"The annual report of the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua shows that much costly and necessary preparatory work has been done during the past year in the construction of shops, railroad tracks and harbor piers and breakwaters, and that the work of canal construction has made some progress. I deem it to be a matter of the highest concern to the United States that this canal, connecting the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and giving to us a short water communication between our ports upon those two great seas, should be speedily constructed, and at the smallest practical limit of cost. The gain in freights to the people and the direct saving to the government of the United States in the use of its naval vessels would pay the entire cost of the work within a short series of years. The report of the Secretary of the Navy shows the saving in our naval expenditures which would result. The Senator from Alabama, Mr. Morgan, in his argument upon this subject before the Senate of the last session, did not overestimate the importance of the work when he said that 'The canal is the most important subject now connected with the commercial growth and progress of the United States.'" And in his message of 1892 that: "It is impossible to overestimate the value from every standpoint of this great enterprise, and I hope that there will be time, even in this Congress, to give it an impetus that will insure the early completion of the canal and secure to the United States its proper relation to it when completed." It is sincerely to be hoped that the people of the United States can be convinced of the advisability of extending government aid to this enterprise. It must be admitted that the experience of our government with the Pacific railroads has created a strong prejudice among the masses against such subsidies as were granted to those corporations, but it is probable, with the people on the alert, that Congress would not again permit great impositions to be practiced against the government. When the great advantages to be derived by the people of the United States from the use of this canal and the small outlay required are considered, it would seem to be a wise policy for our government at once to take such steps as are necessary to secure the early completion and the future control of this great international highway. CHAPTER II. THE HISTORY OF RAILROADS.