The Panama Canal and Asian Immigrants

US Naval strategist Alfred Mayhen was one of the first to suggest building a canal in order to make it easier to people the US West Coast with white Europeans. A canal would allow Europeans to reach Oregon and California without even stepping off the coast in route, thus avoiding contact with savages in the Western Plains or along the Panama Railroad. Asian immigration threatened political efficiency in Mayhen's view because of different ethnic people's ideas. Roosevelt shared Mayhen's thesis, "'No greater calamity could now befall the United States," he said.