You will
realize that when you realize that the canal will run southeast, not
southwest, and that when you get into the Pacific you will be farther
east then you were when you left the Gulf of Mexico. These things are
significant, therefore, of this, that we are closing one chapter in the
history of the world and are opening another of great, unimaginable
significance.
There is one peculiarity about the history of the Latin-American States
which I am sure they are keenly aware of. You hear of "concessions" to
foreign capitalists in Latin America. You do not hear of concessions to
foreign capitalists in the United States. They are not granted
concessions. They are invited to make investments. The work is ours,
though they are welcome to invest in it. We do not ask them to supply
the capital and do the work. It is an invitation, not a privilege; and
States that are obliged, because their territory does not lie within the
main field of modern enterprise and action, to grant concessions are in
this condition, that foreign interests are apt to dominate their
domestic affairs, a condition of affairs always dangerous and apt to
become intolerable.
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