Panama-Pacific International Exposition

“ The Panama-Pacific Exposition will be different from any that has gone before. Where others have been built on broad, level plains, this one will be located in one of nature's most beautiful natural amphitheaters, with the residential portions of San Francisco and the towns of the surrounding country looking down upon it. The architecture will be of such a nature that will make the "Fair City" indeed a fair city to behold. ”

“ Its successful accomplishment will make Panama the very center of the world's trade; you will stand upon the greatest highway of commerce; more than the ancient glories of the isthmus will be restored; and there lies before you in the future of this successful enterprise wealth, prosperity, the opportunity for education, for cultivation, and for intercourse with all the world such as has never before been brought to any people. The success of the enterprise will unite the far-separated Atlantic and Pacific coasts in my country ”

“ Political stability for the government of Panama is assured by the relations which exist between the United States and the Isthmian Republic, a condition which exists in no other Spanish-American republic. The proximity of the Canal assures a world market. The climate and soil and water supply nature has provided with lavish hand. Sanitation and hygiene have become exact sciences, and the matter of retaining [Pg 100] good health in the tropics is no longer a problem. ”

“ The Panamanians are nothing if not expansively hospitable. On the 4th of December, after we had been on the Isthmus a couple of weeks and while the results of the official negotiations were still, as far as any one knew, “in the lap of the gods,” an ocean steamship was chartered by a company of hosts, and about three hundred guests, the élite of the whole republic, were invited for a picnic party to the Pearl Islands in the Bay of Panama, and a sail out into the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ No Panama hats are made in Panama. In fact, there are no manufactures there of any sort, and therefore, as everything must be imported, there is only a low tariff. As a result, you can sometimes buy Chinese silks or European novelties for less than you would pay in the United States, and there are one or two little shops where genuine Ecuador hats are sold for a quarter of what they would bring in New York. Or, if you are very lucky, you may be able to pick up a necklace of old Spanish goldsmith's work, but there are not many of those left. ”

“ Even if they care nothing for the monuments of their own past, any European hotel-keeper could tell the Panamanians that they would make more money by exhibiting their ruins to American tourists than by tearing them down.
Almost everybody you meet on the streets of Panama wears American ready-made clothing, and there is almost nothing in the stores but cheap American goods. Every year a few ship loads of German-made curios and imitation Panama hats are imported to sell to the tourists. ”

“ Thus over Gatun Lake they flew, over the Chagres River; along the course of Culebra Cut, with its high banks, across the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks on the other side of the isthmus; over Ancon; and finally below them lay clustered the white-robed buildings of Panama itself, with the swelling blue reaches of the big Pacific to the southward and westward, and the bold shore-line of South America to the southeastward. ”

“ All that can comfort the sick, or cheer and enliven them, has been assembled. Every chamber looks out upon the enchanting scenery. The lovely grounds are beautified by flowers, fruits, and shade trees, and cooled by the breezes of the great Pacific, which breaks upon the shore below. Panama and its lovely bay lie before us, and the verdant islands which gem in it, all lying with a common range of the city and of each other, seem tempting prizes for any maritime power.
During the past forty years, England and the United States have endeavored to purchase one or all of them from Colombia. ”

“ Cuba, Porto Rico, and the West Indies generally, as well as Hawaii and the Philippine Islands, in their new character as dependencies of the United States, are brought importantly into the scheme. The enterprise received official endorsement from the Federal Government when Congress in July, 1898, by resolution declared that "A Pan-American Exposition will undoubtedly be of vast benefit to the commercial interests of the countries of North, South and Central America, and it merits the approval of Congress, and of the people of the United States." ”

“ Accounts of the construction and character of the old city represent it to have been builded with much magnificence. All the woods used in building were of the fine native mahoganies, and there were hangings, tapestries, and paintings in the sumptuous houses of the men who became enormously rich from the traffic of the times. Returning ships from Europe brought luxuries as well as necessities, and the gold trade people maintained regular fleets of ships and put Panama in close touch with the life of the age. ”

“ The first city founded by explorers in the New World, the oldest town in America inhabited by white men, the most conglomerate mixture of humanity on earth are in Panama. The bloodiest tale of modern history, the most romantic story of American exploration, the greatest engineering achievement of man all center in Panama. ”

“ Natural productions are as various: the exports include valuable timbers and dye-woods, cinchona bark, coffee, cacao, cotton, and silver ore. Most of the trade is with Britain and the United States. Manufactures are inconsiderable. The mineral wealth is very great, but little wrought. The Panama Railway, from Colon to Panama, connects the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, and is a most important highway of commerce. The people are descendants of Spaniards and Indians; education is meagre, but compulsory; the State Church is Roman Catholic. The capital is Bogotá. ”

“ A living interpretation of a spiritual passion, a social service program with a heart in it, an educational work that will not only teach the curriculum but develop moral character, and intellectual propaganda of good literature, a physical gospel of health and exercise, a recreational life clean and wholesome, a personal moral standard of the New Testament grade—these are what are needed in Panama and, broadly speaking, everywhere else in Latin-America. Once established here they will be felt over a wide reach of the southern world. ”

“ The thoughtful traveler will concede to the Republic of Panama great natural resources and a most happy entrance to the family of nations. It is the especial protégé of the United States and under the watchful care of its patron will be free from the apprehension of misuse, revolution or invasion from without which has kept other Central American governments in a constant state of unrest. ”

