Here in Florida, the first of the Gulf States which I have visited upon this trip, I wish to say a special word about the Panama Canal. I believe that the canal will be of great benefit to all of our people, but most of all to the States of the South Atlantic, the Gulf and the Pacific Slope. When completed the canal will stand as a monument to this Nation; for it will be the greatest engineering feat ever yet accomplished in the world. It will be a good thing for the world as a whole, and for the people of the Isthmus and of the northern portions of South America in particular. Because of our especial interest in it, and because of the position we occupy on this hemisphere, it is a matter of especial pride to us that our Nation, the American Nation, should have undertaken the performance of this world duty. A body of the most eminent engineers in the world, both Americans and foreigners, has been summoned to advise as to the exact type of canal which should be built. At no distant date I hope to be able to announce what their advice is, and also the action taken upon their advice. Meanwhile the work is already well under way, and has advanced sufficiently far to enable me to announce with certainty that it can surely be accomplished, and probably at rather less expense than was anticipated. But upon the last point, as well as upon the question of time, no positive statement can be made until the report of the commission of engineers as to the exact type of canal has been received. The work is as difficult as it is important; and it is of course inevitable that from time to time difficulties will occur and checks be encountered. Whenever such is the case the men of little faith at home will lose that little faith, and the critics who confound hysteria with emphasis will act after their kind. But our people as a whole possess not only faith, but resolution, and are of too virile fibre to be swept one way or the other by mere sensationalism. No check that may come will be of more than trivial and passing consequence, will inflict any permanent damage, or cause any serious delay. The work can be done, is being done, and will be done. What has already been accomplished is a guaranty as to the future.