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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41807 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 41807-h.htm or 41807-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41807/41807-h/41807-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41807/41807-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      the the Google Books Library Project. See
+      http://www.google.com/books?id=I0X49oGRUYMC&oe
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+      Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PANAMA CANAL
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: The 5 Points of Authority]
+
+The 5 Points of Authority in this Book
+
+
+     1. All of the chapters in this book pertaining to the actual
+     construction of the Canal were read and corrected by Colonel
+     George W. Goethals, Chairman and Chief Engineer of the Isthmian
+     Canal Commission.
+
+     2. All of the illustrations were made from photographs taken by
+     Mr. Ernest Hallen, the official photographer of the Commission.
+
+     3. The book contains the beautiful, colored Bird's-eye View of
+     the Canal Zone, made under the direction of the National
+     Geographic Society, as well as the black-and-white official map
+     of the Canal.
+
+     4. The extensive index was prepared by Mr. G. Thomas Ritchie, of
+     the staff of the Library of Congress.
+
+     5. The final proofs were revised by Mr. Howard E. Sherman, of the
+     Government Printing Office, to conform with the typographical
+     style of the United States Government.
+
+
+"The American Government,"
+
+by the same author, was read by millions of Americans, and still holds
+the record as the world's best seller among all works of its kind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ATLANTIC OCEAN      PACIFIC OCEAN
+
+Courtesy, National Geographic Magazine, Washington, D. C.
+
+BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE PANAMA CANAL
+
+Copyright, 1913, by the J. N. Matthews Co., Buffalo, N. Y.]
+
+
+THE PANAMA CANAL
+
+by
+
+FREDERIC J. HASKIN
+
+Author of "The American Government," etc.
+
+[Illustration: logo]
+
+Illustrated from photographs taken by
+
+ERNEST ALLEN
+
+Official Photographer of the Isthmian Canal Commission
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Garden City      New York
+Doubleday, Page & Company
+1913
+
+Copyright, 1913, by
+Doubleday, Page & Company
+
+All rights reserved, including that of
+translation into foreign languages,
+including the Scandinavian
+
+Press of
+J. J. Little & Ives Co.
+New York
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The primary purpose of this book is to tell the layman the story of
+the Panama Canal. It is written, therefore, in the simplest manner
+possible, considering the technical character of the great engineering
+feat itself, and the involved complexities of the diplomatic history
+attaching to its inception and undertaking. The temptation to turn
+aside into the pleasant paths of the romantic history of ancient
+Panama has been resisted; there is no attempt to dispose of political
+problems that incidentally concern the canal; in short, the book is
+confined to the story of the canal itself, and the things that are
+directly and vitally connected with it.
+
+Colonel Goethals was good enough to read and correct the chapters
+relating to the construction of the canal, and, when shown a list of
+the chapters proposed, he asked that the one headed "The Man at the
+Helm" be omitted. The author felt that to bow to his wishes in that
+matter would be to fail to tell the whole story of the canal, and so
+Colonel Goethals did not read that chapter.
+
+Every American is proud of the great national achievement at Panama.
+If, in the case of the individual, this book is able to supplement
+that pride by an ample fund of knowledge and information, its object
+and purpose will have been attained.
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
+
+
+The grateful acknowledgments of the author are due to Mr. William
+Joseph Showalter for his valuable aid in gathering and preparing the
+material for this book. Acknowledgments are also due to Colonel George
+W. Goethals, chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal
+Commission, for reading and correcting those chapters in the book
+pertaining to the engineering phases of the work; to Mr. Ernest
+Hallen, the official photographer of the Commission, for the
+photographs with which the book is illustrated; to Mr. Gilbert H.
+Grosvenor, editor of the _National Geographic Magazine_, for
+permission to use the bird's-eye view map of the canal; to Mr. G.
+Thomas Ritchie, of the Library of Congress, for assistance in
+preparing the index; and to Mr. Howard E. Sherman, of the Government
+Printing Office, for revising the proofs to conform with the
+typographical style of the United States Government.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                      PAGE
+
+       I. The Land Divided--The World United      3
+
+      II. Greatest Engineering Project           23
+
+     III. Gatun Dam                              32
+
+      IV. The Locks                              45
+
+       V. The Lock Machinery                     57
+
+      VI. Culebra Cut                            70
+
+     VII. Ends of the Canal                      82
+
+    VIII. The Panama Railroad                    93
+
+      IX. Sanitation                            105
+
+       X. The Man at the Helm                   118
+
+      XI. The Organization                      133
+
+     XII. The American Workers                  145
+
+    XIII. The Negro Workers                     154
+
+     XIV. The Commissary                        164
+
+      XV. Life on the Zone                      176
+
+     XVI. Past Isthmian Projects                194
+
+    XVII. The French Failure                    206
+
+   XVIII. Choosing the Panama Route             221
+
+     XIX. Controversy with Colombia             233
+
+      XX. Relations with Panama                 246
+
+     XXI. Canal Zone Government                 256
+
+    XXII. Congress and the Canal                268
+
+   XXIII. Sea Level Canal Impossible            277
+
+    XXIV. Fortifications                        283
+
+     XXV. Fixing the Tolls                      295
+
+    XXVI. The Operating Force                   309
+
+   XXVII. Handling the Traffic                  317
+
+  XXVIII. The Republic of Panama                326
+
+    XXIX. Other Great Canals                    335
+
+     XXX. A New Commercial Map                  347
+
+    XXXI. American Trade Opportunities          358
+
+   XXXII. The Panama-Pacific Exposition         368
+
+
+
+
+THE ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  Birdseye View of the Panama Canal Zone         _Color insert_
+
+                                                    FACING PAGE
+
+  George W. Goethals, Chairman and Chief Engineer            10
+
+  A Street in the City of Panama                             11
+
+  Theodore Roosevelt                                         18
+
+  William Howard Taft                                        18
+
+  Woodrow Wilson                                             18
+
+  Vendors in the Streets of Panama                           19
+
+  A Native Boy Marketing                                     19
+
+  Lieut. Col. W. L. Sibert                                   43
+
+  The Upper Locks at Gatun                                   43
+
+  Toro Point Breakwater                                      43
+
+  Concrete Mixers, Gatun                                     50
+
+  A Center Wall Culvert, Gatun Locks                         50
+
+  The Machinery for Moving a Lock Gate                       51
+
+  Steam Shovels Meeting at Bottom of Culebra Cut             74
+
+  L. K. Rourke                                               74
+
+  The Man-made Canyon at Culebra                             75
+
+  The Disastrous Effects of Slides in Culebra Cut            82
+
+  U. S. Ladder Dredge "Corozal"                              83
+
+  A Mud Bucket of the "Corozal"                              83
+
+  W. G. Comber                                               83
+
+  Col. William C. Gorgas                                    106
+
+  The Hospital Grounds, Ancon                               106
+
+  Lieut. Frederic Mears                                     107
+
+  The Old Panama Railroad                                   107
+
+  Sanitary Drinking Cup                                     114
+
+  Mosquito Oil Drip Barrel                                  114
+
+  Spraying Mosquito Oil                                     114
+
+  Typical Quarters of the Married Laborer                   115
+
+  A Native Hut                                              115
+
+  Maj. Gen. George W. Davis                                 138
+
+  Rear Admiral J. G. Walker                                 138
+
+  Theodore P. Shonts                                        138
+
+  John F. Wallace                                           138
+
+  John F. Stevens                                           138
+
+  Charles E. Magoon                                         138
+
+  Richard Lee Metcalfe                                      139
+
+  Emory R. Johnson                                          139
+
+  Maurice H. Thatcher                                       139
+
+  Joseph Bucklin Bishop                                     139
+
+  H. A. Gudger                                              139
+
+  Joseph C. S. Blackburn                                    139
+
+  Brig. Gen. Carroll A. Devol                               146
+
+  American Living Quarters at Cristobal                     146
+
+  Harry H. Rousseau                                         147
+
+  Lowering a Caisson Section                                147
+
+  John Burke                                                170
+
+  Meal Time at an I. C. C. Kitchen                          170
+
+  Washington Hotel, Colon                                   171
+
+  Major Eugene T. Wilson                                    171
+
+  The Tivoli Hotel, Ancon                                   171
+
+  Floyd C. Freeman                                          178
+
+  I. C. C. Club House at Culebra                            178
+
+  A. Bruce Minear                                           179
+
+  Reading Room in the I. C. C. Club House, Culebra          179
+
+  Col. Chester L. Harding                                   202
+
+  The Gatun Upper Locks                                     202
+
+  Lieut. Col. David D. Gaillard                             203
+
+  Culebra Cut, Showing Cucaracha Slide in Left Center       203
+
+  The Man of Brawn                                          210
+
+  Ferdinand de Lesseps                                      211
+
+  An Old French Excavator Near Tabernilla                   211
+
+  Philippe Bunau-Varilla                                    211
+
+  S. B. Williamson                                          234
+
+  The Lower Gates, Miraflores Locks                         234
+
+  Middle Gates, Miraflores Locks                            235
+
+  H. O. Cole                                                235
+
+  The Pay Car at Culebra                                    242
+
+  Edward J. Williams                                        242
+
+  Uncle Sam's Laundry at Cristobal                          243
+
+  Smoke from Heated Rocks in Culebra Cut                    266
+
+  Tom M. Cooke                                              267
+
+  The Post Office, Ancon                                    267
+
+  A Negro Girl                                              274
+
+  A Martinique Woman                                        274
+
+  San Blas Chief                                            274
+
+  An Indian Girl                                            274
+
+  An Italian                                                274
+
+  A Timekeeper                                              274
+
+  A Spaniard                                                274
+
+  A Negro Boy                                               274
+
+  Testing the Emergency Dam, Gatun Locks                    275
+
+  Col. Harry F. Hodges                                      275
+
+  The Ancon Baseball Park                                   298
+
+  Caleb M. Saville                                          399
+
+  Gatun Spillway from Above and Below                       299
+
+  An Electric Towing Locomotive in Action                   306
+
+  Blowing Up the Second Dike South of Miraflores Locks      307
+
+
+  DIAGRAMS
+
+  A Graphic Illustration of the Material Handled at Panama   25
+
+  A Cross Section of the Gatun Dam                           35
+
+  Plan of the Gatun Dam and Locks                            36
+
+  A Profile Section of the Canal                             40
+
+  From a Model of Pedro Miguel Lock                          48
+
+  A Cross-section of Locks, Giving an Idea of Their Size     49
+
+  One of the 92 Gate-leaf Master Wheels                      64
+
+  A _Mauretania_ in the Locks                                67
+
+  The Effect of Slides                                       72
+
+  Average Shape and Dimensions of Culebra Cut                75
+
+  The _Corozal_ and its Method of Attack                     85
+
+  International Shipping Routes                             351
+
+  A Map Showing Isthmus with the Completed Canal            379
+
+
+
+
+The Panama Canal
+
+"_I have read the chapters in 'The Panama Canal' dealing with the
+engineering features of the Canal and have found them an accurate and
+dependable account of the undertaking._"
+
+                                             GEO. W. GOETHALS.
+
+
+
+
+THE PANAMA CANAL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE LAND DIVIDED--THE WORLD UNITED
+
+
+The Panama Canal is a waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific
+Oceans, cut through the narrow neck of land connecting the continents
+of North and South America. It is the solution of the problem of
+international commerce that became acute in 1452 when the Eastern
+Roman Empire fell before the assaults of the Turks, and the land
+routes to India were closed to Western and Christian Europe.
+
+Forty years after the Crescent supplanted the Cross on the dome of St.
+Sophia in Constantinople, Columbus set sail to seek a western route to
+the Indies. He did not find it, but it was his fortune to set foot on
+the Isthmus of Panama, where, more than four centuries later, the goal
+of his ambition was to be achieved; not by discovery, but by virtue of
+the strength and wealth of a new nation of which he did not dream,
+although its existence is due to his own intrepid courage.
+
+Columbus died not knowing that he had multiplied the world by two, and
+many voyagers after him also vainly sought the longed-for western
+passage. Magellan sought it thousands of leagues to the southward in
+the cold and stormy seas that encircle the Antarctic Continent. Scores
+of mariners sought it to the northward, but only one, Amundsen, in the
+twentieth century, was able to take a ship through the frozen passages
+of the American north seas.
+
+Down the western coast of the new continent from the eternal ice of
+Alaska through the Tropics to the southern snows of Tierra del Fuego,
+the mighty Cordilleras stretch a mountain barrier thousands and
+thousands and thousands of miles.
+
+Where that mountain chain is narrowest, and where its peaks are
+lowest, ships may now go through the Panama Canal. The canal is cut
+through the narrowest part of the Isthmus but one, and through the
+Culebra Mountain, the lowest pass but one, in all that longest,
+mightiest range of mountains. There is a lower place in Nicaragua, and
+a narrower place on the Isthmus east of the canal, but the engineers
+agreed that the route from Colon on the Atlantic to Panama on the
+Pacific through Culebra Mountain was the most practicable.
+
+The canal is 50 miles long. Fifteen miles of it is level with the
+oceans, the rest is higher. Ships are lifted up in giant locks, three
+steps, to sail for more than 30 miles across the continental divide,
+85 feet above the surface of the ocean, then let down by three other
+locks to sea level again. The channel is 300 feet wide at its
+narrowest place, and the locks which form the two gigantic water
+stairways are capable of lifting and lowering the largest ships now
+afloat. A great part of the higher level of the canal is the largest
+artificial lake in the world, made by impounding the waters of the
+Chagres River, thus filling with water the lower levels of the
+section. Another part of the higher level is Culebra Cut, the channel
+cut through the backbone of the continent.
+
+Almost before Columbus died plans were made for cutting such a
+channel. With the beginning of the nineteenth century and the
+introduction of steam navigation, the demand for the canal began to be
+insistent.
+
+Many plans were made, but it remained for the French, on New Year's
+Day of 1880, actually to begin the work. They failed, but not before
+they had accomplished much toward the reduction of Culebra Cut. They
+expended between 1880 and 1904 no less than $300,000,000 in their
+ill-fated efforts.
+
+In 1904 the United States of America undertook the task. In a decade
+it was completed and the Americans had spent, all told, $375,000,000
+in the project.
+
+Because the Atlantic lies east and the Pacific west of the United
+States, one is likely to imagine the canal as a huge ditch cut
+straight across a neck of land from east to west. But it must be
+remembered that South America lies eastward from North America, and
+that the Isthmus connecting the two has its axis east and west. The
+canal, therefore, is cut from the Atlantic south-eastward to the
+Pacific. It lies directly south of Pittsburgh, Pa., and it brings Peru
+and Chile closer to New York than California and Oregon. The first 7
+miles of the canal, beginning at the Atlantic end, run directly south
+and from thence to the Pacific it pursues a serpentine course in a
+southeasterly direction.
+
+At the northern, or Atlantic, terminus are the twin cities of Colon
+and Cristobal, Colon dating from the middle of the nineteenth century
+when the railroad was built across the Isthmus, and Cristobal having
+its beginnings with the French attempt in 1880. At the southern, or
+Pacific, terminus are the twin cities of Panama and Balboa. Panama was
+founded in 1673 after the destruction by Morgan, the buccaneer, of an
+elder city established in 1519. The ruins of the old city stand 5
+miles east of the new, and, since their story is one, it may be said
+that Panama is the oldest city of the Western World. Balboa is yet in
+its swaddling clothes, for it is the new American town destined to be
+the capital of the American territory encompassing the canal.
+
+The waterway is cut through a strip of territory called the Canal
+Zone, which to all intents and purposes is a territory of the United
+States. This zone is 10 miles wide and follows the irregular line of
+the canal, extending 5 miles on either side from the axis of the
+channel. This Canal Zone traverses and separates the territory of the
+Republic of Panama, which includes the whole of the Isthmus, and has
+an area about equal to that of Indiana and a population of 350,000 or
+about that of Washington City. The two chief Panaman cities, Panama
+and Colon, lie within the limits of the Canal Zone, but, by the
+treaty, they are excepted from its government and are an integral part
+of the Republic of Panama, of which the city of Panama is the
+capital. Cristobal and Balboa, although immediately contiguous to
+Colon and Panama, are American towns under the American flag.
+
+The Canal Zone historically and commercially has a record of interest
+and importance longer and more continuous than any other part of the
+New World. Columbus himself founded a settlement here at Nombre de
+Dios; Balboa here discovered the Pacific Ocean; across this narrow
+neck was transported the spoil of the devastated Empire of the Incas;
+here were the ports of call for the Spanish gold-carrying galleons;
+and here centered the activities of the pirates and buccaneers that
+were wont to prey on the commerce of the Spanish Main.
+
+Over this route, on the shoulders of slaves and the back of mules,
+were transported the wares in trade of Spain with its colonies not
+only on the west coasts of the Americas, but with the Philippines.
+
+Not far from Colon was the site of the colony of New Caledonia, the
+disastrous undertaking of the Scotchman, Patterson, who founded the
+Bank of England, to duplicate in America the enormous financial
+success of the East India Company in Asia.
+
+Here in the ancient city of Panama in the early part of the nineteenth
+century assembled the first Pan American conference that gave life to
+the Monroe doctrine and ended the era of European colonization in
+America.
+
+Here was built with infinite labor and terrific toll of life the first
+railroad connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans--a railroad
+less than 50 miles in length, but with perhaps the most interesting
+story in the annals of railroading.
+
+Across this barrier in '49 clambered the American argonauts, seeking
+the newly discovered golden fleeces of California.
+
+This was the theater of the failure of Count de Lesseps, the most
+stupendous financial fiasco in the history of the world.
+
+And this, now, is the site of the most expensive and most successful
+engineering project ever undertaken by human beings.
+
+It cost the French $300,000,000 to fail at Panama where the Americans,
+at the expenditure of $375,000,000, succeeded. And, of the excavation
+done by the French, only $30,000,000 worth was available for the
+purpose of the Americans. That the Americans succeeded where the
+French had failed is not to be assigned to the superiority of the
+American over the French nation. The reasons are to be sought, rather,
+in the underlying purposes of the two undertakings, and in the
+scientific and engineering progress made in the double decade
+intervening between the time when the French failure became apparent
+and the Americans began their work.
+
+In the first place, the French undertook to build the canal as a
+money-making proposition. People in every grade of social and
+industrial life in France contributed from their surpluses and from
+their hard-earned savings money to buy shares in the canal company in
+the hope that it would yield a fabulously rich return. Estimates of
+the costs of the undertaking, made by the engineers, were arbitrarily
+cut down by financiers, with the result that repeated calls were made
+for more money and the shareholders soon found to their dismay that
+they must contribute more and yet more before they could hope for any
+return whatever. From the beginning to the end, the French Canal
+Company was concerned more with problems of promotion and finance than
+with engineering and excavation. As a natural result of this spirit at
+the head of the undertaking the whole course of the project was marred
+by an orgy of graft and corruption such as never had been known. Every
+bit of work was let out by contract, and the contractors uniformly
+paid corrupt tribute to high officers in the company. No watch was set
+on expenditures; everything bought for the canal was bought at prices
+too high; everything it had to sell was practically given away.
+
+In the next place, the French were pitiably at the mercy of the
+diseases of the Tropics. The science of preventive medicine had not
+been sufficiently developed to enable the French to know that
+mosquitoes and filth were enemies that must be conquered and
+controlled before it would be possible successfully to attack the land
+barrier. Yellow fever and malaria killed engineers and common laborers
+alike. The very hospitals, which the French provided for the care of
+the sick, were turned into centers of infection for yellow fever,
+because the beds were set in pans of water which served as ideal
+breeding places for the death-bearing stegomyia.
+
+In this atmosphere of lavish extravagance caused by the financial
+corruption, and in the continual fear of quick and awful death, the
+morals of the French force were broken; there was no determined spirit
+of conquest; interest centered in champagne and women; the canal was
+neglected.
+
+Yet, in spite of this waste, this corruption of money and morals, much
+of the work done by the French was of permanent value to the
+Americans; and without the lessons learned from their bitter
+experience it would have been impossible for the Americans or any
+other people to have completed the canal so quickly and so cheaply.
+
+The Americans brought to the task another spirit. The canal was to be
+constructed not in the hope of making money, but, rather, as a great
+national and popular undertaking, designed to bring the two coasts of
+the great Republic in closer communication for purposes of commerce
+and defense.
+
+The early estimates made by the American engineers were far too low,
+but the French experience had taught the United States to expect such
+an outcome. Indeed, it is doubtful if anybody believed that the first
+estimates would not be doubled or quadrupled before the canal was
+finished.
+
+[Illustration: Signature of George Goethals
+_Chairman and Chief Engineer_]
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN THE CITY OF PANAMA]
+
+The journey of the U. S. S. _Oregon_ around the Horn from Pacific
+waters to the theater of the War with Spain in the Caribbean, in 1898,
+impressed upon the American public the necessity of building the canal
+as a measure of national defense. Commercial interests long had been
+convinced of its necessity as a factor in both national and
+international trade, and, when it was realized that the _Oregon_ would
+have saved 8,000 miles if there had been a canal at Panama, the
+American mind was made up. It determined that the canal should be
+built, whatever the cost.
+
+From the very first there was never any question that the necessary
+money would be forthcoming. It is a fact unprecedented in all
+parliamentary history that all of the appropriations necessary for the
+construction and completion of the Isthmian waterway were made by
+Congress without a word of serious protest.
+
+During the same War with Spain that convinced the United States that
+the canal must be built, a long forward step was taken in the science
+of medicine as concerned with the prevention and control of tropical
+diseases. The theory that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes
+had been proved by a Cuban physician, Dr. Carlos Finley, a score of
+years earlier. An Englishman, Sir Patrick Manson, had first shown that
+disease might be transmitted by the bites of insects, and another
+Englishman, Maj. Roland Ross, had shown that malaria was conveyed by
+mosquitoes. It remained, however, for American army surgeons to
+demonstrate, as they did in Cuba, that yellow fever was transmissible
+only by mosquitoes of the stegomyia variety and by no other means
+whatsoever.
+
+With this knowledge in their possession the Americans were able to do
+what the French were not--to control the chief enemy of mankind in
+torrid climes. In the first years of the work the public, and
+Congress, reflecting its views, were not sufficiently convinced of the
+efficacy of the new scientific discoveries to afford the means for
+putting them into effect. The Isthmian Canal Commission refused to
+honor requisitions for wire screens, believing that they were demanded
+to add to the comfort and luxury of quarters on the Zone, rather than
+for protection against disease. But the outbreak of yellow fever in
+1905 was the occasion for furnishing the Sanitary Department, under
+Col. W. C. Gorgas, with the necessary funds, and thus provided, he
+speedily and completely stamped out the epidemic. From that time on,
+no one questioned the part that sanitation played in the success of
+the project. The cities of Panama and Colon were cleaned up as never
+were tropical cities cleaned before. All the time, every day, men
+fought mosquitoes that the workers in the ditch might not be struck
+down at their labors.
+
+The Americans, too, made mistakes. In the beginning they attempted to
+build the canal under the direction of a commission with headquarters
+in Washington. This commission, at long distance and by methods
+hopelessly involved in red tape, sought to direct the activities of
+the engineer in charge on the Isthmus. The public also was impatient
+with the long time required for preparation and insistently demanded
+that "the dirt begin to fly."
+
+The work was begun in 1904. It proceeded so slowly that two years
+later the chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission asserted that it
+must be let out to a private contractor, this being, in his opinion,
+the only way possible to escape the toils of governmental red tape.
+The then chief engineer, the second man who had held that position
+while fretting under these methods, was opposed to the contract
+system. Bids were asked for, however, but all of them were rejected.
+
+Fortunately, Congress from the beginning had left the President a
+practically free hand in directing the course of the project. Mr.
+Roosevelt reorganized the commission, made Col. George W. Goethals, an
+Army engineer, chairman of the commission and chief engineer of the
+canal. The constitution of the commission was so changed as to leave
+all the power in the hands of the chairman and to lay all of the
+responsibility upon his shoulders.
+
+It was a master stroke of policy, and the event proved the choice of
+the man to be admirable in every way. From the day the Army engineers
+took charge there was never any more delay, never any halt in
+progress, and the only difficulties encountered were those of
+resistant Nature (such as the slides in Culebra Cut) and those of
+misinformed public opinion (such as the absurd criticism of the Gatun
+Dam).
+
+The Americans, too, in the early stages of the work were hampered by
+reason of the fact that the final decision as to whether to build a
+sea-level canal or a lock canal was so long delayed by the conflicting
+views of the partisans of each type in Congress, in the executive
+branches of the Government, and among the engineers. This problem,
+too, was solved by Mr. Roosevelt. He boldly set aside the opinion of
+the majority of the engineers who had been called in consultation on
+the problem, and directed the construction of a lock canal. The wisdom
+of this decision has been so overwhelmingly demonstrated that the
+controversy that once raged so furiously now seems to have been but a
+tiny tempest in an insignificant teapot.
+
+One other feature of the course of events under the American régime at
+Panama must be considered. Graft and corruption had ruined the French;
+the Americans were determined that whether they succeeded or not,
+there should be no scandal. This, indeed, in part explains why there
+was so much apparently useless circumlocution in the early stages of
+the project. Congress, the President, the engineers, all who were in
+responsible position, were determined that there should be no graft.
+There was none.
+
+Not only were the Americans determined that the money voted for the
+canal should be honestly and economically expended, but they were
+determined, also, that the workers on the canal should be well paid
+and well cared for. To this end they paid not only higher wages than
+were current at home for the same work, but they effectively shielded
+the workers from the exactions and extortions of Latin and Oriental
+merchants by establishing a commissary through which the employees
+were furnished wholesome food at reasonable prices--prices lower,
+indeed, than those prevailing at home.
+
+As a result of these things the spirit of the Americans on the Canal
+Zone, from the chairman and chief engineer down to the actual diggers,
+was that of a determination to lay the barrier low, and to complete
+the job well within the limit of time and at the lowest possible cost.
+In this spirit all Americans should rejoice, for it is the highest
+expression of the nearest approach we have made to the ideals upon
+which the Fathers founded our Republic.
+
+It is impossible to leave out of the reckoning, in telling the story
+of the canal, the checkered history of the diplomatic engagements on
+the part of the United States, that have served both to help and to
+hinder the undertaking. What is now the Republic of Panama has been,
+for the greater part of the time since continental Latin America threw
+off the yoke of Spain, a part of that Republic having its capital at
+Bogota, now under the name of Colombia, sometimes under the name of
+New Granada, sometimes a part of a federation including Venezuela and
+Ecuador. The United States, by virtue of the Monroe doctrine, always
+asserted a vague and undefined interest in the local affairs of the
+Isthmus. This was translated into a concrete interest when, in 1846, a
+treaty was made, covering the construction of the railroad across the
+Isthmus, the United States engaging always to keep the transit free
+and open. Great Britain, by virtue of small territorial holdings in
+Central America and of larger claims there, also had a concrete
+interest, which was acknowledged by the United States, in the
+Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, under which a projected canal should be
+neutral under the guarantee of the Governments of the United States
+and Great Britain.
+
+For years the United States was inclined to favor a canal cut through
+Nicaragua, rather than one at Panama, and, after 1898, when the
+American nation had made up its mind to build a canal somewhere, the
+partisans of the Panama and Nicaragua routes waged a bitter
+controversy.
+
+Congress finally decided the issue by giving the President authority
+to construct a canal at Panama, with the proviso that should he be
+unable to negotiate a satisfactory treaty with Colombia, which then
+owned the Isthmus, he should proceed to construct the canal through
+Nicaragua. Under this threat of having the scepter of commercial power
+depart forever from Panama, Colombia negotiated a treaty, known as the
+Hay-Herran treaty, giving the United States the right to construct the
+canal. This treaty, however, failed of ratification by the Colombian
+Congress, with the connivance of the very Colombian President who had
+negotiated it.
+
+But President Roosevelt was most unwilling to accept the alternative
+given him by Congress--that of undertaking the canal at Nicaragua--and
+this unwillingness, to say the least, encouraged a revolution in
+Panama. This revolution separated the Isthmus from the Republic of
+Colombia, and set up the new Republic of Panama. As a matter of fact,
+Panama had had but the slenderest relations with the Bogota
+Government, had been for years in the past an independent State, had
+never ceased to assert its own sovereignty, and had been, indeed, the
+theater of innumerable revolutions.
+
+The part the United States played in encouraging this revolution, the
+fact that the United States authorities prevented the transit of
+Colombian troops over the Panama Railway, and that American marines
+were landed at the time, has led to no end of hostile criticism, not
+to speak of the still pending and unsettled claims made by Colombia
+against the United States. Mr. Roosevelt himself, years after the
+event and in a moment of frankness, declared: "I took Panama, and left
+Congress to debate it later."
+
+Whatever may be the final outcome of our controversy with Colombia, it
+may be confidently predicted that history will justify the coup d'état
+on the theory that Panama was the best possible site for the
+interoceanic canal, and that the rupture of relations between the
+territory of the Isthmus and the Colombian Republic was the best
+possible solution of a confused and tangled problem.
+
+These diplomatic entanglements, however, as the canal is completed,
+leave two international disputes unsettled--the one with Colombia
+about the genesis of the canal undertaking, and the other with Great
+Britain about the terms of its operation.
+
+Congress, in its wisdom, saw fit to exempt American vessels engaged
+exclusively in coastwise trade--that is to say, in trade solely
+between ports of the United States--from payment of tolls in transit
+through the canal. This exemption was protested by Great Britain on
+the ground that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, which took the place of the
+Clayton-Bulwer treaty, provided that the canal should be open to all
+nations on exact and equal terms. The future holds the termination of
+both these disputes.
+
+Congress, that never begrudged an appropriation, indulged in many
+disputes concerning the building and operation of the canal. First,
+there was the controversy as to site, between Nicaragua and Panama.
+Next, came the question as to whether the canal should be at sea level
+or of a lock type. Then there was the question of tolls, and the
+exemption of American coastwise traffic. But, perhaps the most
+acrimonious debates were on the question as to whether or not the
+canal should be fortified. Those who favored fortification won their
+victory, and the canal was made, from a military standpoint, a very
+Gibraltar for the American defense of, and control over, the
+Caribbean. That this was inevitable was assured by two facts: One that
+the trip of the _Oregon_ in 1898 crystallized public sentiment in
+favor of constructing the canal; and the other that the canal itself
+was wrought by Army engineers under the direction of Colonel Goethals.
+Colonel Goethals never for a moment considered the possibility that
+Congress would vote against fortifications, and the whole undertaking
+was carried forward on that basis.
+
+If the military idea, the notion of its necessity as a feature of the
+national defense, was the determining factor in initiating the canal
+project, it remains a fact that its chief use will be commercial, and
+that its money return, whether small or large, nearly all will be
+derived from tolls assessed upon merchant vessels passing through it.
+
+[Illustration: THE THREE PRESIDENTS UNDER WHOSE DIRECTION THE CANAL
+WAS BUILT]
+
+[Illustration: VENDERS IN THE STREETS OF PANAMA]
+
+[Illustration: A NATIVE BOY MARKETING]
+
+The question of the probable traffic the canal will be called upon to
+handle was studied as perhaps no other world-wide problem of
+transportation ever was. Prof. Emory R. Johnson was the student of
+this phase of the question from the beginning to the end. He
+estimates that the canal in the first few years of its operation will
+have a traffic of 10,000,000 tons of shipping each year, and that by
+1975 this will have increased to 80,000,000 tons, the full capacity of
+the canal in its present form. Provision has been made against this
+contingency by the engineers who have so constructed the canal that a
+third set of locks at each end may be constructed at a cost of about
+$25,000,000, and these will be sufficient almost to double the present
+ultimate capacity, and to take care of a larger volume of traffic than
+now can be foreseen.
+
+Americans are interested, first of all, in what the canal will do for
+their own domestic trade. It brings Seattle 7,800 miles nearer to New
+York; San Francisco, 8,800 miles nearer to New Orleans; Honolulu 6,600
+miles nearer to New York than by the Strait of Magellan. Such saving
+in distance for water-borne freight works a great economy, and
+inevitably must have a tremendous effect upon transcontinental
+American commerce.
+
+In foreign commerce, also, some of the distances saved are tremendous.
+For instance, Guayaquil, in Ecuador, is 7,400 miles nearer to New York
+by the canal than by the Strait of Magellan; Yokohama is nearly 4,000
+miles nearer to New York by Panama than by Suez; and Melbourne is
+1,300 miles closer to Liverpool by Panama than by either Suez or the
+Cape of Good Hope. Curiously enough, the distance from Manila to New
+York, by way of Suez and Panama, is almost the same, the difference in
+favor of Panama being only 41 miles out of a total of 11,548 miles.
+The difference in distance from Hongkong to New York by the two
+canals is even less, being only 18 miles, this slight advantage
+favoring Suez.
+
+But it is not by measure of distances that the effect of the canal on
+international commerce may be measured. It spells the development of
+the all but untouched western coast of South America and Mexico. It
+means a tremendous up-building of foreign commerce in our own
+Mississippi Valley and Gulf States. It means an unprecedented
+commercial and industrial awakening in the States of our Pacific coast
+and the Provinces of Western Canada.
+
+While it was not projected as a money-making proposition, it will pay
+for its maintenance and a slight return upon the money invested
+from the beginning, and in a score of years will be not only
+self-supporting, but will yield a sufficient income to provide for the
+amortization of its capital in a hundred years.
+
+The story of how this titanic work was undertaken, of how it
+progressed, and of how it was crowned with success, is a story without
+a parallel in the annals of man. The canal itself, as Ambassador Bryce
+has said, is the greatest liberty man has ever taken with nature.
+
+Its digging was a steady and progressive victory over sullen and
+resistant nature. The ditch through Culebra Mountain was eaten out by
+huge steam shovels of such mechanical perfection that they seemed
+almost to be alive, almost to know what they were doing. The rocks and
+earth they bit out of the mountain side were carried away by trains
+operating in a system of such skill that it is the admiration of all
+the transportation world, for the problem of disposing of the
+excavated material was even greater than that of taking it out.
+
+The control of the torrential Chagres River by the Gatun Dam, changing
+the river from the chief menace of the canal to its essential and
+salient feature, was no less an undertaking. And, long after Gatun Dam
+and Culebra Cut cease to be marvels, long after the Panama Canal
+becomes as much a matter of course as the Suez Canal, men still will
+be thrilled and impressed by the wonderful machinery of the
+locks--those great water stairways, operated by machinery as ingenious
+as gigantic, and holding in check with their mighty gates such floods
+as never elsewhere have been impounded.
+
+It is a wonderful story that this book is undertaking to tell. There
+will be much in it of engineering feats and accomplishments, because
+its subject is the greatest of all engineering accomplishments. There
+will be much in it of the things that were done at Panama during the
+period of construction, for never were such things done before. There
+will be much in it of the history of how and why the American
+Government came to undertake the work, for nothing is of greater
+importance. There will be something in it of the future, looking with
+conservatism and care as far ahead as may be, to outline what the
+completion of this canal will mean not only for the people of the
+United States, but for the people of all the world.
+
+Much that might be written of the romantic history of the Isthmian
+territory--tales of discoverers and conquistadores, wild tales of
+pirates and buccaneers, serio-comic narratives of intrigue and
+revolution--is left out of this book, because, while it is
+interesting, it now belongs to that antiquity which boasts of many,
+many books; and this volume is to tell not of Panama, but of the
+Panama Canal--on the threshold of its story, fitted by a noble birth
+for a noble destiny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+GREATEST ENGINEERING PROJECT
+
+
+The Panama Canal is the greatest engineering project of all history.
+There is more than the patriotic prejudice of a people proud of their
+own achievements behind this assertion. Men of all nations concede it
+without question, and felicitate the United States upon the remarkable
+success with which it has been carried out. So distinguished an
+authority as the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, late British ambassador to
+Washington, and a man not less famous in the world of letters than
+successful in the field of diplomacy, declared before the National
+Geographic Society that not only is the Panama Canal the greatest
+undertaking of the past or the present but that even the future seems
+destined never to offer any land-dividing, world-uniting project
+comparable to it in magnitude or consequence.
+
+We are told that the excavations total 232,000,000 cubic yards; that
+the Gatun Dam contains 21,000,000 cubic yards of material; and that
+the locks and spillways required the laying of some 4,500,000 cubic
+yards of concrete. But if one is to realize the meaning of this he
+must get out of the realm of cubic yards and into the region of
+concrete comparisons. Every one is familiar with the size and shape of
+the Washington Monument. With its base of 55 feet square and its
+height of 555 feet, it is one of the most imposing of all the hand
+reared structures of the earth. Yet the material excavated from the
+big waterway at Panama represents 5,840 such solid-built shafts.
+Placed in a row with base touching base they would traverse the entire
+Isthmus and reach 10 miles beyond deep water in the two oceans at
+Panama. Placed in a square with base touching base they would cover an
+area of 475 acres. If all the material were placed in one solid shaft
+with a base as large as the average city block, it would tower nearly
+100,000 feet in the air.
+
+Another illustration of the magnitude of the quantity of material
+excavated at Panama may be had from a comparison with the pyramid of
+Cheops, of which noble pile some one has said that "All things fear
+Time, but Time fears only Cheops." We are told that it required a
+hundred thousand men 10 years to make ready for the building of that
+great structure, and 20 years more to build it. There were times at
+Panama when, in 26 working days, more material was removed from the
+canal than was required to build Cheops, and from first to last the
+Americans removed material enough to build sixty-odd pyramids such as
+Cheops. Were it all placed in one such structure, with a base as large
+as that of Cheops, the apex would tower higher into the sky than the
+loftiest mountain on the face of the earth.
+
+Still another way of arriving at a true conception of the work of
+digging the big waterway is to consider that enough material had to be
+removed by the Americans to make a tunnel through the earth at the
+equator more than 12 feet square.
+
+[Illustration: A GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF THE MATERIAL HANDLED AT
+PANAMA]
+
+But perhaps the comparison that will best illustrate the immensity of
+the task of digging the ditch is that of the big Lidgerwood dirt car,
+on which so much of the spoil has been hauled away. Each car holds
+about 20 cubic yards of dirt, and 21 cars make a train. The material
+removed from the canal would fill a string of these cars reaching
+about three and a half times around the earth, and it would take a
+string of Panama Railroad engines reaching almost from New York to
+Honolulu to move them.
+
+Yet all these comparisons have taken account of the excavations only.
+The construction of the Panama Canal represents much besides digging a
+ditch, for there were some immense structures to erect. Principal
+among these, so far as magnitude is concerned, was the Gatun Dam, that
+big ridge of earth a mile and a half long, half a mile thick at the
+base, and 105 feet high. It contains some 21,000,000 cubic yards of
+material, enough to build more than 500 solid shafts like the
+Washington Monument. Then there was the dam at Pedro Miguel--"Peter
+Magill," as the irreverent boys of Panama christened it--and another
+at Miraflores, each of them small in comparison with the great
+embankment at Gatun, but together containing as much material as 70
+solid shafts like our Washington Monument.
+
+Besides these structures there still remain the locks and spillways,
+with their four and a half million cubic yards of concrete and their
+hundreds and thousands of tons of steel.
+
+With all these astonishing comparisons in mind, is it strange that the
+digging of the Panama Canal is the world's greatest engineering
+project? Are they not enough to stamp it as the greatest single
+achievement in human history? Yet even they, pregnant of meaning as
+they are, fail to reveal the full and true proportions of the work of
+our illustrious army of canal diggers. They tell nothing of the
+difficulties which were overcome--difficulties before which the
+bravest spirit might have quailed.
+
+When the engineers laid out the present project, they calculated that
+103,000,000 cubic yards of material would have to be excavated, and
+predicted that the canal diggers would remove that much in nine years.
+Since that time the amount of material to be taken out has increased
+from one cause or another until it now stands at more than double the
+original estimate. At one time there was an increase for widening the
+Culebra Cut by 50 per cent. At another time there was an increase to
+take care of the 225 acres of slides that were pouring into the big
+ditch like glaciers. At still another time there was an increase for
+the creation of a small lake between the locks at Pedro Miguel and
+Miraflores. At yet another time it was found that the Chagres River
+and the currents of the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans were
+depositing large quantities of silt and mud in the canal, and this
+again raised the total amount of material to be excavated. But none of
+these unforeseen obstacles and additional burdens dismayed the
+engineers. They simply attacked their problem with renewed zeal and
+quickened energy, with the result that they excavated in seven years
+of actual operations more than twice as much material as they were
+expected to excavate in nine years. In other words, the material to be
+removed was increased 125 per cent and yet the canal was opened at
+least 12 months ahead of the time predicted.
+
+How this unprecedented efficiency was developed forms in itself a
+remarkable story of achievement. The engineers met with insistent
+demands that they "make the dirt fly." The people had seen many months
+of preparation, but they had no patience with that; they wanted to see
+the ditch begin to deepen. It was a critical stage in the history of
+the project. If the dirt should fail to fly public sentiment would
+turn away from the canal.
+
+So John F. Stevens addressed himself to making it fly. Before he left
+he had brought the monthly output almost up to the million yard mark.
+When that mark was passed the President of the United States, on
+behalf of himself and the nation, sent a congratulatory message to the
+canal army. Many people asserted that it was nothing but a burst of
+speed; but the canal diggers squared themselves for a still higher
+record. They forced up the mark to two million a month, and
+straightway used that as a rallying point from which to charge the
+heights three million. Once again the standard was raised; "four
+million" became the slogan. Wherever that slogan was flashed upon a
+Y.M.C.A. stereoptican screen there was cheering--cheering that
+expressed a determined purpose. Finally, when March, 1909, came around
+all hands went to work with set jaws, and for the only time in the
+history of the world, there was excavated on a single project,
+4,000,000 cubic yards of material in one month.
+
+With the dirt moving, came the question of the cost of making it fly.
+By eliminating a bit of lost motion here and taking up a bit of waste
+there, even with the price of skilled labor fully 50 per cent higher
+on the Isthmus than in the States, unit costs were sent down to
+surprisingly low levels. For instance, in 1908 it was costing 11-1/2
+cents a cubic yard to operate a steam shovel; in 1911 this had been
+forced down to 8-7/8 cents a yard. In 1908 more than 18-1/2 cents were
+expended to haul a cubic yard of spoil 8 miles; in 1911 a cubic yard
+was hauled 12 miles for a little more than 15-1/5 cents.
+
+Some of the efficiency results were astonishing. To illustrate: One
+would think that the working power of a ton of dynamite would be as
+great at one time as another; and yet the average ton of dynamite in
+1911 did just twice as much work as in 1908. No less than $50,000 a
+month was saved by shaking out cement bags.
+
+It was this wonderful efficiency that enabled the United States to
+build the canal for $375,000,000 when without it the cost might have
+reached $600,000,000. In 1908, after the army had been going at
+regulation double-quick for a year, a board was appointed to estimate
+just how much material would have to be taken out, and how much it
+would cost. That board estimated that the project as then planned
+would require the excavation of 135,000,000 cubic yards of material,
+and that the total cost of the canal as then contemplated would be
+$375,000,000. Also it was estimated that the canal would be completed
+by January 1, 1915. After that time the amount of material to be
+excavated was increased by 97,000,000 cubic yards, and yet so great
+was the efficiency developed that the savings effected permitted that
+great excess of material to be removed without the additional expense
+of a single penny above the estimates of 1908, and in less time than
+was forecast.
+
+Although the difficulties that beset the canal diggers were such as
+engineers never before encountered, they were met and brushed aside,
+and all the world's engineering records were smashed into smithereens.
+It required 20 years to build the Suez Canal, through a comparatively
+dry and sandy region. When the work at Panama was at its height the
+United States was excavating the equivalent of a Suez Canal every 15
+months. Likewise it required many years to complete the Manchester
+Ship Canal between Liverpool and Manchester, a distance of 35 miles.
+This canal cost so much more than was estimated that money was raised
+for its completion only with the greatest difficulty. Yet at Panama
+the Americans dug four duplicates of the Manchester Ship Canal in five
+years. All of this was done in spite of the fact that they had to work
+in a moist, hot, enervating climate where for nine months in a year
+the air seems filled with moisture to the point of saturation, and
+where, for more than half the length of the great ditch, the annual
+rainfall often amounts to as much as 10 feet--all of this falling in
+the nine months of the wet season.
+
+A few comparisons outside of the construction itself will serve to
+illustrate the tremendous proportions of the work. Paper money was not
+handled at all in paying off the canal army. It took three days to pay
+off the force with American gold and Panaman silver. When pay day was
+over there had been given into the hands of the Americans, and thrown
+into the hats of the Spaniards and West Indian negroes, 1,600 pounds
+of gold and 24 tons of silver. When it is remembered that this
+performance was repeated every month for seven years, one may imagine
+the enormous outlay of money for labor.
+
+The commissary also illustrates the magnitude of the work. Five
+million loaves of bread, a hundred thousand pounds of cheese, more
+than 9,000,000 pounds of meat, half a million pounds of poultry, more
+than a thousand carloads of ice, more than a million pounds of onions,
+half a million pounds of butter--these are some of the items handled
+in a single year.
