Lincoln High School - Lincolnite Yearbook (South Bristol, ME)

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Y , Jiirilff' 'T ,--..... M VV.. wi.. , M317 ii , 2, A ' .1r:.- , X.. Y , N ig -:Mgf w- , fi Z 'r ww-V'-'H 4 -it --'...w.f::+.f.'?1:?SE M , -ff'-'Y-'PV 'ff ' VALEDICTORY Parents, teachers, superintendent and school board, schoolmates and friends: As Valedictorian of the Senior Class of 1941, I have chosen for the topic of my essay, The Panama Canal. Perhaps the most stupendous piece of work that has been done in America was the building of the Panama Canal, and of all the stories in the world there are few more enthralling than this. One chapter in this tale tells of man's struggles against two deadly enemies--the Anopheles mosquito which carries the Parasitie that causes Malaria, and the Stegomyia mosquito, the carrier of Yellow Fever. For thousands of years these insects had helped to keep two oceans apart, but at last America beat them, and linked the Pacific with the Atlantic by means of a Canal. Now giant steamships climb a water stairway over the intervening mountains. After the discovery of gold in California in 1849, an American Company built a railroad across the Isthmus. Passengers gladly paid 3525 fare to shorten their sea voyage, and even today, after the construction of the Canal, this railroad -- relocated and rebuilt -- is still of considerable im- portance. Until a few years ago, the kings of Panama were Stegomyia and Anopheles , who had no thrones or gold but held the power of life or death over every person on the Isthmus. For generation after generation they consumed the life blood of the people who lived in this strategic region. Americans have dug the Panama Canal because they profited by the mistakes of Frenchmen who tried and failed. Let us remember their pre- decessors, brave men who faced the disease and death before science had placed in their hands the key to victory. And so this went on for generations, until the great French bacterio- logist, Louis Pasteur -- first set men searching for the invisable enemies of Death at Panama. What Louis Pasteur found was this: Man has against him in his March of Conquest Myriads of smaller creatures which, often before he knows it, poison him and may destroy him. Sometimes these creatures live on a mans body, so that even a harmless insect may carry a poisonous parasite and give it to a man with its sting. This great discovery of Pasteur, if had been made a little while before, would perhaps have saved the lives of all those French- men who died in digging the Canal. The task which the United States had assumed was to cut the two continents in two at the narrow point and let the worlds' ships sail through. It was an army who did the work. Our Regular Army to whom we so often turn to do great tasks Without fear, Flattery or favor. , ' I N ' ,.,-fwl3ff'iFE7i:3- ,wwwmt ,MP M. . -, 5 Q-.. 4' ' r, 5--X , : ,lg ' Y . 'S . J-+ .,.,x, 5. wr 3 wr .lfll If '11 ..'.'fY' .,.,.. .sl-Fc , b hp it 'C , -Q f ,M ifvygliwfsakf ,A ,, .ii ' ' Ks: Sn? R J L. 'F' 5 59

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