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Show The Pan-American Railroad. Mr. H. G. Davis in the North American Review Re-view revives the old scheme of a Pan-American railway, which has been agitated off and on for twenty-five years. He wants a railroad from as far north as possible to go to Patagonia. He discusses the business side of the question. The idea is all right enough except for the 1,500 miles between the southern boundary of Mexico and the northern boundary of Colombia. There is no especial sense In trying to build a railroad , through that region for the reason that the work would be most difficult and, second, there would be no corresponding revenue to pay the interest on the Investment. Moreover, both shores of the Central American states have plenty of harbors, I and railroads cannot compete with water navigation naviga-tion over such an area. There is a railroad already al-ready across Guatemala. We think a road would i pay across Nicaragua and another across Honduras, Hon-duras, but they would both be short roads through natural passes, while a north and south road would be simply a fight with the Cordilleras. Cordil-leras. But a practical start for tho railroad would be from the Carrlbean sea south through Venezuela to Buenos Ayres, with a branch road to Montevideo and another to Rio. That would place every country of South America except Guiana and Patagonia in direct touch with the I road, because the road is already nearly across the Andes in Peru and nearly completed between J Buenos Ayres and Santiago, Chill. 1 It is an astonishment to us that the rich men of the United States and that the government of j tho United States are not more interested In that j scheme, for It would mean a peaceable conquest ' of South America. It would mean a place for enterprising en-terprising young Americans to go and build up a ! new empire. The field would cover every indus-1 indus-1 trial opportunity desired. There would be cities j and bridges to build, an unlimited wilderness to redaem, a field for every variety of agriculture known in the tropic and temperate zones, mining min-ing that would appeal directly to the imagination and the ambition of men, chances for unlimited manufactories the redemption of a continent. It would not be very costly. Five thousand miles of road would be enough and ?200,000,000 would built it. Congress is just now discussing the expenditure of $200,000,000 as a loan to San Francisco, and if it can see its way right to make that loan, it would be the grandest thing the government gov-ernment ever did, without taking any risk of losing los-ing a penny. The same amount would give our government Industrial control over a country as large as all Europe. It would make an unlimited field for the young men of the United States and for half the hordes of Immigrants which come to our country annually; it would secure us more new trade than the whole world gives us now, and it would insure peace and take away the last apprehension- that cautious people have lest the vagaries of some countries south may under the Monroe Doctrine Involve us in a great European war. Every business reason prompts the furthering of that enterprise. It would double the prestige of our country, it would indirectly cause the building build-ing of a great merchant marine for the United States, it would do for South America what the railroads from the Missouri river to the Pacific have done for the United States. A road like the Pennsylvania railroad could build and own the road in South America with six years of its profits. prof-its. Then it would own a property vastly more valuable than all its eleven thousands miles in the United States is now worth. In the rush to build universities in the past twenty-five years, it seems reasonably clear that the study of geography and political economy has been neglected, and we suggest to some young man that he r n " year In preparation and then write and pub) a book. We suggest mat he take a ship a. ao to Caracas, that he take with him, if he is not gifted that Way himself, someone some-one who can sketch; that he take with him, too, a statistician and a photographer and a geologist and a miner; that he get an outfit of saddle and pack mules in Caracas, and start southward, that he write up the products and possibilities of Venezuela, and passing out of Venezuela he could go to Bagota, then southward across the head waters of tho Amazon through eastern Bolivia, . then his geologist and miner could get In .their, work In eastern Bolivia in the great silver and gold mines there that have no present outlet. Then picture the wide area of Argentine, Paraguay Para-guay and Uraguay; in Bolivia the party should divide, one going across the country to Rio, making mak-ing notes of Bolivia's mines and its products of the soil, giving the area of all those countries, good pictures of the scenery, making statistics of what could be produced and the probable physical difnculties that the building of a railroad would meet with. The book he could write ought to be an enchanting en-chanting book that would sell to everybody. It would awaken an enthusiasm in this country for the road there that the cautious, conservative monied men would grasp in a moment and pro- ceed with the work. Such a book would . be to ' mo3t people in this country what tho description I Columbus gave of the new world was to the masses of Spain, because while the people of the United States are a bright people and a scholar- 1 ly people and a shrewd business people, there is not one in fifty that can bound a state in South America, not one in fifty that can give the slightest slight-est (idea of the resources' of that country, not one in fifty has any conception of the tremendous area of that country. And tho American people ( are like Indians; there is nothing that teaches ; them so quickly as an object lesson. Tell an average man that we receive so much sugar from Brazil annually, and he has to stop and think which way Brazil is from here, but tell a man that by rail from the Carribean eea is three days' travel he will come to a place as big as the states of New York and Pennsylvania combined, every acrexof which will raise sugar;1 and give him a j little picture of a sugar plantation, and point out i .that in one day's travel from there he can get into ' a great diamond district, and in another day's travel another way- ho can get into the biggest silver mines in the world, and he will begin to figure fig-ure that with that road finished he could leave home and be in the heart of the richest country in the world in a week. And in tho same way tell the capitalists that that road would not cost to exceed $30,000 a mile fully equipped, and that it would have such resources to draw on in flf- teen years as no railroad ever had before, and ho would begin to ask himself if it would not be a good plan, for himself and a few others to build that road as a legacy to leave their children. ' That work ought to be done; it ought to be done by Americans to make South America a i suburb of the United States. o |