“ Panama offers you a splendid field to promote the wise international policy which animates your mind. We being of similar conditions to our Latin American brothers, being linked to your country by the closest ties that can exist between two independent nations, you having the means of exerting decisive influence upon our future life and we being situated in the constant path of universal transit, shall be an evident, shining example of the benefit which your country can confer upon the countries of our race. ”

“ The present prosperity of Panama is due to its large transit trade, which was recently estimated at £15,000,000 a year. The pearl-fisheries, famous at the time of Balboa's visit, have now little value. The narrowest breadth of the isthmus being only thirty miles, there have naturally been many engineering proposals to connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans by a canal. ”

“ They are solid, substantial, and will last for centuries yet; but the natural movement of population, especially in view of the enormous rents demanded in Panama, will be to seek the new city which will grow up as a frame town with elements of stability. Much business is certain to drift to the Canal mouth, some of it in American hands. The mercantile community in the days when Colombia controlled the Isthmus was anything but Colombian. It was West Indian, Italian, Chinese, German, French, American, and English. ”

“ WAITING AT PANAMA. The sad effects of an insane haste to grow rich by chasing gilded shadows, instead of taking the secure path of industry, are exemplified in the fact, that hundreds of our countrymen who have abandoned places of profit for the dazzling placers of speculation, and business, which afforded a decent competency, for wild and uncertain adventure, are now crowding the shore of the Pacific at Panama, with exhausted means and dissipated hopes. ”

“ For an American not too much spoiled with foreign travel the city of Panama is a most entertaining stopping place for a week or more. In what its charm consists it is hard to say. Foreign it is, of course, a complete change from anything within the borders, or for that matter close to the bounds of the United States. But it is not so thorough a specimen of Latin-American city building as Cartagena, its neighbor. Its architecture is admittedly commonplace, the Cathedral itself being interesting mainly because of its antiquity—and it would be modern in old Spain. ”

“ Panama is the oldest city on the American Continent, and has just four hundred and one years of history behind it. It has unquestionably a strong element of the picturesque about it. It is curious to see in America so venerable a church as that of Santa Ana, built in 1560.
From the immensely solid ramparts, built in the actual Pacific, the Pearl Islands are dimly visible. These islands had a personal interest for me. Balboa was the first European to set eyes on the Pacific on September 29, 1513. He had with him one hundred and ninety Spaniards, amongst whom was the famous Pizarro. ”

“ Almost every known race mingles in Panama city, even to Chinese coolies in their umbrella hats and rolled up cotton trousers, delving in rich market gardens on the edges of the town or dog-trotting through the streets under two baskets dancing on the ends of a bamboo pole, till one fancies oneself at times in Singapore or Shanghai. ”

“ There are people who tell us that the basis of national progress is economic and commercial. Given a land with all large resources, we shall perforce have a progressive people. Measured by this standard, Panama should lead all the rest. Her thirteen hundred miles of coast bound a narrow empire, but an empire of wonderful possibilities. ”

“ The cathedral plaza is rather a different matter. Here gather the elite, in numbers on concert nights, and more or less on other fair evenings. The grown-ups sit about on the benches and the children run and play, care-free and comfortable. Well-dressed and content, these are the best of the old native stock that used to live "inside" the walls of Panama that the Spanish king thought he should be able to see. There are usually a few Americans with the crowd, and it is a peaceful and restful family scene. ”

“ If so-called modern science and engineering skill can bring prosperity, then the Isthmus of Panama includes the site of the world's last achievement in engineering, sanitation, and organized efficiency. ”

“ The relations which have existed between the Republic of Panama and the United States have not always proved wholly satisfactory to the Panamans. Like all other tropical Americans, the Panamans profess great admiration for a republican form of government, but the party in power seldom has relished the idea of a full and free accounting of its stewardship at the polls. When the time came for the first national election, the party in power sought to insure its return by the use of tropical-American methods ”

“ When New York and San Francisco and Chicago were inhabited by birds and squirrels Panama was known everywhere. Panama had a century the start of all North America and was the pawn of kings and the gateway of empire before the Pilgrims landed in New England. If there be any advantage in an early start, Panama should have led us all in the race for a commanding position in the New World.
There is much in location. A single foot on Broadway is worth more than a farm in the desert. ”

“ Punta Arenas has no custom house. It is a free port,—a very wise policy considering that its trade is of an international character, selling to the passing ships and buying from them only such articles as are needed for local consumption. The commercial movement reaches $2,250,000 per year, the exports exceeding the imports by $250,000. The export commerce is of wool, hides, tallow, ostrich feathers, foxskins, guanaco and vicuña rugs. The imports are alcohol for the Patagonian Indians, cereals, and general merchandise. The best fur store is kept by a Russian woman. ”

“ The discovery of the Americas was a great epoch in the history of the white man, and threw large areas of fertile and healthy country open to his settlement. The demonstration made at Panama that he can live a healthy life in the tropics will be an equally important milestone in the history of the race, and will throw just as large an area of the earth’s surface open to man’s settlement, and a very much more productive area. ”

“ On the basis of resources and soil and climate and accessibility to market, Panama can support a population many times her present numbers. Her capacity for supporting population from her own products is larger than that of most of the States of the Union, acre for acre. Panama's resources are as good as those of Jamaica or Porto Rico or Cuba. ”