Laredo to Panama: The Inter American Highway (1964)

[Music] This is the road. They call it the Interamerican Highway, but it is a colossus of roads, if you will permit. What is a road? A road is many things. First, it is a dream, an idea that man sees, and the vision grows and matures until it is complete, and man's dream comes true. Next, it is a plan. A plan for crossing deserts and conquering mountains and bridging [Music] rivers and hacking through the jungles. And next it is a job. Driving the stakes that mark the route. Clearing the right of way. Pouring the concrete and riveting the steel and rolling the macadam. Making the dream come true. A road is also hope. the hope for the future of a man's country, for his family, for his children, for his neighbor, and for the countries that are fastened together by the road. This is what I would like to tell you about the road. What the road means to us, the people of Central America. What it has done to bring a new life and a brighter future. What it is doing to bring a better understanding between neighboring countries. how it is helping to improve the economy. This too is what a road is made of. This dream began back in the 1880s. First of a railroad linking the two Americas, but it has never been built. Then in the 1920s, a highway was proposed, and in the 1930s, the work was started. From the southern border of Mexico, all of the republics of Central America, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama have built their sections with the cooperation of the United States government through the Bureau of Public Roads. [Music] The road is open now from Laredo, Texas to the Panama [Music] Canal. True, there are some sections that are not paved. But who minds a little dust in the summer and a little mud in the rainy season? The bridges are all in place and the end is now in view. But this does not end the dream. Today you can see and feel what the road means. Alive with people and commerce moving from village to town and town to city and country to country across the borders and through the barriers of time. [Music] The road has brought education for our children and young people. The small schools in the desert areas, the grade schools in the [Music] towns, the colleges and universities in the [Music] cities, and the agricultural colleges that will teach the young men the latest methods of tilling the soil to grow finer crops. coffee, bananas, corn, rice, and beans. This is a fine thing. The road has brought us a future for our children. And we are opening up new territories, new farmlands that since the beginning of time have been deserts and grew only cactus and mosquite. Now we are digging huge irrigation ditches that will carry water to the thirsty land. And new people will come to plant and harvest the rich crops. And a man will not have to scratch a poor piece of land to grow his beans and [Music] corn. And the crops will travel over the highway on packed trains and trucks and buses to the markets in the towns and [Music] cities. This is what the road is bringing. A common market for the produce and products of Central America. And through this common market, help to strengthen the unity of the Western Hemisphere. It does not happen overnight. We have been working 30 years. It will take more time and there are many problems to work out. But you can see it coming. The tops of buses loaded with goods. The large bus terminals, the marketplaces teeming with life and goods and services. With the clatter of people bargaining over prices, the exchange of ideas of cultures, everyone uses the road and everyone's life is affected by it in some way. The women with bundles on their heads. The men and boys with packs on their [Music] backs. The pack trains on their way to [Music] town. The man who drives his cattle from one grazing field to [Music] another. The farms and finaas each in some way is dependent on the road. The sugarcane is harvested and moves to the distillery and the air is heavy with a smell of [Music] rum. The tomatoes are ripe and the carts and trucks line up at the processing plant. [Music] The cotton has been picked and is bailed and travels to the mills to be made into cloth and the cloth into dresses and they will be displayed in the shop windows on the main street in the city. This is the work that the road does. Helping the people move their products from one place to another, from one country to another. This is what the road means to us. We are born along it. Grow up and live. Walk to the next town to court the girls and listen to the band concert. work along it and raise our families. And it's a part of our life and we are part of its [Music] life. The cattle ranches are moving into areas where we could not operate before. Now we can reach the markets over the highway and the trucks carry beef that will be exported to the markets of the world. Trucks. Trucks and buses. These are the modern burrows of the road. Day and night they carry the commerce of the countries. Tankers full of oil and gasoline over the mountains. Cotton and coffee and the many products of the farm and factory. The man with one small truck and the company with a growing fleet are at work. And this means more pesos or ketzers that are a part of the [Music] economy. More service stations and restaurants and motel. This is a new business, a place to fill the gas tank and eat a meal. Not too long ago, they were not so frequent. Today, there are more, and the distance between is not so great. In some places, there is a station on every corner where a few years ago, there was nothing to be seen. The new motel attract the tourist, and this is another new business that will contribute to the prosperity of these countries. [Music] Sometimes it is sad to see the ways of the older generations pass. But we cannot stand in the way of progress. This too is what the highway is bringing. Progress always it is the same. Where the roads are built there you will find that the people progress. that business progresses, that the country progresses. It is communication that brings this and the road is but another means of communication. Where people communicate with each other and their neighbors, there the way of life improves. Too often we think of a road as a strip of pavement that joins two places on a map. But this is for the man who does not turn his head or lift his eyes as he travels. You have only to turn your head to see the wondrous things that come to live along a road. New industry, factories, [Music] hospitals, new lowpriced housing for the working man. [Music] New communities with social centers and playgrounds. These are attracting the more skilled worker. The beer that he brews and is carried over the road in the large trailers makes this possible for his family. He is improving his standard of living. [Music] New factories and [Music] plants, [Music] coffee, [Music] machinery, plastics. These are all along the road. The raw materials and finished products can move more rapidly along the ribbon of pavement. There are many miles of scenic beauty, of course, and there are few billboards to mar the view. [Music] And there are the cities where a man can come to be caught up in the excitement of many people gathered [Music] together. And the city is growing with new tall buildings. And the road is four lanes wide. And we pass over and under other highways that carry this swift city [Music] traffic. People in a hurry on many errands. [Music] We can visit the palaces of art, the cathedrals, define [Music] plazas, and we can pause to let our minds and our souls be refreshed. [Music] The road is now open from Larredo to Panama over 3,000 miles and it has crossed the deserts and conquered the mountains and bridged the rivers and beaten back the jungles. and a caravan of buses drove from Panama to Mexico City in April 1963 to commemorate the opening of the [Music] road. There were fiestas and speeches and warm hand clasps and champagne and traditional greetings by the officials and the smiles and cheers and well-wishes of people. [Music] The people that build the roads and travel the roads and live and work along the roads. These are the people to which their road means so much. But the dreams do not fade. They continue on to tomorrow and tomorrow and beyond. The dream can see what is yet to come. It is good to live in these times, to see the changes that the road has brought. And there is a new dream, the last final link that will truly join the two Americas. The Darian Gap through Colombia. Then we can drive from the Arctic to the southern tip of South America. That is a dream worthy of a colossus. And it will be done. And the generations of the future will ride their bicycles and motor scooters and drive their autos along it. And the buses will be filled with people and produce. And the trucks and trailers will toil up and down the mountains and across the deserts. And the people of Central America will build a better life and have a brighter future as they exchange the wisdom and knowledge and cultures of their countries. And as the road comes to mean more to more people and they communicate, man will draw closer to a better understanding of his neighbor. [Music] What is a road? It is a dream. And men will never stop dreaming of them. Nor will they ever finish building all the roads that are dreamed of. Everybody. [Music]