+
+Wherever one turns he finds things which furnish collateral evidence
+of the magnitude of the work. The Sanitary Department used each year
+150,000 gallons of mosquito oil, distributed thousands of pounds of
+quinine, cut and burned millions of square yards of brush, and spent
+half a million dollars for hospital maintenance.
+
+No other great engineering project has allowed such a remarkable
+"margin of safety"--the engineering term for doing things better than
+they need to be done. The engineers who dug the canal took nothing for
+granted. No rule of physics was so plain or so obvious as to escape
+actual physical proof before its acceptance, when such proof was
+possible. No one who knows how the engineers approached the subject,
+how they resolved every doubt on the side of safety, and how they kept
+so far away from the danger line as actually to make their precaution
+seem excessive can doubt that the Panama Canal will go down in history
+as the most thorough as well as the most extensive piece of
+engineering in the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+GATUN DAM
+
+
+The key to the whole Panama Canal is Gatun Dam, that great mass of
+earth that impounds the waters of the Chagres River, makes of the
+central portion of the canal a great navigable lake with its surface
+85 feet above the level of the sea, and, in short, renders practicable
+the operation of a lock type of canal across the Isthmus.
+
+Around no other structure in the history of engineering did the fires
+of controversy rage so furiously and so persistently as they raged for
+several years around Gatun Dam. It was attacked on this side and that;
+its foundations were pronounced bad and its superstructure not
+watertight. Doubt as to the stability of such a structure led some of
+the members of the Board of Consulting Engineers to recommend a
+sea-level canal. Further examination of the site and experimentation
+with the materials of which it was proposed to construct it, showed
+the engineers that it was safe as to site and satisfactory as to
+superstructure. The country had about accepted their conclusions,
+when, in the fall of 1908, there was a very heavy rain on the Isthmus,
+and some stone which had been deposited on the soil on the upstream
+toe of the dam, sank out of sight--just as the engineers expected it
+to do. A story thereupon was sent to the States announcing that the
+Gatun Dam had given way and that the Chagres River was rushing
+unrestrained through it to the sea. The public never stopped to recall
+that the dam was not yet there to give way, or to inquire exactly what
+had happened, and a wave of public distrust swept over the country.
+
+To make absolutely certain that everything was all right, and to
+restore the confidence of the people in the big project, President
+Roosevelt selected the best board of engineers he could find and sent
+them to the Isthmus in company with President-elect Taft to see
+exactly what was the situation at Gatun.
+
+They examined the site, they examined the material, they examined the
+evidence in Colonel Goethal's hands. When they got through they
+announced that they had only one serious criticism to make of the dam
+as proposed. "It is not necessary to tie a horse with a log chain to
+make sure he can not break away," observed one of them, "a smaller
+chain would serve just as well." And so they recommended that the
+crest of the dam be lowered from 135 feet to 115 feet. Still later
+this was cut to 105 feet. They found that the underground river whose
+existence was urged by all who opposed a lock canal, flowed nowhere
+save in the fertile valleys of imagination. The engineers had known
+this a long time, but out of deference to the doubters they had
+decided to drive a lot of interlocking sheet piling across the Chagres
+Valley. "What's the use trying to stop a river that does not exist?"
+queried the engineers, and so the sheet piling was omitted.
+
+As a matter of fact, Gatun Dam proved the happiest surprise of the
+whole waterway. In every particular it more than fulfilled the most
+optimistic prophecies of the engineers. They said that what little
+seepage there would be would not hurt anything; the dam answered by
+showing no seepage at all. They said that the hydraulic core would be
+practically impervious; it proved absolutely so. Where it was once
+believed that Gatun Dam would be the hardest task on the Isthmus it
+proved to be the easiest. Culebra Cut exchanged places with it in that
+regard.
+
+Gatun Dam contains nearly 22,000,000 cubic yards of material. Assuming
+that it takes two horses to pull a cubic yard of material it would
+require twice as many horses as there are in the United States to move
+the dam were it put on wheels. Loaded into ordinary two-horse dirt
+wagons it would make a procession of them some 80,000 miles long. The
+dam is a mile and a half long, a half mile thick at the base, 300 feet
+thick at the water line, and 100 feet thick at the crest. Its height
+is 105 feet.
+
+Yet in spite of its vast dimensions it is the most inconspicuous
+object in the landscape. Grown over with dense tropical vegetation it
+looks little more conspicuous than a gradual rise in the surface of
+the earth. Passengers passing Gatun on the Panama Railroad scarcely
+recognize the dam as such when they see it, so gradual are its slopes.
+An excellent idea of the gentle incline of the dam may be had by
+referring to the accompanying figure, which shows the outlines of a
+cross section of the dam.
+
+The materials of which it is constructed are also shown there.
+Starting on the upstream side there is a section made of solid
+material from Culebra Cut. Beyond this is the upstream toe of the dam,
+which is made of the best rock in the Culebra Cut. After this comes
+the hydraulic fill. This material is a mixture of sand and clay which,
+when it dries out thoroughly, is compact and absolutely impervious to
+water. It was secured from the river channel and pumped with great
+20-inch centrifugal pumps into the central portion of the dam, where a
+veritable pond was formed; the heavier materials settled to the
+bottom, forming layer after layer of the core, while the lighter
+particles, together with the water, passed off through drain pipes. In
+this way the water was not only the hod carrier of the dam
+construction, but the stone mason as well. Where there was the tiniest
+open space, even between two grains of sand, the water found it and
+slipped in as many small particles as were necessary to stop it up.
+
+[Illustration: A CROSS-SECTION OF THE GATUN DAM]
+
+Above the hydraulic fill on the upstream side is a layer of solid
+material, while that part of the face of the dam exposed to wave
+action is covered with heavy rock. The same is true of the crest. On
+the downstream half of the dam there is approximately 400 feet of
+hydraulic fill, then 400 feet of solid fill, then a 30-foot toe, and
+then ordinary excavated material.
+
+The Chagres Valley is a wide one until it reaches Gatun. Here it
+narrows down to a mile and a half. It is across this valley that the
+Gatun Dam is thrown in opposition to the seaward journey of the
+Chagres waters. At the halfway point across the valley there was a
+little hill almost entirely of solid rock. It happened to be planted
+exactly at the place the engineers needed it. Here they could erect
+their spillway for the control of the water in the lake above.
+
+[Illustration: GATUN LAKE PLAN OF THE GATUN DAM AND LOCKS]
+
+The regulation of the water level in Gatun Lake is no small task, for
+the Chagres is one of the world's moodiest streams. At times it is a
+peaceful, leisurely stream of some 2 feet in depth, while at other
+times it becomes a wild, roaring, torrential river of magnificent
+proportions. Sometimes it reaches such high stages that it sends a
+million gallons of water to the sea between the ticks of a clock.
+
+In controlling the Chagres, the engineers again took what on any
+private work would have been regarded as absurd precaution. In the
+first place, Gatun Lake will be so big that the Chagres can break
+every record it heretofore has set, both for momentary high water and
+for sustained high water, and still, with no water being let out of
+the lake, it can continue to flow that way for a day and a half
+without disturbing things at all. It could flow for two days before
+any serious damage could be done. Thus the canal force might be off
+duty for some 45 hours, with the outlet closed, before any really
+serious damage could be done by the rampage of the river.
+
+But of course no one supposes that it would be humanly possible that
+two such contingencies as the highest water ever known, and everybody
+asleep at their posts for two days, could happen together. When the
+water in the lake reached its normal level of 87 feet the spillway
+gates would be opened, and, if necessary, it would begin to discharge
+145,000 feet of water a second. This is 17,000 feet more than the
+record for sustained flow heretofore set by the Chagres. But if it
+were found that even this was inadequate the culverts in the locks
+could be brought into play, and with them the full discharge would be
+brought up to 194,000 feet a second, or 57,000 more than the Chagres
+has ever brought down. But suppose even this would not suffice to take
+care of the floods of the Chagres? The spillway is so arranged that as
+the level of the water in the lake rises the discharging capacity
+increases. With the spillway open, even if the Chagres were to double
+its record for continued high water, it would take many days to bring
+the lake level up to the danger point--92 feet. When it reached that
+height the spillway would have a capacity of 222,000 feet, which, with
+the aid of the big lock culverts, would bring the total discharge up
+to 262,000 feet a second--only 12,000 cubic feet less than double the
+highest known flow of the Chagres.
+
+But this is only characteristic of what one sees everywhere. Whether
+it be in making a spillway that would accommodate two rivers like the
+Chagres instead of one, or in building dams with 63 pounds of weight
+for every pound of pressure against it, or yet in building lock gates
+which will bear several times the maximum weight that can ever be
+brought against them, the work at Panama was done with the intent to
+provide against every possible contingency.
+
+The spillway through which the surplus waters of Gatun Lake will be
+let down to the sea level, is a large semicircular concrete dam
+structure with the outside curve upstream and the inside curve
+downstream. Projecting above the dam are 13 piers and 2 abutments,
+which divide it into 14 openings, each of them 45 feet wide. These
+openings are closed by huge steel gates, 45 feet wide, 20 feet high,
+and weighing 42 tons each. They are mounted on roller bearings,
+suspended from above, and are operated by electricity. They work in
+huge frames just as a window slides up and down in its frame. Each
+gate is independent of the others, and the amount of water permitted
+to go over the spillway dam thus can be regulated at will.
+
+When a huge volume of water like a million gallons a second is to be
+let down a distance of about 60 feet, it may be imagined that unless
+some means are found to hold it back and let it descend easily, by the
+time it would reach the bottom it would be transformed into a thousand
+furies of energy. Therefore, the spillway dam has been made
+semicircular, with the outside lines pointing up into the lake and the
+inside lines downstream, so that as the water runs through the
+openings it will converge all the currents and cause them to collide
+on the apron below. This largely overcomes the madness of the water.
+But still further to neutralize its force and to make it harmless as
+it flows on its downward course, there are two rows of baffle piers on
+the apron of the spillway. They are about 10 feet high and are built
+of reinforced concrete, with huge cast-iron blocks upon their upstream
+faces. When the water gets through them it has been tamed and robbed
+of all its dangerous force. The spillway is so constructed that when
+the water flowing over it becomes more than 6 feet deep it adheres to
+the downstream face of the dam as it glides down, instead of rushing
+out and falling perpendicularly.
+
+The locks are situated against the high hills at the east side of the
+valley, after which comes the east wing of the dam, then the spillway,
+then the west wing of the dam, which terminates on the side of the low
+mountain that skirts the western side of the valley. With the hills
+bordering the valley and the dam across it, the engineers have been
+able to inclose a gigantic reservoir which has a superficial surface
+of 164 square miles. It is irregular in shape and might remind one of
+a pressed chrysanthemum, the flower representing the lake and the
+stem Culebra Cut. The surface of the water in this lake is normally 85
+feet higher than the surface of the water seaward from Gatun and
+Miraflores. The lake is entirely fresh water supplied by the Chagres
+River. The accompanying figure shows the profile of the canal.
+
+[Illustration: A PROFILE SECTION OF THE CANAL]
+
+The Chagres River approaches the canal at approximately right angles
+at Gamboa, some 21 miles above Gatun. The lake will be so large that
+the river currents will all be absorbed, the water backing far up into
+the Chagres, the river depositing its silt before it reaches the canal
+proper.
+
+With the currents thus checked, the Chagres will lose all power to
+interfere with the navigation of the canal, although upon the bosom of
+its water will travel for a distance of 35 miles all the ships that
+pass through the big waterway from Gatun to Miraflores. This fresh
+water will serve a useful purpose besides carrying ships over the
+backbone of the continent. Barnacles lose their clinging power in
+fresh water, and when a ship passes up through the locks from sea
+level to lake level and from salt water to fresh, the barnacles that
+have clung to the sides and bottom of the vessel through many a
+thousand mile of "sky-hooting through the brine" will have their grip
+broken and they will drop off helplessly and fall to the bed of the
+lake, which, in the course of years, will become barnacle-paved. How
+many times in dry-dock this will save can only be surmised, but the
+ship that goes through the canal regularly will not have much bother
+with barnacles.
+
+The engineer who worked out the details of the engineering examination
+of the dam in 1908 was Caleb M. Saville, who had had experience on
+some of the greatest dams in the world. In the first place, the whole
+foundation was honeycombed with test borings, and several shafts were
+sunk so that the engineers could go down and see for themselves
+exactly what was the nature of the material below. There are some
+problems in engineering where a decision is so close between safety
+and danger that none but an engineer can decide them. But Gatun Dam
+could speak for itself and in the layman's tongue.
+
+After investigating the site and getting such conclusive evidence that
+the proverbial wayfaring man might understand it the engineers next
+conducted a series of experiments to determine whether or not the
+material of which they proposed to build the dam would be watertight.
+They wanted to make sure whether enough water would seep through to
+carry any of the dam material along with it. The maximum normal depth
+of the water is 85 feet. The material it would have to seep through is
+nearly a half mile thick. In order to determine how the water would
+behave they took some 3 feet of the material and put it in a strong
+iron cylinder with water above it and subjected it to a pressure
+equivalent to a head of 185 feet of water. Only an occasional drop
+came through. If only an occasional drop of clear water gets through 3
+feet of material under a pressure of 185 feet of water, it does not
+require a great engineer to determine that there will not be any
+seepage through more than a thousand feet of the same material under a
+head of only 85 feet.
+
+And that is only a sample of their seeking after the truth. When they
+had gone thus far it was then decided to build a little dam a few
+yards long identical in cross section with Gatun Dam. It was built on
+the scale of an inch to the foot, by the identical processes with
+which it was intended to build the big dam. The result only added
+confirmation to the other experiments. With a proportionate head of
+water against it, it behaved exactly as they had concluded the big dam
+would when completed. Every engineer who has read Saville's report
+pronounces it a masterpiece of engineering investigation. It proved
+conclusively that the site of the dam is stable, and the dam itself
+impervious to seepage. The engineers who visited the Isthmus at the
+time with President-elect Taft unanimously agreed that those
+investigations removed every trace of doubt.
+
+[Illustration: LIEUT. COL. W. L. SIBERT THE UPPER LOCKS AT GATUN]
+
+[Illustration: TORO POINT BREAKWATER]
+
+The Gatun Dam covers about 288 acres. The material in it weighs nearly
+30,000,000 tons. The pressure of the highest part of the dam on the
+foundations beneath amounts to many tons per square foot. The old
+bugaboo about earthquakes throwing it down is a danger that exists
+only in the minds of those who see ghosts. Some of the biggest
+earth dams in the world are located in California. The Contra Costa
+Water Company's dam at San Leandro is 120 feet high and not nearly so
+immense in its proportions as Gatun Dam, yet it weathered the San
+Francisco earthquake without difficulty. In Panama City there is an
+old flat arch that once was a part of a church. It looks as though one
+might throw it down with a golf stick, and yet it has stood there for
+several centuries. As a matter of fact, Panama is out of the line of
+earthquakes and volcanoes, but even if shocks much worse than those at
+San Francisco were to come, there is no reason to fear for the safety
+of the big structure.
+
+The lack of knowledge of some of those who in years past criticized
+the Gatun Dam was illustrated by an amusing incident that occurred at
+a senatorial hearing on the Isthmus. Philander C. Knox, afterwards
+Secretary of State, was then a Senator and a member of the committee
+which went to the Isthmus. Another Senator in the party had grave
+doubts about the stability of Gatun Dam, and asked Colonel Goethals to
+explain how a dam could hold in check such an immense body of water.
+Colonel Goethals, in his usual lucid way, explained that it was
+because of that well-known principle of physics that the outward
+pressure of water is determined by its depth and not by its
+volume--that a column of water 10 feet high and a foot thick would
+have just as much outward pressure as a lake 200 square miles in
+extent and 10 feet deep. Still unconvinced, the Senator pressed his
+examination further. At this juncture Senator Knox, who is a past
+master at the art of answering a question with a question, interposed,
+and asked his colleague: "Senator, if your theory holds good, how is
+it that the dikes of Holland hold in check the Atlantic Ocean?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE LOCKS
+
+
+Ships that pass Panama way will climb up and down a titanic marine
+stairway, three steps up into Gatun Lake and three steps down again.
+These steps are the 12 huge locks in which will center the operating
+features of the Isthmian waterway. The building of these locks
+represents the greatest use of concrete ever undertaken. The amount
+used would be sufficient to build of concrete a row of six-room
+houses, reaching from New York to Norfolk, via Philadelphia,
+Baltimore, Washington and Richmond--houses enough to provide homes for
+a population as large as that of Indianapolis.
+
+The total length of the locks and their accessories, including the
+guide walls, approximates 2 miles. The length of the six locks through
+which a ship passes on its voyage from one ocean to the other is a
+little less than 7,000 feet.
+
+If one who has never seen a lock canal is to get a proper idea of what
+part the locks play in the Panama Canal, he must follow attentively
+while we make an imaginary journey through the canal on a ship that
+has just come down from New York. Approaching the Atlantic entrance
+from the north, we pass the end of the great man-made peninsula,
+jutting out 11,000 feet into the bay known as Toro Point Breakwater.
+It was built to protect the entrance of the canal, the harbor, and
+anchorages from the violent storms that sweep down from the north over
+that region. Omitting our stops for the payment of tolls, the securing
+of supplies, etc., we steam directly in through a great ditch 500 feet
+wide and 41 feet deep, which simply permits the ocean to come inland 7
+miles to Gatun. When we arrive there we find that our chance to go
+farther is at an end unless we have some means of getting up into the
+beautiful lake whose surface is 85 feet above us. Here is where the
+locks come to our rescue. They will not only give us one lift, but
+three.
+
+When we approach the locks we find a great central pier jutting out
+into the sea-level channel. If our navigating officers know their duty
+they will run up alongside of this guide wall and tie up to it. If
+they do not they will run the ship's nose into a giant chain, with
+links made of 3-inch iron, that is guaranteed to bring a 1,000-ton
+ship, going at the rate of 5 knots per hour, to a dead standstill in
+70 feet. When we are once safely alongside the guide wall, four quiet,
+but powerful locomotives, run by electricity, come out and take charge
+of our ship. Two of them get before it to pull us forward, and two
+behind it to hold us back. Then the great chain, which effectively
+would have barred us from going into the locks under our own steam, or
+from colliding with the lock gates, is let down and we begin to move
+into the first lock.
+
+Starting at the sea-level channel, the first, second, and third gates
+are opened and our ship towed into the first lock. Then the second
+and third gates are closed again, and the lock filled with water, by
+gravity, raising the ship at the rate of about 2 feet a minute,
+although, if there is a great rush of business, it may be filled at
+the rate of 3 feet a minute. When the water in this lock reaches the
+level of the water in the lock above, gates four and five are opened,
+and we are towed in. Then gate four is closed again, and water is let
+into this lock until it reaches the level of the third one. Gates six,
+seven, and eight are next opened, and we are towed into the upper
+lock. Gates six and seven are now closed, and the water allowed to
+fill the third lock until we are up to the level of Gatun Lake. Then
+gates nine and ten are opened, the emergency dam is swung from athwart
+the channel, if it happens to be in that position, the fender chain
+like the one encountered when we entered the first lock, and like the
+ones which protect gates seven and eight, is let down, the towing
+engines turn us loose, and we resume our journey, with 32 miles of
+clear sailing, until we reach Pedro Miguel. Here, by a reverse
+process, we are dropped down 30-1/3 feet. Then we go on to Miraflores,
+a mile and a half away, where we are lifted down 54-2/3 feet in two
+more lifts. This brings us back to sea level again, where we meet the
+waters of the Pacific, and steam out upon it through a channel 500
+feet wide and 8 miles long.
+
+Having learned something of the part the locks play in getting us
+across the Isthmus, by helping us up out of one ocean into Gatun Lake
+and then dropping down into the other ocean, it will be interesting to
+note something of the mechanism. A very good idea of how a lock looks
+may be gathered from the accompanying bird's-eye view of the model of
+Pedro Miguel Lock.
+
+[Illustration: FROM A MODEL OF PEDRO MIGUEL LOCK]
+
+It will be seen that there are two of them side by side--twin locks,
+they are called, making them like a double-track railway. The lock on
+the right is nearly filled for an upward passage. The ship will be
+seen in it, held in position by the four towing engines, which appear
+only as tiny specks hitched to hawsers from the stem and stern. Behind
+the ship are the downstream gates. They were first opened to admit the
+ship, and then closed to impound the water that flows up through the
+bottom of the lock. Ahead are the upstream gates, closed also until
+the water in the lock is brought up to the level of the water in the
+lake. Then the gates will be opened, the big chain fender will be
+dropped down, and the ship will be towed out into the lake and turned
+loose. On the side wall of the right lock there is a big bridge set on
+a pivot so that it can be swung around across the lock and girders let
+down from it to serve as a foundation upon which to lay a steel dam if
+anything happens to the locks or gates. On the other lock the bridge
+has been swung into position, and the steel girders let down. Great
+steel sheets will be let down on live roller bearings on these
+girders, and when all are in place they will form a watertight dam of
+steel. Between this bridge and the reader is a huge floating tank of
+steel, which may be used to dam all the water out of the locks when
+that is desired.
+
+Referring to the next figure we see a cross section of the twin locks.
+The side walls are from 45 to 50 feet thick at the floor. At a point
+24-1/3 feet above the floor they begin to narrow by a series of 6-foot
+steps until they are 8 feet wide at the top. The middle wall is 60
+feet wide all the way up, although at a point 42-1/2 feet above the
+lock floor room is made for a filling of earth and for a three-story
+tunnel, the top story being used as a passageway for the operators,
+the second story as a conduit for electric wires, and the lower story
+as a drainage system.
+
+[Illustration: A CROSS-SECTION OF LOCKS, GIVING AN IDEA OF THEIR
+SIZE]
+
+In this figure D and G are the big 18-foot culverts through which
+water is admitted from the lake to the locks. Each of these three big
+culverts, which are nearly 7,000 feet long, is large enough to
+accommodate a modern express train, and is about the size of the
+Pennsylvania tubes under the Hudson and East Rivers. H represents the
+culverts extending across the lock from the big ones. Each of them is
+big enough to accommodate a two-horse wagon, and there are 14 in each
+lock. Every alternate one leads from the side wall culvert and the
+others from the center wall culvert. F represents the wells that lead
+up through the floor into the lock, each larger in diameter than a
+sugar barrel in girth. There are five wells on each cross culvert, or
+70 in the floor of each lock.
+
+[Illustration: CONCRETE MIXERS, GATUN]
+
+[Illustration: A CENTER WALL CULVERT, GATUN LOCKS]
+
+[Illustration: THE MACHINERY FOR MOVING A LOCK GATE]
+
+The flow of the water into the locks and out again is controlled by
+great valves. The ones which control the great wall tunnels or
+culverts are called Stoney Gate valves, and operate something like
+giant windows in frames. They are mounted on roller bearings to make
+them work without friction. The others are ordinary cylindrical
+valves, but, having to close a culvert large enough to permit a
+two-horse team to be driven through it, they must be of great size.
+When a ship is passing from Gatun Lake down to the Atlantic Ocean, the
+water in the upper lock is brought up to the level of that in the
+lake, being admitted through the big wall culverts, whence it passes
+out through the 14 cross culverts and up into the locks through the 70
+wells in the floor. Then the ship is towed in, the gates are shut
+behind it, the valves are closed against the water in the lake, the
+ones permitting the escape of this water into the lock below are
+opened, and it continues to flow out of the upper lock into the lower
+one until the water in the two has the same level. Then the gates
+between the two locks are opened, the ship is towed into the second
+one and the operation is repeated for the last lock in the same way.
+
+The gates of the locks are an interesting feature. Their total weight
+is about 58,000 tons. There are 46 of them, each having two leaves.
+Their weight varies from 300 to 600 tons per leaf, dependent upon the
+varying height of the different gates. The lowest ones are 47 feet
+high and the highest ones 82 feet, their height depending upon the
+place where they are used. Some of these are known as intermediate
+gates, and are used for short ships, when it is desired to economize
+on both water and time. They divide each lock chamber into two smaller
+chambers of 350 and 550 feet, respectively. Perhaps 90 per cent of all
+the ships that pass Panama will not need to use the full length
+lock--1,000 feet. Duplicate gates will always be kept on the ground as
+a precaution against accident. Each leaf is 65 feet wide and 7 feet
+thick. The heaviest single piece of steel in each one of them is the
+lower sill, weighing 18 tons. It requires 6,000,000 rivets to put them
+together. In the lower part of each gate is a huge tank. When it is
+desired that the gate shall have buoyancy, as when operating it, this
+tank will be filled with air. When closed it is filled with water. The
+gates are opened and closed by a huge arm, or strut, one end of which
+is connected to the gate and the other to a huge wheel in the manner
+of the connecting rod to the driver of a locomotive. Leakage through
+the space between the gate and the miter sill on the floor of the lock
+is prevented by a seal which consists of heavy timbers with flaps of
+rubber 4 inches wide and half an inch thick. A special sealing device
+brings the edges of the two leaves of a gate together and holds them
+firmly while the gates are closed.
+
+Remembering that these gates are nothing more than Brobdingnagian
+double doors which close in the shape of a flattened V, it follows
+that they must have hinges. And these hinges are worth going miles to
+see. That part which fastens to the wall of the lock weighs 36,752
+pounds in the case of the operating gates, and 38,476 pounds in the
+protection gates. These latter are placed in pairs with the operating
+gates at all danger points--so that if one set of gates are rammed
+down, another pair will still be in position. The part of the hinge
+attached to the gate was made according to specifications which
+required that it should stand a strain of 40,000 pounds before
+stretching at all, and 70,000 pounds before breaking. Put into a huge
+testing machine, it actually stood a strain of 3,300,000 pounds before
+breaking--seven times as great as any stress it will ever be called
+upon to bear. The gates are all painted a lead gray, to match the
+ships of the American Navy. Those which come into contact with sea
+water will be treated with a barnacle-proof preparation.
+
+Now that we have described the locks, we may go back and see them in
+course of construction. The first task was getting the lock building
+plant designed and built. At Gatun the plant consisted of a series of
+immense cableways, an electric railroad, and enormous concrete mixers.
+Great towers were erected on either side of the area excavated for the
+locks, with giant cables connecting them. These towers were 85 feet
+high, and were mounted on tracks like steam shovels, so that they
+could be moved forward as the work progressed. The cables connecting
+them were of 2-1/2-inch lock steel wire covered with interlocking
+strands. They were guaranteed to carry 6 tons at a trip, 20 trips an
+hour, and to carry 60,000 loads before giving way. They actually did
+better than the specifications called for as far as endurance was
+concerned.
+
+The sand for making the concrete for Gatun came from Nombre de Dios
+(Spanish for Name of God), and the gravel from Porto Bello. The sand
+and gravel were towed in great barges, first through the old French
+Canal, and later through the Atlantic entrance of the present canal.
+Great clamshell buckets on the Lidgerwood cableways would swoop down
+upon the barges, get 2 cubic yards of material at a mouthful, lift it
+up to the cable, carry it across to the storage piles and there dump
+it. In this way more than 2,000,000 wagon loads of sand and gravel
+were handled.
+
+A special equipment was required to haul the sand, gravel, and cement
+from the storage piles to the concrete mixers. There were two circular
+railroads of 24-inch gauge, carrying little electric cars that ran
+without motormen. Each car was stopped, started, or reversed by a
+switch attached to the car. Their speed never varied more than 10 per
+cent whether they were going empty or loaded, up hill or down. When a
+car was going down hill its motor was reversed into a generator so
+that it helped make electricity to pull some other car up the hill.
+The cars ran into a little tunnel, where each was given its proper
+load of one part cement, three parts sand, and six parts gravel--2
+cubic yards, in all--and was then hurried on to the big concrete
+mixers. These were so arranged in a series that it was not necessary
+to stop them to receive the sand, gravel, and cement, or to dump out
+the concrete.
+
+On the emptying sides of the concrete mixers there were other little
+electric railway tracks. Here there were little trains of a motor and
+two cars each, with a motorman. The train, with two big 2-cubic-yard
+buckets, drew up alongside two concrete mixers. Without stopping their
+endless revolutions the mixers tilted and poured out their contents
+into the two buckets, 2 yards in each. Then the little train hurried
+away, stopping under a great cable. Across from above the lock walls
+came two empty buckets, carried on pulleys on the cableway. When they
+reached a point over the train they descended and were set on the
+cars, behind the full buckets. The full buckets were then attached to
+the lifting hooks, and were carried up to the cable and then across to
+the lock walls, where they were dumped and the concrete spread out by
+a force of men. Meanwhile the train hustled off with its two empty
+buckets, ready to be loaded again.
+
+On the Pacific side the concrete handling plant was somewhat
+different. Instead of cableways there were great cantilever cranes
+built of structural steel. Some of these were in the shape of a giant
+T, while others looked like two T's fastened together. Here the
+clamshell dippers were run out on the arms of the cranes to the
+storage piles, where they picked up their loads of material. This was
+put in hoppers large enough to store material for 10 cubic yards. The
+sand and stone then passed through measuring hoppers and to the mixers
+with cement and water added. After it was mixed it was dumped into big
+buckets on little cars drawn by baby steam locomotives, which looked
+like overgrown toy engines. These little fellows reminded one of a lot
+of busy bees as they dashed about here and there with their loads of
+concrete, choo-chooing as majestically as the great dirt train engines
+which passed back and forth hard by. The cranes would take their
+filled buckets and leave empty ones in exchange, and this was kept up
+day in and day out until the locks were completed. When the plant was
+removed from Pedro Miguel to Miraflores, a large part of the concrete
+was handled directly from the mixers to the walls by the cranes
+without the intermediary locomotive service.
+
+The cost of the construction of the locks was estimated in 1908 at
+upward of $57,000,000. But economy in the handling of the material and
+efficiency on the part of the lock builders cut the actual cost far
+below that figure. On the Atlantic side about a dollar was saved on
+every yard of concrete laid--about $2,000,000. On the Pacific side
+more than twice as much was saved.
+
+Before the locks could be built it became necessary to excavate down
+to bed rock. This required the removal of nearly 5,000,000 cubic yards
+of material at Gatun. Then extensive tests were made to make certain
+that the floor of the locks could be anchored safely to the rock.
+These tests demonstrated that by using the old steel rails that were
+left on the Isthmus by the French, the concrete and rock could be tied
+together so firmly as to defy the ravages of water and time. A huge
+apron of concrete was built out into Gatun Lake from the upper locks
+at that place, effectively preventing any water from getting between
+the rocks and the concrete lying upon them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE LOCK MACHINERY
+
+
+One of the problems that had to be solved before the Panama Canal
+could be presented to the American people as a finished waterway, was
+that of equipping it with adequate and dependable machinery for its
+operation. Panama canals are not built every year, so it was not a
+matter of ordering equipment from stock; everything had to be invented
+and designed for the particular requirement it was necessary to meet.
+And the first and foremost requirement was safety. When we look over
+the canal machinery we see that word "safety" written in every bolt,
+in every wheel, in every casting, in every machine. We see it in the
+devices designed for protection and in those designed for operation as
+well. We see it in the giant chain that will stop a vessel before it
+can ram a gate; we see it in the great cantilever pivot bridges that
+support the emergency dams; we see it in the double lock gates at all
+exposed points; we see it in the electric towing apparatus, in the
+limit switches that will automatically stop a machine when the
+operator is not attending to his business, in the friction clutches
+that will slip before the breaking point is reached. Safety, safety,
+safety, the word is written everywhere.
+
+The first thing a ship encounters when it approaches the locks is the
+giant chain stretched across its path. That chain is made of links of
+3 inches in diameter. When in normal position it is stretched across
+the locks, and the vessel which does not stop as soon as it should
+will ram its nose into the chain. There is a hydraulic paying-out
+arrangement at both ends of the chain, and when the pressure against
+it reaches a hundred gross tons the chain will begin to pay out and
+gradually bring the offending vessel to a stop. After a ship strikes
+the chain its momentum will be gradually reduced, its energy being
+absorbed by the chain mechanism. While the pressure at which the chain
+will begin to yield is fixed at 100 gross tons, the pressure required
+to break it is 262 tons. Thus the actual stress it can bear is two and
+a half times what it will be called upon to meet. The mechanism by
+which the paying-out of the chain is accomplished is exceedingly
+ingenious. The principle is practically the reverse of that of a
+hydraulic jack. The two ends of the 428-foot chain are attached to big
+plungers in the two walls of the locks. These plungers fit in large
+cylinders, which contain broad surfaces of water. They are connected
+with very small openings, which are kept closed until a pressure of
+750 pounds to the square inch is exerted against them. By means of a
+resistance valve these openings are then made available, the water
+shooting out as through a nozzle under high pressure. This permits the
+chain plunger to rise gradually, while keeping the tension at 750
+pounds to the inch, and the paying-out of the chain proceeds
+accordingly. Of course not all ships will strike the chain at the
+same speed, and in some cases the paying-out process will have to be
+more rapid than in others. This is provided for by the automatic
+enlargement of the hole through which the water is discharged, the
+size of the hole again becoming smaller as the tension of the chain
+decreases. This chain fender will stop the _Olympic_ with full load,
+when going a mile and a half an hour, bringing it to a dead standstill
+within 70 feet, or it will stop an ordinary 10,000-ton ship in the
+same distance even if it have a speed of 5 miles. The function of the
+resistance valve is to prevent the chain from beginning to pay out
+until the stress against it goes up to 100 tons, and to regulate the
+paying-out so as to keep it constant at that point, so long as there
+is necessity for paying-out. Any pressure of less than a hundred tons
+will not put the paying-out mechanism into operation.
+
+When a ship is to be put through the locks the chain will be let down
+into great grooves in the floor of the lock. There is a fixed plunger
+operating within a cylinder, which, in turn, operates within another
+cylinder, the resulting movement, by a system of pulleys, being made
+to pay out or pull in 4 feet of chain for every foot the plunger
+travels. The chain must be raised or lowered in one minute, and always
+will have to be lowered to permit the passage of a ship. The fender
+machines are situated in pits in the lock walls. These pits are likely
+to get filled with water from drippings, leakages, wave action, and
+drainage, so they are protected with automatic pumps. Float valves are
+lifted when the water rises in the pits. This automatically moves the
+switch controlling an electric motor, which starts a pump to working
+whenever the water gets within 1 inch of the top of the sump beneath
+the floor of the pit. Twenty-four of these chain fenders are required
+for the protection of the locks, and each requires two such tension
+machines.
+
+No ship will be allowed to go through the canal except under the
+control of a canal pilot. He will certainly bring it to a stop at the
+approach wall. But if he does not, there is the chain fender. There is
+not a chance in a thousand for a collision with it, and not a chance
+in a hundred thousand that the ship will not be stopped when there is
+such a collision.
+
+But if the pilot should fail to stop the ship, and it should collide
+with the fender chain, and then if the fender chain should fail to
+stop it, there would be the double gates at the head of the lock.
+There is not one chance in a hundred that a ship, checked as it
+inevitably would be by the fender chain, could ram down the first, or
+safety gate. But if it did, there would still be another set of gates
+some 70 feet away. The chances here might be one in a hundred of the
+second set being rammed down. From all this it will be seen that the
+chances of the second pair of gates being rammed is so remote as to be
+almost without the realm of possibility. But suppose all these
+precautions should fail, and suddenly the way should be opened for the
+water of Gatun Lake to rush through the locks at the destructive speed
+of 20 miles an hour? Even that day has been provided against by the
+construction of the big emergency dams. The emergency dams, like the
+fender chains, are designed only for protection, and have no other use
+in the operation of the locks. There will be six of these dams, one
+across each of the head locks at Gatun, Pedro Miguel, and Miraflores.
+
+These emergency dams will be mounted on pivots on the side walls of
+the locks about 200 feet above the upper gates. When not in use they
+will rest on the side wall and parallel with it. When in use they will
+be swung across the locks, by electric machinery or by hand, and there
+rigidly wedged in. It will require two minutes to get them in position
+by electricity and 30 minutes by hand. There is a motor for driving
+the wedges which will hold the dam securely in position, and limit
+switches to prevent the dams being moved too far.
+
+When a bridge is put into position across the lock, a series of wicket
+girders which are attached to the upstream side of the floor of the
+bridge are let down into the water, the connection between the bridge
+and one end of each girder being made by an elbow joint. The other end
+goes down into the water, its motion being controlled by a cable
+attached some distance from the free end of the girder and paid out or
+drawn in over an electrically operated drum. This free end passes down
+until it engages a big iron casting embedded in the concrete of the
+lock floor. This makes a sort of inclined railway at an angle of about
+30 degrees from the perpendicular, over which huge steel plates are
+let down into the water. There are six of these girders, and they are
+all made of the finest nickel steel. When they are all in position, a
+row of six plates are let down, and they make the stream going
+through the locks several feet shallower. Then another row of plates
+is let down on these, and the stream becomes that much shallower.
+Another row of plates is added, and then another, until there is a
+solid sheet of steel plates resting on the six girders, and they make
+a complete steel dam which effectively arrests the mad impulse of the
+water in Gatun Lake to rush down into the sea. The plates are moved up
+and down by electrical machinery, and are mounted on roller-bearing
+wheels, so that the tremendous friction caused by their being pressed
+against the girders by the great force of the water may be overcome.
+That the emergency dams will be effective is shown by the experience
+at the "Soo" locks, on the canal connecting Lakes Superior and Huron.
+There, a vessel operating under its own power, rammed a lock gate.
+Although the emergency dam had grown so rusty by disuse that it could
+be operated only by hand, it was swung across the lock and effectively
+fulfilled its mission of checking the maddened flow of the water.
+
+Another protective device for the locks is the big caisson gates that
+will be floated across the head and tail bays when it is desired to
+remove all the water from the locks for the purpose of permitting the
+lower guard gates to be examined, cleaned, painted, or repaired, and
+for allowing the sills of the emergency dams to be examined in the
+dry. The caisson gates are 112-1/2 feet long, 36 feet beam, and have a
+light draft of 32 feet and a heavy draft of 61 feet. When one is
+floated into position to close the lock, water will be admitted to
+make it sink to the proper depth. Then its large centrifugal pumps,
+driven by electric motors, will pump the water out of the lock. When
+the work on the lock is completed these pumps will pump the water out
+of the caisson itself until it becomes buoyant enough to resume its
+light draft, after which it will be floated away.
+
+The machinery for opening and closing the lock gates called for
+unusual care in its designing. The existing types of gate-operating
+machinery were all studied, and it was found that none of them could
+be depended on to prove satisfactory, so special machines had to be
+designed.
+
+A great wheel, resembling a drive wheel of a locomotive, except that a
+little over half of the rim is cog-geared, is mounted in a horizontal
+position on a big plate, planted firmly in the concrete of the wall
+and bolted there with huge bolts 11 feet long and 2-1/4 inches in
+diameter. This plate weighs over 13,000 pounds, and the wheel, cast in
+two pieces, weighs 34,000 pounds. As the weight of the rim of the
+wheel on the eight spokes probably would tax their strength too much
+when the wheel is under stress, this is obviated by four bearing
+wheels, perpendicular to the big wheel, which support the rim. Between
+the crank pin and the point of attachment on the gate leaf there is a
+long arm, or strut, designed to bear an operating strain of nearly a
+hundred tons. The wheel will be revolved by a motor geared to the
+cogged part of the rim.
+
+An ingenious arrangement of electric switches is that used to protect
+the gate-moving machines from harm. The big connecting rod between the
+master wheel and the gate leaf is attached to the gate leaf by a nest
+of springs capable of sustaining a pressure of 184,000 pounds, in
+addition to the fixed pressure of 60,000 pounds. Should any
+obstruction interfere with the closing of the gate and threaten a
+dangerous pressure on the connecting rod, the springs, as soon as they
+reach their full compression, establish an electrical contact and thus
+stop the motor. Likewise, should any obstruction come against the gate
+as the connecting rod is pulling it open, the springs again permit the
+establishment of an electrical contact and stop the motor. All of
+these precautions are entirely independent of and supplemental to the
+limit switches, which cut off the power from the gate-moving machine
+should the strain reach the danger line. These big machines move the
+huge gate leaves without the slightest noise or vibration. Such a
+machine is required for each of the 92 leaves used in the 46 gates
+with which the locks are equipped. The operator can open or close one
+of these big gates in two minutes.
+
+[Illustration: ONE OF THE 92 GATE-LEAF MASTER WHEELS]
+
+The control of the water in the culverts of the locks is taken care of
+by an ingeniously designed series of valves. The big wall culverts, 18
+feet in diameter, are divided into two sections at the points where
+the valves are installed, by the construction of a perpendicular pier.
+This makes two openings 8 by 18 feet. The big gates of steel are
+placed in frames to close these openings just as a window sash is
+placed in its frame. They are mounted on roller bearings, so as to
+overcome the friction caused by the pressure of water against the
+valve gates. They must be mounted so that there is not more than a
+fourth of an inch play in any direction. The big wall culvert gates
+will weigh about 10 tons each, and must be capable of operating under
+a head of more than 60 feet of water. They will be raised and lowered
+by electricity.
+
+The electric locomotives which will be used to tow ships through the
+locks are one of the interesting features of the equipment. There will
+be 40 of them on the 3 sets of locks. The average ship will require
+four of them, two at the bow and two at the stern, to draw it through
+the locks. They will run on tracks on the lock walls, and will have
+two sets of wheels. One set will be cogged, and will be used when the
+locomotives are engaged in towing. The other set will be pressed into
+service when they are running light. When a vessel is in one lock
+waiting for the water to be equalized with that in the next one and
+the gates opened to permit passage, the forward locomotives will run
+free up the incline to the lock wall above, paying out hawser as they
+go. When they get to the next higher level they are ready to exert
+their maximum pull. Each locomotive consists of three parts: two
+motors hitched together, and the tandem may be operated from either
+end. The third part is a big winding drum around which the great
+hawsers are wound. This towing windlass permits the line to be paid
+out or pulled in and the distance between the ship and the locomotives
+varied at will. The locomotive may thus exert its pull or relax it
+while standing still on the track, a provision especially valuable in
+bringing ships to rest. In the main, however, the pull of the
+locomotive is exercised by its running on the semi-suppressed rack
+track anchored in the coping of the lock walls. Each flight of locks
+will be provided with two towing tracks, one on the side and one on
+the center wall. Each wall will be equipped with a return track of
+ordinary rails, so that when a set of locomotives has finished towing
+a ship through the locks they can be switched over from these tracks
+and hustled back for another job. When they reach the inclines from
+one lock to the next above the rack track will be pressed into service
+again until they reach the next level stretch.
+
+Here again one meets the familiar safeguard against accident. Some
+engineer of one of these towing locomotives might sometime overload
+it, so the power of doing so has been taken out of his hands. On the
+windlass or drum that holds the towing hawser there is a friction
+coupling. If the engineer should attempt to overload his engine, or if
+for any other reason there should suddenly come upon the locomotive a
+greater strain than it could bear, or upon the track, or upon the
+hawser, the friction clutch would let loose at its appointed tension
+of 25,000 pounds, and all danger would be averted.
+
+When the locomotives are towing a ship from the walls it is natural
+that there should be a side pull on the hawser. This is overcome by
+wheels that run against the side of the track and are mounted
+horizontally. All of the towing tracks extend out on the approach
+walls of the locks so that the locomotives can get out far enough to
+take charge of a ship before it gets close enough to do the locks any
+damage.
+
+[Illustration: A _Mauretania_ IN THE LOCKS]
+
+From the foregoing it will be seen that a great deal of electric
+current will be required in the operation of the locks. This will be
+generated at a big station at Gatun, with a smaller one at Miraflores,
+and they will be connected. The overflow water will be used for
+generating the required current, and in addition to the operation of
+the lock machinery it will operate the spillway gates, furnish the
+necessary lighting current, and eventually it may furnish the power
+for an electrified Panama Railroad.
+
+In passing a ship through the canal it will be necessary to open and
+close 23 lock gates, of an aggregate weight of more than 25,000 tons,
+to lower and raise 12 fender chains, each weighing 24,000 pounds, and
+to shut and open dozens of great valves, each of which weighs tons.
+All these operations at each set of locks will be controlled by one
+man, at a central switchboard. In addition to these operations there
+is the towing apparatus. The arrangement at Gatun is typical; there 4
+fender chains must be operated, 6 pairs of miter gates, and 46 valves.
+In all not less than 98 motors will be set in motion twice, and
+sometimes this number may be increased to 143. Some of them are more
+than half a mile away from the operator, and half of them are nearly a
+quarter of a mile away.
+
+The operator in his control house will be high enough to have an
+uninterrupted view of the whole flight of locks over which he has
+command. His control board will consist of a representation of the
+locks his switches control. On his model he will see the rise and fall
+of the fender chains as he operates them, the movement of the big lock
+gates as they swing open or shut, the opening and closing of the
+valves which regulate the water in the culverts, and the rise and fall
+of the water in the locks.
+
+A system of interlocked levers will prevent him from doing the wrong
+thing in handling his switches. Before he can open the valves at one
+end of a lock he must close those at the other end. Before he can
+open the lock gates, the valves in the culverts must be set so that no
+harm can result. Before he can start to open a lock gate, he must
+first have released the miter-forcing machine that latches the gates.
