When any such work is undertaken there are always many mere adventurers who flock to where it is going on, and many men who think they are adventurers, but who are in reality either weak or timid, follow in their footsteps. Some of the first class will now and then cause trouble in one way or another. But every care will be taken to detect any misdeed on their part and to punish them as soon as the misdeed is detected. As for the second class, they will cause trouble chiefly by losing heart, returning home, or writing home, and raising a cry that they are not happy, and that the conditions of life are not easy, or that the work is not being done as they think it ought to be done. Now these men stand just as the stragglers and laggards stand who are ever to be found in the rear of even a victorious army. The veterans of the Civil War who are here present will tell you that the very rear of an army, even when it is victorious, is apt to look and behave as if the victory were defeat. And just the same thing is true in any great enterprise in civil life; there are always weaklings who get trampled down or lose heart, and there are always people who listen to their complaints. They amount to nothing one way or the other, so far as achieving results is concerned; and their complaints and outcries need never detain us. I call your attention specifically to the matter of health on the Isthmus. The climate was supposed to be deadly, and yellow fever, in especial, was supposed to be epidemic. Yet since we have assumed control there has been far less yellow fever than in our own country. The administration is steadily becoming better and more effective, from the hygienic as well as from every other standpoint. The work of building the canal is a great American work, in which the whole American people are interested. It has nothing to do with parties or partisanship, and is being carried on with absolute disregard to all merely political considerations; with regard only to efficiency, honesty, and economy.