But _money_ also counts. Can we defend an expenditure of an additional $100,000,000 or more for objects so remote, and upon a basis of theory and fact so slender and so open to question, when a plan and a project feasible and practicable is before us which will meet all of our needs and the needs of generations to come? Shall we disregard in the building of this canal every principle of a sound national economy and commit ourselves to an enormous waste of funds and to the imposition of needless burdens upon the taxpayers of this nation and upon the commerce of the world? At least $2,000,000 more per annum will be required in additional interest charges, at least $100,000,000 more will be necessary as an original investment. Do we fully realize what that amount of money would do if applied to other national purposes and projects? I want to place on record my convictions and the reasons governing my vote in favor of the minority report for a lock canal across the Isthmus at Panama. I entered upon an investigation of the subject without prejudice or bias and have examined the facts as they have been presented and as they are a matter of record and of history. I have heard or read with care the evidence as it has been presented by the Board of Consulting Engineers and the vast amount of oral testimony before the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Affairs. I am confident that the minority judgment is the better and that it can be more relied upon, because it is strictly in conformity with the entire history of the Isthmian canal project. I am confident that the objections which have been raised against the lock plan are an undue exaggeration of difficulties such as are inherent in every great engineering project, and which, I have not the slightest doubt, will be successfully solved by American engineers, in the light of American experience, exactly as similar difficulties have been solved in many other enterprises of great magnitude.