+Before he can close the gates protected by a fender chain, he must
+first have thrown the switch to bring the fender chain back to its
+protecting position, and he can not throw the switch to lower the
+chain until he first has provided for the opening of the gate it
+protects. All of this interlocking system makes it next to impossible
+to err, and taking into consideration the additional safeguard of
+limit switches, which automatically cut off the power when anything
+goes wrong, it will be seen that the personal equation is all but
+removed from the situation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CULEBRA CUT
+
+
+Culebra Cut! Here the barrier of the continental divide resisted to
+the utmost the attacks of the canal army; here disturbed and outraged
+Nature conspired with gross mountain mass to make the defense stronger
+and stronger; here was the mountain that must be moved. Here came the
+French, jauntily confident, to dig a narrow channel that would let
+their ships go through. The mountain was the victor. And then here
+came the Americans, confident but not jaunty. They weighed that mass,
+laid out the lines of a wider ditch, arranged complicated
+transportation systems to take away the half hundred million cubic
+yards of earth and rocks that they had measured. Nature came to the
+aid of the beleaguered mountain. The volcanic rocks were piled
+helter-skelter and when the ditch deepened the softer strata
+underneath refused to bear the burden and the slides, slowly and like
+glaciers, crept out into the ditch, burying shovels and sweeping aside
+the railway tracks. Even the bottom of the canal bulged up under the
+added stress of the heavier strata above.
+
+Grim, now, but still confident, the attackers fought on. The mountain
+was defeated.
+
+Now stretches a man-made canyon across the backbone of the continent;
+now lies a channel for ships through the barrier; now is found what
+Columbus sought in vain--the gate through the west to the east. Men
+call it Culebra Cut.
+
+Nine miles long, its average depth is 120 feet. At places its sides
+tower nearly 500 feet above its channel bottom, which is nowhere
+narrower than 300 feet.
+
+It is the greatest single trophy of the triumph of man over the
+terrestrial arrangement of his world. Compared to it, the scooping out
+of the sand levels of Suez seems but child's play--the tunnels of
+Hoosac and Simplon but the sport of boys. It is majestic. It is awful.
+It is the Canal.
+
+When estimates for digging the canal were made, it was calculated that
+53,000,000 cubic yards of material would have to be removed from the
+cut, and that under the most favorable conditions it would require
+eight and a half years to complete the work. But at that time no one
+had the remotest idea of the actual difficulties that would beset the
+canal builders; no one dreamed of the avalanches of material that
+would slide into the cut.
+
+One can in no way get a better idea of the meaning of the slides and
+breaks in Culebra Cut than to refer to the accompanying figure. There
+it will be seen that whereas it was originally planned that the top
+width of the cut at one point should be 670 feet, it has grown wider,
+because of slides and breaks, to as much as 1,800 feet at one place.
+In all, some 25,000,000 cubic yards of material which should have
+remained outside the canal prism slipped into it and had to be
+removed by the steam shovels.
+
+[Illustration: THE EFFECT OF SLIDES]
+
+No less than 26 slides and breaks were encountered in the construction
+of Culebra Cut, their total area being 225 acres. The largest covered
+75, and another 47 acres. When the slides, which were more like
+earthen glaciers than avalanches, began to flow into the big ditch,
+sometimes steam shovels were buried, sometimes railroad tracks were
+caught beneath the débris, and sometimes even the bottom of the cut
+itself began to bulge and disarrange the entire transportation system,
+at the same time interfering with the compressed air and water
+supplies. But with all these trials and tribulations, the army that
+was trying to conquer the eternal hills that had refused passage to
+the ships of the world for so many centuries, kept up its courage and
+renewed its attack. The result is that ships sail through Culebra and
+that engineers everywhere have new records of efficiency to inspire
+them.
+
+These efficiency records are told in the cost-keeping reports based
+upon one of the most careful and thorough cost-accounting systems ever
+devised. This system was instituted for the purpose of keeping a check
+upon all expenditures by reducing everything to a unit basis and then
+comparing the cost of doing the same thing at different places. For
+instance, if it were found that it cost more to excavate a cubic yard
+of material at one place than at another, under identical conditions,
+this fact was brought to the attention of the men responsible and an
+intimation given that there seemed to be room for taking up a little
+lost motion. The lost motion usually was recovered or else someone had
+to be satisfied that conditions were not identical after all.
+
+In no other part of the canal work do these cost-keeping reports tell
+such a graphic story as in Culebra Cut. In spite of the fact that as
+the cut became deeper it became narrower, and the slides and breaks
+became more troublesome, to say nothing of the extra effort required
+to get the excavated material out of the cut, every unit cost was
+forced down notch by notch and year by year until the bottom in costs
+was reached only a little before the actual bottom of the cut was
+exposed to view.
+
+For instance, in 1908 it cost 11-1/2 cents a yard to load material
+with steam shovels, while in 1912 it cost less than 7 cents. In 1908
+it cost more than 14 cents a yard for drilling and blasting; in 1912
+it cost less than 12 cents. In 1908 it cost $18.54 to haul away a
+hundred yards of spoil; in 1912 it required only $13.31 to perform the
+same operation, although the average distance it had to be hauled had
+increased 50 per cent. In 1908 it cost more than 13 cents a yard to
+dump the material as compared with less than 5 cents in 1912. The
+whole operation of excavating and removing the material, including
+overhead charges and depreciation, fell from $1.03 a cubic yard in
+1908 to less than 55 cents a yard in 1912. And that is why 232,000,000
+cubic yards of material were removed for less than it was estimated
+135,000,000 cubic yards would cost.
+
+To remove the 105,000,000 cubic yards of earth from the backbone of
+the Americas required about 6,000,000 pounds of high-grade dynamite
+each year to break up the material, so that it might be successfully
+attacked by the steam shovels. To prepare the holes for placing the
+explosives required the services of 150 well drills, 230 tripod rock
+drills, and a large corps of hand drillers. Altogether they drilled
+nearly a thousand miles of holes annually. During every working day in
+the year about 600 holes were fired. They had an average depth of
+about 19 feet. In addition to this a hundred toe holes were fired each
+day, and as many more "dobe" blasts placed on top of large boulders to
+break them up into loadable sizes. So carefully was the dynamite
+handled that during a period of three years, in which time some
+19,000,000 pounds were exploded in Culebra Cut, only eight men were
+killed.
+
+[Illustration: STEAM SHOVELS MEETING AT BOTTOM OF CULEBRA CUT
+
+L. K. ROURKE]
+
+[Illustration: THE MAN-MADE CANYON AT CULEBRA]
+
+The transportation of the spoil from Culebra Cut was a tremendous job.
+A large percentage of it was hauled out in Lidgerwood flat cars.
+Twenty-one cars made up the average Lidgerwood train. It required
+about 140 locomotives to take care of the spoil, and the average day
+saw nearly 3,700 cars loaded and hauled out of the cut. In a single
+year 1,116,286 carloads of material were hauled out. There were 75
+trains in constant operation, for each 2-1/2 miles of track in the
+Central Division, which was approximately 32 miles long. A huge steam
+shovel, taking up 5 yards of material at a mouthful, would load one of
+these trains in less than an hour with some 400 yards of material.
+Then the powerful locomotive attached to it, assisted by a helper
+engine, would pull the train out of the cut, and then, unassisted,
+would haul it to the dumping ground some 12 miles or more away.
+
+[Illustration: AVERAGE SHAPE AND DIMENSIONS OF CULEBRA CUT]
+
+Arriving near the scene of the dump, another engine, having in front
+of it a huge horizontal steam windlass mounted on a flat car, was
+hooked on the rear end of the train. Then the locomotive which had
+brought the train to the dump was uncoupled and moved away, and in its
+stead there was attached an empty flat car, on which there was a huge
+plow. A long wire cable was stretched from the big windlass at the
+other end of the train and attached to this plow. As the drum of the
+windlass began to turn it gradually drew the plow forward over the 21
+cars, plowing the material off as it went forward. The cars were
+equipped with a high sideboard on one side and had none at all on the
+other. A flat surface over which the plow could pass from car to car
+was made by hinging a heavy piece of sheet steel to the front end of
+each car and allowing it to cover the break between that car and the
+next, thus affording a practically continuous car floor over 800 feet
+long. The operation of unloading 400 yards of material with this plow
+seldom required more than 10 minutes.
+
+After the plow had finished its work it left a long string of spoil on
+one side of the track which must be cleared away. So another plow,
+pushed by an engine, attacked the spoil and forced it down the
+embankment. This process of unloading and spreading the material was
+kept up until the embankment became wide enough to permit the track to
+be shifted over. Here another especially designed machine, the track
+shifter, was brought into play. It was a sort of derrick mounted on a
+flat car, and with it the track shifters were able to pick up a piece
+of track and lift it over to the desired position. With this machine a
+score of men could do the work that without it would have required a
+gang of 600 men.
+
+In addition to the Lidgerwood dirt trains there were a large number of
+trains made up of steel dump cars which were dumped by compressed air,
+and still other trains made up of small hand-dumped cars, and each
+class found its own peculiar uses.
+
+As has been said, the problem of digging the big ditch has been one of
+the transportation of the spoil, and this has involved numerous
+difficulties. In Culebra Cut no little difficulty was experienced in
+keeping open enough tracks to afford the necessary room for dirt
+trains. Slides came down and forced track after track out of
+alignment, burying some of them beyond the hope of usable recovery;
+often the very bottom of the cut itself heaved up under the stress of
+the heavy weight of faulty strata on the sides of the mountain; and
+sometimes the slides and breaks threatened entirely to shut up one end
+of the cut.
+
+In hauling away the spoil one improvement after another was made in
+the interest of efficiency. It was found at first that the capacity of
+a big Lidgerwood flat car was only about 16 cubic yards, and that with
+a sideboard on only one side of the car, the load did not center well
+on the car, thus placing an undue strain on the wheels on one side.
+The transportation department, therefore, extended the bed of the car
+further out over the wheels on the open side, and this served a triple
+purpose--it permitted the steam shovels to load the cars so that the
+load rested in the center, increased the capacity of each car by about
+3 yards, and permitted the unloader plow to throw the spoil further
+from the track, thus adding to the efficiency of the dumping
+apparatus.
+
+Frequent breaks in the trains were caused by worn couplers. These
+accidents were almost entirely overcome by equipping each train with a
+sort of "bridle" which prevented the separation of the cars in the
+event of the parting of a defective coupler. In the operation of the
+unloader plows it was found that the big cables frequently broke when
+a plow would strike an obstruction on the car, and this caused no end
+of annoyance and frequent delays. Then someone thought of putting
+between the cable and the plow a link whose breaking point was lower
+than that of the cable. After that when a plow struck an obstruction
+the cable did not part--the link simply gave way, and another was
+always at hand. On the big spreaders no less than 51 improvements were
+made, each the answer of the engineers to some challenge from the
+stubborn material with which they had to contend.
+
+The major portion of the material excavated from the canal had to be
+hauled out and dumped where it was of no further use. From the Central
+Division alone, which includes Culebra Cut, upward of a hundred
+million cubic yards of material was hauled away and dumped as useless.
+At Tabernilla one dump contained nearly 17,000,000 cubic yards. A
+great deal of spoil, however, was used to excellent advantage.
+Wherever there was swampy ground contiguous to the permanent
+settlements it was covered over with material from the cut and brought
+up above the water level. Many hundreds of acres were thus converted
+from malaria-breeding grounds into high and dry lands.
+
+During the last stages of the work in Culebra Cut it was found that
+some of the slides were so bad that they were breaking back of the
+crest of the hills that border the cut. Therefore it was found to be
+feasible to attack the problem by sluicing the material down the side
+of the hills into the valley beyond. To this end a big hydraulic plant
+which had been used on the Pacific end of the canal was brought up and
+installed beyond the east bank of the cut. A reservoir of water was
+impounded and tremendous pumps installed. They pumped a stream of
+water 40 inches in diameter. This was gradually tapered down to a
+number of 4-inch nozzles, and out of these spouted streams of water
+with a pressure of 80 pounds to the square inch. These streams ate
+away the dirt at a rapid rate.
+
+The slides did not hold up the completion of the canal a minute, at
+least to the point of usability. The day that the lock gates were
+ready there was water enough in the canal to carry the entire American
+navy from ocean to ocean. That day the big dredges from the Atlantic
+and the Pacific were brought into the cut, and with them putting the
+finishing touches on the slides at the bottom, and the hydraulic
+excavators attacking them at the top, the problem of the slides was
+solved.
+
+Viewing Culebra Cut in retrospect, it proved an immensely less
+difficult task than some prophesied, and a much more serious one than
+others predicted. There were those who opposed the building of the
+Panama Canal because of the belief that Culebra Cut could not be dug,
+that Culebra Mountain was an effective barrier to human ambition.
+Also, there were those who asserted that Gold Hill and Contractor's
+Hill were in danger of sliding into the big ditch and that they were
+mountains which neither the faith nor the pocketbooks of the Americans
+could remove. Others saw the handwriting of Failure on the wall in
+the heaving up of the bottom of the cut, interpreting this as a
+movement from the very depths of the earth. Still others saw it in the
+smoke that issued from fissures in the cut, which spoke to them of
+volcanoes being unearthed and told them that the Babel of American
+ambitions must totter to the ground. They did not know that these were
+only little splotches of decomposing metals suddenly exposed to the
+air, any more than their fellow pessimists knew that the heaving up of
+the bottom of the cut was due to the pressure of the earth on the
+adjacent banks.
+
+To-day Culebra Mountain bows its lofty head to the genius of the
+American engineer and to the courage of the canal army. Through its
+vitals there runs a great artificial canyon nearly 9 miles long, 300
+feet wide at its bottom, in places as much as a half mile wide at its
+top and nearly 500 feet deep at the deepest point. Out of it there was
+taken 105,000,000 cubic yards of material, and at places it cost as
+much as $15,000,000 a mile to make the excavations. Through it now
+extends a great ribbon of water broad enough to permit the largest
+vessels afloat to pass one another under their own power, and deep
+enough to carry a ship with a draft beyond anything in the minds of
+naval constructors to-day. With towering hills lining it on either
+side, with banks that are precipitous here and farflung there, with
+great and deep recesses at one place and another telling of the
+gigantic breaks and slides with which the men who built it had to
+contend, going through Culebra Cut gives to the human heart a thrill
+such as the sight of no other work of the human hand can give. Its
+magnitude, its awe-inspiring aspect as one navigates the channel
+between the two great hills which stand like sentinels above it, and
+the memory of the thousands of tons of dynamite, the hundreds of
+millions of money and the vast investment of brain and brawn required
+in its digging, all conspire to make the wonder greater. It is the
+mightiest deed the hand of man has done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ENDS OF THE CANAL
+
+
+While the completed Panama Canal does not wed the two oceans, or
+permit their waters to mingle in Gatun Lake, it does bring them a
+little closer together. On the Atlantic side a sea-level channel has
+been dug from deep water due south to Gatun, a distance of 7 miles. On
+the Pacific side a similar channel has been dug from deep water in a
+northwesterly direction to Miraflores, a distance of 8 miles. It
+follows that 15 of the 50 miles of the canal will be filled with salt
+water. The remaining 35 miles will be filled with fresh water supplied
+by the Chagres and the lesser rivers of Panama. The task of digging
+these sea-level sections was a considerable one and almost every
+method of ditch digging that human ingenuity has been able to devise
+was employed. Steam shovels, dipper dredges, ladder dredges,
+stationary suction dredges, and sea-going suction dredges, all
+contributed their share toward bringing the waters of the Atlantic to
+Gatun and those of the Pacific to Miraflores. In addition to these
+methods, on the Pacific side use was made of the hydraulic process of
+excavating soft material, washing it loose with powerful streams of
+water and pumping it out with giant pumps.
+
+[Illustration: THE DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF SLIDES IN CULEBRA CUT]
+
+[Illustration: W. G. COMBER
+
+U. S. LADDER DREDGE "COROZAL" AND ONE OF HER MUD BUCKETS]
+
+As one travels along the Pacific end of the canal he is reminded of
+the words of Isaiah:
+
+     "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall
+     be made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough
+     places a plain."
+
+Hundreds of acres of low, marshy land have been filled up, either with
+mud from the suction dredges and the hydraulic excavators, or with
+spoil from Culebra Cut. Much of this made land will be valuable for
+tropical agriculture, while other parts will never serve any purpose
+other than to keep down the marshes. But they afforded a dumping
+ground for material taken out of the canal prism, and added something
+to the improvement of health and living conditions on the Isthmus.
+
+Probably the most interesting process of excavation in the sea-level
+channels was that of the sea-going suction dredges. These dredges took
+out material more cheaply than any other kind of excavating machinery
+used on the Isthmus. Two of them were put to work in 1908, about the
+time the operations reached full-blast and have been kept in
+commission ever since. While it cost as much as $70,000 a year to keep
+each one in commission, they were able to maintain an annual average
+of about 5,000,000 cubic yards of material excavated at a cost per
+yard of 5 cents and even less. With steam shovels it ranged from 10 to
+20 times as much per yard. These big dredges were built with great
+bins in their holds and equipped with powerful 20-inch centrifugal
+pumps. When at work they steamed up and down the channel, sucking up
+the mud, and carrying it out to sea.
+
+Another interesting dredge used was the big ladder dredge Corozal. It
+is a great floating dock, as it were, with a huge endless chain
+carrying 52 immense, 35-cubic-foot buckets. On the center line
+amidships there is a large opening down to the water. The big elevator
+framework carrying the endless chain goes down through this and into
+the water at a considerable angle. The buckets pass around this, and
+as they round the end of it their great steel lips dig down into the
+material until filled, then they come up at the rate of three every
+five seconds and deposit their burden in a huge hopper which conveys
+it to the barge at the side of the dredge. The dredge is anchored fast
+at a given place, and keeps on attacking the material beneath it until
+the desired level is reached. This dredge, with the sea-going suction
+dredges, will be retained as the permanent dredging fleet. The
+stationary suction dredges at the two ends of the canal were used to
+pump up the soft material and to force it out through long pipe lines
+into the swamps or into the hydraulic cores of the earth dams.
+
+[Illustration: THE _Corozal_ AND ITS METHOD OF ATTACK]
+
+Several old French ladder dredges were rescued from the jungle and put
+into commission at the beginning of the work, and they held out
+faithfully to the end, dividing honors with the newer equipment in
+hastening the day when the oceans might go inland to Gatun and
+Miraflores. While they looked like toys beside such giant excavators
+as the Corozal, they probably showed more efficiency than any other
+class of excavators of their period of construction. They were
+attended by large self-propelling scows built by the French. When
+these were filled they steamed out to sea and dumped their burden and
+then steamed back again for another load. Some of the dredges were
+attended by ordinary barges which were towed out to sea by tugs and
+dumped.
+
+Another interesting machine used on the Pacific end of the canal was
+the Lobnitz rock breaker. This consists of a sort of pile driver
+mounted on a large barge. Instead of a pile driving weight there is a
+big battering ram made of round steel, pointed at one end. It is
+lifted up perhaps 10 feet and allowed to drop suddenly. As some of
+these rams weigh as much as 25 tons their striking force may be
+imagined. When the ram struck the rock the top would shake back and
+forth like a bamboo pole, in spite of the fact that it was made of the
+best steel and more than 15 inches in diameter. Sooner or later the
+rams would break off at the water line, this being due to the fact
+that the constant flexion at that point set the molecules in the steel
+and took away all its elasticity.
+
+It was found desirable to excavate a part of the sea-level channel
+before the water was let into it. To accomplish this a big dam, or
+dike, was built across the channel several miles inland, and steam
+shovels were used behind this dike. As the work neared completion,
+however, it was found advisable to let the water come further inland,
+so that the dredges could extend the field of their activities. To do
+this another dike was thrown across the channel about a mile north of
+the first one, and water was admitted to the section of the big ditch
+between these two dikes. The engineers were afraid to cut a small
+ditch in the top of the first dike, and allow the water to eat the dam
+away as it flowed in, for fear that it would rush in so rapidly it
+would destroy the second dike. Therefore they filled the basin between
+the two dikes by siphon and by pumping, a process which required the
+drawing in of billions of gallons of water. This was accomplished in
+due time, however, and then 16 tons of dynamite was placed in the no
+longer useful dike. An electric spark did the rest.
+
+The distinguishing features of the ends of the canal are the big
+breakwaters at Toro Point, at the Atlantic end, and Naos Island, at
+the Pacific end. The former extends from the shore out into the sea
+for a distance of 2 miles and has a large lighthouse at the seaward
+end. It was built by dumping stone from the shore out into the sea,
+this process being followed by driving piles into the dumped stone and
+building a railroad on the crest, over which the stone was hauled for
+its further extension. The top of the breakwater is covered with huge
+stones weighing from 8 to 20 tons each, these to make sure that it
+will stand against the pounding of the waves. Two minor breakwaters
+were also built at the Atlantic end to protect the terminal basin.
+
+The big dike at Naos Island in the Pacific is more than 17,000 feet
+long and transforms the island into the cape of a small peninsula.
+There was a threefold purpose in its construction--to cut out the
+cross currents that brought thousands of yards of sand and silt into
+the canal channel, to afford a dumping place for a large quantity of
+the spoil from Culebra Cut, and to make a connection with the mainland
+for the fortifications on Naos, Flamenco, and Perico Islands. In
+building it the engineers were under the necessity of first building a
+trestle on which the spoil trains could be backed and dumped. The
+piles had to be driven in soft, blue mud, and as the rock was dumped,
+it sank down and down until, at places, ten times as much stone was
+required as would have been necessary if the ocean bottom had been
+firm. In addition to this thousands of trainloads of material were
+dumped in the landward end of the dike, some 20,000,000 cubic yards of
+material being thus disposed of.
+
+The last part of the canal work to be completed will be the terminal
+facilities at the ends of the big waterway. At the time this book went
+to press they were something more than a year from completion, but the
+indications were that they would be finished within the time limit
+originally set for the completion of the canal itself. These terminal
+facilities consist of dry docks, wharfage space, storehouses, and
+everything else necessary to perform any service that might ordinarily
+be required for passing ships, whether they be those of commerce or of
+war. The main coaling station is to be established at the Atlantic
+end. The storehouses, the laundry, the bakery, and the other equipment
+of the Isthmian Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad also will be
+made a part of the permanent terminal plant on that side of the
+Isthmus.
+
+A large dry dock is being built at the Pacific end having the same
+usable dimensions as the canal locks, capable of accommodating any
+vessel that can pass through the canal. The principal machine shops
+will also be erected there, and a coaling plant of half the capacity
+of the one at the Atlantic end will be provided. A little to the east
+of the Pacific terminal works will be stationed the capital of the
+Canal Zone, where the administrative offices, the governor's
+residence, and two new towns will be built. The administration
+building, which is to be a three-story structure of concrete, hollow
+tile, and structural steel, is to occupy an eminence on the side of
+Ancon Hill, which will afford a splendid view of the Pacific
+fortifications, the entrance to the canal channel, a part of the port
+works, and of the canal itself from the great continental divide to
+the Pacific.
+
+There one may sit and see ships coming into the canal, tying up at the
+docks, sailing up the big ditch, and passing through the locks at
+Miraflores and Pedro Miguel. Near by will be the permanent home of the
+marines who will be stationed on the Isthmus, their barracks and
+grounds occupying the broad plateau on the side of Ancon Hill made by
+taking out the millions of cubic yards of stone required for the
+concrete works on the Pacific side of the Isthmus. Two permanent towns
+will be built at Balboa, one for the Americans and the other for the
+common laborers. The American town will be built under the capitol
+hill on a broad plain that was made by pumping hydraulic material into
+a swamp and by dumping spoil from Culebra Cut.
+
+When the terminal plant at Balboa is completed it will represent
+probably the most extensive and adequate port works in the New World.
+In addition to the main dry dock it will have a second one which will
+be smaller, but which will be large enough to accommodate a majority
+of the ships that will pass through the canal. The existing dry dock
+at the Atlantic end will be continued in service.
+
+It is certain that none of these port works will ever fail by reason
+of insecure foundations. Wherever unusual loads were to be carried
+great piers of reinforced concrete were sent down to solid rock, often
+a distance of 60 feet below the surface. They consisted of a hollow
+shell of reinforced concrete which was allowed to sink to hardpan of
+its own accord or under heavy weight. These shells were built in
+sections 6 feet high. The bottom section was 10 feet in diameter, and
+the lower end was equipped with a sharp steel shoe. As the section cut
+down into the earth of its own weight and that above it, laborers on
+the inside removed the material under the shoe and as they did so it
+sank further down. The sections above were only 8 feet in diameter,
+and did not quite fill up the hole made by the bottom of the section,
+thus overcoming all skin friction, and permitting the full weight of
+the series of sections to fall on the lower one. A jet of water was
+forced around the sinking pier all the time it was going down, and
+this made its progress the more easy. At times the weight of the
+superimposed sections was sufficient to force the pier down through
+the soft mud, while at other times the material became so heavy that
+even a 25-ton weight on top of the pier scarcely moved it. At one
+place a stratum of material was struck about 25 feet below the surface
+which yielded sulphuretted hydrogen gas. This affected the laborers'
+eyes, and some of them had to go to the hospital for treatment. The
+work of digging out the material was continued until the lower section
+reached bed rock, where it was anchored. The sections themselves were
+tied together with heavy iron rods. After they were firmly in place
+the interior was filled up with concrete, itself reinforced, so that
+the foundations became, in reality, a series of huge concrete piles, 8
+feet in diameter, anchored to bed rock.
+
+The coaling plants at the two terminals will be the crowning features
+of the terminal facilities. With an immense storage capacity, and with
+every possible facility for the rapid handling of coal, both in
+shipping and unshipping it, no other canal in the world will be so
+well equipped. The coal storage basin at the Atlantic end will hold
+nearly 300,000 tons. This basin will be built of reinforced concrete,
+and will permit the flooding of the coal pile so that one-half of it
+will be stored under water for war purposes. It is said that
+deterioration in coal is not as great in subaqueous storage, and at
+the same time the pile is less subject to fire. The plant will be able
+to discharge a thousand tons of coal an hour and to load 2,000 tons an
+hour. Ships will not go alongside the wharves to be coaled, but will
+lie out in the ship basin and be coaled from barges with reloader
+outfits. Special efforts have been made to provide for the quick
+loading of colliers in case of war. The coal handling plant at the
+Pacific entrance will have a normal capacity of 135,000 tons and will
+be able to handle half as much coal in a given time as the one at the
+Atlantic end.
+
+There will be big supply depots where ships can get any kind of stores
+they need from a few buckets of white lead to an anchor or a hawser; a
+laundry in which a ship's wash can be accepted at the hour it begins
+its transit of the canal, for delivery by railroad at the other end
+before it is ready to resume its ocean journey; an ice plant which
+will replenish the cold storage compartments of ships lacking such
+facilities. In short, it is proposed to attempt to do everything that
+may be done to make more attractive the bid of the canal for its share
+of business.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE PANAMA RAILROAD
+
+
+When the United States acquired the properties of the new French Canal
+Company it found itself in the possession of a railroad for which it
+had allowed the canal company $7,000,000. This road, in the high tide
+of its history, had proved a bonanza for its stockholders, and during
+the 43 years between 1855 and 1898 it showed net profits five times as
+great as the original cost of its construction.
+
+When the United States took over the road someone described it as
+being merely "two streaks of rust and a right of way." While the
+Panama road as acquired by the United States in its purchase of the
+assets of the new French Canal Company might have been all that this
+phrase implies, it was none the less as great a bargain as was ever
+bought by any Government, and probably the greatest bargain ever sold
+in the shape of a railroad. It was not the rolling stock that was
+valuable, nor yet the road itself; the real value was to be found in
+the possibilities of the concession. Not only was this road destined
+to render to the United States a service in the building of the Panama
+Canal, worth to Uncle Sam a great many times more than its cost, but
+it was also destined to yield a net profit from its commercial
+operations which in 10 years would amount to double the price paid for
+it. Since the Americans took it over it has been yielding net returns
+ranging from a million and a quarter to a million and three-quarters
+dollars a year. In these 10 years it has brought an aggregate profit
+of some $15,000,000 into the coffers of the United States.
+
+While $7,000,000 may have been a high price, judged from the
+standpoint of the physical value of the road, it was a very reasonable
+one, indeed, as compared with the price paid for it by the new French
+Canal Company. This company, which sold it to the United States for
+$7,000,000, paid the Panama Railroad Company $18,000,000 for it 23
+years before. When the French Canal Company decided to undertake the
+building of the canal, it found that the Panama Railroad Company held
+concessions that were absolutely necessary to the construction of the
+canal. The Colombian Government had granted the company the concession
+to complete the road in 1849, and had agreed that no other
+interoceanic communication should be opened without the consent of the
+railroad. This gave to the railroad company the whip hand in trading
+with the canal company and it was able to name its own price.
+
+When the United States wanted to buy the rights and properties of the
+new French Canal Company the shoe was on the other foot. There was
+only one buyer--the United States; and it could choose between the
+Panama and Nicaragua routes. If the United States did not buy the
+property its principal value would have been what it was worth as an
+uncertain prospect that at some future time a second Isthmian canal
+might be built. That is why the United States was able to buy from the
+French for $7,000,000 property that they had bought for $18,000,000.
+
+After the United States acquired possession of the railroad, one
+change after another took place--now in the location, now in the
+rolling stock, now in directorate, and again in location--until almost
+all that remained of the original road was its name. It is now built
+almost every foot of the distance on a new location and the permanent
+Panama Railroad is a thoroughly modern, well-ballasted, heavy-railed,
+block-signal operated line of railway, built along the east bank of
+the Panama Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Nearly half of the
+old right of way lies on the bottom of Lake Gatun, while the new line
+skirts that artificial body of water along its eastern shore, at
+places crossing its outlying arms over big bridges and heavy trestles.
+The construction of this new line was attended with much difficulty
+and probably no other road in the world has such a great percentage of
+fills and embankments in proportion to its length. One embankment, a
+mile and a quarter long and 82 feet high, required upward of 2,500,000
+yards of material for its construction. The road is built about 10
+feet above the water's edge, and more than 12,000,000 cubic yards of
+material was required to make the fills necessary to carry the road
+bed at this elevation.
+
+When the United States took over the French property it was decided
+that the canal work and the railroad operations should be maintained
+as distinct activities. It was agreed that the Canal Commission
+should have the right to haul its dirt trains over the Panama
+Railroad, and in compensation therefor the commission undertook to
+build a new road to take the place of the old line, which was in the
+way of the completion of the canal.
+
+The work of relocating the road was undertaken early in the
+construction of the canal in order that it might be completed by the
+time the old road had to be abandoned. It was built at a cost of
+approximately $9,000,000, or close to $170,000 a mile. It is
+interesting to note that the cost of this thoroughly modern railroad
+was only about a million dollars more than the cost of the first
+Panama road which has been built with rather less than usual attention
+to grades, and with small rails and light bridges. The relocated
+Panama Railroad was turned over to the railroad company in 1912.
+
+How good a bargain the United States secured when it acquired the
+Panama Railroad is shown by the fact that during the 10 years of canal
+work the net earnings of the railroad company have reimbursed the
+United States for the cost of the old road and the construction of the
+new one, to say nothing of the invaluable aid rendered in the building
+of the canal.
+
+The relations existing between the Isthmian Canal Commission and the
+Panama Railroad Company during the years of the construction of the
+canal were somewhat peculiar. The Panama Railroad Company is as much
+the property of the United States as the canal itself, yet the books
+of the two organizations were kept as carefully separate and distinct
+as though they were under entirely different ownership. The Panama
+Railroad Company, being a chartered corporation, under the terms of
+its ownership could engage in commercial business with all of the
+facility of a private corporation. Money received by the Isthmian
+Canal Commission from outside sources had to be covered into the
+treasury and reappropriated for distinct and special purposes. On the
+other hand, the railroad company could use its money over and over
+again without turning it back into the treasury. This advantage of
+operation was a useful one in conducting the road itself, and also in
+the construction of the canal.
+
+There was another reason which led the canal authorities to advocate
+the maintenance of the two organizations as separate entities. This
+had to do with the concession rights. Under the terms of the
+concession of the railroad company the property was to revert to the
+Republic of Colombia in 1967, or at any earlier date should the
+company cease to exist as such. While most authorities agree that with
+the secession of Panama and the setting up of the new Government all
+of Colombia's rights in the railroad company passed with the
+territory, and while the treaty between the United States and the
+Republic of Panama expressly provides that the United States shall
+have "absolute title--free from every present or reversionary interest
+or claim" in the railroad, the Republic of Colombia contends that it
+possesses some rights with reference to the railroad and, not desiring
+to complicate matters, the canal authorities thought it best to live
+up to the letter of the treaty, in spite of Panama's express grant of
+title free from reversionary interest or claim.
+
+While it was deemed desirable to have the Panama Railroad operated as
+a separate organization, it was equally important that it should be
+operated in a way that its interests always would be subordinate to
+those of the canal. It was decided that the best way to accomplish
+this was to make the chairman and chief engineer of the Canal
+Commission the president of the railroad company, and the members of
+the commission its directors. The stock of the company is held in the
+name of the Secretary of War, with the exception of a few shares held
+by the directors to entitle them to membership on the board. There are
+also a few directors chosen from other parts of the Government
+service, but their activities are purely perfunctory.
+
+In addition to the railroad, the Panama Railroad Company also operates
+a steamship line between New York and Colon. This line was acquired
+with other properties of the new French Canal Company as a part of the
+Panama Railroad's holdings. There were only a few years during the
+construction period when this steamship line did not show a loss. But
+the advantages of having a steamship line for carrying the supplies of
+the canal were so great, because of the special facilities that could
+be provided, that the loss was more than compensated by them. During
+the year 1912 the cost of operating this steamship line was $305,000
+greater than the revenues derived from its operation. But, at the same
+time there was a return of net earnings by the Panama Railroad of
+over $2,000,000, at least a part of which was made possible by the
+operation of the steamship line. Even after deducting the losses
+sustained in the operation of the steamship company there was a net
+profit of more than $1,700,000, which for a railroad of less than 50
+miles in length is no small item.
+
+As a matter of fact, Government ownership of railways as applied at
+Panama is remarkably successful from the standpoint of the Government,
+and partially so to the patrons of the railroad. Probably no railroad
+in the United States could show net earnings per mile of line anywhere
+comparable with those of the Panama Railroad.
+
+The rates for passengers and baggage across the Isthmus were rather
+high for first-class passengers, the fare for the 48-mile trip being
+$2.40, or 5 cents a mile. The second-class rate was only half as much.
+On the handling of freight the railroad had to divide the through rate
+with the steamship companies of the Atlantic and the Pacific, but,
+while the rates were high, judged by American standards, and the
+percentages of profits very large, the service maintained was so
+superior to that encountered on the privately owned railroads of the
+Tropics that no one ever seriously complained of the charges.
+
+One of the most important services rendered by the Panama Railroad
+Company in the construction of the canal was in connection with the
+commissary. It had more to do with the maintenance of a reasonable
+standard of living cost on the Isthmus than anything else.
+
+When the canal was nearing completion it became advisable to
+determine what rôle the Panama Railroad should play after the
+permanent organization went into effect. Should it be continued as a
+separate entity distinct from the canal but controlled by the canal
+authorities? Or should it be merged into the Canal Government and
+operated purely as an auxiliary of the canal with no separate
+existence? This matter was carefully weighed by the canal authorities
+and the Government at Washington, and it was finally decided that the
+best plan would be to operate them as separate entities, but to have
+all the work done by single organization. Another question that arose
+was whether the Panama Railroad Steamship Line should be operated as a
+Government line after the completion of the canal. Recalling the fact
+that the line never had been a profitable one, and that there was no
+further reason why it should be continued in operation with an annual
+deficit, the recommendation was made by the chairman and the chief
+engineer that the ships should be disposed of and the line
+discontinued.
+
+As the tide of tourist travel set toward Panama, the serious problem
+of taking care of thousands of visitors confronted the canal
+authorities. There were times when every available facility for taking
+care of lodgers was called into requisition, and still hundreds of
+American tourists had to find quarters in cheap, vermin-infested
+native hotels at Colon. Believing that the situation demanded a modern
+hotel at the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, and having in mind the
+success of the Government in the construction and maintenance of the
+Tivoli Hotel at the Pacific side, it was decided by the Secretary of
+War that the Panama Railroad Company should build a new hotel at
+Colon, to be operated by that company for the Government. The result
+was the beautiful Washington Hotel, in whose architecture one finds
+the world's best example of northern standards of hotel construction
+adapted to tropical needs.
+
+Built of concrete and cement block, it is constructed in a modified
+Spanish Mission style that makes it cool and comfortable at all times.
+Its public rooms, from the main lobby to the dining-rooms, from the
+ladies' parlor to the telephone and cable rooms, from the barber shop
+to the billiard room, are large, airy, and most attractively
+furnished. Its ball room, opening on three sides to the breezes borne
+in from the Caribbean is a delight to the disciples of Terpsichore,
+while its open-air swimming pool, said to be the largest hotel
+swimming pool in the world, affords ideal facilities for those who
+otherwise would sigh for the surf. Persons who have visited every
+leading hotel in the New World, from the Rio Grande southward to the
+Strait of Magellan, say that it is without a superior in all that
+region and, perhaps, without an equal except for one in Buenos Aires.
+
+Here one may find accommodations to suit his taste and largely to meet
+the necessities of his pocketbook. The best rooms with bath cost $5 a
+day for one, or $6 for two. Table d'hote meals are served at $1 each,
+while those who prefer it may secure club breakfasts and a la carte
+service. Anyone who has visited the Hotel Washington, situated as it
+is on Colon Beach, where the breakers sweep in from the Caribbean Sea,
+feels that Uncle Sam is no less successful as a hotel keeper than as
+a builder of canals.
+
+The Panama Railroad, under the American régime, has always looked well
+after the comfort of its patrons. The coaches are of the standard
+American type, and enough of them are run on every train to make it
+certain that no patron need stand for lack of a seat. The most popular
+trains carry from 8 to 12 cars. These trains are run on convenient
+schedules, permitting a person to go and come from any point on the
+road in any forenoon or afternoon. All coaches are supplied with
+hygienic drinking cups, and in every way the Panama Railroad shows
+that Uncle Sam is solicitous for the welfare of his patrons.
+
+All the rolling stock on the Isthmus is built on a 5-foot gauge, this
+having been the gauge of the original Panama Railroad. As the rolling
+stock of the Canal Commission had to run over the lines of the Panama
+Railroad, it also was built on the gauge. When this rolling stock is
+disposed of it will be necessary to readjust the gauge to meet the
+ordinary American standard which is 2-1/2 inches narrower. It has been
+estimated that the engine axles can be shortened for $750 per
+locomotive and those of cars at prices ranging from $27 to $31 per
+car.
+
+The first attempt to build the Panama Railroad was made in 1847, when
+a French company secured a charter from the Government of Colombia for
+a building of a road across the Isthmus. This company was unable to
+finance the project and the concession lapsed.
+
+In 1849 William H. Aspinwall, John L. Stevens, and Henry Chauncey,
+New York capitalists, undertook the construction of the road. The
+terms of the concession provided that the road would be purchased by
+the Government at the expiration of 20 years after its completion for
+$5,000,000. The loss of life in the construction of this road, serious
+as it was, has been monumentally exaggerated. It is an oft-repeated
+statement that a man died for every tie laid on the road. This would
+mean that there were 150,000 deaths in its construction. As a matter
+of fact, the total number of persons employed during the six years the
+line was being built did not exceed 6,000. But among these the death
+rate was very high. Several thousand Chinese were brought over and
+they died almost like flies. Malaria and yellow fever were the great
+scourges they had to encounter, although smallpox and other diseases
+carried away hundreds.
+
+The road was completed in January, 1855. Before the last rail was laid
+more than $2,000,000 had been taken in for hauling passengers as far
+as the road extended. The way in which the original 50-cent per mile
+rate across the Isthmus was established is interesting. The chief
+engineer encountered much trouble from people who wanted to use the
+road as far inland as it went from Colon, so he suggested that a
+50-cent rate be established, thinking to make it prohibitory. But the
+people who wanted to cross the Isthmus were willing to pay even 50
+cents a mile. Hence for years after the completion of the road the
+passenger rate continued at $25 for the one-way trip across the
+Isthmus.
+
+The railroad proved to be such an unexpectedly good investment that
+the Republic of Colombia began to establish its claim to acquire
+ownership of the road at the expiration of the 2-year term, which
+would take place in 1875. It was necessary therefore, that the
+railroad company should take steps to save the railroad from a forced
+sale with $5,000,000 as the consideration. Representatives were
+dispatched to Bogota with instructions to get an extension of the
+concession under the most favorable terms possible. As it was realized
+that the Republic of Colombia held the whip hand in the negotiations,
+the railroad company understood that if it wished to escape selling
+its great revenue producing road for $5,000,000 it would have to meet
+any terms Colombia might dictate. The result of this mission was an
+agreement by the railroad that in consideration of an extension of the
+concession for a term of 99 years it would pay to the Colombian
+Government $1,000,000 spot cash and $250,000 a year during the life of
+the concession. That annual payment was continued as long as the
+Isthmus remained a part of the Republic of Colombia. Under the terms
+of the treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama it
+was resumed again in 1913, to be paid by the United States to the
+Republic of Panama throughout all the years that the United States
+maintains and operates the Panama Canal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SANITATION
+
+
+Primarily, the conquest of the Isthmian barrier was the conquest of
+the mosquito. Not mountains to be leveled, nor wild rivers to be
+tamed, nor yet titanic machinery to be installed, presented the
+gravest obstacles to the canal builders. Their most feared enemies
+were none of these, but the swarms of mosquitoes that bred in myriads
+in every lake, in every tiny pool, in every clump of weeds on the
+rain-soaked, steaming, tropical land. For these mosquitoes were the
+bearers of the dread germs of yellow fever and of malaria; and the
+conditions that encouraged their multiplication bred also typhoid and
+all manner of filthy disease. Each mosquito was a potential messenger
+of death. The buzzing, biting pests had defeated the French in Panama
+without the French ever having recognized the source of the attack. It
+was because the Americans, thanks to Great Britain and to Cuba, knew
+the deadly qualities of the mosquitoes that they were able to plan,
+under the leadership of Col. W. C. Gorgas, a sanitary campaign of
+unprecedented success. It achieved two victories. One was that it made
+of the Canal Zone the most healthful strip of land under tropic skies.
+The other is the Panama Canal.
+
+When one looks about in an effort to place the credit for these great
+sanitary achievements he must go back to Cuba, where the yellow fever
+commission, consisting of Reed, Carroll, Lazear, and Agrimonte, made
+the remarkable investigations proving that yellow fever is
+transmissible only through the bite of a mosquito. He must go still
+further back to Maj. Roland Ross of the British Army, and his
+epoch-making discovery that malaria is conveyed only by the bite of
+another kind of mosquito. And, if he is just to all who have
+contributed to the establishment of the insect-bearing theory of
+disease, he must not forget Sir Patrick Manson who first proved that
+any disease could be transmitted by insect bites. It was he who
+discovered that filariasis is transmissible by this method alone. It
+was from him that Ross gathered the inspiration that is releasing
+humanity from one of the most insidious of all the diseases to which
+mortal flesh is heir. And it was from Ross's malaria discoveries, in
+turn, that Reed carried forward to successful proof the theory which
+had persisted in some quarters for generations that yellow fever was
+transmissible through mosquitoes; a theory already partially proved by
+Dr. Carlos Finley, of Havana, 20 years earlier.
+
+[Illustration: COL. WILLIAM C. GORGAS
+
+THE HOSPITAL GROUNDS, ANCON]
+
+[Illustration: LIEUT. FREDERIC MEARS
+
+THE OLD PANAMA RAILROAD]
+
+But all of the surmises and theories came short of the truth until
+Reed, Carroll, Lazear, and Agrimonte (Lazear at the cost of his life
+and Carroll at the cost of a nearly fatal attack of yellow fever) took
+up the work of proving that there was only one way in which yellow
+fever could be transmitted; namely, by the bite of the mosquito.
+Sleeping with patients who had yellow fever, wearing the clothes of
+those who had died from it, eating from utensils from which yellow
+fever victims had eaten--in short, putting to the most rigid test
+every other possible method of infection, they proved by every
+negative test that yellow fever could not be produced in any way other
+than by the bite of a mosquito.
+
+The next step was to give affirmative proof that yellow fever was
+caused by the bite of the female "stegomyia"--she of the striped
+stockings and the shrill song. This meant that someone had to have
+enough love for humanity to risk his life by inviting one of the worst
+forms of death to which human flesh is heir. Those doctors knew that
+they could not as brave men ask others to undergo the risks that they
+themselves might not accept, so in a little council chamber in Havana
+the three Americans--Reed, Carroll, and Lazear--entered into a compact
+that they themselves would permit infected mosquitoes to bite them.
+Reed was called home, but Carroll and Lazear stood with the keen and
+cold eyes of scientists and saw the mosquitoes inject the fateful
+poison into their blood. Later, after Lazear had died and Carroll had
+stood in the jaws of death, soldiers of the American army in Cuba
+volunteered in the interest of humanity to undergo these same risks.
