American History: Panama Breaks With Colombia, Clearing Way for the Panama Canal
19 August 2010
Construction on the Panama Canal in 1913.
BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to the MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.
Theodore Roosevelt became president of the United States at the beginning of the nineteen hundreds. He firmly believed in expanding American power in the world.
To do this, he wanted a strong navy. And he wanted a waterway that would let the navy sail quickly between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Roosevelt decided to build that waterway.
This week in our series, Richard Rael and Maurice Joyce tell the story of the Panama Canal.
RICHARD RAEL: For many years, people had dreamed of building a canal across Central America to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The most likely place was at the thinnest point of land: Panama. Another possible place was to the north: Nicaragua. President Roosevelt appointed a committee to decide which place would be better.
Engineers said it would cost less to complete a canal that had been started in the eighteen eighties in Panama. But, the United States would have to buy the land and building rights from a French company. The price was high: more than one hundred million dollars.
So, the committee decided it would be less costly, overall, to build a canal in Nicaragua. The proposal went to the United States Congress for approval.
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