Panama Gay

Last week the Panama Canal, inland waterway of mighty ships, might well have given a watery chuckle and gurgle; for some profound reason all U. S. officialdom seemed suddenly anxious to view it.

The vanguard of the invaders had already arrived; a group of Congressmen, and no less a personage than Frank W. Stearns, intimate friend and adviser of the President. He looked inquiringly into the limpid water of the canal, sailed for Manhattan after a two-day visit. In the near distance, Vice President Dawes hovered; from Havana he set sail for the canal zone. From Manhattan Secretary of War Dwight Filley Davis, sailed for Porto Rico; he will arrive to inspect the canal just as General Dawes ends his brief visit. What Mr. Stearns and the Congressmen saw, what Vice President Dawes a,nd Secretary Davis expect to see, few could guess. But many knowing U. S. citizens link their holiday interest in the Panama Canal with the facts that Navy officers have declared the canal indefensible in time of war a,nd the rumored plans of a new canal through Nicaragua where Adolfo Diaz sits in the U. S.-protected president's chair.