+And it was thus, at this price, that the world came to know how yellow
+fever is caused, and that the United States was to be able to build
+the Panama Canal.
+
+After the guilt of the female "stegomyia" mosquito was firmly
+established the next problem was to find a method of combating her
+work. Dr. Reed and his associates thought that it might be done
+through a process of immunization, using the mosquito to bite patients
+with very mild cases, and after the necessary period of incubation, to
+transmit the disease to those who were to be rendered immune. It was
+soon found, however, that there was no method of transmitting a mild
+infection, and the next problem was to combat the work of the mosquito
+by isolation of yellow fever patients, and by the extermination of the
+mosquitoes themselves.
+
+In Havana at this time there was another army surgeon who was destined
+to write his name high upon the pages of medical achievement. He was
+Dr. William C. Gorgas. Under the patronage of Gen. Leonard Wood,
+himself a physician and alive to the lessons of the yellow fever
+commission's investigations, Major Gorgas undertook to apply the
+doctrine of yellow fever prevention promulgated by the commission, and
+his efforts were attended with brilliant success. The result was that
+Havana, in particular, and Cuba, in general, were freed from this
+great terror of the Tropics. When President Roosevelt came to provide
+for the building of the Panama Canal one of his earlier acts was to
+appoint Dr. Gorgas the chief sanitary officer of the Canal Zone.
+
+At first there was difficulty in establishing practical sanitation in
+Panama. The chief sanitary officer was then a subordinate of the
+commission, and, along with all of the other men who were trying to do
+things on the Isthmus, he found himself hindered by unsatisfactory
+conditions both as to supplies and as to force; consequently, his work
+was no more satisfactory to himself than it was to the commission or
+to the American people. Under these conditions an epidemic of yellow
+fever broke out in Panama in 1905, and it was not long before the
+yellow fever mosquito had seemingly established an alibi and had
+secured a reopening of her case before the jury of public sentiment.
+People, to emphasize their disbelief in the mosquito theory of the
+transmission of the disease, tore the screens from their doors and
+windows, and otherwise proclaimed their contempt for the doctors and
+their doctrines. This matter went so far that the Isthmian Canal
+Commission proposed not only a change in method but a change in
+personnel as well.
+
+At this juncture Charles E. Magoon became governor of the Canal Zone,
+and he declared that Dr. Gorgas should have adequate financial and
+moral support. He was determined that the panic which the yellow fever
+outbreak had engendered should be halted--and a panic it was, for men
+rushed madly to Colon and defied the efforts of the commission, and of
+the captains and crews of the Panama Railroad steamships, to prevent
+them from returning to the States without other transportation
+arrangements than a determination to get aboard and stay there until
+the Statue of Liberty had been passed in New York Harbor. So great was
+this panic that Chief Engineer Stevens declared that there were three
+diseases at Panama: Yellow fever, malaria, and cold feet: and that the
+greatest of these was cold feet. The newspapers of the United States
+at that time quoted the poetry of such writers as Gilbert, who said:
+
+    "Beyond the Chagres River
+    'Tis said (the story's old)
+    Are paths that lead to mountains
+    Of purest virgin gold;
+    But 'tis my firm conviction
+    What e'er the tales they tell,
+    That beyond the Chagres River
+    All paths lead straight to hell."
+
+It did not matter that in four months there were only 47 deaths on the
+Isthmus from yellow fever as compared with 108 from malaria in the
+same period--men do not stop to study mortality tables and to compare
+the relative fatalities of diseases when yellow fever stares them in
+the face.
+
+But after all, the yellow fever panic of 1905 served a good purpose,
+for if the mosquito thereby secured a reopening of its case, it
+stirred the United States Government to give to the sanitary officers
+of the Canal Zone the powers they needed, and the means required to
+prove finally and forever in the court of last resort, the guilt of
+the mosquito, and to establish for once and all the method of
+combating its stealthy work.
+
+The whole world recognizes the remarkable results in sanitary work
+that have been achieved at Panama. While it must be remembered that
+the population of the Canal Zone is made up largely of able-bodied
+men, and that, therefore, the death rate naturally would be lower than
+under like conditions with a normal population of infancy and old
+age, the fact remains that sanitary science has converted the Zone
+from a mosquito paradise of swamp and jungle into a region where
+mosquitoes have all but disappeared, and where men are as free from
+danger of epidemic diseases as in the United States itself.
+
+The sanitary statistics of the Canal Zone, and of the cities of Panama
+and Colon, were based for several years upon an erroneous assumption
+of population. The Department of Sanitation estimated the population
+of the Canal Zone by deducting the recorded emigrants from the
+recorded immigrants and assumed that the difference represented a
+permanent addition to the Zone's population. Under this method of
+estimating population a serious error crept in, since hundreds of
+people came into Panama from the Panaman outports and were recorded as
+arrivals, but who, departing in small sailing vessels and launches at
+night after the port officers had gone home, were not recorded as
+having departed. In this way the sanitary department estimates of
+population in the Canal Zone reached a total of 93,000 in 1912. The
+census taken that year showed only 62,000 population in the Zone. This
+served to make the death rate given out by the Department of
+Sanitation 50 per cent lower than was justified by actual population
+conditions.
+
+But one does not need to consider figures to realize what has been
+accomplished at Panama. Anyone who goes there and sees the remarkable
+evidence of the success of the efforts to conquer the disease of the
+tropical jungles, finds a lesson taught that is too impressive to
+need the confirmation of medical statistics.
+
+The United States, after the yellow fever outbreak of 1905, never
+counted the cost when the health of the canal army was at stake. Not
+only was Uncle Sam successful in his efforts to make the Canal Zone
+and the terminal cities of Panama and Colon healthful places of abode,
+but no worker on the canal was denied the privilege of the best
+medical care. An average of $2,000,000 a year was expended in the
+prevention of sickness and the care of those who were sick. At Ancon
+and at Colon large hospitals were maintained where the white American
+and the West Indian negro had their respective wards. At Taboga a
+large sanitarium was maintained to assist the recuperation of those
+who had recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital. Besides this
+there were rest camps along the line for those not ill enough to be
+removed to the hospitals, and dispensaries where those who felt they
+were not in need of other medical attention could consult with the
+physicians and get the necessary medicines. All medical services to
+the employees of the Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad were
+free, and only nominal charges were made for members of their
+families. No passenger train crossed the Isthmus of Panama without
+carrying a hospital car for taking patients to or from the hospitals.
+No way station was without its waiting shed bearing the inscription:
+"For Hospital Patients Only." Each community had its dispensary, its
+doctor, and its sanitary inspector.
+
+During the year 1912 there were 48,000 cases of sickness in the Canal
+Zone, of which 26,000 were white and 22,000 colored. During the same
+year 633,000 trips to the dispensaries were made by employees and
+nonemployees, divided almost evenly between white and colored. The
+average number of employees constantly sick in Ancon Hospital was 712;
+in Colon Hospital 209; and in Taboga Sanitarium 54. An average of 119
+were in the sick camps all the time and 50 in the quarters. The
+average number of days' treatment per employee in the hospitals was a
+little over 14; in the sick camps a little under 3; and in quarters
+2-1/3. It cost $160,000 a year to feed the patients in the hospitals
+and $739,000 a year to operate the hospitals.
+
+The work of sanitation proper cost some $400,000 a year. This includes
+many items. During one year about 16,000,000 square yards of brush
+were cut and burned; a million square yards of swamp were drained;
+30,000,000 square yards of grass were cut; 250,000 feet of ditches
+were dug; and some 2,000,000 linear feet of old ditches were cleaned.
+During the same year nearly a million garbage cans and over 300,000
+refuse cans were emptied. In addition to looking after the health of
+the Canal Zone itself, it was necessary to care for that of the cities
+of Panama and Colon. In the city of Panama 11,000 loads of sweepings
+and 25,000 loads of garbage were removed in one year; 3,000,000
+gallons of water were sprinkled on the streets and as much more
+distributed to the poor of the city.
+
+During one year the quarantine service, which keeps a strict lookout
+for yellow fever, bubonic plague, and other epidemic diseases,
+inspected over 100,000 passengers coming into the Zone. It required
+about 150,000 gallons of mosquito oil a year to keep down the
+mosquitoes. There are 50 known breeds of these insects on the Isthmus
+and perhaps some 20 species more which have not been identified. Of
+the 50 or more species of mosquitoes 11 belonged to the
+malaria-producing family--anopheles. Their cousins of the
+yellow-fever-producing family--the stegomyias--boast of only two
+species. What the other 40 or more kinds are doing besides annoying
+suffering humanity has not been determined. The mosquito is
+comparatively easy to exterminate. Its life habits are such that a
+terrific mortality may be produced among them during infancy. The
+average young mosquito, during its "wriggler" state of development,
+lives under the water and has to make about 8,000 trips to the surface
+for air before it can spread its wings and fly. If oil is poured upon
+the water it can get no air and death by asphyxiation follows. Two
+classes of larvaecide are used on the waters to exterminate the baby
+mosquitoes: One is an oil used to make a scum over the surface; the
+other a carbolic solution which poisons the water. At the head of
+every little rivulet and tiny, trickling stream one sees a barrel out
+of which comes an endless drip! drip! drip! These drops of oil or
+poison are carried down the stream and make inhospitable all of the
+mosquito nurseries of the marshes through which the waters flow. In
+addition to these barrels, men go about with tanks on their backs,
+spraying the marshy ground and the small, isolated pools of water with
+larvaecides.
+
+[Illustration: SANITARY DRINKING CUP]
+
+[Illustration: MOSQUITO OIL DRIP BARREL]
+
+[Illustration: SPRAYING MOSQUITO OIL]
+
+[Illustration: TYPICAL QUARTERS OF THE MARRIED LABORER]
+
+[Illustration: A NATIVE HUT]
+
+This method of treatment has not exterminated all mosquitoes on the
+Isthmus, but it has so materially reduced their number that one may
+stay in the Zone for weeks without seeing a single one. This is a
+freedom, however, that must be paid for by vigilance of the most
+painstaking and unremitting sort. The moment the work is relaxed the
+mosquitoes again spread over the territory.
+
+The United States Government will have to continue with the utmost
+care its work of sanitation and quarantine at Panama. If, after the
+canal is completed, an epidemic of bubonic plague or yellow fever
+should break out, it might very seriously interfere with the operation
+of the canal in several ways. To begin with, it would demoralize the
+operating force. Further than this, India and China are afraid of
+yellow fever because in both of these countries the stegomyia mosquito
+abounds. If the disease should obtain a foothold there it would be
+difficult to exterminate. Europe, also, might be expected to
+quarantine against Panama under such conditions. A 10,000-ton
+freighter carrying cargo through the canal would lose at least a
+thousand dollars for every day it was detained in quarantine by reason
+of having visited the canal.
+
+A shrewd observer has said that the successful sanitation of the
+Isthmus of Panama is a triumph at once of medical science and of
+despotic government. Probably this does not overstate the case. The
+methods employed at Panama were arbitrary, and had to be. They
+probably could not be enforced at all in a democratic community in
+ordinary times. The people would rebel against the severity of the
+regulations and against the incidental invasion of their privacy. But
+strike any community, however free, with the fear of a swift and
+deadly disease and it will submit--as witness the shot-gun quarantines
+that used to demark the northern limits of the yellow fever zone in
+our own Southern States, or the despotism that governed New Orleans in
+the terror of 1905. At Panama this fear is ever present, so there is
+little danger that a responsible majority there ever would resist the
+sanitary work on the grounds of outraged democracy. It may be that a
+popular government would become careless, or inefficient, but it would
+not renounce the pretension. This has been proved in Cuba.
+
+The sanitarians at Panama gave to the workers there a sense of
+security that contributed no little to the spirit of determination so
+universally remarked and commended by visitors to the Zone during the
+era of construction. While there was no immunity from sickness and
+death, yet there was no panic, no constant dread, such as destroyed
+the morale of the French force. The Isthmus of Panama still remained
+hot, its inhabitants still were forced to take the precautions that
+aliens must take in the Tropics; but they were inspired with a
+confidence that if these precautions were taken they would not be in
+any greater danger than if they had remained in their northern homes.
+
+Pestilence, the scourge of the on-sweeping epidemic, the plague of
+swift death that is only a little worse than the panic of fear it
+inspires--this was the thing that was stamped out.
+
+Not since the Science of Healing opened its doors to the Science of
+Prevention have physicians scored a greater victory in their fight
+against disease and death than on the Isthmus of Panama. Not only did
+they help to build the canal; they demonstrated that tropical diseases
+are capable of human control and thereby opened up a vista of hope
+undreamed of to all that sweltering and suffering mass of humanity
+that inhabits the Torrid Zone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE MAN AT THE HELM
+
+
+In 1905, William H. Taft, then Secretary of War, made a trip to the
+Isthmus of Panama to look over the preparations for the construction
+of the Panama Canal, and at the same time to consider the question of
+the fortification of the big waterway. On that trip a member of the
+General Staff of the Army, who at that time was but little known
+outside of Army circles, went with him. He was a tall, broad-shouldered,
+bronze-faced, gray-haired man, 47 years old. He came and went
+unheralded. Few people knew of the engineering record he had made, and
+no one on the Isthmus dreamed that he was destined to become the
+commander in chief of the army that would conquer the Isthmian
+barrier.
+
+He returned to the United States and wrote his report--a report which,
+from the deep mastery of the subject it revealed, attracted the
+favorable attention of the Secretary of War. Later when the board of
+consulting engineers came to make its report upon the type of canal
+which should be built--whether it should be a sea level or a lock
+canal--the Secretary of War asked this officer to prepare a draft of
+his report to the President recommending the lock canal.
+
+Soon after New Year's Day, 1907, the chief engineer of the canal,
+John F. Stevens, dissatisfied with the relations that existed between
+the Government and himself, came to the conclusion that he could not
+build the canal hampered as he was by red tape at Washington. It then
+became a question of whether or not the canal should be built by
+contract or by the Army. President Roosevelt asked for a preliminary
+report upon this proposition and the unheralded Army engineer who had
+visited the Canal Zone in 1905, made it. A few days later there was a
+conference between President Roosevelt, Gen. Alexander MacKenzie,
+Chief of Engineers of the United States Army, and the Secretary of
+War. After this conference Maj. George Washington Goethals was
+summoned to the White House and informed by the President that it had
+been determined to build the Panama Canal under the auspices of the
+Army, and that he was appointed chairman and chief engineer of the
+Isthmian Canal Commission. He was requested to keep the fact of his
+appointment a secret and to prepare immediately to go to Panama. A
+ship sailed for the Isthmus three days thereafter, and he was ready to
+sail when the President advised him that he might wait over and
+arrange affairs in Washington, leaving in time to get to the Isthmus
+to take charge on the first of April.
+
+When the announcement was made to the country that the work of
+building the canal was to be put in the hands of the Army, the whole
+country began to inquire: Who is Major Goethals? that inquiry revealed
+the fact that he was a man who had accomplished much in his 49 years.
+Born in 1858, of Dutch parents, whose ancestors had settled in New
+York when it was still New Amsterdam, he was appointed to the United
+States Military Academy at West Point where he was graduated in the
+class of 1880 with such honors that he was entitled to enter the
+Engineer Corps of the Regular Army.
+
+In 1891 he rose to the rank of captain, and in 1898 became lieutenant
+colonel and chief engineer of the First Volunteer Army Corps in Cuba.
+On the last day of that year he was honorably discharged from the
+volunteer service, and, in 1900, became a major in the Engineer Corps
+of the Regular Army. For a number of years prior to 1898 he had been
+instructor in civil and military engineering at West Point. He had
+been in charge of the Mussel Shoals canal construction on the
+Tennessee River, a work which won praise from engineers both in civil
+and in military life. It was in a measure his record made on the
+Tennessee River work that led to his appointment as chairman and chief
+engineer of the Isthmian Canal.
+
+When he took charge of the work at Panama he was promoted to
+lieutenant colonel. Arriving there he immediately informed all hands
+that while the work of building the canal had been placed under Army
+engineers, no man who was then on the job and faithfully executing his
+work need fear anything from that administration. From that time down
+to the last stages of the work that statement held good. Trained at
+West Point, brought up in the atmosphere of the Army, a lover of its
+traditions and in full sympathy with its spirit, he laid aside
+everything that might handicap the success of the undertaking and
+sought at once to get the full benefit of all that was best in the
+Army and in civil life as well. He put his uniform in moth balls when
+he started to the Isthmus, and from that day to this no man has ever
+seen him on the Canal Zone wearing an Army uniform.
+
+When he took charge of the big job, the foundations upon which he was
+to build the superstructure of his success had been laid by his
+predecessors, but there were many weak points in these foundations as
+well as many strong ones. With a spirit of utilizing to the fullest
+extent every advantage that the administrations of the former chief
+engineers had left on the Isthmus, he undertook to make only such
+changes as time demonstrated were necessary to the success of the
+project. At that time 6,000,000 cubic yards of material had been
+removed from the big waterway. Confronting him was the task of
+removing some 215,000,000 yards the while building a great dam
+containing 21,000,000 cubic yards, constructing a series of gigantic
+locks containing four and a half million cubic yards of concrete, and
+providing for the happiness and welfare of the sixty-odd thousand
+people who constituted the canal army and its camp followers.
+
+In the years that followed his appointment he proved himself in every
+way worthy of his assignment as the managing director of the most
+stupendous piece of work ever undertaken by man. Furthermore, he
+established a claim to the title of the "Great Digger." No other man
+in the history of the world has ever superintended the excavation of
+an amount of earth half as great as that which has been taken out of
+the Panama Canal during his administration. Since he went to the canal
+to "make the dirt fly" the material excavated under his command,
+together with that placed in the locks and dams, equals the amount
+necessary to take out to cut a tunnel 13 feet square through the earth
+at the Equator.
+
+No man ever carried to a great position less fuss and feathers than
+Colonel Goethals took to his work as chairman and chief engineer of
+the Panama Canal. When, during the construction period, one visited
+his office at Culebra, on almost any afternoon, he would find there an
+unpretentious little room in the corner of the administration
+building, about 18 feet square, containing four windows, overlooking
+the cut from two sides, its painted walls hung with maps, its floors
+uncarpeted, and in the center a large double-sided, flat-top desk
+covered with papers. A swivel chair at the desk and two or three other
+chairs constituted the furnishings of this room. The visitor walked
+directly into the office of his private secretary and the chief clerk,
+and if he had anything worth while about which to see the chairman and
+chief engineer he was detained only long enough for the man ahead of
+him to get out. With "no time like the present" as his motto in
+handling the business of his office, he, the busiest man on the
+Isthmus, and one of the busiest in the world for that matter, always
+seemed to have more time than many men of lesser responsibilities and
+far fewer burdens. He once declared that he had a contempt for the man
+who always tried to make it appear that he was too busy to see his
+callers, because his callers were frequently as busy as he himself.
+
+The fact is that he is a man with a very unusual gift in the dispatch
+of work. System has been the key-note of his success. With thousands
+of details every day to look after, he has always kept his work so
+well in hand that to the casual observer he seemed to be the most
+leisurely man on the Isthmus. He maintained a well-established routine
+all through his career on the canal. His mornings usually were spent
+going over the work. When the morning trains passed Culebra at 7
+o'clock they found him up, breakfasted, and at the station.
+
+Although these trains carried parlor cars, one would seldom see the
+chairman and chief engineer riding in them. Rather, he consistently
+chose to ride in the ordinary day coaches with his sub-engineers, with
+the steam-shovel men, and with the rank and file of the Americans who
+made possible the success of the work at Panama. There were few of
+these Americans whom he did not know by name, and with whom he did not
+pass a pleasant word whenever he chanced to meet them.
+
+A morning trip over the work with this presiding genius of the big
+ditch reveals perhaps better than anything else the makeup of the man
+and the secret of his success.
+
+"Meet me on the early train to-morrow morning at Miraflores," said he
+to one of his visitors in the early summer of 1913, "and we will go
+over the Pacific end of the work."
+
+This meant that both the chief engineer and the visitor had to leave
+comfortable beds at 5 o'clock in the morning to keep the appointment.
+At 7 o'clock they met at Miraflores. "We will walk through the tunnel
+if you don't mind," said he, "as I don't want to hold up a dirt train
+if it can be avoided."
+
+At the other end of the railroad tunnel, the only one on the Isthmus,
+a railway motor car stood on the siding ready to pick up the
+distinguished engineer and carry him to the Miraflores Locks. This
+motor car is something like a limousine on railroad trucks, and was
+affectionately known by the people on the Isthmus, as "the yellow
+peril" and "the brain wagon." The first stop was at the concrete work
+on the spillway dam at Miraflores.
+
+"How soon do you expect to have this dam up to its full height?" he
+asked of the division engineer who joined him there. "Can't you find
+room to operate another temporary concrete mixer down there?" he
+queried further. "Is there anything else you need to keep the work
+moving forward so as to be certain to complete the dam by the time you
+promised?"
+
+Going a little farther he came to a place where one division was doing
+some work for another division. "Don't you think it would be more
+satisfactory to keep both parts of that work under one division? Why
+don't you allow it all to be done by the other people?"
+
+Walking across the locks on the temporary bridge the chief engineer
+and his assistant came to a point where the concrete lamp posts for
+lighting the locks were being set up. "Don't you think that it would
+better avoid any settling if you were to place beams of railroad iron
+across those spaces and rest the posts on them?" he queried.
+
+A little farther on he met the engineer in charge of the work of the
+company erecting the gates. "When do you think you will have the gates
+in the west chambers completed so that we can put the dredge through?"
+he inquired of Mr. Wright.
+
+"Well, sir," replied Mr. Wright, "if we have good luck I hope to have
+them done by the first of September; if we have fair luck we ought to
+have them completed by the middle of September; but at the lowest
+calculation I can promise them to you by the first of October."
+
+"But have you taken into consideration all of the time you are likely
+to lose as the result of heavy rains?" queried the chief engineer.
+
+"I have made full allowance therefor, I think," responded Mr. Wright.
+
+Walking on, the watchful eye of the chief engineer fell upon a new
+baby railway track which was being laid through the eastern lock
+chambers. "What are you planning to do there?" he asked of the
+division engineer.
+
+"We wanted to get some additional material through the locks and Mr.
+Wright informed us that if we would furnish the timbers, he would make
+it so that we could run these little engines through there," responded
+the engineer.
+
+"But did you have a definite understanding with him that this should
+afford no excuse for any further delay in completing the gates?"
+queried Colonel Goethals.
+
+"We did, sir," responded the division engineer.
+
+"All right then, go ahead."
+
+At this point the party boarded the motor car again and was taken to
+the big dike which was to hold the Pacific Ocean from flooding the
+locks after a dike a mile farther down had been blown out. "How much
+water do you have in the stretch between the two dikes?" he asked of
+the division engineer. He next wanted to know how many million cubic
+feet they were able to pump and siphon in, and how much the Rio Grande
+was bringing in per day. Then he wanted to know if every possible
+precaution had been taken to insure the watertightness of the new
+dike; how many thousand pounds of dynamite had been placed under the
+one to be blown up; how many holes this dynamite was placed in; and a
+large number of other bits of information which would tell him whether
+every safeguard had been thrown around the plan to insure its success.
+
+Going up on the other side of the canal the party came to the earth
+dam joining the west lock walls with the hills, so as to impound 58
+feet of water in Miraflores Lake. "How soon do you expect to get that
+connection made between the lock walls and the dam proper?" he queried
+of the engineer in immediate charge.
+
+"In four weeks, sir."
+
+"All right," answered Colonel Goethals, "you can't get that done any
+too soon to suit me."
+
+And so he went over the work around Miraflores from beginning to end,
+talking now with an Irishman in charge of dumping the material on the
+inside of the dam, now with a man in charge of some concrete work,
+and now with the division engineer himself. By 11 o'clock he had
+inspected every part of this division and was ready to take his car
+back to Culebra. In four hours he had seen every man responsible for
+any important work around Miraflores; had offered a suggestion there,
+a word of encouragement here, and had obtained a bit of information at
+another place.
+
+Each day's morning program was like this one except as to the place he
+visited and the people with whom he talked. One morning he might be
+tramping over Cucaracha Slide, studying the prospects of its future.
+Another morning he might be down at Gatun watching an official test of
+an emergency dam. On these trips he usually wore either a most
+unmilitary-looking blue serge or gray cheviot, with a somewhat
+weather-beaten sailor straw hat, and carried a cheap dollar umbrella.
+
+When Colonel Goethals went to the Isthmus he promised that every man
+with a grievance should have a hearing. Each Sunday morning he had at
+his office at Culebra what he termed his Sunday "at homes," the best
+attended functions on the Isthmus, where the blackest Jamaica negro on
+the job found as much of a welcome as the highest official. These
+functions were for the purpose of hearing the canal employees who had
+grievances. Once a visitor was congratulating him upon the smooth
+manner in which the canal-building machine seemed to be working. "You
+ought to attend one of my Sunday 'at homes,'" he replied. "You would
+think that there was no smoothness at all to its running."
+
+Here is the wife of one of the engineers: She wants to find out why it
+is that she cannot get bread from the Ancon Hospital bakery. She
+informs Colonel Goethals that Joseph B. Bishop, secretary of the
+commission, gets bread from the hospital bakery and wants to know why
+she cannot. "I will look into the matter for you," says the chief
+engineer, and a note of this complaint is made. Later the telephone
+bell rings and Mr. Bishop is asked if he gets bread at the hospital
+bakery. He replies in the affirmative, explaining that about three
+years ago he had breakfasted with Colonel Gorgas who arranged for him
+to buy his bread there instead of at the commissary, this bread being
+more to his liking. "Can't any other employee of the Canal Commission
+get bread there under the same terms?" queries the chief engineer. "I
+will see, sir," responds the secretary of the commission. "If they can
+not," answers the chief engineer, "you must have your bread stopped at
+once." And it was stopped.
+
+The next person received is the representative of the Kangaroos, a
+fraternal order. "The Spanish American War veterans get free
+transportation on a special train on Memorial Day," he is informed,
+"and the fraternal orders on the Zone are crowded out." "Let a
+committee of all the fraternal orders appear next Sunday and talk it
+over with me and we will see what we can do," responds the chief
+engineer.
+
+Here comes a negro who says that his boss is a tyrant and abuses his
+men: "I will look into that," responds the presiding genius of the
+canal, and the Jamaican goes away with an expansive smile on his
+face.
+
+And so it went. Small affairs, big affairs, and indifferent ones were
+brought to his attention. In perhaps 80 per cent of them he could not
+do what was requested, but when able he did it so promptly, and in
+such a positive, straightforward manner, that his "at homes" have been
+compared, by the French ambassador to the United States, to the court
+of justice held by Saint Louis beneath the oak at Vincennes.
+
+A railroad engineer on one of the dirt trains got drunk and ran over a
+negro. He was sent to the penitentiary. The railroad men issued an
+ultimatum saying that if he were not released by a certain hour on a
+certain day, every dirt train on the canal would stop. A committee
+conveyed this ultimatum to Colonel Goethals and asked his decision.
+"You will get it at the penitentiary," he replied. "This man will
+remain in prison and every man who quits work on that account will be
+dropped from the rolls." There was no strike of engineers.
+
+At another time the waiters at the Tivoli Hotel went on strike. The
+whole force was promptly discharged, and the official paper of the
+Canal Commission carried their names with the announcement that
+thereafter they would not be eligible to employment in any capacity on
+the Canal Zone.
+
+If the chairman and chief engineer of the canal is just and firm in
+his relations with his men, he is no less generous in giving credit
+where credit belongs. Upon one occasion he was talking about the
+success of the canal project with a friend, and declared that the
+world would never give to John F. Stevens the credit that was due him
+in the construction of the canal. "You know," said he, "the real
+problem of building this canal has been that of removing the spoil;
+that problem was preeminently the problem of a railroad man and to
+solve it demanded the services of one of the best men in the railroad
+business. We have extended the facilities laid out by Mr. Stevens, and
+have modified them as experience and conditions have demanded, but
+they have been operated from that day to this under the general plan
+of transportation laid out by Mr. Stevens. I do not think that any
+Army engineer in the United States could have laid out such excellent
+transportation facilities."
+
+At another time, in discussing this same matter, he declared that it
+was his firm opinion that the canal could have been built by either of
+the former chief engineers, John F. Wallace or John F. Stevens, if
+they had been allowed a free hand. "You see," said he, "they were men
+who were accustomed to handling big construction jobs. They would
+outline their project and the cost of executing it to a board of
+directors who would pass upon it and then leave them absolutely
+unhampered in the matter of personnel and method, with results as the
+only criterion of their success. When they came to the Isthmus they
+found their hands tied by red tape. They had never dealt with a
+President, a Secretary of War, a Congress, and the public at large.
+Naturally, they grew restive under the conditions which confronted
+them and resigned.
+
+"The whole difference is largely that of training. The Army officer
+knows from the time he leaves West Point that he has to work in
+harmony with his superiors, with the President, the Secretary of War,
+and Congress. That is why we have been able to stay where men from
+civil life have thrown up the job."
+
+Another remarkable characteristic of the Great Digger is his desire to
+do his work economically as well as to do it promptly. When he went to
+the Isthmus there was an insistent demand that the dirt be made to
+fly. Along with the administration in Washington he realized that the
+only way to gain the faith and confidence of the people in the work, a
+faith and confidence essential to its full success, was to measure up
+to their desire that the dirt begin to fly. It was not a time to
+consider economies then. But, as soon as those demands had been met
+and the people had been shown that the Army could make good, a
+cost-keeping system was introduced. Men doing identical work were
+pitted against one another; Army engineers were placed in command of
+one task here and civilian engineers in command of another task there;
+and thus a healthy rivalry was established.
+
+As Colonel Gaillard, member of the commission, and engineer of the
+Central Division, testified before a congressional committee, his
+early work in Culebra Cut was to get out as much dirt as possible,
+while his later work was given over largely to a study and comparison
+of cost sheets with a view to cutting down the expense of removing a
+yard of material, with the result that he was able to show a saving of
+$17,000,000 in a 9-mile section of the Panama Canal as compared with
+the estimates of 1908.
+
+In other words, Colonel Goethals took that golden rule of all great
+soldiers, "get there first with the most men," and adapted it to read
+"dig the most dirt with the least money." He had ever in mind three
+things: Safe construction, rapid progress, and low costs. On these
+three foundation stones in his mind was reared the structure that
+stands as the highest example of engineering science, and as the
+proudest constructive accomplishment of the American Republic.
+
+At the northern entrance to the Suez Canal stands a statue of de
+Lesseps, a beckoning hand inviting the shipping of the world to go
+through. Perhaps no such statue of Goethals ever will stand at Panama,
+but there is no need. The canal itself is his monument and its story
+will ever endure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE ORGANIZATION
+
+
+When the United States finally decided to build the Panama Canal, the
+next question of gravity which pressed for consideration was the
+creation of the organization by which it was to be built. Many
+problems were encountered, and after repeated changes in personnel and
+rearrangements of duties, the situation finally resolved into an
+organization headed by one man, clothed with the necessary powers, and
+held responsible for the consequent results.
+
+The completion of the preliminaries for the acquisition of title to
+the Canal Zone and to the property and rights of the New Panama Canal
+Company took place when Congress, on April 28, 1904, made an
+appropriation of $10,000,000, which was to be paid to the Republic of
+Panama. Six days later the United States formally took possession of
+the Canal Zone and of the property of the Panama Canal Company, when
+at 7:30 o'clock in the morning, Lieut. Mark Brooke, of the United
+States Army, took over the keys and raised the American flag. The
+following day President Roosevelt announced the appointment of John
+Findley Wallace, of Massachusetts, as chief engineer of the canal at a
+salary of $25,000 a year, the appointment to be effective on the 1st
+day of June.
+
+The first ship to arrive at Panama carried Maj. Gen. George W. Davis,
+who was to govern the Canal Zone; Col. William C. Gorgas, who was to
+make it sanitary; and George R. Shanton, who was to drive out the
+criminal element. Governor Davis was a member of the Isthmian Canal
+Commission, Colonel Gorgas had proved his worth in the sanitation of
+Cuba, and Shanton had been a "rough rider" with Colonel Roosevelt in
+the Cuban campaign.
+
+When Chief Engineer Wallace arrived on the scene he found there an all
+but abandoned project. There were hundreds of French houses, but
+nearly all of them were in the jungle and practically unfit for human
+habitation. He found millions of dollars' worth of French machinery,
+but almost none of it in condition to be put into service immediately.
+He knew in a general way the line of the canal, but surveys were
+lacking to determine its exact location at every point. With this
+situation in front of him, he found it necessary to concentrate his
+efforts upon the problem of getting ready for the work. While he was
+doing this the people at home began to demand that the dirt fly.
+Colonel Gorgas also found conditions which challenged his best
+efforts. Colon was a paradise of disease, Panama was no better. It was
+only by making both of these cities over again, from a sanitary
+standpoint, that any hope could be held out for reasonably healthy
+conditions.
+
+During his stay on the Isthmus Mr. Wallace found himself handicapped
+at every turn by red tape, a new thing in his experience as a
+construction engineer. He could buy nothing without asking for bids;
+every idea he sought to put into execution had to be submitted to
+Washington, and he found himself so harassed and handicapped that he
+wanted a new plan of organization.
+
+Acting in accordance with his recommendations, President Roosevelt
+decided to accept the resignation of the existing Canal Commission,
+and to appoint a new one, in which, instead of having independent
+departments, with the governor independent of the chief engineer, and
+the chief sanitary officer independent of both the governor and the
+chief engineer, there should be a more united relation, in which all
+questions were to be decided by the commission as a whole, the final
+authority being vested in an executive committee composed of the
+chairman, the governor of the Canal Zone, and the chief engineer.
+
+Under this plan, the second Isthmian Canal Commission was organized.
+It consisted of Theodore P. Shonts, chairman; Charles E. Magoon,
+Governor of the Canal Zone; John F. Wallace, chief engineer; Mordecai
+T. Endicott; Peter C. Hains; Oswald H. Ernst; and Benjamin A. Harrod.
+Following the suggestion of Chief Engineer Wallace, the control of the
+Panama Railroad was also vested in the new commission.
+
+While these changes were being made Chief Engineer Wallace was in
+Washington. There was dissatisfaction on the Isthmus with an
+accompanying spirit of unrest, and, to make matters worse, a
+yellow-fever epidemic broke out. Only a few days after Mr. Wallace
+reached the Isthmus, he cabled the Secretary of War that he wished to
+return to Washington, hinting that he might resign. Secretary Taft
+cabled to Governor Magoon for an opinion as to the motives which were
+behind this step on the part of Mr. Wallace, and was advised that it
+was brought about by the offer of a better salary and the fear of the
+yellow-fever epidemic. When Mr. Wallace reached New York he had a
+stormy interview with Secretary Taft, who roundly denounced him for
+quitting at such a critical time. Mr. Wallace declared his lack of
+confidence in the ability of Colonel Gorgas to control the
+yellow-fever epidemic, and asserted that the continual interference of
+red tape was so distracting to him as to make new employment
+attractive. President Roosevelt upheld his Secretary of War in his
+denunciation of Mr. Wallace, and promptly appointed John F. Stevens
+chief engineer at a salary of $30,000.
+
+John F. Stevens arrived on the Isthmus on July 27, 1905. He found the
+Panama Railroad almost in a state of collapse. He declared that the
+only claim heard for it was that there had been no collisions for some
+time. "A collision has its good points as well as its bad ones," he
+observed, "for it indicates that there is something moving on the
+railroad."
+
+Mr. Stevens immediately set to work to build up the road, and to
+provide the means for housing and feeding the canal army. But like his
+predecessor he found Government red tape hampering, and in his first
+annual report begged for "a thorough business administration
+unhampered by any tendency to technicalities, into which our public
+work sometimes drifts." He protested against civil-service
+requirements on the Isthmus, and against the eight-hour working day;
+and President Roosevelt met his protests by exempting all employees
+except clerks from the operations of civil-service rules, and by
+abrogating the eight-hour day.
+
+It was under the régime of Mr. Stevens that the question arose as to
+whether the canal should be built as a sea-level channel through the
+Isthmus, or as a lock canal with the water in the middle section 85
+feet above the level of the sea. President Roosevelt thereupon
+appointed a board of consulting engineers, made up of 14 members, to
+visit the Isthmus and determine what type of canal should be built.
+Five members of this board of consulting engineers were foreigners
+appointed by their respective Governments at the request of President
+Roosevelt. They included the inspector general of Public Works of
+France, the consulting engineer of the Suez Canal, the chief engineer
+of the Manchester Canal, the chief engineer of the Kiel Canal, and the
+chief engineer of the Dutch dike system. Three of the American
+engineers and all five of the foreign engineers voted in favor of a
+sea-level canal. Chief Engineer Stevens and all but one member of the
+Isthmian Canal Commission concurred in the vote of the minority, made
+up wholly of American engineers in favor of the lock canal. President
+Roosevelt sustained the minority report, and Congress sustained him in
+the law of June 29, 1906.
+
+In the fall of 1906 Chairman Shonts came out in advocacy of a plan to
+build the canal by contract. Here arose a difference between Mr.
+Shonts and Mr. Stevens, and Chairman Shonts shortly thereafter
+resigned. A few months later Chief Engineer Stevens also resigned. It
+is said that his resignation was mainly due to his objection to the
+appointment of Army engineers as members of the Canal Commission, and
+to a letter he wrote the President in which he scored the limitations
+of red tape and Government methods generally. When Mr. Stevens quitted
+the Isthmus he left behind him the nucleus of the general organization
+for building of the canal. He saw housing conditions brought up to the
+required standard, established the necessary commissary where canal
+employees could supply their needs at reasonable prices, and aided
+Colonel Gorgas in his fight to make the Isthmus healthful.
+
+At this juncture the organization destined to build the canal was put
+into effect, with Colonel George W. Goethals at its head. Colonel
+Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer, was the only important official of
+the old régime held over. The other members of the commission were
+Maj. D. D. Gaillard and Maj. William L. Sibert, of the United States
+Engineer Corps; Civil Engineer H. H. Rousseau, of the United States
+Navy; and Messrs. J. C. S. Blackburn and Jackson Smith.
+
+[Illustration: MAJ. GEN. GEORGE W. DAVIS REAR ADMIRAL J. G. WALKER
+
+THEODORE P. SHONTS JOHN F. WALLACE
+
+JOHN F. STEVENS CHARLES E. MAGOON]
+
+[Illustration: RICHARD LEE METCALFE EMORY R. JOHNSON
+
+MAURICE H. THATCHER JOSEPH BUCKLIN BISHOP
+
+H. A. GUDGER JOSEPH C. S. BLACKBURN]
+
+Under former commissions the Governor of the Canal Zone had ranked
+above the chief engineer, and the chairman, the chief engineer, and
+the governor had had rival powers, which resulted in a great deal of
+friction. Under the new order the offices of chairman and chief
+engineer were consolidated, and the governor was reduced to the title
+of "head of the Department of Civil Administration," reporting to the
+chairman, as did the chief sanitary officer and all of the division
+engineers.
+
+This commission, in personnel, remained intact during the long period
+of construction, except for the resignation in 1908 of Jackson Smith,
+who was succeeded by Lieut. Col. Harry F. Hodges; and for the
+resignation in 1910 of Mr. Blackburn, who was succeeded by Morris H.
+Thatcher. Mr. Thatcher, in turn, was succeeded in 1913 by Richard L.
+Metcalfe as head of the Department of Civil Administration.
+
+During the construction period there were several rearrangements of
+the duties of the Army engineers associated with Colonel Goethals.
+From June, 1908, Major Gaillard, afterwards promoted to a
+lieutenant-colonelcy, was in charge of the ditch-digging work between
+Gatun and Pedro Miguel, which included the entire Gatun Lake and
+Culebra Cut sections. It is everywhere admitted that so far as
+difficulties were concerned, he had the hardest job on the Isthmus,
+next to the chief engineer. Colonel Gaillard entered the United States
+Military Academy in 1884 and was graduated with honors entitling him
+to appointment in the Corps of Engineers. Before being selected as a
+member of the Canal Commission, he had had much experience in
+important work. For two years he was in charge of all river and harbor
+improvement in the Lake Superior region. When he first went to the
+Isthmus he was assigned as the supervising engineer in charge of
+harbors, the building of breakwaters, etc.
+
+Lieut. Col. William L. Sibert, another of the Army engineers who was
+made a member of the Canal Commission, was graduated from West Point
+in 1884 and was made a lieutenant of engineers. From 1892 to 1894 he
+was assistant engineer in charge of the construction of the ship
+channel connecting the Great Lakes. The four years following he was in
+charge of the river and harbor work in Arkansas, and following that,
+spent one year teaching civil engineering in the Engineering School of
+Application. He then went to the Philippines as chief engineer of the
+Eighth Army Corps and became chief engineer and general manager of the
+Manila & Dagupan Railroad. From 1900 to 1907 he was in charge of the
+Ohio River improvements between Pittsburgh and Louisville. As division
+engineer of the Atlantic division of the Panama Canal he was in charge
+of the construction of the Gatun locks, Gatun Dam, and the breakwaters
+at the Atlantic entrance to the canal.
+
+Civil Engineer Harry H. Rousseau, of the United States Navy, was
+appointed a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission at the same time
+that Chief Engineer Goethals was selected to head the organization. He
+had had much experience in engineering work prior to the appointment
+and was a personal appointee of President Roosevelt, with whom he had
+come in contact when he was serving in the Bureau of Yards and Docks
+of the Navy Department when Mr. Roosevelt was assistant secretary of
+that Department. He entered the employ of the United States through
+the civil service, having been appointed a civil engineer in the Navy
+with the rank of lieutenant, after a competitive examination in 1898.
+For four years he was an engineer of the bureau of which he
+afterwards became chief, and for four years following, from 1903 to
+1907, he was engineer of the improvements of Mare Island Navy Yard,
+California. The duties of Commissioner Rousseau were changed from time
+to time, and he was finally given charge of the work of constructing
+the terminals at the ends of the canal. At the same time he was made
+assistant to the chief engineer, having charge of all mechanical
+questions arising on the canal.
+
+When Jackson Smith, one of the two civilian members of the Canal
+Commission, resigned, he was succeeded by an Army officer, Col. Harry
+F. Hodges, who would have been a member of the commission from the
+first, upon the request of Colonel Goethals, had not the United States
+Engineer Corps required his services. Colonel Hodges was graduated
+from the United States Military Academy in 1881, and immediately
+entered upon seven years of duty on river and harbor improvements in
+the United States. This was followed by four years' service as
+assistant professor of engineering at West Point, and that duty, in
+turn, by six years of work on rivers and harbors and fortifications.
+During the Spanish American War he served in Porto Rico, and then
+returned to river and harbor duty for two years. In 1901-02 he was
+chief engineer of the Department of Cuba, from which duty he was
+transferred to the War Department, where he became assistant to the
+chief of engineers. His experience in river and harbor work, coupled
+with his success as the designer of the locks of the American Sault
+Ste. Marie Canal, fitted him for the work at Panama. He became
+assistant chief engineer and purchasing agent of the canal in 1907,
+and the following year was chosen a member of the commission to
+succeed Mr. Smith. The work of designing the locks and the lock
+machinery fell upon his shoulders.
+
+When President Roosevelt wanted a man to handle the delicate problems
+arising out of the peculiar relations with the Republic of Panama and
+the United States, he selected Joseph C. S. Blackburn, of Kentucky,
+who had just finished a long term of service in the United States
+Senate. Senator Blackburn was well equipped for such a position,
+combining that suavity indicated by the velvet glove with that
+determination of purpose which lies in the iron hand.
+
+The service of Col. William C. Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer on
+the Isthmus, began earlier than that of any of the higher officials.
+He went to the Isthmus immediately after it was taken over by the
+United States. He has been described as a man "with a gentle manner,
+but with a hard policy toward the mosquito." He was born in Mobile,
+Ala., in 1854, the son of Gen. Josiah Gorgas, of the Confederate Army.
+He became a member of the Medical Corps of the United States Army in
+1880, and since his work at the head of the Cuban health campaign his
+name has been a household word in the United States.
+
+In establishing the Isthmian Canal Commission, which was destined to
+make the Panama Canal a reality, President Roosevelt selected Joseph
+Bucklin Bishop as its secretary. Mr. Bishop was made the editor of the
+Canal Record, a weekly paper which was the official organ of the
+Canal Commission. He is a born investigator and when any matter arose
+concerning the work on the canal, about which the chief engineer
+desired an impartial report, he usually referred it to Mr. Bishop.
+
+When the matter of organizing the work arose it was decided to arouse
+a spirit of emulation and rivalry, and S. B. Williamson, a civilian
+engineer, was put in charge of the Pacific end of the canal, with
+duties similar to those of the Army engineer on the Atlantic side. Mr.
+Williamson proved to be a master of the art of accomplishing a great
+deal with a given amount of money, and the cost sheets of the Pacific
+end will ever stand as a monument to his efficiency.
