From the Oakland Enquirer, March 24, 1911.

      In Europe I find that the two feats performed by Americans in the last decade that had really made a lasting impression were the digging of the Panama Canal and the sending of the battleship fleet around the world. I naturally take an interest in the Panama Canal, because I started it. There are plenty of other things I started because the time had come, but the Panama Canal wouldn't have been started if I hadn't taken hold of it. Because, gentlemen, if I had followed the general or conservative method, I should have submitted an admirable state paper, occupying a couple of hundred pages detailing the facts to Congress and asked Congress consideration of it, in which there would have been a number of excellent speeches made on the subject in congress and the debate would be proceeding at this moment with great spirit, and the beginning of the canal would be fifty years in the future. . . .

      Fortunately the crisis came when I could begin the work unhampered. I took the Isthmus, started the canal, and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me and in portions of the public press the debate still goes on as to whether or not I acted properly in getting the canal, but while the debate goes on the canal does too and they are welcome to debate me as long as they wish, provided that we can go on with the canal now.