Ceding the Canal-Slowly

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Yet as the U.S. advances on innumerable technological fronts—last week's space shuttle test, for one example—it does not really have to prove its mettle by maintaining "in perpetuity" an achievement of the steam age. Moreover, in adjusting to a changing situation and sharing its accomplishments with the rest of the world, the nation demonstrates skills and ingenuity of a different but no less vital sort. In that sense, the Panama Canal will always be American.