+
+The list of engineers and other officials who contributed to the
+success of the work at Panama is a long one, but among them may be
+mentioned: Col. Chester Harding, who was the resident engineer at
+Gatun; W. G. Comber, who headed the dredging work on the Pacific end
+of the canal during the early days of the American undertaking, of the
+entire canal during the final stages; W. G. Rourke, who was resident
+engineer in Culebra Cut for a number of years; Caleb M. Saville, who
+worked out the data for the construction of the Gatun Dam; H. O. Cole,
+who succeeded S. B. Williamson on the Pacific end work; Lieut.
+Frederick Mears, who relocated the Panama Railroad; John Burke, who
+had charge of the commissary; Maj. Eugene T. Wilson, the chief
+subsistence officer; Brig. Gen. C. A. Devol, who was in charge of the
+quartermaster's department; E. J. Williams, Jr., the disbursing
+officer; and Col. Tom F. Cook, the picturesque chief of the Division
+of Posts and Customs.
+
+To all these, and to scores of others who are not mentioned here
+merely because of the limitations of space, the American people owe
+the great success at Panama. The organization was imbued with a spirit
+of loyalty to the great task, and having its accomplishment singly in
+mind there was little room for jealous bickerings and none at all for
+scandal and corruption.
+
+Every man who had a part in it always will be proud of his share, and
+that pride will be supported and justified by all Americans.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE AMERICAN WORKERS
+
+
+The directory, supervisory, and mechanical work in constructing the
+canal was done by Americans. The engineers, the foremen, the steam
+shovelers, the operators of spoil trains, the concrete mixers, and, in
+short, the skilled workers were American citizens; the common and
+unskilled laborers were West Indians and Europeans. It is to the
+American workers therefore that the credit is due, for without their
+direction and aid in every operation the work could not have been
+done.
+
+Never was there a more loyal, a more earnest, a more enthusiastic band
+of workmen than these same Americans. The steam shoveler felt as much
+pride, as much responsibility, in the task as did the chief engineer.
+
+The difficulties under which they labored, the enervating climate, the
+absence from home, the lack of diversion and recreation, but served to
+temper the steel in their make-up. The American spirit was there,
+dominating every detail of the whole big job. Every man was determined
+to "make good," not for himself alone, but for the organization of
+which he was a part, and for his country.
+
+In the beginning conditions were bad. There were few conveniences to
+make life comfortable, and innumerable inconveniences harassing those
+who went there. The food was bad and the water was not as good as the
+food. The quarters were old French houses rescued from the jungle and
+filled with scorpions.
+
+The result was that few of those who first went to the Isthmus
+remained, and those who returned to the United States spread far and
+wide reports of bad conditions on the Isthmus.
+
+With this situation in mind the Canal Commission decided that two
+things had to be done. Wholesome living conditions had to be created
+for the people who came to the Isthmus, and a standard of wages had to
+be set that would prove attractive to good men at home. It was thus
+that the pay for the Americans on the canal came to be placed at 50
+per cent higher than pay for the same character of work in the States.
+This soon proved a strong incentive to men to leave the States and go
+to Panama, and as living conditions were improved the number of men
+willing to accept work on the Isthmus increased.
+
+Two classes of Americans turned their faces toward the Tropics as a
+result of the inducements held out by the Canal Commission. One was
+made up of those who were willing to go and stay a year or two,
+accumulating in that time experience and, perhaps, saving some little
+money; the other was made up of men whose desire was to go to the
+Isthmus and stay with the job, utilizing the opportunities it afforded
+for building up a comfortable bank account.
+
+[Illustration: BRIG. GEN. CARROLL A. DEVOL
+
+AMERICAN LIVING QUARTERS AT CRISTOBAL]
+
+[Illustration: HARRY H. ROUSSEAU
+
+LOWERING A CAISSON SECTION]
+
+As the work moved forward those of weak purpose and indifference to
+opportunity gradually dropped out. Their places were taken by others,
+until through a process of years of elimination there were
+approximately 5,000 Americans at Panama when the canal was finished;
+an army was made up almost wholly of men with a purpose in life and
+consequently of men who could be relied upon to do their work to the
+best of their ability. The result was that the last years of the task
+of construction saw every man loyal to his work and anxious to see the
+job move forward.
+
+American visitors to the Isthmus had occasion to be proud of their
+countrymen there. Every tourist from a foreign country has commented
+upon the distinguished courtesy received at the hands of these men.
+One of them, perhaps England's most noted travel lecturer, said:
+
+"The thing which impressed me more than anything else, outside of the
+gigantic work and the masterful way in which it is being done, was the
+exquisite courtesy of every American I met during my stay. I found
+every one of them not only ready to give such information as he might
+have but glad to do so. Each man was as proud of the work as if it
+were his own, and as ready to show his part of it to a stranger as if
+that stranger were his best friend. It was a delight to me from
+beginning to end to see the magnificent type of American manhood at
+work, and the pride taken by every worker in the project."
+
+Every other tourist brought away the same impression. A man who went
+there without any other credentials than a desire to see the work was
+shown the same courtesy and consideration as one with a pocketful of
+letters of introduction.
+
+The Americans on the Isthmus did not count any hardship too great if
+it were demanded for the successful prosecution of the work. A case in
+point is that of J. A. Loulan, the engineer in charge of the
+rock-crushing plant at Ancon. One morning he was introduced to a
+visitor from the States who remarked that everything seemed to be
+running so smoothly that he supposed the work of a supervising
+engineer was no longer a difficult task. "Well," replied the engineer,
+"at least it does not pay to worry. Last night at 2 o'clock I was
+called out of bed by telephone and informed that a Jamaican negro
+hostler had accidentally knocked the chock from under the wheels of an
+engine he was firing up, and that it had run down the grade and off
+the end of the track into about two feet of soft earth. We worked from
+that time on until breakfast to get the engine back, and were
+satisfied to know that the accident did not delay the operations at
+the crusher. Not a man of the force was late getting back to work
+after four hours of strenuous extra night duty."
+
+Speaking of the patience of the men Commissioner H. H. Rousseau said,
+"The reason for all this is not far to seek; the man who has 'nerves'
+would never stick it out on a job like this. The climate, the exile
+from home, and the character of the work all conspire against the man
+who can not be patient. He soon finds that the Isthmus is no place for
+him. The result is that a process of elimination has gone on until the
+men who have 'nerves' have all left and their places filled with
+those who are stoical enough to take things as they come."
+
+The Americans on the Isthmus were early risers. The first train from
+Colon for Panama leaves about 5 o'clock and the first train from
+Panama for Colon at 6:50. Almost any morning during the construction
+period one might walk into the dining room at the Tivoli Hotel and see
+a number of canal engineers breakfasting there who had left Colon on
+the early train. When one of them was asked if he did not find it
+something of a hardship to rise so early, he replied:
+
+"Well, you see, from the standpoint of a man just from the States it
+would seem rather an unheard-of hour for a man to get out and go to
+work; but we have to meet conditions as we find them down here, and we
+soon get reconciled to it. There is scarcely a night that I am not
+called by telephone two or three times, and I have to get up in time
+to catch the early train several mornings in the week, so I get up at
+the same hour the other mornings as well. We are well paid, and we owe
+it to our country to make whatever sacrifices the work demands. And
+after a month or two we get out of the habit of feeling that it is a
+sacrifice."
+
+It is this spirit of devotion to the work that enabled the canal
+authorities to press it to a successful completion with such
+unprecedented rapidity. These men knew full well that their sacrifices
+in the interest of progress were appreciated. The most rigid spirit of
+friendly competition was maintained from the beginning.
+
+The spirit of rivalry nowhere counted for more than among the
+steam-shovel men. In 1907 it was decided to publish in the Canal
+Record the best steam-shovel performances from week to week. This
+immediately put every steam-shovel gang on its mettle, and soon there
+was a great race with nearly a hundred entries, a race that continued
+from that day until the completion of the excavation. The result was
+that records of steam-shovel performances were made eclipsing
+everything that had gone before. The average daily excavation per
+shovel rose from year to year until it was double in the end what it
+was in the beginning.
+
+As heretofore pointed out, the process of elimination that went on
+continuously during the construction work sent large numbers of
+American workers back to the States from the Isthmus. During a single
+year about three-fifths of the Americans threw up their jobs and
+returned home. The average stay of Americans during the construction
+period was about a year. Bachelors were much more given to returning
+to the States than married men. The endless round of working, eating,
+sleeping, with its small chance of diversion, made the average
+bachelor glad to get back to the States within two years. On the other
+hand, the married men found home life just about as pleasant as in the
+States. They had with them about 2,000 women, and as many children.
+Many of the latter were born under the American Eagle at Panama.
+
+The boys who were born there may, if they choose, become native
+Panamans. The son of a former President of Panama, in talking with
+Commissioner Rousseau, advised him to make a Panaman citizen of
+little Harry Harwood Rousseau, Jr. "You see," said he, and he spoke in
+all earnestness and seriousness, "he will stand so much better chance
+of becoming President of the Republic of Panama than of becoming
+President of the United States."
+
+The American children on the Zone, brimming over with life and health,
+proved conclusively that the Tropics worked no hardship upon them.
+
+The Canal Commission, from the beginning to the end, made the welfare
+of the army of workers one of its first cares. As the days of a
+completed canal approached, every effort was made to enable the
+employees who had to be laid off to find employment in the States.
+Provision was made that they could accumulate their leave of absence
+in such a way as to entitle them to 84 days of full pay after leaving.
+This was arranged so as to give them sufficient time to establish
+connections in the States again, without being forced to do it without
+pay.
+
+Close records also were kept of each employee, and the official
+immediately over each man was ordered to give him a rating card
+showing his record on the Canal Zone. No higher credentials could be
+carried by anyone seeking employment than to have a card from the
+Canal Commission showing a rating of "Excellent."
+
+Owing to the firmness with which the commission ruled, there was
+little trouble in the way of strikes. In 1910 a lot of boiler makers
+who were getting 65 cents an hour on the per diem basis, struck for 75
+cents an hour. Their demands were not met and some of them threw up
+their jobs. The commission immediately arranged with its Washington
+office to fill their places, and they had no chance whatever to get
+further employment on the Isthmus.
+
+The commission was given the power, by President Roosevelt, to order
+anyone to leave the Isthmus whose presence there was regarded as a
+detriment to the work. The result was that as soon as any man was
+found to be fomenting trouble, he was advised that a ship was
+returning to the United States on a certain date and that it would be
+expedient for him to take passage thereon. This power of deportation
+was more autocratic than any like power in the United States, but it
+proved of immense value in keeping things going satisfactorily at
+Panama. It was a power whose exercise was called for but few times,
+since the very fact that the commission had the power was usually a
+sufficient deterrent.
+
+There are two societies on the Isthmus which tell of the effects of
+homesickness of the Americans in the employ of the Canal
+Commission--the Incas, and the Society of the Chagres. The Incas are a
+group of men who meet annually on May 4th for a dinner. The one
+requirement for membership in this dining club is service on the canal
+from the beginning of the American occupation. In 1913 about 60 men
+were left on the Isthmus of all those Americans who were there at the
+time of the transfer of the canal property to the United States in
+1904.
+
+The Society of the Chagres was organized in the fall of 1911. It is
+made up of American white employees who have worked six years
+continuously on the canal. When President Roosevelt visited the
+Isthmus in the late fall of 1906 he declared that he intended to
+provide some memorial or badge which would always distinguish the man
+who for a certain space of time had done his work well on the Isthmus,
+just as the button of the Grand Army distinguishes the man who did his
+work well in the Civil War. Two years later a ton of copper, bronze,
+and tin was taken from old French locomotives and excavators and
+shipped to Philadelphia, where it was made into medals by the United
+States Mint. These medals are about the size of a dollar and each
+person who has served two years is entitled to one. It is estimated
+that by the time the last work is done on the canal, about 6,000 of
+these medals will have been distributed. For each additional two years
+a man worked, the Canal Commission gave a bar of the same material.
+
+The Society of the Chagres, therefore, is made up of men who have
+served at least six years, and who have won their medals and two
+service bars. The emblem of the society is a circular button showing
+on a small, black background six horizontal bars in gold which are
+surrounded by a narrow gold border. In 1913 only about 400 out of the
+many thousands of Americans at one time or another employed in the
+construction of the Panama Canal were entitled to wear the insignia of
+this society.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE NEGRO WORKERS
+
+
+The West Indian negro contributed about 60 per cent of the brawn
+required to build the Panama Canal. When the United States undertook
+the work the West Indian negro had a bad reputation as a workman. It
+was said that he lacked physical strength; that he had little or no
+pluck; that he was absolutely unreliable; that he was unusually
+susceptible to disease; and that in view of these things the canal
+never could be finished if he were to supply the greater part of the
+labor. But he lived down this bad reputation in large part, and,
+although it must be admitted that he is shiftless always, inconstant
+frequently, and exasperating as a rule, he developed into a good
+workman.
+
+The Government paid the West Indian laborer 90 cents a day, furnished
+him with free lodgings in quarters, and sold him three square meals a
+day for 9 cents each, a total of 27 cents a day for board and lodging.
+On the balance of 63 cents, the West Indian negro who saved was able
+to go back home and become a sort of Rockefeller among his
+compatriots. His possible savings, as a matter of fact, were about two
+and a half times the total wages he received in his native country.
+
+But the sanitary quarters, and the necessarily strict discipline
+maintained therein, did not please him. He yearned for his thatched
+hut in the "bush," for his family, and the freedom of the tropical
+world. Thus the homesickness of the well-quartered, well-fed negro
+became a greater hindrance to the work than the ill-fed condition of
+the "bush dweller." The result was that the commission reached the
+conclusion that it could better maintain a suitable force by allowing
+the negroes to live as they chose. Therefore, permission was given
+them to live in the "bush," and about nine-tenths of them promptly
+exchanged the sanitary restrictions of the commission quarters, and
+the wholesome food of the commission mess kitchen, for the _dolce far
+niente_ of the "bush." The result of this experiment in larger liberty
+was in part a success and in part a failure. The list of names on the
+roll of workers was largely lengthened, but there was no great
+addition to the force of the men at work on any given day. It was a
+common saying in the Zone that if the negro were paid twice as much he
+would work only half as long. Most of them worked about four days a
+week and enjoyed themselves the other three. It may be that the "bush
+dweller" was not fed as scientifically as the man in the quarters, but
+he had his chickens, his yam and bean patch, his family and his
+fiddle, and he made up in enjoyment what he lost in scientific care.
+
+Marriage bonds are loose in the West Indies, and common-law marriages
+are the rule rather than the exception. But, as one traveled across
+the Isthmus and saw the hundreds of little thatched huts lining the
+edge of the jungle, he could see that the families who lived there
+seemed to be as happy, and the children as numerous, as though both
+civil and religious marriage ceremonies had bound man and wife
+together.
+
+When the Americans first began work it was an accepted dictum that one
+Spaniard or one Italian could do as much work as three negroes. The
+negroes seemed to be weak. It took six of them to carry a railroad tie
+where two Spaniards might carry it as well. This belief that the
+Spaniard was more efficient than the negro stirred the West Indians to
+get down to work, and in a year or two they were almost as efficient
+while they were working as were the Spaniards, but the Spaniards
+worked six days a week while the negroes worked only four.
+
+Of course there were those who spent practically everything as they
+made it, and they constituted no small percentage of the total negro
+force. But, on the other hand, some of the negroes were industrious,
+constant, and thrifty. They saved all they could, working steadily for
+a year or two, and then went back to Jamaica or Barbados to invest
+their money in a bit of land and become freeholders and consequently
+better citizens.
+
+The negro laborers at first were obtained by recruiting agents at work
+in the various West Indian Islands, principally Jamaica and Barbados.
+The recruiting service carried about 30,000 to the Isthmus, of whom
+20,000 were from Barbados and 6,000 from Jamaica. It was not more than
+a year or two, however, after the work got under way, until there was
+little occasion for recruiting. Every ship that went back to Barbados
+or to Jamaica carried with it some who had made what they considered
+a sufficient fortune. Every community possessed those who had gone to
+Panama with only the clothes on their backs, a small tin trunk, a
+dollar canvas steamer chair and, mayhap, a few chickens; and who had
+come back with savings enough to set them up for life. This fired
+dozens from each of those same communities with the desire to go and
+do likewise. The result was that the canal employment lists were kept
+full by those who came on their own initiative.
+
+The terms of entrance to the Canal Zone were easy, the steerage fares
+were low, and as a result the excess of arrivals over departures
+sometimes amounted to 20,000 in a single year. The steamship companies
+had to keep careful and persistent watch to prevent stowaways. Even at
+that there were hundreds who sought to reach the Isthmus in this way
+in spite of the fact that they were usually carried back without being
+permitted to land at Colon.
+
+There was little or no friction between the whites and the blacks on
+the Canal Zone. This immunity from racial clashes resulted from two
+causes--one was the incomparable courtesy of the West Indian negro and
+the other his knowledge that he could expect good treatment only so
+long as he kept out of trouble. Few of them, indeed, were ever
+inclined to be offensive. They are usually educated in the three
+"R's," and are also very polite. Ask one a question and the answer
+will be: "Oh, yes, Sir," or "Oh, no, Sir," or if he has not
+understood, "Beg pardon, Sir." He would no more omit the honorific
+than a Japanese maiden addressing her father would forget to call him
+"Honorable."
+
+The different types of West Indian negroes found on the Canal Zone
+constituted an endless study in human characteristics. They were all
+great lovers of travel, and no regular train ever made a trip without
+from two to half a dozen coaches filled with them. After pay day
+practically every negro on the Zone was wont to get out and get a
+glimpse of the country.
+
+Without exception they are adepts in carrying things on their heads;
+consequently, they usually possess an erect carriage and splendid
+bearing. It is said that the first ambition of a West Indian negro
+child is to learn to carry things on its head in imitation of its
+parents. Frequently a negro will be seen with nothing in either hand,
+but carrying a closed umbrella balanced horizontally on his head. Once
+in a while one may be seen to get a letter from the post office, place
+it on top of his head, weight it down with a stone, and march off
+without any apparent knowledge that he has executed a circus stunt.
+
+Some of the negroes who came to work on the canal never saw a
+wheelbarrow before arriving there. Upon one occasion some French
+negroes from Martinique were placed on a job of pick and shovel work.
+Three of them loaded a wheelbarrow with earth, then one of them
+stooped down, the other two put the wheelbarrow on his head and he
+walked away with it. But, with all of his inexperience, the Martinique
+negro proved to be the best West Indian worker on the canal.
+
+The Martinique negroes were the most picturesque of all the West
+Indians on the job. The women wore striking though simple costumes,
+bandana handkerchiefs around their heads, and bright-colored calico
+dresses usually caught up on one side or at the back, thus
+anticipating the Parisian fashion of the slit skirt by many years.
+
+A large number of the negroes lived in small tenement houses built by
+private capital, and oftener than not one room served the entire
+family. Nearly every one of the American settlements had its West
+Indian quarter where these buildings and the Chinese stores flourished
+to the exclusion of everything else. At the Pacific end of the Panama
+Railroad there was a suburb known as Caledonia, which was given over
+almost entirely to West Indian families. One could drive through there
+any day and see half-grown children dressed only in Eden's garb. In
+other parts of the canal territory one saw very few naked children
+except in the back streets of Colon.
+
+The Government took the best of care of the negroes on the work during
+the entire construction period. There were hospital facilities at both
+ends of the canal and sick camps along the line. The commissary
+protected them against extortion by the native merchants and gave them
+the same favorable rates enjoyed by the Americans. The color line was
+kindly but firmly drawn throughout the work, the negroes being
+designated as silver employees and the Americans as gold employees.
+The post offices had signs indicating which entrances were for silver
+employees and which for gold employees. The commissaries had the same
+provisions, and the railroad company made the general distinction as
+much as it could by first and second class passenger rates. Very few
+of the negroes ever made any protest against this. Once in awhile an
+American negro would go to the post office and be told that he must
+call at the "silver" window. He would protest for awhile, but finding
+it useless, would acquiesce.
+
+The idea of speaking of "silver and gold employees," rather than black
+and white employees, was originated by E. J. Williams, Jr., the
+disbursing officer of the Canal Commission. He first put this
+designation on the entrances to the pay car and it was immediately
+adopted as the solution of the troubles growing out of the
+intermingling of the races.
+
+One of the most interesting experiences that could come to any visitor
+to the Isthmus was a trip across the Zone on the pay car; to see 24
+tons of silver and 1,600 pounds of gold paid out for a single month's
+work; and to watch the 30,000 negroes, the 5,000 Americans, and the
+3,000 or 4,000 Europeans on the job file through the pay car and get
+their money. The negroes were usually a good-natured, grinning lot of
+men and boys, but they were wont to get impatient, not with the amount
+of money they drew but with its weight. Under an agreement with the
+Panama Government the Canal Commission endeavored to keep the Panaman
+silver money at par. Two dollars Panaman money was worth one dollar
+American, and the employees were paid in Panaman coin. Thus a negro
+who earned $22 during the month would get 44 of the "spiggoty"
+dollars. These "spiggoty" dollars are the same size as our own silver
+dollars and to carry them around was something of a task.
+
+When the negroes were asked what they proposed to do with their money
+the almost invariable reply was: "Put it to a good use, sir." American
+money was always at a premium with them and the money-changers in the
+various towns usually did a land-office business on pay day.
+
+Paper money was not used on the pay car at all. In the first place,
+there was always danger of its blowing away, and in the second place
+paper money in the hands of negro workmen soon assumed a most
+unsanitary condition. The negroes were always desirous of getting
+American paper money because they could send it home more cheaply than
+gold.
+
+Large numbers of West Indian women, the majority of them with their
+relatives, lived on the Zone during the construction period. They were
+for the most part industrious and made very good household servants.
+They were nearly always polite and deferential, some of them even
+saying, "Please, Ma'am," when saying "Good morning."
+
+It was a rare experience to travel on a ship carrying workers to the
+Canal Zone from the Islands of the West Indies. Ships calling at
+Kingston, Jamaica, would usually take on a hundred or more passengers.
+They would be quartered either forward or aft on the main deck. They
+would carry aboard with them all kinds of small packages. Some would
+have small boxes of chickens or pigeons, and some little old
+sawbuck-fashioned folding beds covered with canvas. As soon as
+inspected by the doctor for trachoma each negro would select the most
+favorable spot, gather his furniture around him, and settle down in
+one place, there to remain almost without moving during the whole of
+the 40-hour trip across the Caribbean. When the water was fine and the
+sailing smooth the first cabin passengers might conclude that they
+were carrying a negro camp meeting. On the other hand, if the weather
+were bad and the sea rough, a sicker lot of people nowhere might be
+found. One of the favorite negro preventives of seasickness is St.
+Thomas bay rum applied liberally to the face, although to the
+on-looker it never seems to prevent or cure a single case.
+
+Before landing at Colon every one of these negroes had to be
+vaccinated. Almost without exception they tried to prevent the virus
+"taking" by rubbing the scarified spot with lime juice or with some
+other preparation. Meals on board generally consisted of rice and
+potatoes, and, perhaps, coffee and bread. One might see a dozen young
+girls in a group eating with one hand and with the other polishing
+their complexions with the half of a lime.
+
+With all his faults--and they were not few--the West Indian negro
+laborer probably was the best workman that could have been employed
+for the job at Panama. He was usually as irresponsible, as carefree,
+and yet as reliable a workman as our own American cottonfield hand. He
+made a law-abiding citizen on the Zone, was tractable as a workman,
+and pretty certain always to make a fair return to the United States
+on the money it paid him in wages.
+
+Under the firm but gentle guidance of the master American hand, he
+did his work so well that he has forever erased from the record of his
+kind certain charges of inefficiency and laziness that had long stood
+as a black mark against him.
+
+The Canal Commission so appreciated his good work that it made
+arrangements to return him to his native country when his services no
+longer were required, there to take up the life he led before he heard
+the call of the "spiggoty" dollars that took him across the Caribbean.
+
+He will miss the life on the Isthmus. He was worked harder, he was
+treated better, and he was paid higher wages there than he ever will
+be again in his life. Perhaps he has saved; if so, he retires to be a
+nabob. Perhaps he has wasted; if so, he must go back to the
+hand-to-mouth existence that he knew in the days before.
+
+But after all, the experience of the thousands of West Indian negroes
+employed on the canal will have a stimulating effect on their home
+countries, and their general level of industrial and social conditions
+will be raised.
+
+At any rate, the American Republic always must stand indebted to these
+easy-going, care-free black men who supplied the brawn to break the
+giant back of Culebra.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE COMMISSARY
+
+
+To build the canal required the labor of some fifty thousand men. To
+induce these men to go to Panama, to stay there, to work there, and to
+work there efficiently, was no light undertaking. Health was promised
+them by the most efficient sanitary organization that ever battled
+with disease. Wealth was promised them, relatively speaking, in the
+form of wages and salaries much higher than they could obtain at home
+for the same work. But health and wealth, much desired and much prized
+as they are, can not of themselves compensate for transplanting a man
+to an alien shore and an alien atmosphere, especially if that shore be
+tropic and that atmosphere hot. There must also be comfort.
+
+And comfort was promised to the canal diggers by the commissary
+department. Good food at prices cheaper than one pays in the United
+States, and quarters of the best--these things the commissary held out
+as a part of the rewards at Panama.
+
+Of course this was not the chief object of the commissary
+department--it was the incidental factor that in the end almost
+obscured the main issue. The main business was so well done that
+everybody took it for granted, just as no one will remark about the
+sun shining although that is the most important fact we know. The main
+business of the commissary was to keep the canal diggers fed and
+housed so that they would have the strength for their tasks. How this
+was done, how fresh beef and ice cream were made daily staples in
+tropic Panama, how the canal army was fed, is a big story in itself.
+
+The history of the French régime was such as to prejudice the whole
+world against the canal region and to deter any but the most
+adventurous spirit from entering there into a gamble with death. The
+Americans soon found that without extraordinary inducements it would
+be next to impossible to recruit a force able to build the canal.
+Therefore it was determined to make the rewards so great that extra
+dollars to be gained by going to Panama would outweigh the fears of
+those who had any desire to go. It was decided to pay the employees of
+the Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad Company wages and
+salaries approximately one-half higher than those obtaining at home
+for the same work. Furthermore, it was decided that the Government
+should furnish free quarters, free medical service, free light, and
+other items which enter into the expense budget of the average family.
+It was found advisable to establish Government hotels, messes, and
+kitchens, where the needs of every employee from the highest officer
+to the most lowly negro laborer could be met, and to operate them at
+cost.
+
+Still another problem had to be faced; that of providing places where
+the people employed in building the canal could escape from the high
+prices fixed by the merchants of Panama and Colon. With this end in
+view, a great department store, carrying upward of 5,000 different
+articles, was built at Cristobal. This store established branches in
+every settlement of canal workers where patrons could go to ship and
+receive the benefit of prices much lower than those prevailing with
+regular Panaman merchants.
+
+Anyone who will study carefully the annual reports of the operation of
+the commissary of the Panama Railroad Company, will realize what great
+profits are made by the various middlemen in the United States who
+handle food products between the producer and the consumer. In 1912
+the commissary had gross sales amounting to $6,702,000, with purchases
+amounting to $5,325,000. This represents a gross profit of 26 per
+cent. The cost of transportation from New York and distribution on the
+Isthmus, amounted to about 24 per cent, leaving a net profit of
+approximately 2 per cent on the sales of goods. When it is remembered
+that transportation of commissary products from New York amounted
+approximately to a quarter of a million dollars a year, and that wagon
+deliveries on the Isthmus added $50,000 a year to this, it will be
+seen that the expenses of distribution at Panama were approximately on
+the same footing with those in the United States.
+
+In the case of dressed beef, one finds a most illuminating example of
+how it is possible to sell the ordinary items of a family budget to
+the consumer at rates much lower than those obtaining in the United
+States. According to the most authentic information dressed beef laid
+down at Panama costs more, quality for quality, than it costs the
+ordinary retail butcher in the States. At one time in 1912 the
+commissary was paying $11.94-1/4 a hundred pounds for whole dressed
+beeves laid down in New York. This was for the best corn-fed western
+steers, a grade of beef that is found only in the best retail butcher
+shops of any American city. Yet, with the expense of ocean-refrigerator
+carriage added, and with other operating costs equal to those of the
+retail butcher in the States, the commissary found it possible to sell
+to the consumer, delivered at his kitchen door, porterhouse steaks
+from this beef at 20 cents, sirloin steaks and roasts at 19 cents, and
+round steaks at 13 cents a pound. At this same time the average
+American housewife was paying from 26 to 30 cents for porterhouse
+steaks, from 22 to 26 cents for sirloin steaks and roasts, and from 17
+to 22 cents for round steaks; and in the butcher shops in the United
+States where grades of meat comparable to those at Panama were handled
+the figures were usually around the top quotations.
+
+One cannot escape asking the question how it is that if the Panama
+Railroad commissary could pay approximately 12 cents a pound for
+dressed beef at New York, deliver it in refrigeration at Cristobal,
+thence to the housewife by train and wagon, and make a gross profit of
+some 26 per cent by the operation, that the American retail butcher
+can reasonably claim that at the price he sells his meat he is making
+little or no net profit.
+
+One finds the same scale of prices on other commodities at Panama as
+meats. Only the very best goods are handled in the commissary. Any
+reasonable need of any employee could be supplied by the commissary at
+prices probably lower than a retail merchant in the United States
+could buy the same commodities.
+
+A few instances of how the commissary fared when its supply ran short
+will serve to illustrate the grasping disposition of the average
+Panaman merchant.
+
+In one case high waters in the Chagres interrupted traffic on the
+Panama Railroad, and the price of ice in Panama City promptly jumped
+from 50 cents to $1 a hundred pounds. At another time a ship bringing
+coffee to the Isthmus ran aground and the commissary had to buy coffee
+in the Panama market. It had to pay 6 cents a pound more at wholesale
+for the coffee than it was selling for at retail in Panama the day
+before the ship went aground. On another occasion a vessel carrying a
+supply of milk went ashore and the wholesale price of that commodity
+jumped a hundred per cent overnight. The Panaman merchants made a long
+and persistent fight to get the privilege of doing the business which
+is done by the commissary, but the canal officials were too wise to
+allow the working force to be dependent upon native business men for
+family budget needs.
+
+Although the commissary did an annual business of nearly $7,000,000 a
+year during the height of the construction period, it received
+comparatively little actual money for the commodities it sold. A great
+deal of this business was with the subsistence department of the Canal
+Commission, furnishing supplies for the hotels, European laborers'
+messes, and common laborers' kitchens. Practically all of the
+remainder was with the employees of the commission, and was done
+through coupon books. When an individual wanted to buy from the
+commissary he asked that a coupon book be issued him. If it were found
+that he had sufficient money coming to him for services rendered to
+cover the cost of the book, it was issued to him and the clerk in the
+commissary detached coupons to cover the purchases. When the monthly
+pay roll was made up, the cost of the coupon books was deducted from
+the amount due the employee for services. Many employees and their
+families lived too far away from the commissaries to make daily
+visits, so they simply deposited their coupon books with the main
+commissary at Cristobal and sent their orders in by mail from day to
+day. The commissary clerks would fill these written orders, sending
+the goods out on the first train.
+
+In addition to buying and selling products for the benefit of the
+canal workers, the commissary operated a number of manufacturing
+establishments. It had a bakery using some 20,000 barrels of flour,
+baking 6,000,000 loaves of bread and other things in proportion
+annually; an ice-cream plant freezing 138,000 gallons of ice-cream
+annually; a laundry washing 4,250,000 pieces a year; a coffee-roasting
+plant; and a large cold-storage warehouse. About 70,000 people were
+constantly supplied with commodities from the commissary.
+
+In its efforts to meet the needs of the several classes of employees
+on the Canal Zone the commission established four different kinds of
+eating places,--a large general hotel, a score of line hotels,
+Spanish messes, and West Indian laborers' kitchens. At Ancon it built
+the large Tivoli Hotel costing half a million dollars, for the
+accommodation of visitors; and of those high-class employees who
+desired modern hotel facilities. This hotel is the social center of
+the Canal Zone. Here practically all of the tourists come and stay
+while on the Isthmus.
+
+During the year 1912 this hotel cleared $53,000 in its operations. The
+cost of the supplies for the meals served, of which there were
+161,000, was approximately 51 cents per meal. The cost of services was
+approximately 19 cents, making a total of 70 cents per meal. The rates
+were $3 up to $5.50 a day, employees being given special concessions.
+
+[Illustration: JOHN BURKE
+
+MEAL TIME AT AN I. C. C. KITCHEN]
+
+[Illustration: WASHINGTON HOTEL, COLON
+
+MAJOR EUGENE T. WILSON
+
+THE TIVOLI HOTEL, ANCON]
+
+The line hotels were, more properly speaking, merely dining-rooms
+where the American employees were furnished substantial meals for 30
+cents each. Outsiders paid 50 cents each for these meals. They were up
+to a very high standard. Once the late Senator Thomas H. Carter, of
+Montana, was a member of a Senate committee visiting the Isthmus and
+he invited the subsistence officer, Maj. Wilson, to come to Washington
+and show the manager of the Senate restaurant how to prepare a good
+meal. A year later, after Senator Albert B. Cummins, of Iowa, had
+eaten one of the lunches at Gatun, he renewed the invitation of
+Senator Carter, telling Maj. Wilson he was sure that if he were to
+come Senators would get better meals for their money. At one of the
+Congressional hearings on the Isthmus Representative T. W. Sims, of
+Tennessee, asked that the menu of a meal he had eaten at one of these
+hotels be inserted in the record. Major Wilson inserted the menu for
+several days instead. The following is the menu at the Cristobal Hotel
+for January 20, 1912:
+
+Breakfast.--Oranges, sliced bananas, oatmeal, eggs to order, German
+potatoes, ham or bacon, hot cakes, maple sirup, tea, coffee, cocoa.
+
+Lunch.--Vegetable soup, fried pork chops, apple sauce, boiled
+potatoes, pork and beans, sliced buttered beets, stewed cranberries,
+creamed parsnips, lemon meringue pie, tea, coffee, cocoa.
+
+Dinner.--Consomme vermicelli, beefsteak, natural gravy, lyonnaise
+potatoes, stewed beans, sliced beets, stewed apples, carrots a la
+Julienne, hot biscuits, ice-cream, chocolate cake, tea, coffee, cocoa.
+
+The line hotels in 1912, which were operated at a loss of $12,000,
+served over 2,000,000 meals. The cost of the supplies per meal
+amounted to $0.2504 and the service to $0.0165, making the average
+meal cost $0.3065, while the employees were charged 30 cents.
+Approximately 2,000 Americans were continuous patrons of the line
+hotels.
+
+The messes for European laborers were operated in 1912 at a total cost
+of $405,000. The returns from their operations amounted to $443,000,
+showing a net profit of $38,000 on 1,108,000 rations. The net profit
+per day's ration approximated 3-1/2 cents. The supplies entering into
+the ration cost $0.3106 and the service of preparing it $0.0547.
+
+The national diet for Europeans would appear very monotonous to
+Americans. For the Spaniards who constituted the major portion of the
+European employees, it was a "rancho," which is a mixture of stewed
+meat, potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes and garbanzos heavily flavored with
+Spanish sweet pepper. Their soups were made very stiff, really a meal
+in themselves, since they were about the consistency of Irish stew
+mashed up. A day's ration for Spanish laborers ran about as follows:
+
+Breakfast.--Roast beef, pork sausage, corned-beef, sardines or bacon,
+one-half loaf of bread, chocolate and milk.
+
+Dinner.--Garbanzos or macaroni, roast beef or hamburger steak, fried
+potatoes, oranges or bananas, one-half loaf of bread, coffee.
+
+Supper.--Rice soup, peas or beans, rancho, one-quarter loaf of bread,
+tea.
+
+The Government charged the European laborers 40 cents a day for their
+meals. Their mess halls were large, airy, comfortable and
+conspicuously clean. The European laborers nearly all patronized these
+mess halls; about 3,200 of them constantly were fed at these places.
+
+Wherever there was a West Indian negro settlement along the line of
+the canal the commission operated a mess kitchen. These kitchens were
+kept scrupulously clean and the laborers were furnished meals at 9
+cents each. Each laborer who patronized the kitchen had his little kit
+into which the attendants put his meal, and he could carry it anywhere
+he desired to eat it. In spite of the fact that these meals
+corresponded almost exactly to the American Regular Army field
+rations, they were never popular with the West Indian negroes.
+Although there were some 25,000 of these laborers on the canal in
+1912, only a little more than a half million rations were issued to
+them during the year. Less than 15 per cent of the negro force
+patronized the commission kitchen.
+
+The following is a specimen day's ration in a West Indian kitchen:
+
+Breakfast.--Cocoa and milk, porridge, bread, jam.
+
+Dinner.--Pea soup, beef, doughboys, rice, bread, bananas.
+
+Supper.--Stewed beef, boiled potatoes, stewed navy beans, bread, tea.
+
+During the construction period of the canal the average American
+received approximately $150 a month for his labor. Those who were
+married and remained in the service a reasonable time were provided,
+rent free, with family quarters. Their light bills were never
+rendered, the coal for their kitchen stoves cost them nothing, and the
+iceman never came around to collect. The bachelors were provided with
+bachelor quarters with the necessary furniture for making them
+comfortable. The average married quarters cost from $1,200 to $1,800
+each, and the average quarters for a bachelor about $500 to construct.
+The higher officials had separate houses; lesser officials were
+furnished with semi-detached houses. The majority of the rank and file
+of American married employees were housed in roomy, four-flat houses.
+The verandas were broad and screened in with the best copper netting,
+and all quarters were provided with necessary furniture at Government
+expense.
+
+The assignment of quarters and furniture called for a great deal of
+diplomacy on the part of the quartermaster's department, since, if
+Mrs. Jones happened to visit Mrs. Smith, and found that she had a
+swell-front dresser in her bedroom, while her own was a straight-front
+dresser, an irate lady was very shortly calling on the district
+quartermaster and demanding to know why such discrimination should be
+practiced. Perhaps she had been on the Canal Zone longer than Mrs.
+Smith, and felt that if anyone were entitled to the swell-front
+dresser she was the one. The district quartermaster had to explain
+with all the patience at his command that it was not a case of
+discrimination but merely that the commission had bought swell-front
+dressers at a later date for the same price that it formerly had paid
+for the straight-front ones, and that consequently the people who
+furnished houses later got them.
+
+On another occasion Mrs. Brown, calling on Mrs. White, found that Mrs.
+White had an electric light on her side porch. She immediately fared
+forth to pull the hair of the quartermaster for this discrimination,
+but was somewhat taken back when that official calmly informed her
+that the light had been put there for a few days in anticipation of a
+children's party that was to be given by Mrs. White one night that
+week.
+
+The marvelous success of the commissary, not only in affording its
+patrons better service at lower prices, but also in making a
+substantial profit on the undertaking, had been referred to as the
+most valuable lesson taught by the whole canal digging operation. It
+has proved the efficiency of government agencies in fields far removed
+from the ordinary operations of government, and it may be that its
+experience will be used to advantage in combating the high cost of
+living in the United States itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+LIFE ON THE ZONE
+
+
+Transplant a man or a woman from a home in a temperate climate to an
+abode in the Tropics, and there is bound to be trouble. Disturbances
+in the body are expected and, proper precautions being taken, most
+often are warded off. Disturbances in the mind are not anticipated,
+preventive measures are seldom taken, and there comes the trouble.
+That is why the Young Men's Christian Association and the American
+Federation of Women's Clubs had their part to do in digging the Panama
+Canal, a part second in importance only to the sanitary work under
+Colonel Gorgas.
+
+It's an odd thing--this transplanting a man from the temperate to the
+torrid zone. It affects men of different nations in different ways. It
+is disastrous in inverse ratio to the adaptability of the man
+transplanted. A German or a Dutchman goes to the Tropics and almost
+without a struggle yields to the demands of the new climate all his
+orderly daily habits. Your Dutchman in Java will, except on state
+occasions, wear the native dress (or undress); eat the native food;
+live in the native house; and, like as not, take a native woman to
+wife. One thing only--he will retain his schnapps. The German is only
+a little less adaptable, clings only a little longer to the routine
+of the Fatherland, but he, too, keeps his beer.
+
+Your Englishman, on the contrary, defies the tropical sun and scorns
+to make any changes in his daily habit that he had not fixed upon as
+necessary and proper before he left his right little, tight little,
+island. He does, it is true, wear a pith helmet. That is due partly,
+perhaps, to his fear of the sun, but it is much more due to the fact
+that he associates it with lands where faces are not white; therefore
+he wears it in Egypt in the winter when it is shivery cold with the
+same religious devotion that he wears it in India when the mercury is
+running out of the top of the thermometer. Your Englishman, it is
+true, wears white duck clothes in the Tropics, but not the fiercest
+heat that old Sol ever produced could induce him for one moment to
+exchange his flannel underwear for cotton or to leave off his woolen
+hose. It is a pretty theory and not without much support, that it is
+this British defiance of tropical customs that has given him the
+mastery over Tropic peoples. And wherever goes the Briton there goes
+also Scotch-and-soda.
+
+The Americans steer a middle course. They dress for the heat and make
+themselves comfortable as possible. They consume even greater
+quantities of ice than they do at home, and the average American eats
+every day in summer enough ice to kill a score of Englishmen. At
+least, that's what the Englishmen would think.
+
+But the American in the Tropics tenaciously clings to many of his home
+habits, despite the changed conditions of his place of sojourn. He
+must have his bath, even though he talks less about it than the
+Englishman. He must have his three square meals a day, and breakfast
+must be a real breakfast. He demands screens to protect him from
+pestiferous insects, no less for comfort's sake than health's. And
+then he demands two other things--a soda fountain and a base-ball
+team.
+
+It is true that he often will indulge in a British peg of
+Scotch-and-soda, or in a German stein of beer, but the native drink
+that he takes with him to the Tropics, and one that he alone consumes,
+and the one that he, in season and out of season, demands, is the
+sweet, innocent, and non-alcoholic product of the soda fountain. How
+incomprehensible is this to the sons of other nations no American may
+ever understand.
+
+It may seem to be going far field to discuss even in the general way
+the differing tempers of men of different nations transplanted from a
+temperate to a torrid clime. But, as a matter of fact, it has a direct
+bearing on the accomplishment at Panama, of which Americans are so
+proud.
+
+[Illustration: FLOYD C. FREEMAN
+
+I. C. C. CLUB HOUSE AT CULEBRA]
+
+[Illustration: A. BRUCE MINEAR
+
+READING ROOM IN THE I. C. C. CLUB HOUSE, CULEBRA]
+
+When the Americans first undertook the task, the denizens of the
+Isthmus prepared for them only such entertainment as had been
+acceptable in other days. The only places open to the tired worker in
+the evening were the saloons, selling bad whiskey and worse beer; or
+darker hells of sure and quick damnation. There were no theaters that
+would appeal to the American taste, no sports that the clean American
+would tolerate. In short, when the American in the early days of the
+construction was wearied with that weariness that would not respond
+to resting, there was but one thing left. He got home--sick and drunk.
+
+In those early days there were few women. Most of the men who came
+then were moved rather by a spirit of adventure than by a
+determination to share in a tremendous job of work, and such men were
+not married. It was not long until the men at the head discovered that
+the married men were more content, that they lost less time from the
+work, and produced more results when on the job than did the
+bachelors. (This, of course, must not be taken as an indictment
+against every individual bachelor who worked at Panama, but rather as
+a characterization based on the average of that class.) Thus in the
+very order of things it became the policy of the commission to
+encourage unmarried men at work to marry, and to bring married men
+from the States rather than bachelors. Inducements were held out,
+putting a premium on matrimony. The bachelor worker had good quarters,
+but he perhaps shared but a room in a bungalow, whereas the married
+man had a four-room house of his own, with a big porch, and free
+furniture, free light, and the problem of the cost of living solved by
+the paternal commissary.
+
+So matrimony flourished. But when the women came in increasing
+numbers, and with them many children, another problem arose. Women
+born in temperate climes suffer more in the Tropics than do men. The
+dry, dry heat of the dry season is succeeded by the wet, wet heat of
+the rainy months. There is never any escape from that horrible,
+hateful, hellish heat. Is it to be baked or steamed? The changing
+seasons offer no other alternative. And the Fear! Not for a moment may
+one forget that sickness and death stalk in the jungle; that a glass
+of water or an unscreened door may be the end of it all. There is no
+normality, no relaxation, no care free rest for the woman in the
+Tropics.
+
+At Panama her housekeeping duties were lightened by the excellence of
+the commissary system, so that they were not enough to keep her mind
+occupied. She became homesick and hysterical.
+
+So, then, it being desirable to have married men on the job, it became
+necessary to do something to keep the women at the minimum stage of
+unhappiness. The Y. M. C. A. clubhouse, with their gymnasiums, their
+libraries, their games, their sports, and their clubiness, had been
+the substitute for home offered to the lonely American man at Panama.
+The Civic Federation was invited to do what it could for the women. It
+sent an agent of the American Federation of Women's Clubs to Panama,
+who organized women's clubs, and these, by putting the women to work,
+made them, in a measure, forget the Heat and the Fear.
