The termination of this remarkable address was its most momentous and unexpected announcement. As the President sat down, there was no applause, just a ripple of clapping hands as a half-hearted recognition of an invariable habit. The speech had been utterly robbed of political significance, despoiled of rhetorical or personal emphasis, it failed entirely as the usual thing in public oratory, and it left behind it an oppressive sense of impending changes. The President seemed depressed by his own vaticinations, and those around him, chilled into anxious forebodings, sat stiffly silent and unresponsive. The moment was saved from intolerable embarrassment by the band. The leader stepped forward, waved his baton and the solemn strains of America--the transplanted hymn of England--rose plaintively, like a prayer; to Leacraft it sounded like encouragement, like sympathy. Someone began to sing--hats came off, the guests rose, and the multitude sang. If the Star Spangled Banner had been exultant and triumphant, thronged with the memories of achievement and victory--America throbbed with supplication, and underneath the supplication, the fervor of allegiance, sacrifice and love. The peculiar awkwardness of an unusual, an unique predicament, was removed. The speakers following the President made no allusion to the Canal, and all the marvellous happenings far away in Central America. They led the people’s thought back again to the soil they stood upon, to the memories of a glorious past, to the hopes of the future, the realization of the present tasks, the reiteration of the nation’s wealth and happiness, its strength under misfortune, its illimitable resources. They were successful. The pall of misgivings which the President had invoked was lifted. The band broke out again with reassuring liveliness, and good humour and holiday satisfaction revived. Then came a procession through the Reservation to Big Round Top and back again on the lower ground past the Devil’s Den, and over the Emmetsburg road to Gettysburg, and in the clamorous excitement, the parade of uniforms, the brilliant atmosphere, congratulations and convivial indulgence, all the President’s words became clouded and unreal. And if the Isthmus was covered by water, if the Gulf Stream was deflected, if it meant blight for England, what of it? The United States would only become greater--its magnification would be unquestioned, boundless; the stars in their courses worked for them, and the mutations of the earth’s surface only brought to them unrivalled aptitudes for new chances, for new power.