannot live and perform work, and from that will result the larger development of small Central and South American countries. When the present Commission went to the Isthmus, the question was up as to whether the government would undertake the work itself, employing its own forces and purchasing its own plant, or whether it should be best given out by contract. The work had been decided upon, bids had been received. It was held that the government could not get the initiative that a private contractor could; that the government could not get the work out of its men that a private contractor can, and that the work could not be done as economically as a private contractor could do it. But seven years' experience on our work has demonstrated that the government has within itself competent men, can secure all the initiative that a private contractor can secure, can produce and organize a construction force equal to, if not better than a private contractor can furnish. The work as it at present stands fully demonstrates that, the cost sheets clearly show the economies effected. Another lesson learned from the Panama Canal, therefore, is that the government, by use of its own forces, can undertake and carry to successful completion any work that it cares to undertake, and so convinced has Congress become of that, that it is now undertaking the construction of an Alaskan railroad. The chairman spoke of the preliminary work that had to be undertaken before the construction was begun. That preliminary work consisted in the building of houses for its employees, the building of a large department store and cold-storage plant, the arrangement for the distribution of supplies, electric light, and water. We had a department store with its branches scattered over the Isthmus, forty-seven miles across; a coldstorage plant for the manufacture of ice, for the storing of meat, which we distribute daily across the Isthmus, for the baking of bread and other necessaries. The Isthmus has been used by the socialists as an example of what socialism will accomplish if socialism prevailed in the United States. It is a case of government ownership, but it is not by any means a socialistic colony. It is an autocratic government where every one is engaged for a specific purpose, where the franchise is not introduced, and if it were introduced the socialistic feature of the Canal would not exist. So far as the Canal itself is concerned, it is practically completed. We are now passing our own boats from one ocean to another and the only interruption is the Cubcaracha slide, practically in the center of Culebra Cut, where we have about thirty feet of water and a channel about a hundred and fifty feet wide. Had the President come to the Isthmus in December, we would have put him through, and would have opened the Canal for commercial vessels. As he didn't come, we concluded we would keep the Canal closed until the slide was entirely removed, which, present indications seem to point, will be July first. We are now beginning the organization of a new government. Until Mr. Roosevelt issued his executive order, the organization was in control of an executive body of seven men. My predecessor experienced difficulties because of the complication that resulted from that faulty arrangement. Congress would not change it, so he cut the Gordian knot, and in spite of the law issued an order by which the authority was concentrated; and it became a one-man power. In the government that is to be established there, there has been considerable discussion as to whether the one-man power should be continued or whether that authority should be exercised by a com |