+
+Miss Helen Varick Boswell visited the Isthmus in the fall of 1907 and
+assisted the women in forming their clubs. She found them literally
+hungry for such activities and they responded with a will to her
+suggestion. The result was frequent meetings in every town in the
+Canal Zone and innumerable activities on the part of the women
+interested in club work.
+
+The transformation was most remarkable. Where almost every woman on
+the Isthmus seemed to be unhappy, now everyone who needed an outlet
+for her mental and social instincts found it in club work. Where once
+they quarreled and disputed about their house furnishings, life on the
+Isthmus, and the general status of things on the Canal Zone, now the
+women seemed to take a happy and contented view of things, and became
+as much interested in the work of building the canal as were their
+husbands, their fathers, and their brothers. Looking back over the
+task, and realizing how much longer the married men stayed on the job,
+and how much more essential they were to the completion of the canal
+than the bachelors, the cares of the canal authorities to keep the
+women satisfied was a master stroke.
+
+When the club movement was launched one of the first steps was to
+organize classes in Spanish. Women from every part of the Zone
+attended these Spanish classes and took up the work of learning the
+language with zeal. Comparatively few of them had any opportunity to
+learn Spanish, even in its most rudimentary form, from household
+servants, since the same lethargy that characterized the native men of
+Panama, and made them totally indifferent to the opportunities for
+work on the Canal Zone, also characterized the Panaman women, with the
+results that most of the American households at Panama had
+English-speaking Jamaican servants instead of Spanish-speaking
+Panamans.
+
+The servant problem was not as serious as it is in the average
+American city. There was always a full supply of Jamaican negro women
+ready for engagement as household servants. They were polite and
+efficient. Almost without exception they had a deeply religious turn
+of mind, although they might transgress the Mosaic law far enough to
+substitute plain water for violet water on the boudoir table of their
+mistresses. Usually they were very neat of person and very careful in
+the manner of doing their work. The wages they commanded were
+approximately equal to those asked in the ordinary American city.
+
+The greatest social diversion of the Isthmus, of course, was dancing.
+Every two weeks the Tivoli Club gave a dance at the Tivoli Hotel.
+Trains to carry visitors were run all the way across the Isthmus and
+no American ever needed to miss a dance at the Tivoli Hotel because of
+unsuitable railroad accommodations.
+
+Each small town had its own dancing clubs and in those towns where
+there were Y. M. C. A. buildings, the dances were held in them. The
+new Hotel Washington proved a very popular rendezvous for the dancers,
+and in the future the big functions of this kind probably will
+alternate between the Tivoli at one end of the canal and the
+Washington at the other.
+
+The university men maintained the University Club in the city of
+Panama, directly on the water front. This club frequently opened its
+doors to women and its functions were always regarded as events in
+Isthmian social history. In Colon there was organized several years
+ago a club known as the Stranger's Club. This club, as did the
+University Club at Panama, welcomed the American stranger.
+
+The Isthmian Canal Commission always looked carefully after the
+religious activities of the people of the Canal Zone. Its provision of
+places of worship and facilities for getting to them was strictly
+nonsectarian, and directed solely to giving every sect and every faith
+opportunity to worship in its own way. Several chaplains were
+maintained at Government expense, and railroad and wagonette service
+for carrying people to their places of worship was maintained
+throughout the years of the American occupation.
+
+The West Indian negroes were provided with churches and with homes for
+the leaders of their spiritual flocks. Church buildings were erected
+at every settlement, and in many cases were so constructed that the
+lower story could be used for a church and the second story for lodge
+purposes. These buildings were 70 by 36 feet, with lodge rooms 60 by
+36 feet.
+
+The women on the Canal Zone were interested in religious work from the
+beginning of their residence there. An Isthmian Sunday School
+Association maintained church extension work. When the Women's
+Federation of Clubs finally disbanded, in April, 1913, it presented
+its library to this association and its pictures to the Ancon Study
+Club. There was an art society at Ancon, which did much to foster art
+work on the Zone during the days of the canal construction. The
+organization of Camp Fire Girls extended its activities to Panama, and
+many leading women there contributed both means and time to help the
+girls on the Isthmus.
+
+The women of the Zone did not fail to enlist themselves in any
+movement for good in their communities. A few years since there was a
+little blind boy on the Isthmus and the Federation of Women's Clubs
+decided that he ought to have better educational advantages than could
+be provided at Panama. Therefore, they agreed to finance his going to
+Boston to enter an institution for the education of the blind. When
+the Federation disbanded, owing to the gradual departure of members
+for the States, it did not do so until it had created a committee
+which was to continue indefinitely in charge of the education of this
+blind boy.
+
+Many secret societies existed on the Isthmus, the oldest one made up
+of Americans being the Sojourners Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons,
+organized in Colon in 1898. There were Odd Fellows' lodges and lodges
+of Redmen, Modern Woodmen, Knights of Pythias, Elks, Junior Order of
+American Mechanics, and representative bodies of many other American
+secret orders. An Isthmian order is that of the Kangaroos, whose motto
+is: "He is best who does best." This order was organized in 1907 under
+the laws of Tennessee, and the mother council was organized at Empire
+the same year. The object of the Kangaroos is to hold mock sessions of
+court and to extract from them all of the fun and, at the same time,
+all of the good that they will yield.
+
+The men on the Isthmus, almost completely isolated as they were from
+American political concerns, never allowed their interest in political
+affairs at home to become completely atrophied. There was a common
+saying that the Panamans were the only people on the Isthmus that
+could vote, but at times the Americans would at least simulate
+politics at home with the resulting campaigns and elections. During
+the presidential campaign of 1912 it was decided to hold a mock
+election in several of the American settlements. The elections were
+for national offices and for municipal offices as well. There were a
+number of parties, and in the national elections there were the usual
+group of insurgents, progressives, reactionaries, and the like.
+
+There were nominations for dog catchers and town grouches, while the
+party platforms abounded in all the political claptrap of the ordinary
+American document of like nature. Cartoons were circulated showing the
+Panama Railroad to be a monopolistic corporation; flaring handbills
+proving that the latest town grouch had not acquitted himself properly
+in office; statistical tables showing that the dog catcher had allowed
+more dogs to get away from him than he had caught; and all sorts of
+other campaign tricks and dodges were brought into play, just as
+though there were real issues at stake and real men to be elected. At
+Colon the presidential returns showed 33 votes for Taft, 200 for
+Wilson and 224 for Roosevelt. There were 204 votes in favor of Woman
+Suffrage, both state and national, and 75 votes against it.
+
+As has been said, when the American first went to Panama the only
+diversion a man could find was to go to a cheap saloon and meet his
+friends. It was a condition that was as unsatisfactory to the men
+themselves as it was to the moral sentiment of those behind the work,
+and almost as dangerous to the success of the undertaking as would
+have been an outbreak of some epidemic disease. This led the
+commission to urge the erection of clubhouses in several of the more
+populous settlements, to be conducted under the auspices of the Young
+Men's Christian Association, but to be operated on a basis that would
+bring to the people those rational amusements of which they stood so
+much in need.
+
+From time to time clubhouses of this type were established in seven of
+the American settlements and the work they did in promoting the
+contentment and happiness of the people can be appreciated only by
+those who have witnessed the conditions of living in Canal Zone towns
+where there were no such clubhouses.
+
+Almost the first effect of the construction of a clubhouse was a heavy
+falling off in barroom attendance, and simultaneously a decline in the
+receipts from the sales of liquor. It is estimated that these receipts
+fell off 75 per cent within a short time after the clubhouses were
+opened. The men who had been buying beer at 25 cents a bottle, or
+whiskey at 15 cents a thimbleful, were now frequenting the clubhouses,
+playing billiards, rolling tenpins, writing letters, reading their
+home papers, or engaging in other diversions which served to banish
+homesickness.
+
+When the Y. M. C. A. clubhouses were opened a practical man was put at
+the head of each. While no one would think of card-playing or dancing
+at a Y. M. C. A. in the States, both were to be found in the
+association clubhouses of the Isthmus. Bowling alleys, billiard
+rooms, gymnasiums, and many other features for entertainment were
+established in the clubhouses. Bowling teams were organized; billiard
+and pool contests were started; gymnastic instruction was given;
+pleasant reading rooms with easy chairs, cool breezes, and good lights
+were provided; circulating libraries were established; good soda
+fountains were put in operation where one could get a glass of soda
+long enough to quench the deepest thirst; and in general the
+clubhouses were made the most attractive places in town--places where
+any man, married or single, might spend his leisure moments with
+profit and with pleasure.
+
+Every effort was put forth to capitalize the spirit of rivalry in the
+interest of the men. The result was that in each clubhouse there were
+continuous contests of one kind or another, which afforded
+entertainment for those engaged and held the interest of those who
+were looking on. Then the champions of each clubhouse, whether
+individuals or teams, were pitted against the stars of other places,
+and in this way there was always "something doing" around each
+clubhouse.
+
+In addition to maintaining a supervision over the sports of the
+Isthmus, the clubhouses provided night schools for those who desired
+to improve such educational opportunities. These night schools were
+rather well patronized by the new arrivals on the Isthmus, but there
+is something in that climate which, after a man has been there for a
+year, makes him want to rest whenever he is off duty. Going to night
+school became an intolerable bore by that time, so very few men kept
+up their attendance after the first year. The study of Spanish was
+found to be one exception to this rule, for, besides the satisfaction
+of being able to talk with native Panamans and the Spaniards, there
+was the hope of financial reward. Any employee who could pass an
+examination in Spanish stood a better show of getting promotion in the
+service. Besides, the man who had grit enough to carry through a
+course of study on the Isthmus, with its enervating climate, was
+almost certain to climb the ladder of success wherever he went.
+
+A review of the work of the seven Y. M. C. A. clubhouses for 1912
+gives a good idea of what they did during the entire construction
+period. It required a force of 42 Americans and 64 West Indians to
+operate these seven clubhouses. Twelve of the Americans were paid out
+of the funds of the Canal Commission and 30 out of the funds of the Y.
+M. C. A. Of the negro employees 43 were paid by the Canal Commission
+and 21 by the Y. M. C. A. The American force for all seven clubhouses
+consisted of one superintendent, four secretaries, four assistant
+secretaries, one clerk, ten night clerks, six bowling alley night
+attendants, six pool room night attendants, and seven barbers. At the
+end of that year there were 2,100 members of the Y. M. C. A., no less
+than 58 per cent of all the American employees living in towns having
+clubhouses being members of the association.
+
+During the year seven companies of players and musicians were engaged
+to provide amusement a the clubhouses. They gave 85 entertainments
+which had a total attendance of 21,000. Local talent and moving
+pictures provided 406 entertainments with a total attendance of
+96,000. Amateur oratorio societies, operatic troupes, minstrel
+troupes, glee clubs, mixed choruses, vaudeville and black-face
+sketches were organized during the year through the efforts of the
+members cooperating with the secretaries. These organizations made the
+whole circuit of the Isthmus. Weekly moving-picture exhibitions were
+given and a man was employed who gave his entire attention to them.
+Carefully chosen films were ordered from the United States, special
+attention being given to educational features.
+
+Special tournaments in bowling, billiards, and pool were organized and
+gold, silver, and bronze medals were awarded the winners. Over a
+hundred thousand bowling games and nearly 300,000 games of pool and
+billiards were played during the year. Trained physical directors were
+employed to direct the gymnastic exercises at the clubhouses and there
+was an attendance of 15,000 at these classes during the year. A
+pentathlon meet was held at Empire for the purpose of developing
+all-around athletes. Religious meetings and song services were held at
+such times as not to interfere with the organized religious work on
+the Zone, the average attendance at 214 meetings being 50 and the
+average attendance at Bible and discussion clubs 52. The average
+enrollment was 65 in the Spanish class. Forty-two thousand books were
+withdrawn for home reading during the year.
+
+Soft drinks, ice-cream, light lunches, and the like were served on
+the cool verandas of the clubhouses, the receipts from these sales
+amounting to approximately $50,000. Nearly 4,000 calls on hospital
+patients were made by committees for the visitation of the sick. Boys
+from 10 to 16 years of age were allowed special privileges in the
+clubhouses, and the secretaries arranged several outings during the
+year. The total boys' membership was 146. The disbursements from the
+funds of the Isthmian Canal Commission amounted to $50,000 and those
+from clubhouse funds amounted to $114,000. The total receipts for the
+year amounted to $118,000. The affairs of the clubhouses were in the
+hands of the advisory committee appointed by the chairman and chief
+engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission.
+
+In providing amusements the Canal Commission overlooked no opportunity
+in the way of furnishing special trains and affording other facilities
+for encouraging play by the canal workers. Each town had its ball team
+and its ball park, and there was just as much enthusiasm in watching
+the standing of the several clubs in the isthmian League as in the
+States in watching the performances of the several clubs in the
+American and National leagues. When there was a championship series to
+be played there was just as much excitement over it as if it were a
+post-season contest between the Athletics and the Giants.
+
+It is probable that better amusements will be provided under the
+permanent régime than were during the construction period. With ships
+constantly passing through the canal, many opera companies, especially
+those from Spain and Italy, will have opportunity to stop for a night
+or two at Panama, while their ships are coaling or shipping cargo. In
+Panama City there is a splendid theater built by the Panaman
+Government largely out of funds derived from payments made by the
+United States on account of the canal rights.
+
+As the major portion of the permanent force will be quartered at Ancon
+and Balboa, they will be able to drive to the theater or take the
+street car. A new street-car system has just been established, and
+those who can not afford the luxury of carriages will find in it
+opportunities for taking airings as well as going to the theater. This
+system runs from the permanent settlement at Balboa through the city
+of Panama and down over the savannahs towards old Panama. It is the
+first street-car system ever operated on the Isthmus, and will
+probably prove much more satisfactory than the little, old, dirty
+coaches which have afforded the only means of transportation on the
+Zone.
+
+The building of a number of roads along the canal to facilitate the
+movement of military forces has made it possible to get a satisfactory
+use of automobiles. Agencies already have been opened for a number of
+the lower-priced cars in anticipation that a large number of the canal
+employees will buy automobiles in order to get the benefit of these
+good roads. There are few places where automobiling affords more
+pleasant diversion than at Panama. After the sun goes down the
+evenings are just cool enough and the breezes just strong enough to
+make an automobile ride a delightful experience.
+
+There are good opportunities for lovers of hunting and fishing on the
+Isthmus. There is wild game in plenty--deer abounding in the entire
+region contiguous to the canal and alligators being found in all of
+the principal streams. There are both sea and river fishing, and some
+tapirs and other wild animals still are left to attract the efforts of
+the modern huntsman.
+
+The entertainment headquarters on the Canal Zone under the permanent
+occupation will be the big clubhouse at Balboa, which is being built
+at a cost of about $50,000. This clubhouse will not only have all of
+the features of the clubhouses of the construction period, but will be
+equipped with a large auditorium, with a complete library and with
+every facility for amusement and entertainment that experience on the
+Isthmus has called for.
+
+It can not be said that social life on the Isthmus during the period
+of canal construction was ideal. Its inspiration was to be found in
+the desire to make the best of a bad situation. Men and women all knew
+that their stay in Panama was but temporary, none of them looked upon
+the Canal Zone as home, and all of them counted time in two
+eras--Before we came to Panama, and When we leave Panama.
+
+Of course there was dining and dancing, and the bridge tables were
+never idle. But every dinner hostess knew that every guest knew
+exactly what every dish on the table cost, and she knew that guest
+knew she knew. The family income was fixed and public. All one had to
+do was to read the official bulletins.
+
+The same paternalistic commissary that reduced the cost of living and
+made housekeeping so easy, also tended with socialistic frankness to
+bring everybody to a dead level. It was useless to attempt any of the
+little deceits that make life so interesting at home.
+
+Although the American is a home-loving animal, he managed to get on
+fairly well in the alien atmosphere of the Tropic jungle. He brought
+with him his home life, his base ball and his soda fountain. And,
+considering how such things go in the Tropics, he managed to live a
+clean life while he was doing a clean piece of work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+PAST ISTHMIAN PROJECTS
+
+
+The digging of an Isthmian Canal was a dream in the minds of many men
+in Europe and America from the day that Columbus found two continents
+stretched across his pathway in his endeavor to discover a western
+route to India. On his last voyage, as he beat down the coast of
+Central America, here naming one cape "Gracias a Dios" and there
+another "Nombre de Dios," testifying his thanks to God and his
+reverence for His name, he touched the Isthmus near the present
+Atlantic terminus of the Panama Canal. He little dreamed that some day
+ships 500 times as large as his own would pass through the barrier of
+mountains which Nature interposed between his ambitions and India.
+
+The idea of a canal through the American Isthmus was in the mind of
+Charles V of Spain as early as 1520. In that year he ordered surveys
+to ascertain the practicability of a canal connecting the Atlantic and
+the Pacific. His son, Philip II did not agree with him about the
+desirability of a trans-Isthmian waterway, holding that a shipway
+through the Isthmus would give to other nations easy access to his new
+possessions, and in time of war might be of greater advantage to his
+enemies than to himself. He invoked the Bible to put an end to these
+propositions to dig a canal across the American Isthmus, calling to
+mind that the Good Book declared that "what God hath joined together
+let no man put asunder."
+
+The policy of Philip was continued for about two centuries, although
+in the reign of his father many efforts had been made in the direction
+of a ship waterway across the Isthmus. In fact, ships crossed the
+Isthmus nearly four centuries before the completion of the canal.
+About 1521 Gil Gonzales was sent to the New World to seek out a strait
+through the Isthmus. He sailed up and down the Central American coast,
+entering this river and that, but failing of course to find a natural
+waterway. Not to be outdone, he decided to take his two caravels to
+pieces and to transport them across the Isthmus. He carried them on
+the backs of Indians and mules from the head of navigation on the
+Chagres River to the ancient city of Panama. There he rebuilt them and
+set out to sea, but they were lost in a storm. Still determined to
+make the most of his opportunities, Gonzales built others to take
+their places and with these made his way up the Pacific coast through
+the Gulf of Fonseca to Nicaragua, where he discovered Lake Nicaragua.
+A few years later another explorer made a trip across Lake Nicaragua
+and down the San Juan River to the Atlantic.
+
+Cortez, the conquistador of Mexico, at one time was ordered to use
+every resource at his command in a search for the longed-for strait.
+He did not find it, but he did open up a line of communication across
+the Isthmus of Tehauntepec, following practically the same line as
+was afterwards followed by Eads with his proposed ship railway.
+
+From those days to the time when the United States decided that the
+canal should be built at Panama and that it should be made a national
+undertaking, one route after another was proposed. In 1886,
+immediately after the French failure, the Senate requested the
+Secretary of the Navy to furnish all available information pertaining
+to the subject of a canal across the Isthmus, and Admiral Charles H.
+Davis reported that 19 canal and 7 railway projects had been proposed,
+the most northerly across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec and the most
+southerly across the Isthmus of Panama at the Gulf of Darien, 1,400
+miles apart. Eight of these projects were located in Nicaragua.
+
+In 1838 the Republic of New Granada, which then had territorial
+possession of the Isthmus of Panama, granted a concession to a French
+company to build a canal across the Isthmus. This company claimed to
+have found a pass through the mountains only 37 feet above sea level.
+In 1843 the French minister of foreign affairs instructed Napoleon
+Carella to investigate these claims. That engineer found no such pass
+and reported the claims to be worthless. He, in turn, advocated a
+canal along the route followed by the present Panama Canal, with a
+3-mile tunnel through Culebra Mountain and with 18 locks on the
+Atlantic slope and 16 locks on the Pacific slope. He estimated the
+cost of such a canal at $25,000,000. The first formal surveys of the
+Panama route were made in 1827 by J. A. Lloyd. He recommended a
+combination rail and water route, with a canal on the Atlantic side
+and a railroad on the Pacific side.
+
+The first serious proposition to build a Nicaragua Canal was made in
+1779 when the King of England ordered an investigation into the
+feasibility of connecting the Nicaraguan lakes with the sea. A year
+later Capt. Horatio Nelson, destined to become the hero of Trafalgar,
+headed an expedition from Jamaica to possess the Nicaraguan lakes,
+which he considered to be the inland Gibraltar of Spanish America,
+commanding the only water pass between the oceans. His expedition was
+successful as far as overcoming Spanish opposition was concerned, but
+a deadlier enemy than the Don decimated his ranks. Of the 200 who set
+out with Nelson only 10 survived, and Nelson himself narrowly escaped
+with his life after a long illness.
+
+In 1825 what now constitute the several countries of Central America
+were embraced in one federation--the Central American Republic. It
+asked the cooperation of the American people in the construction of a
+canal through Nicaragua. Henry Clay, then Secretary of State, favored
+the proposition, and, in 1826, the Federation entered into a contract
+with Aaron H. Palmer, of New York, for the construction of a canal
+through Nicaragua capable of accommodating the largest vessels afloat.
+Palmer was unable to command the necessary capital and the concession
+lapsed. A few years later an English corporation sent John Bailey to
+Nicaragua for the purpose of securing a canal concession. He failed to
+get the concession but was later employed by the Nicaraguan
+Government, which again had become independent, to determine the most
+feasible location for a canal across Nicaragua.
+
+The United States Government became deeply interested in Isthmian
+Canal projects during the Forties of the last century. The extension
+of the national domain to the Pacific coast made the building of an
+Isthmian Canal a consideration of prime importance to the United
+States, and made it a dangerous policy to allow any other country to
+acquire a dominating hand over an Isthmian waterway. The result was
+that the American Government advised the British Government that it
+would not tolerate the control of any Isthmian Canal by any foreign
+power. This later brought about the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which made
+neutral the proposed Nicaraguan Canal.
+
+In 1849 Elijah Hise, representing the United States, negotiated a
+treaty with Nicaragua, by the terms of which that country gave to the
+United States, or its citizens, exclusive right to construct and
+operate roads, railways, canals, or any other medium of transportation
+across its territory between the two oceans. The consideration exacted
+by Nicaragua was that the United States should guarantee the
+independence of that country--a consideration that was then paramount
+because of the effort being made by Great Britain to gobble up the
+"Mosquito Coast" as far east as the San Juan River. The United States
+was not ready to give such a guarantee--although a half century later
+it did give it to the Republic of Panama--and the Hise treaty failed
+of ratification in the Senate.
+
+A little later Cornelius Vanderbilt became interested in a canal and
+road across Nicaragua under an exclusive concession running for 85
+years. Modifications of this concession permitted the Vanderbilt
+Company to exercise exclusive navigation rights on the lakes of
+Nicaragua. As a result the Accessory Transit Company established a
+transportation line from the Atlantic through the San Juan River and
+across Lake Nicaragua, thence by stage coach over a 13-mile stretch of
+road to San Juan del Sur on the Pacific.
+
+In 1852 Col. Orville Childs made a report to President Fillmore upon
+the results of his surveys for a Nicaraguan Canal; and, if the United
+States, in 1902, had elected to build the Nicaraguan Canal, the route
+laid out by Childs would have been followed for all but a few miles of
+the entire distance. In 1858 a French citizen obtained from Nicaragua
+and Costa Rica a joint concession for a canal, which contained a
+provision that the French Government should have the right to keep two
+warships on Lake Nicaragua as long as the canal was in operation. The
+United States politely informed Nicaragua and Costa Rica that it would
+not permit any such agreement--that it would be a menace to the United
+States as long as the agreement was in force. Upon these
+representations the concession was canceled.
+
+In 1876 the first Nicaraguan Canal Commission created by the American
+Congress made a unanimous report in favor of a canal across Nicaragua,
+after it had investigated all the proposed routes from eastern Mexico
+to western South America. It asserted that this route possessed, both
+for the construction and maintenance of the canal, greater advantages
+and fewer difficulties from engineering, commercial, and economic
+points of view than any one of the other routes shown to be
+practicable by surveys sufficient in detail to enable a judgment to be
+formed of their respective merits.
+
+When the first French Panama Canal Company began its work all other
+projects fell by the wayside for the time being, just as all other
+plans for interoceanic canals were abandoned when the United States
+undertook the construction of the present canal. After that company
+failed, however, the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua was organized
+in 1889 by A. G. Menocal, under concessions from the Government of
+that country and Costa Rica. The Atlantic end of this canal, as
+proposed by the Maritime Canal Company, was located on the lagoon west
+of Greytown. The Pacific end was located at Brito, a few miles from
+San Juan del Sur. This canal company built three-fourths of a mile of
+canal, constructed a temporary railway and a short telegraph line, but
+soon thereafter became involved in financial difficulties which led to
+a suspension of operations. Even to this day the visitor to Nicaragua
+may see many evidences of the wrecked hopes of that period for
+whatever town he visits he finds there Americans and Europeans who
+went to Nicaragua at the time of the opening of the work of building a
+canal by the Maritime Canal Company. They expected to find a land of
+opportunity. But, with failure of the canal project, they found
+themselves in the possession of properties whose value lay only in
+staying there and operating them.
+
+When the first Isthmian Canal Commission, in 1899, undertook to
+investigate all of the proposed routes across the connecting link
+between North and South America, it placed on the Nicaraguan route
+alone 20 working parties, made up of 159 civil engineers, their
+assistants, and 455 laborers. The entire work of exploring the
+Nicaraguan route was done with the greatest care. The depth of the
+canal, as adopted by the commission, was 35 feet and the minimum width
+150 feet. The locks were to be 840 feet long and 84 feet wide, and of
+these there were to be eight on the Pacific and six on the Atlantic
+side. This canal was to be 184 miles long. At the Atlantic end there
+was to be a 46-mile sea-level section and at the Pacific end a 12-mile
+sea-level section, while the water in the middle 126-mile section was
+to be 145 feet above the water in the two oceans. It was estimated
+that it would cost $189,000,000 to build the Nicaraguan Canal.
+
+Although the distance between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the
+United States would have been more than 400 miles shorter by the
+Nicaragua Canal than by the Panama Canal, it would have taken about 24
+hours longer to pass through the former than through the latter, so
+that, as far as length of time from Atlantic to Pacific ports was
+concerned, the two routes would have been practically on a par. The
+total amount of material it would have been necessary to excavate at
+Nicaragua approximates, according to the estimates, 228,000,000 cubic
+yards. This would have been increased, perhaps, by half, to make a
+canal large enough to accommodate ships such as will be accommodated
+by the present Panama Canal.
+
+The three great trans-Isthmian projects may be said to have been: The
+Panama Canal, the Nicaraguan Canal, and the James B. Eads ship railway
+across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec. The latter proposition seems to be
+the most remarkable, in some ways, of them all. In 1881, James B.
+Eads, the great engineer who built the Mississippi River bridge at St.
+Louis, and whose work in jetty construction at the mouths of the
+Mississippi proved him to be one of the foremost engineers of his day,
+secured a charter from the Mexican Government conveying to him
+authority to utilize the Isthmus of Tehauntepec for the construction
+of a ship railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. His plan called
+for a railway 134 miles long, with the highest point over 700 feet
+above the sea, and designed to carry vessels up to 7,000 tons. He
+calculated that the entire cost of the railway would not be more than
+$50,000,000. His plan was to build a railroad with a large number of
+tracks on which a huge cradle would run. This cradle would be placed
+under a ship, and the ship braced in the manner of one in dry dock.
+Heavy coiled springs were to equalize all stresses and to prevent
+shocks to the vessel. A number of powerful locomotives would be
+hitched to the cradle and would pull it across the Isthmus. Although
+the proposition was indorsed by many authorities, it seems to anyone
+who has crossed the Isthmus of Tehauntepec that it was a most
+visionary scheme.
+
+[Illustration: COL. CHESTER L. HARDING
+
+THE GATUN UPPER LOCKS]
+
+[Illustration: LIEUT. COL. DAVID D. GAILLARD
+
+CULEBRA CUT, SHOWING CUCARACHA SLIDE IN LEFT CENTER]
+
+If one can imagine a ship railway across the Allegheny Mountains
+between Lewiston Junction and Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvania Railroad,
+or between Washington and Goshen, Va., on the Chesapeake & Ohio
+Railroad, he will have a very good idea of the difficulties which
+would be encountered in building such a railway. The present
+Tehauntepec railroad is 188 miles long. When crossing the Cordilleras
+there are numerous places on this road where the rear car of the train
+and the engine are traveling in diametrically opposite directions. The
+road is well-built, and, as one crosses the backbone of the continent,
+and beholds the engineering difficulties that were encountered in
+building an ordinary American railroad, he can not help but marvel at
+the confidence of a man who would endeavor to build across those
+mountains a shipway large enough and straight enough to carry a
+7,000-ton ship. Yet Captain Eads estimated that his shipway could be
+constructed in four years at one-half the cost of the Nicaraguan
+Canal; that vessels could be transported by rail much more quickly
+than by canal; that in case of accident the railway could be repaired
+more speedily; and that it could be enlarged to carry heavier ships as
+business demanded.
+
+He declared that he did not think it would be as difficult to build a
+ship railway across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec as to build a harbor at
+the Atlantic entrance of the Nicaraguan Canal. His confidence in his
+project was such that he proposed to build a short section of the road
+to prove its practicability before asking the United States to commit
+itself to the project. Commodore T. D. Wilson, at that time Chief
+Constructor of the United States Navy, declared in a letter to Captain
+Eads that he did not believe the strains upon a ship hauled across the
+Isthmus, as Eads proposed, would be greater than those to which ocean
+steamers are constantly exposed. Gen. P. T. G. Beauregard, of
+Confederate Army fame, declared that a loaded ship would incur less
+danger in being transported on a smooth and well-built railway than it
+would encounter in bad weather on the ocean.
+
+A prominent English firm offered to undertake the building and
+completion of the necessary works for placing ships with their cargo
+on the railway tracks of the trans-Isthmian line, declaring that they
+had no hesitation in guaranteeing the lifting of a fully loaded ship
+of 8,000 or 10,000 tons on a railway car to the level of the railroad
+in 30 minutes, if the distance to be lifted was not over 50 feet. The
+death of Captain Eads ended this picturesque project.
+
+A proposition once was made to build a canal across the Isthmus of
+Tehauntepec. This would have required 30 locks on each side of the
+Isthmus of 25 feet each, and these locks alone would have cost, on the
+basis of the locks at Panama, perhaps as much as the whole Panama
+Canal.
+
+One of the narrowest parts of the Isthmus is that lying between the
+present Panama Canal route and the South American border. Three routes
+were proposed in this section, known as the Atrato River route, the
+Caledonia route, and the San Blas route. It was found that a canal
+built along any one of these routes would require a tunnel. The
+estimated cost of building a tunnel 35 feet deep, 100 feet wide at the
+bottom, and 117 feet on the waterline, with a height of 115 feet from
+the water surface, the entire tunnel being lined with concrete 5 feet
+thick, would approximate $22,500,000 a mile. The cost of building a
+canal along one of these routes would have been greater than that of
+building either the Nicaragua Canal or the Panama Canal.
+
+The question of an Isthmian Canal will probably be forever set at rest
+at no distant date. In an effort to forestall for all time any
+competition in the canal business across the American Isthmus,
+negotiations are now under way whereby the United States seeks to
+acquire the exclusive rights for a canal through Nicaragua, just as it
+now possesses exclusive rights for a canal through the Republic of
+Panama. The conclusion of the work at Panama will end the efforts of
+four centuries to open up a shipway from the Atlantic to the Pacific
+across the American Isthmus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE FRENCH FAILURE
+
+
+One writes of "the French failure" at Panama with a consciousness that
+no other word but failure will describe the financial and
+administrative catastrophe that humbled France on the Isthmus, but at
+the same time with the knowledge that failure is no fit word to apply
+to the engineering accomplishments of the French era.
+
+The French fiasco ruined thousands of thrifty French families who
+invested their all in the shares of the canal company because they had
+faith in de Lesseps, faith in France, and faith in the ability of the
+canal to pay handsome returns whatever might be its cost. The failure
+itself was due primarily to the fact that de Lesseps was not an
+engineer, but a promoter. The stock sales, the bond lottery, the pomp
+and circumstance of high finance, were more to him than exact surveys
+or frank discussion of actual engineering problems.
+
+From the first, de Lesseps ignored the engineers. The Panama
+proposition was undertaken in spite of their advice, and at every turn
+he hampered them by impossible demands, and by making grave decisions
+with a debonair turn of the hand.
+
+The next factor in the failure was corruption. Extravagance such as
+never was known wasted the sous and francs that came from the thrifty
+homes of that beautiful France. Corruption, graft, waste--there was
+never such a carnival of bad business.
+
+And then the French had to fight the diseases of the tropic jungles
+without being armed with that knowledge that gave the Americans the
+victory over yellow fever and malaria. It was hardly to be expected
+that the French ever would discover the necessity of substituting the
+Y. M. C. A. and the soda fountain for the dance hall and the vintner's
+shop, if the canal were to be completed.
+
+But the engineers did their work well, as far as they were permitted
+to go. It may have cost too much--but it was well done. The failure of
+the French Panama Canal project was due, therefore, to moral as much
+as to material reasons.
+
+Long years after the French had retired defeated from the field, one
+could behold a thousand mute but eloquent reminders of their failure
+to duplicate their triumph at Suez. From one side of the Isthmus to
+the other stretched an almost unbroken train of gloomy specters of the
+disappointed hopes of the French people.
+
+Here a half-mile string of engines and cars; there a long row of steam
+cranes; at this place a mass of nondescript machinery; and at that
+place a big dredge left high and dry on the banks of the mighty
+Chagres at its flood stage, all spoke to the visitor of the French
+defeat. Exposed to the ravages of 20 tropical summers, decay ran riot,
+and but for the scenes of life and industry being enacted by the
+Americans, one might have felt himself stalking amid the tombs of
+thousands of dead hopes.
+
+Almost as much money was raised by the French for their failure as was
+appropriated by the Americans for their success. From the gilded
+palace and from the peasant's humble cottage came the stream of gold
+with which it was hoped to lay low the barrier that divided the
+Atlantic and the Pacific. At first the French estimated that in seven
+or eight years they could dig a 29-foot sea-level canal for
+$114,000,000. After eight years they calculated that it would cost
+$351,000,000 to make it a 15-foot lock canal and require 20 years to
+build it.
+
+Never was money spent so recklessly. For a time it flowed in faster
+than it could be paid out--even by the Panama Canal Company. When the
+company started it asked for $60,000,000. Double that amount was
+offered. The seeming inexhaustibility of the funds led to unparalleled
+extravagance; of the some $260,000,000 raised only a little more than
+a third was spent in actual engineering work. Someone has said that a
+third of the money was spent on the canal, a third was wasted, and a
+third was stolen.
+
+The director general at the expense of the stockholders built himself
+a house costing $100,000. His summer home at La Boca cost $150,000. It
+came to be known as "Dingler's Folly," for Dingler lost his wife and
+children of yellow fever and never was able to live in his sumptuous
+summer home. He drew $50,000 a year salary, and $50 a day for each day
+he traveled a mile over the line in his splendid $42,000 Pullman. The
+hospitals at Ancon and Colon cost $7,000,000, and the office
+buildings over $5,000,000. Where a $50,000 building was needed, a
+$100,000 building was erected, and the canal stockholders were charged
+$200,000 for it.
+
+Supplies were bought almost wholly without reference to actual needs.
+Ten thousand snow shovels were brought to the Isthmus where no snow
+ever has fallen. Some 15,000 torchlights were carried there to be used
+in the great celebration upon the completion of the canal.
+Steam-boats, dredges, launches, and whatnot were brought to the
+Isthmus, knocked down, and taken into the interior to await the
+opening of the waterway. The stationery bill of the canal company with
+one firm alone amounted to $180,000 a year. When the Americans took
+possession they found among other things a ton of rusty and useless
+pen points, not one of which had ever been used.
+
+Two years' service entitled employees to five months' leave of absence
+and traveling expenses both ways. There was no adequate system of
+accounting and any employee could have his requisition for household
+articles honored almost as often as he liked. In a multitude of cases
+this laxity was taken advantage of and quite a business was carried on
+secretly in buying and selling furniture belonging to the company. One
+official built a bath house costing $40,000. A son of de Lesseps
+became a silent partner of nearly every large contractor on the
+Isthmus, getting a large "rake-off" from every contract let.
+
+Near the summit of the Great Divide the Americans who took possession
+in 1904 found a small iron steamer. It is said to have been the
+purpose of the canal promoters to put this little steamer on a small
+pond in Culebra Cut, and by the aid of a skillful photographer to get
+a picture showing navigation across the Isthmus. This steamer was
+hauled by the Americans to Panama, where during the years of the
+American construction work it did service in carrying the sick to the
+sanitarium at Taboga.
+
+The different uses to which this steamer was put during the French and
+American régimes illustrates the different aims of the Americans and
+the French in connection with the Panama Canal. There was little
+concern about the health of the canal workers under the French, in
+spite of great liberality in the construction of hospitals. The
+construction work was let out to contractors, who were charged a
+dollar a day by the French Company for maintaining the sick members of
+their force in the hospital. Of course, the contractors were not over
+anxious to put their employees into the hospitals. The result was that
+the death rate at Panama reached almost unprecedented proportions.
+
+[Illustration: THE MAN OF BRAWN]
+
+[Illustration: FERDINAND DE LESSEPS
+
+PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA
+
+AN OLD FRENCH EXCAVATOR NEAR TABERNILLA]
+
+This was aided to a very large degree by the manner of living
+obtaining there at that time. In 1887 Lieutenant Rogers, of the United
+States Navy, inspected the canal work and reported that the laborers
+were paid every Saturday, that they spent Sunday in drinking and
+Monday in recuperating, returning to work on Tuesday. A prominent
+English writer declared after a visit to Panama that in all the world
+there was not, perhaps, concentrated in any single spot so much
+swindling and villainy, so much vile disease, and such a hideous mass
+of moral and physical abominations.
+
+Add to these things the fact that no one then knew of the
+responsibility of the stegomyia mosquito for the existence of yellow
+fever, nor that the anopheles mosquito was the disseminator of
+malaria, and it is little wonder that the French failed. The
+hospitals, instead of aiding in the elimination of yellow fever,
+became its greatest allies. The bedposts were set in cups of water,
+and here the yellow-fever mosquitoes could breed uninterruptedly and
+carry infection to every patient. Wards were shut up tight at night to
+keep out the "terrible miasma," and the nurses went to their own
+quarters. When morning came there were among those thus left alone
+always some ready for the tomb.
+
+The history of the French attempt to construct the Panama Canal
+begins, in reality, with the Suez Canal. In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps,
+a Frenchman connected with the diplomatic service, saw an opportunity
+to revive the plans for a Suez Canal that had been urged by Napoleon
+in 1798. His friend, Said Pasha, had just succeeded to the khediviate
+of Egypt, and his proposals were warmly received. The building of the
+canal, which presented no serious engineering problems, was begun in
+1859 and completed 10 years later. There was a sordid side to its
+story, too; but as the losses were borne chiefly by the Egyptians,
+Europe ignored them and looked only to the great success of the canal
+itself.
+
+As a result, de Lesseps became a national hero in France, and when it
+became known that he contemplated piercing another isthmus, the whole
+country rose to his support. In 1875, six years after the Suez Canal
+had been opened, and as soon as France had recovered her breath from
+the shock of the war with Prussia, a company was organized by de
+Lesseps to procure a concession for the building of a Panama Canal.
+
+Already the world, as well as France, had come to regard de Lesseps as
+an engineer, rather than as a promoter of stock companies, and in this
+lay the germ of the disaster that was to overtake the whole scheme.
+
+In 1876, Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse, a lieutenant of engineers in
+the French Army, was sent to Panama to determine the most feasible
+route and to conclude negotiations for the construction of a canal
+there. He made a perfunctory survey, commencing at Panama and
+extending only two-thirds of the way to the Atlantic coast;
+nevertheless, he calculated the cost in detail and claimed that his
+estimates might be depended upon to come within 10 per cent of the
+actual figures. However weak in engineering he may have been, he was
+strong in international negotiations, returning to France with a
+concession which gave him the right to form a company to build the
+canal, and which gave to that company all the rights it needed,
+subject only to the prior rights of the Panama Railroad Company under
+its concession. The concession was to run for 99 years, beginning from
+the date when the collection of tolls on transit and navigation should
+begin. The promoters were allowed 2 years to form the company and 12
+years to build the canal. The Government of Colombia was entitled to a
+share in the gross income of the canal after the seventy-fifth year
+from its opening. Four-fifths of this was to be paid to the National
+Government and one-fifth to the State of Panama. The canal company was
+to guarantee that these annual payments should on no account be less
+than $250,000.
+
+When Wyse returned to Paris he got de Lesseps to head the project. The
+hero of Suez summoned an international commission of individuals and
+engineers, known as the International Scientific Congress, which met
+in Paris, May 15, 1879. There were 135 delegates in attendance, most
+of whom were Frenchmen, although nearly every European nation was
+represented. The United States had 11 representatives at this
+congress. After two weeks' conference the decision was reached that a
+sea-level canal should be constructed from Colon to Panama. Only 42 of
+the 135 men who met were engineers, and it has been stated that those
+who knew most about the subject found their opinions least in demand.
+M. de Lesseps dominated the conference. Several members who were
+radically opposed to its conclusions, rather than declare their
+difference from the opinions of a man of such great distinction and
+high reputation as de Lesseps enjoyed at that time, absented
+themselves when the final vote was taken.
+
+After it was determined to build a sea-level canal, the canal
+concession owned by Wyse and his associates was transferred to the
+Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique (The Universal
+Interoceanic Canal Company) of which de Lesseps was given control. The
+canal company was capitalized at $60,000,000. The preliminary budget
+of expenses amounted to $9,000,000, of which $2,000,000 went to Wyse
+and his associates for the concession. The organizers were entitled to
+certain cash payments and 15 per cent of the net profits.
+
+The canal company soon found it necessary to acquire a controlling
+interest in the Panama Railroad. That corporation insisted on charging
+regular rates on all canal business. In addition, it possessed such
+prior rights as made the Wyse concession worthless except there be
+agreement on all matters between the railroad company and the canal
+company. The result was that the canal company bought the railroad,
+and its rights, for the sum of about $18,000,000.
+
+The first visit of de Lesseps to the Isthmus was made in the early
+weeks of 1880. He arrived on the 30th day of December, 1879, and was
+met by a delegation appointed by the Government, and one nominated by
+the State Assembly. There was the usual reception, with its attendant
+champagne and conviviality, and a fine display of fire-works at night.
+The next day, with a chart before him, de Lesseps promptly decided
+where the breakwater to protect the mouth of the canal from the
+"northers" sweeping into Limon Bay should be located. He declared that
+in the construction of the canal there were only two great
+difficulties--the Chagres River and Culebra Cut. The first he proposed
+to overcome by sending its waters to the Pacific Ocean by another
+route--a project which it has since been estimated would have cost
+almost as much as building the canal. The second difficulty he thought
+would disappear with the use of explosives of sufficient force to
+remove vast quantities of material with each discharge. There was a
+great hurrah, and an international celebration during de Lesseps'
+stay. The flags of all nations were prominently displayed, with the
+single exception of that of the United States.
+
+Count de Lesseps was over 70 years old when he first visited the
+Isthmus, though he was still active and vigorous. Mr. Tracy Robinson
+described him as "a small man, French in detail, with winning manners
+and a magnetic presence. He would conclude almost every statement
+with, 'The Canal will be made,' just as a famous Roman always
+exclaimed, 'Delende est Carthago.' He was accompanied to the Isthmus
+by his wife and three of his seven children. Being a fine horseman, he
+delighted in mounting the wildest steeds that Panama could furnish.
+Riding over the rough country in which the canal was being located all
+day long, he would dance all night like a boy and be ready for the
+next day's work 'as fresh as a daisy.'"
+
+On New Year's Day, 1880, de Lesseps formally inaugurated the work of
+building the canal. A large party of ladies and gentlemen visited the
+mouth of the Rio Grande where the first shovelful of sod was to be
+turned. An address was made by Count de Lesseps, and a benediction
+upon the enterprise was bestowed by the Bishop of Panama. Champagne
+flowed like water, and it is said that the speechmaking continued so
+long that the party did not have time to go ashore to turn the sod, so
+it was brought on board and Miss Fernanda de Lesseps there made the
+initial stroke in the digging of the big waterway.
+
+Some days later the work at Culebra Cut was inaugurated. Tracy
+Robinson thus described the scene: "The blessing had been pronounced
+by the Bishop of Panama and the champagne, duly iced, was waiting to
+quell the swelter of the tropical sun as soon as the explosion went
+off. There the crowd stood breathless, ears stopped, eyes blinking,
+half in terror lest this artificial earthquake might involve general
+destruction. But there was no explosion! It would not go! Then a
+humorous sense of relief stole upon the crowd. With one accord
+everybody exclaimed, 'Good Gracious!' and hurried away for fear that
+after all the dynamite should see fit to explode. That was Fiasco No.
+1."
+
+After de Lesseps left the Isthmus he toured the United States where he
+was everywhere welcomed although he did not find a market in this
+country for his stock.
+
+The scientific congress estimated the cost of building the canal,
+whose construction de Lesseps had inaugurated, at $214,000,000. M. de
+Lesseps himself later arbitrarily cut this estimate to $131,000,000,
+and announced that he believed that vessels would be able to go from
+ocean to ocean after the expenditure of $120,000,000. He declared that
+if the committee had decided to build a lock canal, he would have put
+on his hat and gone home, since he believed it would be much more
+expensive to build a lock canal with twin chambers than to build a
+sea-level waterway. There were those who declared that six years was
+the utmost limit that would be required for building the big ditch.
+Others asserted with confidence that it could be done in four years.
+
+During the first three years the company devoted its time to getting
+ready for the real work. By 1885 the profligate use of the money
+subscribed by the French people brought the funds of the canal company
+to a very low ebb. M. de Lesseps asked for permission to establish a
+lottery, by which he hoped to provide additional funds for carrying on
+the work. The French Government held up the matter and finally sent an
+eminent engineer to investigate. This engineer, Armand Rosseau,
+reported that the completion of a sea-level canal was not possible
+with the means in sight, and recommended a lock canal, plans for which
+he submitted. The summit level of this canal was to be 160 feet,
+reached by a series of seven or eight locks. After this plan was
+adopted, to which de Lesseps reluctantly consented, lottery bonds of a
+face value of $160,000,000 were issued which were to bear 4 per cent
+interest. But the people failed to subscribe.
+
+At the outset of the work de Lesseps established a bulletin for the
+dissemination of information concerning the canal; during the entire
+period of his connection with the project this bulletin was filled
+with the most exaggerated reports, and the most reckless
+mis-statements in favor of a successful prosecution of the work. By
+1888 the confidence of the French people in de Lesseps waned. Unable
+to raise more money, and now popularly dubbed the "Great Undertaker,"
+he found himself in such straits that he saw the French Government
+take over the wrecked organization by appointing a receiver with the
+power to dispose of its assets. This proved a terrible blow to the
+people on the Isthmus. Untold hardships befell the small army of
+laborers and clerks. The Government of Jamaica repatriated over 6,000
+negroes. The Chilean Government granted 40,000 free passages to Chile,
+open to all classes except negroes and Chinese, and for several months
+every mail steamer south took away from 600 to 800 stranded people
+from the canal region. Where good times and the utmost plenty had
+prevailed for years, the Isthmus was now face to face with a period of
+want and privation, its glory departed and its hope almost gone.
+
+The receiver of the Panama Canal Company assisted in the organization
+of another company known as the New Panama Canal Company. With a
+working capital of $13,000,000, it excavated more than 12,000,000
+cubic yards of material. In 1890 it found itself in danger of losing
+everything by reason of the expiration of its concession. The services
+of Lieutenant Wyse were again brought into play, and he secured a
+10-year extension of the concession. In 1893 another concession was
+granted, with the provision that work should be begun on a permanent
+basis by October 31, 1894, and that the canal should be completed by
+October 31, 1904. Toward the end of the nineties, it was manifest that
+the concession would expire before the work could be finished, so, in
+April, 1900, another extension was arranged, which stipulated that the
+canal should be completed by October 31, 1910. The New Panama Canal
+Company, as a matter of fact, had no other aim in view than to keep
+the concession alive in the hope that it could be sold to the United
+States.
+
+With all of their profligacy, however, the French left to their
+American successors a valuable heritage. What they did was done with
+the utmost thoroughness. The machinery which they bequeathed to the
+Americans was of immense value. There was enough of this to cover a
+500-acre farm 3 feet deep, with enough more to build a 6-foot fence
+around it all. The French equipment was of the best. Dredges and
+locomotives that stood in the jungle for 20 years were rebuilt by the
+Americans at less than 10 per cent of their first cost, and did
+service during the entire period of construction.
+
+Although the New Panama Canal Company at one time asked $150,000,000
+for its assets, it finally accepted $40,000,000. An appraisement made
+by American engineers a few years ago showed that the actual worth of
+the property acquired, aside from the franchise itself, amounted to
+about $42,000,000.
+
+Count de Lesseps lived to a great age. His last years were saddened
+and embittered by the volumes of denunciation that were written and
+spoken against him. Certain it is that no man ever went further than
+he to maintain confidence in a project that was destined to fail, and
+yet his partisans declared that his sin was the sin of overenthusiasm
+and not of dishonest purpose. Under the torrents of abuse that fell
+upon his head his mind weakened, and, fortunately, in his last days he
+realized little of the immeasurable injustice his misplaced zeal and
+overenthusiasm had wrought against the people of France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHOOSING THE PANAMA ROUTE
+
+
+Proud as Americans now are of the success of their venture at Panama,
+in the beginning there was by no means a general agreement that the
+United States would succeed where France had failed. Indeed, the
+French disaster had much influence in strengthening the position of
+those who favored building the American canal through Nicaragua.
+
+Prior to the year 1900 little thought was given by the American people
+to any project for building an Isthmian Canal anywhere else than
+through Nicaragua. It is true that in 1897 the New Panama Canal
+Company became active in its efforts to induce the United States to
+adopt the Panama route, but these activities made little impression
+upon public sentiment before the outbreak of the Spanish American War.
+During that war interest in the question of an Isthmian Canal waned in
+America, and immediately after it the sympathy which France had given
+to Spain made it advisable for the Canal Company to postpone its
+propaganda.
+
+In his annual message to Congress in December, 1898, President
+McKinley recommended the building of the Nicaragua Canal. Two days
+later Senator John T. Morgan, of Alabama, made a vigorous speech in
+the Senate, in which he charged that the transcontinental railroads of
+the United States were making efforts to defeat the canal project.
+This charge was made repeatedly thereafter, and it was asserted that
+the railroads espoused the cause of the Panama Canal upon the ground
+of choosing the lesser of two evils, judged from their standpoint.
+Prior to 1900 both Republican and Democratic parties had repeatedly
+favored the construction of the Nicaragua Canal in their national
+platforms, and both branches of Congress had voted for the canal at
+different times.
+
+In the early part of 1899 the Senate passed a bill authorizing the
+construction of a Nicaraguan Canal. The House refused to act on the
+bill, and, at the instance of Senator Morgan, the Senate attached a
+rider to the rivers and harbors bill, appropriating $10,000,000 to
+begin the building of the canal. This passed the Senate by a vote of
+54 to 3. The amendment was defeated in the House and the matter went
+to conference. If the House conferees stood pat in their opposition to
+the Senate amendment, the whole rivers and harbors bill would be
+defeated unless the Senate conferees yielded. The House conferees
+remained unshaken in their opposition to the Nicaragua Canal
+provision, and were willing to wreck the whole rivers and harbors bill
+rather than to authorize the beginning of operations in the
+construction of the Nicaragua Canal under the plan framed by the
+Senate.
+
+According to Philippe Bunau-Varilla, the real secret of the defeat of
+the Nicaragua Canal project at this juncture lay in a dispute between
+the House and Senate as to the manner of building the canal. The
+Senate wanted to do it by the reorganization of the Maritime Canal
+Company, with the majority of its board of directors appointed by the
+President, using that corporation as the agent of the Government for
+constructing and operating the canal. Representative William P.
+Hepburn, of Iowa, at that time Chairman of the Committee on Interstate
+and Foreign Commerce, contended that such a plan proposed that the
+United States should masquerade as a corporation, instead of doing the
+work in its own proper person, as it was in every sense capable of
+doing. He asked for what purpose the Government should thus convert
+itself into a corporation, making of itself an artificial person and
+taking a position of equality with a citizen? He further pointed out
+that as a corporation the Government might be sued in its own courts,
+and fined for contempt by its own judicial servants.
+
+A compromise was adopted in the form of an appropriation of $1,000,000
+to defray the expenses of an investigation into all of the various
+routes for an Isthmian Canal. This investigation was to have reference
+particularly to the relative merits of the Nicaragua and Panama
+routes, together with an estimate of the cost of constructing each.
+The investigators were to ascertain what rights, privileges, and
+franchises were held, and what work had been done in the construction
+of the proposed canals. They were also to ascertain the cost of
+acquiring the interests of any organizations holding franchises on
+these routes. The President was directed to employ engineers of the
+United States Army and engineers from civil life, together with such
+other persons as were necessary to carry out the purposes of the
+investigation. A few months later he appointed the first Isthmian
+Canal Commission, consisting of Rear Admiral John G. Walker, Senator
+Samuel Pasco, Alfred Noble, George S. Morison, Peter C. Hains, William
+H. Burr, O. H. Ernst, Louis M. Haupt, and Emory R. Johnson.
+
+Thus it came about that the House and Senate, divided only upon the
+issue of the proper method of building the Nicaragua Canal, reopened
+the whole question, and gave to the Panama Canal advocates a chance to
+make a fight in favor of that route. The advocates of the Nicaragua
+Canal were not satisfied, however, to await the discoveries of the
+commission Congress had created. On May 2, 1900, before the commission
+made its report, the House voted 234 to 36 in favor of the Nicaragua
+route. The bill went to the Senate, where it was favorably reported by
+the Committee on Interoceanic Canals. Senator Morgan made a formal
+motion for the immediate consideration of the measure, but it was lost
+by a vote of 28 to 21. He then had the 2nd day of December following
+fixed as the date for again taking up the matter. His committee made a
+report roundly scoring the representatives of the New Panama Canal
+Company for their activities in favor of the Panama route.
+
+In December, 1900, Secretary Hay signed protocols with the ministers
+of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, by which those Governments undertook to
+negotiate treaties as soon as the President of the United States
+should be authorized by Congress to acquire the Nicaragua route. In
+the following February, Senator Morgan offered an amendment to the
+sundry civil appropriation bill authorizing the President to go ahead
+with the construction of the canal. When Theodore Roosevelt became
+President in September, 1901, he recommended the building of the
+Nicaragua Canal in his official statement of policy.
+
+In the meantime the Isthmian Canal Commission had been repeatedly
+attempting to get the New Panama Canal Company to state for what sum
+it would sell its holdings to the United States. The figures finally
+presented placed a value of $109,000,000 upon the property. After
+this, the Isthmian Canal Commission unanimously recommended the
+adoption of the Nicaragua route. Congress again took up the matter,
+upon a bill introduced by Representative Hepburn, making an
+appropriation of $180,000,000 for the construction of the canal. This
+measure was favorably reported by the House Committee on Interstate
+and Foreign Commerce, and also secured the approval of the Senate
+Committee on Interoceanic Canals.
+
+A few days later a formal convention was signed in Nicaragua by the
+minister of foreign affairs and the American minister, looking to the
+construction of the canal through Nicaraguan territory. A week later
+the Senate ratified the Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain. On
+January 7 the House of Representatives again took up the matter and,
+in spite of the fact that the New Panama Canal Company had decided to
+accept $40,000,000 for its property, this offer was rejected by the
+House of Representatives, which passed the bill authorizing the
+construction of the Nicaragua Canal by the overwhelming vote of 309 to
+2.
+
+After the rejection of the offer of the New Panama Canal Company by
+the House, President Roosevelt again called the members of the
+Isthmian Canal Commission together, and asked them to make a
+supplementary report in view of the offer in question. On a motion of
+Commissioner Morison the commission decided that, in consideration of
+the change of conditions brought about by the offer of the company to
+sell its property for $40,000,000, the Panama route was preferable. It
+has been stated that Professor Haupt, Senator Pasco, and two other
+members of the commission were reluctant to abandon the Nicaragua
+project; that President Roosevelt had made it quite clear to Admiral
+Walker that he expected the commission to accept the Panama Canal
+Company's offer; that Commissioners Noble and Pasco had given in, but
+that Professor Haupt stood out; and that he was induced to sign the
+report only after Admiral Walker had called him out of the committee
+room and pleaded with him to do so, stating that the President
+demanded a unanimous report. Professor Haupt afterwards publicly
+admitted the truth of this story in a signed article in a magazine.
+
+About this time the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals appointed
+a subcommittee of six members to study and report on the legal
+questions involved in the transfer of the New Panama Canal Company's
+title, and a majority reported that the company's title was defective
+and that it had no power to transfer. It was finally decided that the
+Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals should make no report until
+all of the members of the Isthmian Canal Commission had appeared
+before it and testified. This delay permitted negotiations between the
+United States, the New Panama Canal Company, and the Republic of
+Colombia looking to a settlement of the question of title.
+
+The New Panama Canal Company was now thoroughly in earnest in its
+desire to dispose of its holdings to the United States, but the
+Republic of Colombia, desiring to drive a good bargain, held aloof.
+The hope of the situation as far as the Panama route was concerned,
+lay in Senator Marcus A. Hanna, of Ohio, who had come to espouse the
+Panama route. He declared he would not recommend the acceptance of the
+proposals of the New Panama Canal Company unless a satisfactory treaty
+could be obtained, and unless the shareholders of the company would
+ratify the action of the board of directors in making the offer. A
+meeting of the shareholders was called in February, 1902, at which the
+Republic of Colombia, holding a million dollars' worth of stock in the
+company, was represented by a Government delegate. He served formal
+notice on the company that it was forbidden, on pain of forfeiture of
+its concession, to sell its rights to the United States before that
+action was approved by the Colombian Government, there being a clause
+in the concession providing that in the event of such a sale to any
+foreign Government all rights, titles, and property should revert to
+Colombia.
+
+When the Colombian Government took up the matter it showed a
+disposition to grasp the lion's share. Its minister was instructed to
+exact no less than $20,000,000 from the New Panama Canal Company for
+Colombia's permission to transfer its concessions. This demand was
+based on the following reasons: First, because Colombia's consent was
+essential; second, because Colombia would lose its expectation of
+acquiring the Panama Railroad at the expiration of its concession--a
+road that was then valued at $18,000,000; third, because under the
+proposed contract with the United States, Colombia was to renounce its
+share in the prospective earnings of the canal, which might amount to
+a million dollars a year.
+
+Another proposition was drawn by the Colombian minister, proposing to
+lease a zone across the Isthmus of the United States for a period of
+200 years at an annual rental of $600,000. At another time the
+Colombian minister declared that, inasmuch as the New Panama Canal
+Company had taken advantage of the straitened circumstances of the
+Colombian Government to obtain a six-year extension of its concession,
+which was really what the canal company was about to sell for
+$40,000,000, he thought Colombia ought to require the New Panama Canal
+Company to pay $3,000,000 of the $40,000,000, for what the company
+gained by the extension of its concession.
+
+On January 30, 1902, Senator John C. Spooner, of Wisconsin, introduced
+a bill in the Senate, authorizing the President of the United States
+to build an Isthmian Canal at Panama, if the necessary rights could be
+obtained. If those rights could not be obtained the President was
+required to build the canal on the Nicaraguan route. The Spooner bill
+provided the machinery for the construction of the canal, created the
+Isthmian Canal Commission, and authorized the expenditures necessary
+for undertaking the project. Some six weeks later the Senate Committee
+on Interoceanic Canals rejected the Spooner bill and presented a
+favorable report on the Hepburn bill, which authorized the Nicaragua
+Canal.
+
+The final struggle in the Senate lasted from June 4 to June 19, 1902.
+Senators Morgan and Harris led the fight for the Hepburn bill, while
+Senators Hanna and Spooner championed the Spooner measure. The fight
+resulted in the passage of the Spooner bill by a vote of 32 to 24. The
+disagreeing votes of the two Houses were then sent to conference, and
+the House finally receded from its position in favor of the Nicaragua
+route, and the Spooner bill became a law. The situation as it now
+stood was that the Panama route was chosen on the conditions that the
+title of the company be proved and that a satisfactory treaty with
+Colombia be negotiated; with the alternative of the adoption of the
+Nicaragua route in default of one or the other of these conditions.
+
+Whatever may have been his motives--in the light of events which have
+followed it would seem unjust to question them--Senator Hanna was
+undoubtedly responsible for the revolution in Congress and in public
+sentiment which resulted in the selection of the Panama route. M.
+Bunau-Varilla declares that he met Myron T. Herrick in Paris,
+converted him, and through him met Senator Hanna, whom he also
+convinced. In Crowley's "Life and Work of Marcus Alonzo Hanna," it is
+declared that a series of interviews between M. Bunau-Varilla and
+Senator Hanna had much to do with Mr. Hanna's decision to make a fight
+in behalf of Panama. It was claimed by William Nelson Cromwell, in his
+suit for fees against the New Panama Canal Company, that he was
+responsible for converting Senator Hanna to the Panama project, and it
+was asserted, also, that he furnished the data from which Senator
+Hanna made his speech which converted the Senate, and the House, and
+the country, and led to the adoption of the Panama route.
+
+At this juncture Providence seemed to lend support to the Panama
+route, for one of the many volcanoes in Nicaragua became active and
+did considerable damage. Occurrences since then have borne out the
+wisdom of avoiding the Nicaragua route. A few years ago the city of
+Cartago, only about a hundred miles distant from the site of the works
+that would have been installed to control the waters of Lake
+Nicaragua, was entirely destroyed by an earthquake.
+
+With the Spooner bill enacted into law, the next proposition which
+confronted the United States Government was that of reaching an
+understanding with Colombia, which would permit the building of the
+canal at Panama. That country was reminded on every hand and in divers
+ways that unless an acceptable treaty were forthcoming the President
+of the United States would be forced to adopt the Nicaragua route.
+But, notwithstanding these reminders, Colombia still moved slowly in
+the matter. After being repeatedly urged to come to terms, and after
+one Colombian minister to the United States had been recalled and
+another resigned, the Hay-Herran treaty finally was negotiated.
+
+Before Colombia reached the stage, however, where it would agree to
+enter into negotiations with the United States, it had been reminded
+by its minister in Washington that it was dangerous not to enter into
+an agreement. He had declared that if Colombia should refuse to hear
+the American proposal that a new treaty be entered into, the United
+States would, in retaliation, denounce the treaty of 1846, and
+thereafter view with complacency any events which might take place in
+Panama inimical to Colombia's interests. He had reported further that
+the United States would, at the first interruption of the railroad
+service, occupy at once Colombia's territory on the Isthmus and
+embrace whatever tendency there might be toward separation, in the
+hope of bringing about the independence of Panama. This, he had
+concluded, would be a catastrophe of far greater consequence to
+Colombia than any damage the Republic might suffer by the ratification
+of a treaty with the United States permitting the building of the
+canal.
+
+His views in the matter were strengthened by a suggestion of Senator
+Shelby M. Cullom, of Illinois, that if Colombia should continue to
+refuse to allow the United States to build the canal, which the United
+States claimed was its right to do under the treaty of 1846, the
+American Government might invoke a sort of universal right of eminent
+domain, take the Isthmian territory, and pay Colombia its value in
+accordance with an appraisement by experts.
+
+About this time President Roosevelt wrote a letter to his friend, Dr.
+Albert D. Shaw, of the Review of Reviews, in which he said that he had
+been appealed to for aid and encouragement to a revolution at Panama,
+but that as much as he would like to see such a revolution, he could
+not lend any encouragement to it. The Republic of Colombia was
+repeatedly reminded by Secretary Hay that if it did not act promptly
+the President would take up negotiations with Nicaragua and proceed to
+construct the canal there. Under these conditions Colombia finally
+agreed to negotiate the Hay-Herran treaty, which was afterwards
+rejected by the Colombian Congress.
+
+It has been asserted that President Roosevelt took the view all along
+that under the treaty of 1846, Colombia had no right to prevent the
+United States from building the canal, and that, in spite of the
+provision of the Spooner Act requiring him to proceed with the
+construction of the Nicaragua Canal in the event of the failure of
+negotiations at Panama, he was determined to exhaust every possible
+effort before giving up the Panama route.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CONTROVERSY WITH COLOMBIA
+
+
+Seldom in the history of international relations has a controversy
+afforded more grounds for honest difference of opinion than the issue
+between the United States and Colombia, growing out of the revolution
+and formation of the new Republic of Panama. The most careful and
+unprejudiced study still may leave room for doubt as to the real
+merits of the case.
+
+In 1903, after the United States had decided to build an Isthmian
+Canal, preferably at Panama, but if that route were not available at
+Nicaragua, a treaty was entered into at Washington between the
+Governments of the United States and Colombia. This Hay-Herran treaty,
+as it was known, in simple terms provided that the United States would
+pay Colombia $10,000,000 in cash, and $250,000 a year after the
+completion of the canal, if the Republic of Colombia would agree to
+permit the New Panama Canal Company to sell its concession and
+property to the United States. This treaty, according to President
+Roosevelt, was entered into under negotiations initiated by the
+Republic of Colombia. The treaty was ratified by the United States
+Senate, and was then sent to Colombia for its ratification.
+
+At the time the treaty was pending in the Colombian Congress, the
+President of the Republic was a man who had been elected Vice
+President, but who had kidnapped the President with a troop of cavalry
+and shut him up in an insanitary dungeon where he soon died. The Vice
+President thus became the head of the Government. Anyone who knows
+conditions in such countries as Colombia, understands that a President
+has no use for a Congress except to have it register his own will. The
+President of Colombia at first advocated the negotiation of the
+treaty, but he repudiated it after it had been signed, and then
+declared that if the Colombian minister to Washington were to return
+to Colombia he would be hanged for signing it. The result of this
+change of front was that the treaty was rejected by the Colombian
+Congress. All sorts of stories were put abroad in Colombia to arouse
+opposition to it. One was that the United States would make
+$180,000,000 out of the canal deal the minute the treaty was ratified
+by Colombia. It was claimed by the Colombian Government that the
+constitutional prohibition of the cession of territory to a foreign
+state would have to be changed by amending the Constitution before the
+Congress could legally ratify the treaty.
+
+[Illustration: S. B. WILLIAMSON
+
+THE LOWER GATES, MIRAFLORES LOCKS]
+
+[Illustration: H. O. COLE
+
+MIDDLE GATES, MIRAFLORES LOCKS]
+
+How little the President of Colombia respected the laws of his country
+is shown by a dispatch received by the Government at Washington after
+the secession of Panama, in which it was promised that if the United
+States would assist Colombia in putting down the Panama revolution,
+the next Colombian Congress would ratify the rejected treaty. Or,
+failing that, the President would declare martial law, by virtue of
+vested constitutional authority when public order is disturbed, and
+ratify the canal treaty by presidential decree. If the Washington
+Government did not like such a proposal, the President of Colombia
+would call an extra session of Congress and immediately ratify the
+treaty.
+
+The real cause of the failure of the Hay-Herran treaty is not
+difficult to discover. The concession of the New Panama Canal Company
+under one of its renewals expired October 31, 1893. It was then
+extended for a year, and, in 1894, was extended again for a period of
+10 years. Still another extension was granted, which carried the date
+of expiration to October 31, 1910. This last extension was granted by
+the President without the consent of the Colombian Congress. In 1903,
+when the Hay-Herran treaty was pending, the validity of this last
+extension was denied, and the assertion made that on October 31, 1901,
+all of the rights and property of the New Panama Canal Company would
+revert to the Colombian Government.
+
+The United States had agreed to pay to the New Panama Canal Company
+$40,000,000 for its concession and property. According to
+Representative Henry T. Rainey, of Illinois, who for years led the
+attack in the United States Congress on the acts of President
+Roosevelt in connection with the Panaman revolution, the purpose of
+Colombia in defeating the treaty was to wait until the expiration of
+the concession, when all of the property of the canal company would
+revert to Colombia, and it could then sell it to the United States
+and get the $40,000,000, or any other amount it could persuade the
+United States to pay.
+
+Of course, the New Panama Canal Company did not look upon such an
+arrangement with any degree of complacency. It felt that it was a
+deliberate scheme upon the part of the Colombian Government to mulct
+it out of its property and its rights. As a result it was naturally
+ready to lend aid and encouragement to any movement which would
+circumvent this purpose of Colombia. It found conditions in Panama
+just what it might have wished.
+
+The people of Panama felt that they had the same sort of grievance
+against Colombia that the people of the American colonies felt they
+had against England in 1776. The governors of the province were, with
+few exceptions, sent there from Bogota, and were entirely out of
+sympathy with the people of Panama. The taxes collected at Panama were
+carried to Bogota, as a rule, and the voice that the people of the
+Isthmus had in the Government of Colombia was negligible. Furthermore,
+they felt that they were entitled to their sovereignty.
+
+After the countries of tropical America had thrown off the yoke of
+Spain, Panama found itself too small to stand alone, and accepted an
+invitation from Bogota to put itself under the Government there with
+the understanding that it was to retain its sovereignty. It soon found
+that this agreement was not respected at Bogota. Almost immediately
+there were attempted revolts and, in 1840, the Isthmus again won
+complete independence. The Confederation of New Granada promised that
+the people of the Isthmus should have better treatment, and it was set
+forth in the constitution of New Granada that Panama was a sovereign
+state, and that it had full right to withdraw and set up an
+independent government at any time. In 1885 a new constitution was
+proclaimed by Colombia, which had succeeded New Granada, and this
+constitution deprived Panama of all its rights as a sovereign state,
+and made it a province under the control of the Federal Government at
+Bogota. Upon these grounds Panama claimed that she was a sovereign
+state temporarily under the duress of a superior government. After the
+defeat of the Hay-Herran treaty the inhabitants of Panama knew that if
+the treaty failed and no other steps were taken, the Nicaraguan route
+would be followed and Panama would become almost a forgotten region
+instead of a land of great opportunity.
+
+The consequence was that the Panamans lent willing ears to the
+suggestion of the representatives of the New Panama Canal Company that
+they should undertake a revolution to be financed by the canal
+company. Two representatives of the New Panama Canal Company working
+along independent lines were trying to bring about the revolution. One
+of these was Philippe Bunau-Varilla, formerly chief engineer of the
+Old Panama Canal Company, but who had become estranged from the New
+Panama Canal Company. The other was William Nelson Cromwell, for years
+general counsel of the Panama Railroad Company, and who, in his suit
+against the New Panama Canal Company for an $800,000 fee, claimed to
+have engineered and directed the revolution. M. Bunau-Varilla had some
+stock in the canal company and a great deal of pride in seeing
+realized the undertaking to which he had committed the best years of
+his life.
+
+Coming to New York on another mission, he met Dr. Amador, who was one
+of the Panamans desiring the independence of his country. According to
+the testimony of M. Bunau-Varilla, which is borne out by documentary
+evidence, he and Dr. Amador worked out the plan for the revolution. He
+declares that the documents were drawn in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
+and as far as they were written in Spanish, they were copied letter by
+letter by an English stenographer who knew no Spanish, in order that
+there might be no possibility of the secret leaking out. He declares
+that the whole project of the revolution as it was carried out was
+conceived by him in cooperation with Dr. Amador, and that William
+Nelson Cromwell, the other factor in the situation, knew nothing about
+what was going on. He also asserts that William Nelson Cromwell had
+promised to introduce Dr. Amador to Secretary of State John Hay, but
+that later Dr. Herran, the representative of Colombia, found out what
+was going on and wrote a letter of warning to Mr. Cromwell as to the
+consequences which would come to the Panama Railroad, of which Mr.
+Cromwell was the representative, if that organization should give aid
+or comfort to the projected Panama revolution. Thereupon, according to
+M. Bunau-Varilla, Mr. Cromwell turned his back upon Dr. Amador,
+although it has been claimed by some that this was only a ruse on the
+part of Mr. Cromwell to shield himself and his company from
+responsibility. About this time M. Bunau-Varilla borrowed $100,000 in
+France to finance the revolution, pending the recognition of the new
+Republic by the United States. Other money was forthcoming later.
+
+The revolution itself, which took place in November, 1903, was
+bloodless. The world knows that President Roosevelt forbade the
+Colombian troops to move across the Isthmus, while at the same time he
+would not allow the revolutionists to make any move. A similar
+situation had arisen in a former revolution in 1902. At that time the
+Colombian troops were disarmed, and three days later insurgent troops
+were prevented by United States marines from using the railroad and
+were actually compelled to leave a train which they had seized and
+entered. The principle was enunciated and maintained that no troops
+under arms should be transported on the railroad, no matter to which
+party they belonged. That was because to permit such transportation
+would be to make the railroad an adjunct to the side using it, and to
+subject it to attack by the other party. In this way, if the Colombian
+troops used it, the insurgents would have attacked, and the United
+States would either have been forced to permit such an attack, which
+might suspend traffic on the transit, or to prevent it with force,
+which would make this country an ally of Colombia against the
+insurgents. On the other hand, if the insurgents were permitted to
+use the railroad, Colombia would attack it, and in that case the
+United States would have to help repel the attack and thus would
+become the ally of the insurgents. It was, therefore, held that the
+only way to make the road absolutely neutral was to allow neither
+party to use it.
+
+This was the doctrine under which President Roosevelt proceeded in
+1903. Of course, the world knows that this was tantamount to
+preventing Colombia from reconquering the Isthmus, if that were
+possible. It is claimed by some that if President Roosevelt had
+allowed the insurgents to use the railroad in 1902, Colombia would
+have been defeated in that revolution.
+
+At the time of the revolution it is said that the Colombian garrison
+which espoused the cause of the Panamans was bribed to do so; that
+their commander two days afterwards was paid $12,500 for his services,
+and that he is to this day drawing a pension of $2,400 a year. It is
+also charged that some of the troops who could not be bribed were sent
+into the interior to repel an imaginary invasion from Nicaragua. It is
+asserted that when the governor of the State of Panama telegraphed the
+Colombian Government that Nicaragua was invading Panama, the Bogota
+authorities sent additional troops to the Isthmus to help fight
+Nicaragua, and that this accounted for the arrival of the gunboats
+from Cartagena on the eve of the revolution.
+
+At the time of the _coup d'etat_, the United States was living under a
+treaty made with Colombia in 1846, guaranteeing the sovereignty of
+that country over the Isthmus in return for the recognition of the
+rights of the United States, under the Monroe doctrine, in connection
+with the building of a canal. Under this treaty it was mutually agreed
+that the United States should keep the Isthmian transit free and open
+at all times. It was contended by President Roosevelt that he was only
+carrying out this provision when he refused to allow the
+revolutionists and the Federal troops to fight along the line of the
+Panama Railroad, although this was almost the only ground on the
+Isthmus on which military operations could be prosecuted. He admitted
+the justice of the contention of the Colombian Government that the
+United States undertook to guarantee the sovereignty of Colombia over
+the Isthmus so far as any alien power was concerned, but denied that
+it was ever intended that the United States should be called upon to
+guarantee it against the people of the Isthmus themselves.
+
+Once the revolution was started three courses were left open to the
+United States: One was to force the Panamans back under Colombian
+rule; the second was to let the two sides fight to a finish; the third
+was to recognize the independence of the Republic of Panama and forbid
+Colombia to land troops on the Isthmus. President Roosevelt took the
+last course. A breezy Western congressman remarked in defense of that
+course: "When that jack rabbit jumped I am glad we didn't have a
+bowlegged man for President!" The result of the revolution, and the
+recognition of the independence of the Republic of Panama, was that
+Colombia, which had tried to grasp everything and to get possession
+of the assets of the New Panama Canal Company, now found itself
+without anything.
+
+Colombia ever since has contended that the United States was under a
+solemn obligation to protect the Colombian sovereignty over the
+Isthmus--an obligation that has been assumed in return for valuable
+considerations--and that it had been despoiled of the Isthmus of
+Panama under the very treaty that had guaranteed its permanent control
+of that Isthmus. It further asserted that President Roosevelt had been
+a party to the revolution for the purpose of circumventing the stand
+of the Republic of Colombia. It made a long plea against the action of
+the United States and urged that in the event the two countries could
+not come to any agreement, the pending questions should be submitted
+to The Hague for adjudication. Secretary Hay at one time proposed that
+a popular election should be held on the Isthmus to determine whether
+the people there preferred allegiance to the Republic of Panama or to
+the Republic of Colombia, but Colombia would not agree to that.
+Secretary Hay rejected the plea of Colombia for arbitration, upon the
+ground that the questions that Colombia proposed to submit affected
+the honor of the United States and that these matters were not
+arbitrable.
+
+[Illustration: EDWARD J. WILLIAMS
+
+THE PAY CAR AT CULEBRA]
+
+[Illustration: UNCLE SAM'S LAUNDRY AT CRISTOBAL]
+
+After Elihu Root became Secretary of State, he declared that the real
+gravamen of the Colombian complaint was the espousal of the cause of
+Panama by the people of the United States. He said that no arbitration
+could deal with the real rights and wrongs of the parties concerned,
+unless it were to pass upon the question of whether the cause thus
+espoused was just--whether the people of Panama were exercising their
+just rights in maintaining their right of independence of Colombian
+rule. "We assert and maintain the affirmative upon that question," he
+declared. "We assert that the ancient State of Panama was independent
+in its origin, and by nature and history a separate political
+community; that it was federated with the other States of Colombia
+upon terms that preserved and continued its sovereignty, and that it
+never surrendered that sovereignty and was subjugated by force in
+1885." Mr. Root further asserted that the United States was not
+"willing to permit any arbitrator to determine the political policy of
+the United States in following its sense of right and justice by
+espousing the cause of the Government of Panama against the Government
+of Colombia."
+
+When Mr. Taft became President it was his desire to adjust our
+controversy with Colombia. His Secretary of State, Philander C. Knox,
+just before leaving office, declared that he had spared no efforts in
+seeking to restore American-Colombian relations to a footing of
+complete friendly feeling, but that these efforts had been rebuffed by
+the Colombian Government. He declared that it was undeniable that
+Colombia had suffered by its failure to reap a share of the benefits
+of the canal, and that the Government of the United States was
+entirely willing to take this consideration into account, and endeavor
+to accommodate the conflicting interests of the three parties by
+making a just compensation in money. In pursuance of this idea three
+treaties were negotiated: One between the United States and the
+Republic of Columbia, one between the United States and the Republic
+of Panama, and one between the governments of Columbia and Panama, all
+three being interdependent, to stand or to fall together. These
+treaties were negotiated at the instance of Columbia and were framed
+with every desire to accommodate their terms to the just expectations
+of that country. They were accepted by the Columbian Cabinet but were
+not acted upon by the Columbian Congress.
+
+In the Knox treaty negotiated with Columbia in 1910 that country
+proposed to agree to a popular election upon the separation of Panama
+and to abide by the result. The United States offered to sign an
+additional agreement to pay to Columbia $10,000,000 for a permanent
+option for the construction of an interoceanic canal through Columbian
+territory, and for the perpetual lease of the Islands of St. Andrews
+and Old Providence, if Columbia would ratify the treaties with the
+United States and Panama. This proposition was refused. It was then
+proposed that in addition to the $10,000,000 the Unites States would
+be willing to conclude with Columbia a convention submitting to
+arbitration the question of the ownership of the reversionary rights
+in the Panama Railroad--rights which the Columbian Government asserts
+that it possesses. In addition to this the United States offered its
+good offices to secure the settlement of the Panama-Columbian boundary
+dispute.
+
+All of these propositions being rejected, the Republic of Colombia was
+asked if it would be willing to accept $10,000,000 outright, in
+satisfaction of its claims against the United States. This was also
+refused.
+
+Acting upon his own authority, the American minister then inquired if
+Colombia would accept $25,000,000, the good offices of the United
+States in its boundary controversy with Panama, the arbitration of the
+question of the reversionary rights in the Panama Railroad, and the
+gift of preferential rights in the use of the canal--all these in
+satisfaction of its claims. The Colombian Government replied that it
+would not do this and that it did not care to negotiate any further
+with the Taft administration, preferring to deal with the incoming
+Wilson administration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+RELATIONS WITH PANAMA
+
+
+When the people of the Isthmus of Panama revolted against the
+Government of Colombia, they fully realized that almost their only
+hope of maintaining an independent government was to secure the
+building of the Panama Canal by the United States. Therefore, they
+were in a mood to ratify a treaty which would meet every condition
+demanded by the Government of the United States.
+
+The treaty, negotiated and ratified in 1904, gave to the United States
+every right it could have desired or which it could have possessed had
+it taken over the whole Isthmus itself. It was negotiated by John Hay,
+Secretary of State, representing the United States, and Philippe
+Bunau-Varilla, representing the Government of Panama. As the latter
+was a stockholder in the New French Canal Company, whose assets could
+be realized upon only through the success of the treaty negotiations,
+it naturally followed that he would put nothing in the way of the
+desires of the United States.
+
+The treaty gave to the United States most unusual rights. For
+instance, in no other country on earth does one nation possess
+ultimate jurisdiction over the capital of another nation; yet this is
+what the United States possesses at Panama. The first consideration of
+the treaty was the establishment of the Canal Zone. This gave to the
+United States a territory 5 miles beyond the center line of the canal
+on either side, and 3 miles beyond its deep water ends, with the
+exception of the cities of Colon and Panama, to hold in perpetuity
+with all rights, powers, and authority that the United States would
+possess if it were sovereign, and to the entire exclusion of the
+exercise of any sovereign rights, powers, or authority by the Republic
+of Panama.
+
+Further than this, it gave to the United States the same rights with
+respect to any land, or land under water, outside of the Canal Zone
+necessary and convenient for the canal itself, or any auxiliary canals
+or other works required in its operations.
+
+Further yet, the Republic granted in perpetuity a canal monopoly
+throughout its entire territory, and also monopolies of railroad and
+other means of communication between the two oceans.
+
+Under the terms of the treaty the cities of Panama and Colon are
+required to comply in perpetuity with all sanitary ordinances, whether
+curative or preventive, which the United States may promulgate. The
+Republic of Panama also agrees that if it can not enforce these
+ordinances, the United States become vested with the power to enforce
+them. The same is true with reference to the maintenance of order. The
+Republic of Panama agrees to maintain order, but gives to the United
+States not only the right to step in with American forces and restore
+it, but also to determine when such action is necessary.
+
+The treaty between the two countries further provides that the United
+States has the right to acquire by condemnation any property it may
+need for canal purposes in the cities of Panama and Colon. The
+Republic of Panama also grants to the United States all rights it has
+or may acquire to the property of the New Panama Canal Company and of
+the Panama Railroad, except such lands as lie outside of the Canal
+Zone and the cities of Panama and Colon, not needed for the purposes
+of building the canal. The Republic guarantees to the United States
+every title as absolute and free from any present or reversionary
+interest or claim. It will be seen from all this that the United
+States did not overlook any opportunity to make sure that it had all
+of the powers necessary to build a canal.
+
+It is also agreed by the Panama Government that no dues of any kind
+ever shall be collected by it from vessels passing through or using
+the canal, or from vessels belonging to the United States Government.
+All employees of the canal are exempted from taxation, whether living
+inside or outside the Zone. The Republic grants to the United States
+the use of all its rivers, streams, lakes, and other bodies of water
+for purposes of navigation, water supply, and other needs of the
+canal. It also agrees to sell or lease to the United States any of its
+lands on either coast for use for naval bases or coaling stations.
+
+The Republic of Panama further agrees that the United States shall
+have the right to import commodities for the use of the Canal
+Commission and its employees, free of charge, and that it shall have
+the right to bring laborers of any nationality into the Canal Zone.
+
+In return for all of these concessions the United States gives to the
+Republic of Panama many valuable considerations. Most vital of all, it
+guarantees the independence of the Republic. This means that the
+Republic of Panama is today practically the possessor of an army and a
+navy as large as the United States can put into the field and upon the
+seas. The only aggressor that Panama need fear is her benefactor.
+
+The second consideration involved the payment of $10,000,000 cash to
+the Republic, and a perpetual annual payment of a quarter of a million
+dollars beginning with the year 1913. The ten-million-dollar cash
+payment gave the impoverished new-born government a chance to get on
+its feet, and from this time forward the Panaman Government can look
+to the United States for the major portion of its necessary revenues.
+
+Under the terms of the treaty the United States undertakes to give
+free passage to any warships belonging to the Republic of Panama when
+going through the canal, and also agrees that the canal shall be
+neutral. It also agrees to provide free transportation over the Panama
+Railroad for persons in the service of the Government of Panama, and
+for the munitions of war of the Republic. It also allows the Republic
+of Panama to transmit over its telegraph and telephone lines its
+message at rates not higher than those charged United States officials
+for their private messages.
+
+Another stipulation of the treaty provides that it shall not
+invalidate the titles and rights of private landholders and owners of
+private property, nor of the right of way over public roads of the
+Zone unless they conflict with the rights of the United States, when
+the latter shall be regarded as superior. No part of the work of
+building or operating the canal, however, at any time may be impeded
+by any claims, whether public or private. A commission is provided,
+whose duty it shall be to pass upon the claims of those whose land or
+properties are taken from them for the purpose of the construction or
+operation of the canal.
+
+In carrying out the terms of the treaty the first step taken by the
+Americans was to "clean up" the cities of Panama and Colon. Remarkable
+changes were wrought by the establishment of water and sewerage
+systems, and by street improvements. For several years preceding the
+acquisition of the Canal Zone, and the sanitization of the cities of
+Panama and Colon, the late W. L. Buchanan was the United States
+minister to Colombia. He was transferred to another South American
+capital and afterwards came back to the United States by way of
+Panama. Former Senator J. C. S. Blackburn was then governor of the
+Canal Zone or, more strictly speaking, the head of the Department of
+Civil Administration. As he and Minister Buchanan drove through the
+streets of Panama and surveyed the changes that had taken place, Mr.
+Buchanan declared to Governor Blackburn that if an angel from heaven
+had appeared to him and said that such a transformation in the city of
+Panama could be made in so few years he scarcely could have believed
+it.
+
+When he was there the main streets of the city were nothing but
+unbroken chains of mud puddles in which, during the wet season,
+carriages sank almost to the axles. When he returned he found those
+same streets well paved with vitrified brick, measuring up to the best
+standards of American street work. Where formerly peddlers hawked
+water from disease-scattering springs, there were hydrants throughout
+the town and wholesome water on tap in almost every house. Where there
+had been absolutely no attempt to solve the problems of sewage
+disposal, where the masses of people lived amid indescribable filth,
+absolutely oblivious to its stenches and its dangers, now there was a
+sewerage system fully up to the best standard of American municipal
+engineering.
+
+When one considers that the Republic of Panama is made up largely of
+the cities of Panama and Colon, with a large area of almost wholly
+undeveloped territory, it will be seen that this service was rendered
+to practically all the people of the Republic.
+
+The relations which have existed between the Republic of Panama and
+the United States have not always proved wholly satisfactory to the
+Panamans. Like all other tropical Americans, the Panamans profess
+great admiration for a republican form of government, but the party in
+power seldom has relished the idea of a full and free accounting of
+its stewardship at the polls. When the time came for the first
+national election, the party in power sought to insure its return by
+the use of tropical-American methods; that is, by a wholesale
+intimidation of the opposition supporters. When the registration books
+were opened the administration was unwilling to register the
+supporters of the opposition. The government forces always were relied
+upon to back up the registrars. This situation was resented by the
+opposition and the indications were that the usual civil war, the
+tropical American substitute for an election, was about to follow.
+
+At this juncture Governor Blackburn called the Panaman authorities
+together and notified them that the United States did not care a
+continental which side won the election, but that it was very deeply
+interested in maintaining conditions of peace and amity on the
+Isthmus--conditions which could not prevail except there be a fair
+election. He reminded them of the right of the United States to
+maintain order in their two principal cities, and of the blood and
+treasure the United States had invested in Panama, all of which would
+be placed in jeopardy by any civil conflict. He therefore declared it
+the intention of the United States to see that there was a fair
+election.
+
+Election commissioners were consequently appointed, and they saw to it
+that the voters were fairly registered, allowed to vote, and to have
+their votes counted. The result was that for the first time in Central
+American history there was a fair election and for the first time a
+real change of administration without a resort to arms. So successful
+was this plan that in the election of 1912 both sides agreed again to
+call in the United States to umpire their battle of the ballots, and
+once again the "outs" won over the "ins."
+
+The French Canal Company has some very unpleasant experiences with
+the Republic of Colombia when it, as a private corporation, undertook
+to build the canal. It was at the mercy of the Government and the
+Government seldom showed mercy. For instance, a Colombian owned 30
+acres of swamp land which was needed for the construction of the
+canal. It was worth $10 an acre; he demanded $10,000. The canal
+company took the matter to the courts of the Republic and instituted
+condemnation proceedings. Here the owner admitted that the land was
+not intrinsically worth more than $10 an acre, but claimed that he had
+as much right to demand $300,000 for the tract as if it were located
+in the very heart of Paris; that in every case it was what the land
+could be used for that determined its value. The court shared his view
+and nothing was left for the canal company to do but to pay the
+$300,000.
+
+Shortly after the Americans took charge, the Central and South
+American Telegraph Company wanted to land the new "all American" cable
+on the Canal Zone. They applied to the United States for permission
+which was granted. The Panamans fought against it under every possible
+pretext, their desire being to have their consent regarded as
+essential, so that they could get a good fee for the concession, but
+the United States notified the Republic of Panama that it had no
+interest whatever in requiring compensation, and so the cable was
+laid.
+
+While there has been substantial agreement between the two countries,
+it has been difficult to prevent some conditions which are contrary to
+American ideas of morality. For instance, while the Canal Commission
+was strongly opposed to having a lottery on the Canal Zone, one is
+maintained just across the line in the city of Panama. The Panama
+lottery and the Bishop of Panama share the same house. One has to pass
+the lottery to see the bishop and, mayhap, a half dozen old women
+ticket sellers will try to intercept him before he reaches the church
+dignitary.
+
+This lottery is a veritable gold mine to those who own it. Each
+ordinary drawing brings in $10,000--$1 for each ticket issued. The
+grand prize takes $3,000 of this, the next 9 prizes calling for a
+total of $900, the next 90 for a total of $450 and the remaining
+prizes for $2,070. Thus, $6,420 in prizes is paid out of the total of
+$10,000 received. Out of the remainder, 5 per cent goes to the ticket
+sellers and 5 per cent to the Panaman Government. Once a month the
+drawing is made for a grand prize of $7,500. Most of the money which
+the lottery people make is contributed by workers on the canal. Only
+64 per cent of the money received from the sale of tickets is won back
+by the ticket buyer at each drawing. The net profits approximate a
+hundred thousand dollars a year.
+
+On the whole, however, the relations entered into between the two
+Republics in 1904 have been such as to leave no serious ground for
+complaint. They have permitted the satisfactory construction of the
+canal, and they will permit its satisfactory operation. With the
+United States as the ultimate judge of every question vital to
+American interests, little is left to be desired. The fact is that the
+canal has been built with less friction and fewer difficulties with
+the Republic of Panama than could reasonably have been hoped for at
+the outset. This has been due principally to the fact that the
+Americans responsible for the success of the work have approached the
+Panaman situation with tact where tact was needed and with firmness
+where firmness was essential.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE CANAL ZONE GOVERNMENT
+
+
+The Canal Zone is a strip of territory ten miles wide, its irregular
+lines following the course of the canal, which is its axis. Over this
+zone the United States, under its treaty with Panama, exercises
+jurisdiction "as if it were sovereign." The American Government was
+unwilling to undertake the great and expensive work of constructing
+the canal without having this guaranty to protect it from possible
+harassment at the hands of the Panaman authorities.
+
+One of the first tasks that confronted the United States authorities
+when they entered upon the work of building the canal was that of
+providing a civil government for this territory named by law the Canal
+Zone. Postal facilities had to be provided; a police system had to be
+established; customs offices were required; fire protection was
+necessary; a court system was needed; a school system was demanded;
+and, in short, a sort of territorial government had to be put in
+operation before the work of building the canal could go forward
+satisfactorily.
+
+This government was established in 1904 under the direction of Major
+General George W. Davis, the first governor of the Canal Zone. From
+time to time it was extended and improved. More than half of this was
+appropriated out of the Treasury of the United States, and the
+remainder collected in the operations of the government. In addition
+to directing the government of the Zone, the head of the department of
+civil administration was the titular representative of the Canal
+Commission in all matters in which the commission and the Republic of
+Panama had a mutual interest. However, in practice, the Panaman
+Government looked directly to the chairman and chief engineer on all
+important matters.
+
+One of the earliest and most important subjects requiring their
+cooperation was that of sanitation in the cities of Panama and Colon.
+The United States agreed to advance money for building sewer and water
+systems, and for street improvements, in the two principal cities of
+the Republic, on condition that the Republic of Panama and the two
+cities would reimburse the United States Treasury through the water
+rents. The street improvements were to be paid for in 10 years, and
+the sewer and water systems in 50 years; in the meantime the United
+States was to be allowed 2 per cent interest on the money advanced.
+This amortization of the Republic's debt for these improvements has
+been going steadily forward.
+
+In laying out the government of the Canal Zone it was thought wise to
+adhere as closely to Spanish laws and customs as was expedient under
+the new conditions. In view of this consideration the methods of
+taxation on the Canal Zone were allowed to remain largely the same as
+under the old Spanish laws of Colombia. Likewise the Spanish system
+of judicial procedure was adhered to during the early years of the
+construction period. It was not, indeed, until 1908 that the right of
+trial by jury was established in the Canal Zone. At that time former
+Senator J. C. S. Blackburn, of Kentucky, was at the head of the
+department of civil administration, and he regarded it as repugnant to
+American ideas of justice to deny to Americans on the Isthmus the
+right to be tried for felonious offenses by juries of their peers.
+Upon his representations President Roosevelt issued an executive order
+extending the right of trial by jury to the Canal Zone, and that order
+was effective after 1908.
+
+With the early opening of the canal it became advisable for Congress
+to determine the future policy of the United States toward the Canal
+Zone, and to lay out a system of government there which would meet the
+needs of the future. It was determined that the Canal Zone should be
+used for the operation of the canal, rather than for a habitation for
+such settlers as might choose to go there. Hence the provision was
+made that the President of the United States should have the right to
+determine how many settlements there should be on the Canal Zone and
+how many people should be permitted to live there.
+
+It will be the policy of the United States to discourage general
+settlement and to maintain only such towns as are necessary for the
+operation of the big waterway, granting only revocable leases to any
+outsiders when it is deemed advisable to allow them to occupy land
+within the Zone. There will be only five settlements in the Zone, if
+present plans are carried out: One at Cristobal, one at Gatun, one at
+Pedro Miguel, one at Corozal, and the settlement at Ancon and Balboa
+at the Pacific terminus of the canal. The total number of people who
+will reside in these settlements will probably not exceed 10,000, a
+material reduction from the 62,000 living on the Zone in 1912. Those
+who are still there, but who will not be needed in the permanent
+organization, will be repatriated at the expense of the United States
+Government. In 1912 there were approximately 31,000 British subjects
+on the Zone, practically all of them negroes from the British West
+Indian islands and British Guiana. The great majority of these will be
+carried back to their homes, as will all of the 4,300 Spaniards who
+desire to return. There were nearly 12,000 Americans on the Zone at
+that time, and perhaps two-thirds of them will leave before 1915.
+There were nearly 8,000 Panamans on the Zone and most of them will go
+to the cities of Panama and Colon, or upon the Government lands owned
+by the Panama Republic outside of the Zone.
+
+The work of clearing the Zone of its population was begun early in
+1913. A joint land commission was appointed to adjudicate the claims
+of those Panamans who were living within the Zone on lands that were
+needed for the operation of the canal. This commission consisted,
+under the treaty existing between the two countries, of two Americans
+and two Panamans. In their work they first took up the claims of the
+poorer classes who had nothing but a thatched hut and a small patch of
+ground. The commission visited the various parts of the Zone and
+fixed the value of such holdings. The people were given free
+transportation over the Panama Railroad, and usually were allowed from
+$50 to $100 for their homes. They preferred to move in colonies, so
+the Republic of Panama laid out small towns away from the Canal Zone
+for them. These natives, usually almost full-blooded Indians, were
+treated as kindly and as considerately as conditions would allow. They
+were willing to "fold their tents" like the Arabs, and leave their
+homes behind as they went out to conquer new ones in the jungles where
+the needs of a gigantic waterway could not encroach upon them.
+
+The claims for lands which have to be taken from individuals by the
+United States will aggregate a half million dollars. As the Panaman
+Government allows homesteading on Government lands at a cost of about
+a dollar an acre, and as there are tens of thousands of acres of
+better land outside of the Canal Zone than inside, the policy of the
+United States in freeing this strip from native population will not
+work any great injury to the people.
+
+During the construction period the laws under which the people of the
+Zone lived were made in three different ways. Of course, Congress as
+the legislative assembly was always supreme. But under the laws passed
+by it, the President of the United States was empowered to issue
+executive orders covering points not touched by congressional
+legislation, and under his instructions the Secretary of War could
+promulgate certain orders. In addition to this, the Canal Commission
+had a right to serve as a sort of local legislature. During the year
+1912 sixteen executive orders pertaining to the Canal Zone were signed
+by the President and the Secretary of War, while five ordinances were
+promulgated by the Isthmian Canal Commission during the same period.
+
+The court system under the construction-period government consisted of
+district courts, circuit courts, and a supreme court. There were five
+district judges and three circuit judges; and the circuit judges
+sitting together constituted the supreme court, from whose decisions
+there was no appeal. Under the permanent law there will be a
+magistrate's court in each town, which will have exclusive, original
+jurisdiction in all civil cases involving not more than $300, and of
+all criminal cases where the punishment does not exceed a fine of a
+hundred dollars or 30 days in jail, or both. Its jurisdiction will
+include all violations of police regulations and ordinances, and all
+actions involving possession or title to personal property or the
+forcible entry and detainer of real estate. These magistrates and the
+constables under them will serve for terms of four years. There will
+be a district court which will sit at the two terminal towns with the
+usual court officers. The circuit court of appeals of the fifth
+circuit of the United States will be the court to which appeals from
+the district court will be carried.
+
+The postal service of the Canal Zone is practically identical with
+that of the United States. The revenues collected from the sale of
+stamps and postal cards amounted to $87,550 in 1912. Nearly a quarter
+of a million money orders were issued during that year, representing
+a total of approximately $5,000,000. A postal savings bank system is
+also maintained, a counterpart of the one in the United States.
+
+All mail matter sent from the Canal Zone bears Panaman stamps
+countermarked by the Canal Zone government. When the United States
+established the postal system at Panama, American postage was used.
+The Panamans were very much dissatisfied with such a procedure,
+however, since it deprived them of a large share of their postal
+revenue. Their postal rates to the United States were those of the
+universal postal union--5 cents per ounce or fraction thereof on all
+first-class mail matter. The rate from the Canal Zone Was only 2
+cents. The result was that the citizens of Panama and Colon would not
+patronize their own post offices, but carried their mail across the
+line to the post offices at Ancon and Cristobal where they could mail
+their letters at the 2-cent rate. The Panaman Government protested
+against this, and it was agreed by the Americans that in the future
+all mail matter should carry Panaman postage stamps. These are
+furnished to the Canal Zone government at 40 per cent of their face
+value. In this way the share of the Republic of Panama in the postal
+receipts of 1912 amounted to nearly $33,000.
+
+President Roosevelt selected one of his "rough riders," George R.
+Shanton, to establish the police force on the Zone. This police force
+was selected generally from men who had seen service in the United
+States Army and had made good records there. In 1912 the force
+consisted of 117 first-class white policemen, 116 colored policemen,
+20 corporals, 8 sergeants, 7 lieutenants, and 2 inspectors, besides a
+chief of police and an assistant chief of police. During that year
+7,055 arrests were made, 70 per cent of which resulted in convictions.
+Police stations were maintained at all settlements along the line. A
+penitentiary was located at Culebra where approximately 140 convicts
+were confined. The penitentiary had to be removed owing to slides at
+Culebra Cut, and the men were put to work on the roads of the Canal
+Zone. They were kept in well-guarded stockades at night.
+
+When Judge Henry A. Gudger was made a member of the judicial system of
+the Canal Zone he believed that it would be the scene of unusual
+lawlessness; he thought it would be a dumping ground for lawless
+people from all parts of the world. He therefore believed in strong
+repressive measures, and his earlier sentences were made heavy with
+that end in view. He found later, however, that the opposite was true.
+Under the system of quartering the canal help there was comparatively
+little mixing of the races. The negroes lived to themselves, the
+Spaniards to themselves, and the Americans to themselves; therefore,
+racial friction was largely overcome. The lawless found the Canal Zone
+a desirable place to shun. Judge Gudger soon discovered that severe
+measures were unnecessary, and in recommending pardons frequently
+stated that he had imposed sentences heavier than necessary to carry
+out the repressive policies he had in mind.
+
+A well-organized, paid fire department was maintained from the
+beginning and it was supplemented by volunteer companies in many
+places. In a number of towns fire engines of the latest automobile
+type were installed. Out of 300 fire alarms in 1912, nearly 200 were
+for fires in Government property valued at one and three-quarters
+million dollars, while the total loss was only $5,000.
+
+The school system of the Canal Zone was laid out along the same lines
+that characterized all other activities for the welfare of the people
+who were engaged in building the canal. It was founded by Charles E.
+Magoon when he was governor of the Zone, and in 1912 had 75 teachers
+and officials, with an enrollment of 2,105, of whom nearly 1,200 were
+white. The standard required of the teachers was maintained at a high
+point. Of the 48 white teachers employed in 1912, 13 held degrees from
+colleges and universities, 19 held diplomas from standard normal
+schools, and 12 others had enjoyed at least two years of normal
+teaching. The white children on the Zone were given free
+transportation to and from the schools. Those who had to go on the
+railroad to reach their schools were given free passes. Those who
+attended the schools in their own neighborhood were gathered up in
+wagons and transported to school.
+
+The system of roads for the parts of the Canal Zone adjacent to the
+canal itself was built mainly by convict labor at comparatively little
+cost. They have been useful to the natives in getting their few
+products to market, and during the years to come will be available as
+military roads for use in the defense of the Zone. These roads are
+built according to the best American standards and are almost the only
+real roads in the entire Republic. The Panaman Government has extended
+one road from the Zone line to old Panama, and for a few miles into
+the interior, but aside from this national road activities have been
+few indeed.
+
+The American road from Panama to the Zone boundary, leading toward old
+Panama, over the savannahs, is the pleasure highway of the Republic.
+It is practically the only road in the Republic where one drives for
+pleasure, and here every automobile in Panama City is pressed into
+service during the late afternoon and the evening. The elite of the
+capital city own summer homes along this road. These homes are by no
+means as elaborate as the summer homes along the Hudson, but the fact
+that they were seated amidst veritable gardens of flowers gives them
+an air of beauty and restfulness attractive even to the most blase
+traveler.
+
+The water-supply system of the Canal Zone consists of a number of
+reservoirs on the watersheds of the Isthmus where no human habitations
+are allowed, and where trespassing is forbidden. The waters are
+examined for bacteria and other properties once each month, and a
+report thereon is made to the proper officials. Twice each month a
+physical examination of each reservoir, and the land from which it
+receives its water, is made by inspectors who report all conditions to
+the sanitary and other authorities. If there is any sign of
+contamination, steps to overcome the trouble are taken immediately.
+
+Where the reservoirs fill up to the spillway the waste water is not
+allowed to go over the top, but is drawn out from the bottom in order
+that the under layers of water may be the ones wasted. Water drawn out
+for domestic purposes is taken from the top wherever possible. The
+water has a somewhat unpleasant taste to people newly arrived upon the
+Isthmus, and in some cases serves to disturb the digestive tract, but
+to the people who become accustomed to it the unpleasant flavor, due
+to the presence of decayed vegetation, is forgotten, and the workers
+on the Canal Zone frequently declare they miss the Panama water when
+they go back to the States.
+
+The permanent Government of the Canal Zone will be, in the main,
+merely a miniature of the government during the construction period.
+The law providing for the operation of the canal makes this Government
+entirely subsidiary to the main purpose for which the canal was built.
+It provides that when war is in prospect the President may appoint a
+military officer to take charge of the Canal Zone, and to conduct its
+affairs as they might be conducted were the Zone nothing more than a
+military reservation. The Government will have its headquarters at the
+Pacific end of the canal where Balboa, the principal permanent town on
+the Isthmus, will be located. This little American city will be
+Government-built and Government-owned, and it will be the smallest of
+all the world's capitals.
+
+[Illustration: SMOKE FROM HEATED ROCKS IN CULEBRA CUT]
+
+[Illustration: TOM M. COOKE
+
+THE POST OFFICE, ANCON]
+
+Under the new Government all old laws, not specifically repealed,
+or contrary to the new ones, will be continued in force. All executive
+orders issued by the President, and all orders and ordinances
+promulgated by the Canal Commission, during the construction period,
+not inconsistent with the act creating a permanent form of government,
+are made laws of the Canal Zone to continue as such until specifically
+repealed by act of Congress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CONGRESS AND THE CANAL
+
+
+While the Congress of the United States ever has been charged with a
+lack of appreciation of the needs of the executive branch of the
+Government, spending money foolishly here and being niggardly with its
+appropriations there, the history of the legislation under which the
+Panama Canal was undertaken and completed shows that American
+lawmakers backed up the canal diggers in every necessary way.
+
+One may read in all the hearings that were conducted, both on the
+Isthmus and in Washington, a desire on the part of the congressional
+committees having to do with the canal matters, to promote the work,
+and to enable those directly concerned in its execution to carry out
+their plans without hindrance.
+
+It is probable that no project ever carried to completion under the
+aegis of the United States Government was studied more carefully by
+the legislators than the Panama Canal. There was a standing invitation
+from the Isthmian Canal Commission to members of the Senate and House
+of Representatives to visit the Isthmus, collectively or individually,
+for the purpose of acquainting themselves with the character of the
+work and its needs. This invitation was accepted by a large
+percentage of the members of the House and Senate who served during
+the construction period. When a member of either branch of Congress
+visited the Isthmus and saw there the character of the work being
+done, and the spirit of the men behind it, he never failed to return
+an enthusiastic supporter of the work, ready by vote and voice to
+contribute his share to the legislation needed.
+
+When the final Isthmian Canal Commission came into power a policy of
+absolute candor with Congress was adopted. When the annual estimates
+for appropriations were submitted, they came to Congress with the
+understanding that they represented exactly what was needed, no more
+and no less. Instead of recommending from 10 to 25 per cent more than
+they hoped to get, upon the assumption that Congress would scale down
+the appropriations--a policy long followed in many of the bureaus of
+the Government--the canal officials asked Congress to understand from
+the beginning that the figures they submitted had been pared down to
+the bone. The result was a happy one. Congress learned to depend upon
+the figures and to make its appropriations accordingly; consequently,
+the work was never handicapped by appropriations deficient in one
+branch and overabundant in another.
+
+Congress for several years made its appropriations for building the
+canal under the assumption that it was to cost about $145,000,000,
+exclusive of government, sanitation, purchase price, and payments to
+the Republic of Panama. It was not until 1908 that a straightforward,
+definite effort was made to fix the ultimate cost. Experience showed
+clearly that all hands had hopelessly underestimated both the total
+amount of work to be done and the unit cost of doing it.
+
+After a year's experience of carrying forward the work at full swing,
+the commission decided to face the situation frankly and attempt to
+ascertain exactly what might be expected. This investigation disclosed
+the fact that the estimates of the amount of work to be done were a
+little over 50 per cent short. Under the experience of one year's work
+it was calculated that the total cost of the canal would be
+$375,000,000, including sanitation, government, and payments to the
+New Panama Canal Company and the Republic of Panama, instead of
+$210,000,000, as these items would have aggregated under the estimates
+made in 1906. This was about one and a half times as much as the
+estimated cost of a sea-level canal. But, although Congress had fixed
+the limit upon the basis of an aggregate cost of $210,000,000, it
+cheerfully faced the restatement of the anticipated cost, and finally
+set the limit at $375,000,000.
+
+From that day forward the great effort at Panama was to live within
+this limit, in spite of the extra work required. While Congress might
+have been willing to increase this limit, in view of the fact that an
+additional 97,000,000 cubic yards of material had to be removed, it
+was not asked to do so. The engineers desired above everything else to
+stay within their own estimates, and they did the extra work with
+money saved by increasing the efficiency of the force.
+
+The first law providing for the government of the Canal Zone was
+enacted in 1904. It gave to the President and those appointed by him
+the right to govern the Zone and imposed the duty "of maintaining and
+protecting its inhabitants in the free enjoyment of their liberty,
+property, and religion."
+
+In 1907 an effort was made to reduce wages on the canal. The sundry
+civil bill of that year carried a provision that wages on the Isthmus
+for skilled and unskilled labor should not exceed more than 25 per
+cent the average wage paid in the United States for similar labor.
+This proposition was urged by Representative James A. Tawney, of
+Minnesota, then chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the House.
+When it came to a vote the wages fixed under Chief Engineers Wallace
+and Stevens were upheld by a vote of 101 to 10. Congress took the
+ground that the canal could be built only by the most liberal
+treatment of the people who were building it.
+
+At another time a provision was inserted in the appropriation law
+establishing the 8-hour day law for American workers on the canal. A
+fight was made by the American Federation of Labor and other
+organizations to make it apply to the common laborer as well as to the
+Americans, but this was unsuccessful. The 8-hour provision did not
+work well, since the foremen and superintendents were permitted to
+stop work after 8 hours, while the laborers under them had to work an
+hour longer. This was later rectified by providing that the 8-hour law
+should not affect foremen and superintendents in charge of alien
+labor; and thus was overcome the difficulty of having an army of
+common laborers at work an hour or so each day without superintendence
+or direction.
+
+In 1906 it was provided by a joint resolution of the Senate and House
+that the purchase of material and equipment for use in the
+construction of the canal should be restricted to articles of American
+production and manufacture, except in cases where the President should
+deem prices extortionate or unreasonable. This provision undoubtedly
+increased by many millions of dollars the cost of the machinery with
+which the canal work was executed. While some dredges and other
+equipment were purchased in Europe, foreign purchases were the
+exception rather than the rule. When bids were submitted there were
+times when European prices of dredges were placed at less than
+$700,000, while American prices for the same dredges would amount to
+more than $1,000,000. When there were such marked difference in bids
+the awards were made to the European manufacturers.
+
+Although the construction of the canal was authorized by the Spooner
+Act in 1902, it was not until 1906 that Congress expressed its views
+in legislation on the question of the type of canal that should be
+built. It was then that it declared the canal should be of the general
+lock type proposed by the minority of the board of consulting
+engineers, which was a complete approval of the plans urged by
+President Roosevelt. In order to make certain this decision as to the
+type of canal, a provision was incorporated in the appropriation bill
+of that year, setting forth that no part of the sums therein
+appropriated should be used for the construction of a sea-level
+canal.
+
+Congress was always willing to aid the engineers in meeting unforeseen
+contingencies by giving them unusual liberties in the application of
+moneys appropriated. It was provided that as much as 10 per cent of
+any appropriation might be used for any of the other purposes for
+which money was appropriated, thus allowing the necessary leeway to
+insure a systematic progress of the work throughout all its features.
+This provision many times came to the rescue of the chief engineer,
+when he found that more money was needed at one point and less at
+another than had been estimated 16 or 18 months before.
+
+While President Roosevelt was in the White House Congress gave him
+abundant authority over all phases of the task at Panama. He was
+empowered to do almost anything he thought expedient for hastening the
+work. For instance, in 1907 when he considered building the canal by
+contract, Congress provided that nothing in the Spooner Act should
+prevent him from entering into such contract or contracts as he might
+deem expedient for the construction of the canal. This practically
+gave him full authority over the limit of cost and the methods of
+building. He was thus the sole judge of the character of the contracts
+that he might make. No President in the history of the country ever
+was vested with fuller jurisdiction and control over a great matter
+than was President Roosevelt in this case. That he did not enter into
+such contract was due mainly to the reports made to him by Col. George
+W. Goethals, who had just been appointed chief engineer.
+
+In 1908 the Secretary of War was authorized to purchase for the
+Panama Railroad Company two steamships of American registry of not
+less than 9,000 gross tons each, the cost of which should not exceed
+$1,550,000, for the transportation of supplies, equipment, and
+material, and of officers and employees of the Canal Commission. These
+ships, when no longer required for that service were to be transferred
+to the Secretary of the Navy for use as colliers or other auxiliary
+naval vessels. These ships carried the bulk of the cement used in
+building of the great locks, and more than paid for themselves in the
+saving of transportation charges which would have been levied by
+private carriers. In the appropriation act of 1909 Congress decided
+that the carrying of marine or fire insurance was bad policy for the
+Government, and provided that no such insurance should be carried by
+the Panama Railroad Company, but that it should be reimbursed for any
+loss it might sustain from the appropriations made by Congress for the
+building of the canal.
+
+[Illustration: A NEGRO GIRL A MARTINIQUE WOMAN SAN BLAS CHIEF AN
+INDIAN GIRL]
+
+AN ITALIAN A TIMEKEEPER A SPANIARD A NEGRO BOY
+
+A FEW OF THE MANY TYPES ON THE ISTHMUS]
+
+[Illustration: COL. HARRY F. HODGES
+
+TESTING THE EMERGENCY DAM, GATUN LOCKS]
+
+There were a number of committees in Congress which dealt with canal
+legislation. Principal among these were the Committees on
+Appropriations of the two Houses, the Committee on Interoceanic Canals
+of the Senate, and the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of
+the House. The Appropriations Committees dealt with the question of
+appropriations. The House Appropriations Committee usually made a trip
+to the Isthmus before each session of Congress. There it would hold
+hearings, questioning closely every person connected with the work who
+had made estimates for its benefit, its members seeing with their
+own eyes the projects for which each individual appropriation was
+asked. The practice was, during these visits, to go over a part of the
+work and then to hold sessions of the committee for the purpose of
+asking questions about that phase of the undertaking. The testimony
+was taken down by an official stenographer and printed for the use of
+every Member of Congress. A few months later the chairman and chief
+engineer would make a trip to Washington and furnish the committee
+with such supplementary information as the intervening time might have
+disclosed.
+
+The Senate Committee did not visit the Isthmus as frequently, as it
+usually found that the hearings held by the House Committee afforded
+it sufficient information on which to predicate its action. All
+matters having to do with organization traffic, or general laws for
+the Canal Zone, were handled by the Committee on Interoceanic Canals
+of the Senate and the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of
+the House. It was the latter committee, under the chairmanship of
+Representative William C. Adamson, of Georgia, which framed the
+permanent Canal Law, under which the Isthmian waterway will be
+governed and operated. The big fight in Congress over the type of
+canal was waged before the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals.
+The records of this committee, together with the additional records in
+the hands of Congress, constitute one of the most extensive accounts
+of a great work anywhere to be found. The official literature of the
+Panama Canal is almost as voluminous as the canal is big.
+
+Although Congress usually left the details of canal construction to be
+worked out by the Canal Commission and the President, from start to
+finish it showed a determination so to deal with the big project that
+it could look back over the work with the feeling that it had
+contributed its share to the triumph of the undertaking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+SEA-LEVEL CANAL IMPOSSIBLE
+
+
+No one can dispute the wisdom of the United States in deciding to
+build a lock canal. To have undertaken a sea-level canal would have
+involved this Government in difficulties so great that even with all
+the wealth and determination of America, failure would have ensued. It
+is, perhaps, putting it too strongly to say that a sea-level canal is
+a physical impossibility, but it is not too much to say that such a
+canal would take so much money and so much time to build that the
+resources and patience of the American people would be exhausted long
+before it could be made navigable.
+
+The advocates of a sea-level canal declared that a channel could be
+dug through Culebra Mountain with the excavation of 110,000,000 cubic
+yards. As a matter of fact, Culebra Cut, with its bottom 85 feet above
+sea level, required the excavation of almost that same amount.
+
+Engineers who advocated a sea-level canal declared that the material
+in Culebra Mountain was stable, and that only moderate slopes would be
+necessary. As a matter of fact, the material in the mountain proved
+highly unstable, and, except for a few short sections, slides and
+breaks were encountered all during the construction period. The
+result was that practically two Culebra Cuts were dug. The engineers,
+in beginning the present canal, calculated that 53,000,000 cubic yards
+would be excavated in Culebra; the amount actually removed was
+105,000,000 cubic yards. Upon this basis a sea-level Culebra Cut might
+have required the excavation of 230,000,000 cubic yards.
+
+Calculating an average monthly excavation of a million cubic yards,
+the task would have required 17 years to complete. In other words, if
+a sea-level canal had been undertaken and had been physically
+possible, the celebration of the opening of the waterway would have
+been set for 1925 instead of 1915.
+
+Among all of the members of the majority of the board of consulting
+engineers who favored a sea-level canal, only one, E. Quellenec,
+Consulting Engineer of the Suez Canal, showed any appreciation of the
+difficulties which were to be expected in Culebra Cut. He announced,
+in voting in favor of a sea-level canal, that he could not do so
+without first reminding the United States Government of the great
+difficulties that would lie before it in Culebra Cut. Henry Hunter,
+Engineer of the Manchester Ship Canal, declared that Culebra Cut
+presented no serious problems at all; that a sea-level cut could be
+dug more quickly than the locks of the other type of canal could be
+built. He further declared that it was as clearly demonstrable as any
+engineering problem could be, that it would be possible to use 100
+steam shovels in Culebra Cut. No one has accused the engineers on the
+canal of lack of ability in maneuvering shovels, yet at no time were
+they able to use more than 46.
+
+If President Roosevelt had followed the recommendation of the majority
+of the board of consulting engineers in favor of a sea-level canal, it
+seems probable that the United States would have followed the French
+in retiring defeated from the Isthmus, or else would have reconsidered
+its purpose to build a sea-level canal and have undertaken a lock
+canal, as the French had done.
+
+But, even if it had been possible to build a sea-level canal at
+Panama, it appears that such a canal would not have been as
+satisfactory as the present one. While the canal the United States
+possesses at Panama to-day is a great waterway 300 feet wide at its
+narrowest part, in which ships can pass at any point, the sea-level
+canal projected would have been a narrow channel winding in and out
+among the hills, too narrow for half its length for the largest ships
+to pass. Currents, caused by the Chagres River, and by the flow of
+other streams into the canal, would have made navigation somewhat
+dangerous.
+
+The principal ground upon which the majority members of the board of
+consulting engineers voted in favor of a sea-level canal was that it
+was less vulnerable. This contention, in the light of what has
+happened at Panama, seems to carry no great weight. Such a canal would
+have required a masonry dam 180 feet high across the Chagres at
+Gamboa, to regulate the flow of that river into the canal. This dam,
+very narrow and very high, would have been a much fairer mark than the
+great Gatun Dam for the wielder of high explosives. Furthermore, while
+earth dams, like that at Gatun, have weathered earthquake shocks of
+great severity, masonry dams, like that proposed for Gamboa, have
+been tumbled to the earth by shocks of much less power. The regulating
+works at Gatun will take care of a volume of water approximately twice
+as great as the Chagres has ever brought down. On the other hand, the
+proposed dam at Gamboa would have cared for only one-third as great a
+discharge as the highest known flow of the Chagres.
+
+It was calculated that the lake made by the dam at Gamboa would always
+be held at low stage between floods, but if two floods came in quick
+succession this might have been impossible. Such a situation would
+have made the Chagres River always a menace to the canal, instead of
+its most essential and beneficent feature.
+
+Those who objected to the lock type, on the ground that the locks
+could be destroyed, seemed to forget that even the sea-level project
+demanded a set of locks to regulate the tides of the Pacific. While,
+contrary to the usual idea, there is no difference in the mean level
+of the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, the difference in the tides at
+Panama is about 18 feet. This is due to the shape of the Bay of
+Panama. As the tide sweeps over the Pacific and into that bay, it
+meets a funnel-shaped shore line, which gradually contracts as the
+tide travels landward. The result is that the tide rises higher and
+higher until it reaches a maximum of 10 feet above average sea level.
+When it flows out it reaches a point 10 feet below average sea level,
+thus giving a tidal fluctuation of 20 feet. On the Atlantic side the
+tidal fluctuation is only 2 feet.
+
+Under these conditions the canal could not be operated during many
+hours of the 24 without the tidal locks, if at all, and it would be
+almost as great a hindrance to have the tidal locks destroyed as to
+have the present locks injured. Another perpetual menace in a canal
+with a bottom width of only 150 feet for half of its distance, would
+be the danger of a ship sinking and blocking the channel. When the
+_Cheatham_ sank in the Suez Canal it wholly blocked the waterway for
+nine days, and partially blocked it for a month.
+
+According to the Isthmian Canal Commission, the present canal affords
+greater safety for ships and less danger of interruption to traffic by
+reason of its wider and deeper channels; it provides for quicker
+passage across the Isthmus for large ships and for heavy traffic; it
+is in much less danger of being damaged, and of delays to ships
+because of the flood waters of the Chagres; it can be enlarged more
+easily and much more cheaply than could a sea-level canal. The lock
+canal has a minimum depth of 41 feet, and less than 5 miles of it has
+a width as narrow as 300 feet. It can take care of 80,000,000 tons of
+shipping a year, and, by the expenditure of less than $25,000,000
+additional, can increase this capacity by at least a third. It can
+pass at least 48 ships a day, doing all that a sea-level canal could
+do, and many things that a sea-level canal could not do.
+
+No one denies that if it were possible to have a great Isthmian
+waterway at sea level as wide as the present lock canal, it would be
+the ideal interoceanic waterway. But, as such a proposition is out of
+the question, the American people have at least one thing for which to
+thank Theodore Roosevelt--that at a critical time in the history of
+the canal project he allowed himself to be converted from the advocacy
+of a sea-level canal to the championship of a lock-level canal, in the
+face of a majority report of one of the strongest boards of engineers
+ever assembled, and prevented a situation at Panama that would have
+been humiliating to America, and which probably would have ended for
+all time the efforts of centuries to let ships through the American
+Isthmus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+FORTIFICATIONS
+
+
+When Congress decided that the Panama Canal should be regarded as a
+part of the military defenses of the Nation, it became necessary to
+fortify it in such a way as to make it practically impregnable to
+naval attack. It was, therefore, decided that there should be ample
+coast defenses at the two ends of the canal and that these defenses
+should be protected from land attack by the quartering of a sufficient
+number of mobile troops to hold in check any landing parties that
+might attack the works by an overland route.
+
+In carrying out this plan Congress met every demand of the military
+experts. When the plans for the fortifications were pending before the
+Appropriations Committee of the House every military authority, from
+Gen. Leonard Wood and Col. George W. Goethals down, who appeared
+before the committee was asked if he considered the defenses
+recommended as sufficient for the purposes intended, and each replied
+in the affirmative.
+
+These defenses consist of large forts at each end of the canal, with
+field works for some 6,000 mobile troops. The defenses on the Pacific
+side will be somewhat stronger than those on the Atlantic side,
+probably for the reason that better naval protection ordinarily could
+be afforded to the Atlantic than to the Pacific entrance, on account
+of the proximity of the Atlantic Waters of the canal to American
+shores.
+
+At the forts on the Atlantic side four 12-inch guns, sixteen 12-inch
+mortars, six 6-inch guns and four 4-7/10-inch howitzers will be
+mounted. The guns at this end of the canal will be distributed between
+Toro Point on the west side of the entrance channel and Margarita
+Island on the east side. There will be two big 14-inch disappearing
+guns at each of these points. They will be so placed as to sweep the
+horizon in the seaward direction, and at the same time will be able to
+concentrate their fire on the enemy as he steams in toward the channel
+entrance between the great breakwaters which cut off Limon Bay from
+the ocean.
+
+At the Pacific end all of the defenses will be on the east side of the
+channel. They will consist of one 16-inch gun, six 14-inch guns, six
+6-inch guns and eight 4-7/10-inch howitzers. There are three small
+islands on the east side of the Pacific entrance channel known as
+Naos, Perico, and Flamenco. They rise precipitously out of the water
+and offer ideal sites for heavy defense. A huge dump or breakwater has
+been built from the mainland at Balboa out to Naos Island and this, in
+turn, has been connected with Perico and Flamenco by large stone
+causeways. The great dump has made several hundred acres of available
+land for quartering the eight companies of coast-defense troops which
+will be stationed at the Pacific end of the canal. These islands are
+3 miles from the mainland and their guns will completely bar the way
+to any hostile ships which might seek to enter the canal.
+
+On the other side of the channel, at a distance of about 12 miles,
+lies the island of Taboga where the Canal Commission maintains the
+sanitarium for its employees. It had been suggested by some that
+fortifications should be planted there, but it was declared by the
+military authorities that the guns of Naos, Perico, and Flamenco would
+completely command this island and prevent a hostile nation from using
+it as a base of operations.
+
+The range of the guns extends more than a mile beyond Taboga Island.
+The big 16-inch gun which will be mounted on Perico Island is the
+largest ever built. It was made at the Watervliet Arsenal. It carries
+a projectile weighing more than a ton for a distance of 21 miles. At
+17 miles it can toss its death-dealing 2,400-pound shell at an enemy
+as accurately as a base-ball player throws a ball to a team-mate 17
+yards away. Its projectiles are filled with powerful explosives, a
+single one of which in the vitals of any battleship would be enough to
+place it out of commission. The big guns and the mortars are intended
+primarily for defending the canal from attack by water. The smaller
+guns and howitzers would come into play when an enemy approached
+within a mile and would be used to repel his efforts to effect a
+landing. Nearly all of these howitzers may be moved from place to
+place to meet the needs of the field troops in case of land attack.
+Eight of them will be permanently stationed at Gatun Locks. There
+will be other field works at Gatun, Miraflores, and Pedro Miguel ready
+for occupancy at a moment's notice by the field troops stationed on
+the Isthmus. These howitzers are so located that 12 of them may be
+concentrated at any given point in case of danger.
+
+The big guns of the permanent forts are all mounted on disappearing
+carriages so that they are exposed to fire only at the moment of
+discharge. The 12-inch mortars will not only play their part in
+defending the canal from water attack, but will be able to sweep the
+country on the Atlantic side as far inland as the Gatun Locks and on
+the Pacific side as far inland as the locks at Miraflores. They have a
+range of nearly 4 miles, and when loaded with shrapnel will prove a
+most effective weapon against field troops operating anywhere within
+the vicinity of the locks.
+
+The land lying contiguous to the sea-level ends of the canal will be
+platted off into squares exactly as a city is laid out. Should hostile
+troops come upon this territory the men in the fire-control station
+would simply ascertain the number of the block or blocks on which they
+were operating, and the mortars would be so oriented as to throw their
+big projectiles thousands of yards into the air to fall directly on
+those blocks. They would, therefore, be practically as useful in land
+operations as in the water defense.
+
+Every feature of the armament defending the entrance of the canal will
+embody the latest improvements known to military science. The
+carriages for the big guns have been specially designed, and were put
+through the most thorough and exacting tests before their adoption.
+The fire-control stations are said to be the last word in insuring the
+effective use of the guns. Determining how a big gun shall be aimed so
+that its projectile will hit a target 10 miles away is not an easy
+task. Of course, the gun can not be pointed directly at the target,
+since this would cause the projectile to fall far short of the enemy,
+and also the effect of the wind and the motion of the enemy would
+carry it wide of its mark. To guess the range and to secure it by
+experimentation would be to prevent any effective fire whatever.
+Therefore, it is necessary first to determine the approximate range,
+the motion of the enemy and the velocity of the wind.
+
+There is an ingenious instrument known as the range finder, by which
+the approximate distance of the target is determined. This instrument
+looks something like a cross between an opera glass and a small
+telescope. The operator puts his eyes to the opera glass part of the
+range finder and locates the enemy just as one would with an ordinary
+pair of glasses. When he locates the hostile ship he sees two images
+of it. There is an adjusting screw which he turns until the two images
+blend together and become one. The turning of this screw automatically
+adjusts a scale on the instrument, and when the two images exactly
+coalesce the distance of the ship is registered on the scale. The
+operators in the fire-control station make the necessary calculations
+as to the effect of the wind, the motion of the enemy and other
+elements entering into marksmanship, and telephone the results below
+to the men who aim the gun.
+
+It takes two men to aim each gun; one takes care of its up-and-down
+movement, and the other of its right-and-left movement. When the man
+in the fire-control station telephones that the enemy is so many miles
+away, the man who has charge of the up-and-down movement of the gun so
+adjusts his telescopic sight on a registering scale that when it is
+pointed directly on the enemy the muzzle of the gun will be elevated
+high enough to carry the projectile that distance. The man who has
+charge of the right-to-left movement adjusts his sight so that when it
+is pointed directly at the enemy the muzzle of the gun will be pointed
+far enough to the right or to the left to land its projectile amidship
+on the enemy. Each man stands on a platform and operates a little
+wheel on an endless screw. He turns this wheel backward or forward
+just enough to keep his sight exactly on the enemy.
+
+After the gunners have received their instructions the first shot is
+fired. This is called a "ranging" shot, and as the best range finder
+can not register the distance to the exact yard it is necessary for
+the fire-control station to gauge exactly how far short of, or how far
+over, the target the projectile has carried. The up-and-down sight is
+adjusted in accordance therewith and usually the second, or at most
+the third, shot gets the exact range. This method of locating the
+enemy will be used on all the fortifications of the canal.
+
+It is unanimously agreed by military authorities that no naval force
+will risk an open attack upon such fortifications, since almost
+inevitably it would result in the disabling, if not the sinking, of a
+number of battleships and a great crippling of the enemy's force that
+he could not afford to risk unless he had first swept the seas of our
+own naval strength.
+
+In order to make certain that no surprise attack could be successful,
+one of the most complete searchlight equipments to be found in any
+fortress in the world has been authorized for the canal
+fortifications. There will be 14 searchlights, with 60-inch
+reflectors, made so that they will send the brightest of white lights
+out to sea and over the land as far as the range of the guns may
+reach. These searchlights cost more than $20,000 each, and it requires
+a year to construct the big mirror which is placed in each of them.
+Electric plants at each fortress will generate electricity for the
+operation of the guns and of the searchlights.
+
+In anticipation of sudden need nearly $2,000,000 worth of reserve
+ammunition will be kept on the Isthmus. There will be 70 rounds for
+the big 16-inch gun--enough to operate it constantly for two hours,
+providing for a shot about every two minutes. The big 14-inch guns
+will carry a shell weighing 1,400 pounds, propelled by a 365-pound
+charge of smokeless powder which will drive it through the air at an
+initial speed of nearly half a mile a second--enough momentum to carry
+it through at least 5 feet of wrought iron. The charge of powder by
+which these guns will hurl their projectiles on their death-dealing
+mission, generates a force which would lift the great Masonic Temple
+of Chicago 2 feet in a single second.
+
+Three regiments of infantry, 1 squadron of cavalry, 1 battalion of
+field artillery, and 12 companies of coast-defense troops will be
+permanently stationed on the Isthmus. The field troops, consisting of
+the infantry, cavalry, and field artillery, will be stationed at
+Miraflores, where permanent quarters will be provided together with
+the necessary drill grounds. These quarters will cost in the
+neighborhood of $3,000,000. At this point they can be maneuvered to
+advantage and moved to any part of the Canal Zone needing defense. It
+was originally intended to place these troops at Culebra on the east
+side of the channel, but this would necessitate their going a distance
+of about 5 miles to get to a point where they could conveniently cross
+with the artillery to the other side of the canal.
+
+Quarters for eight companies of coast-defense troops are being
+established on the Naos Island dumps. Quarters for two companies of
+these troops are being provided at Toro Point, and for two other
+companies at Margarita Island. These will afford sufficient strength
+at the Atlantic side to man the guns temporarily, in case of
+hostilities, until any additional troops needed can be brought up. All
+of the troops, both field and coast defense, will be adequately housed
+and the permanent structures erected for them will be as substantially
+built as those of any modern army post in continental United States.
+There will be drill grounds large enough to maneuver the troops
+stationed on the Isthmus. Roads affording access to all parts of the
+Canal Zone have been built.
+
+In addition to the provisions for the permanent forces on the Isthmus,
+additional field works will be provided to accommodate the 20,000
+troops which might be brought to the Isthmus in case of war. These
+field works will take the form of barricaded positions, entrenchments,
+and other protective breastworks which will enable the troops to
+undergo a state of siege. It has been estimated by the engineers that
+behind such works as have been planned one defender can stand off six
+assailants, so that a body of 20,000 mobile troops under these
+conditions could hold the Isthmus against a siege of 100,000 for a
+reasonable time. These field works will be constructed principally
+around Gatun and Pedro Miguel. The buildings for the permanent force
+stationed on the Isthmus will be constructed on the unit system so
+that any necessary expansion can be made.
+
+The question of fortifying the canal was one which engaged the serious
+attention of Congress for a long time. There were two main viewpoints
+as to what policy should be pursued. One contention was that the canal
+should be made neutral, open to the ships of all nations, including
+the United States, on equal terms even in case of war between the
+United States and any other country. It was contended by those who
+took this view that to declare it neutral would render it immune from
+any attack and guarantee its perpetuity as a great commercial
+undertaking under the control of the United States.
+
+They contended, furthermore, that the United States was bound, under
+the terms of its treaty with Great Britain, to make the canal neutral
+and that to fortify it would be to violate the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
+They asserted that the United States was under solemn obligations to
+recognize the principle of neutrality as applied at Suez and offered
+the express terms of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty in proof of their
+contention. This treaty provided that "the United States adopts, as
+the basis of the neutralization of such a ship canal, the following
+rules substantially embodied in the Convention of Constantinople,
+signed the twenty-eighth of October, 1888, for the free navigation of
+the Suez Canal; that is to say:
+
+"First, the canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce
+and of war, all nations observing these rules on terms of entire
+equality so that there shall be no discrimination against any such
+nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or
+charges of traffic, or otherwise. Such conditions and charges of
+traffic shall be just and equitable.
+
+"Second, the canal shall never be blockaded, nor shall any right of
+war be exercised, nor any act of hostility be committed within it. The
+United States, however, shall be at liberty to maintain such military
+police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against
+lawlessness and disorder.
+
+"Third, vessels of war of a belligerent shall not revictual nor take
+any stores in the canal except so far as may be strictly necessary;
+and the transit of such vessels through the canal shall be effected
+with the least possible delay in accordance with the regulations in
+force, and with only such intermissions as may result from the
+necessities of the service."
+
+It will be seen from this that the language of the treaty seems
+plainly to imply that the United States had no right to fortify the
+canal. It is interesting to note, however, that when the controversy
+over the tolls between the United States and England arose, the
+English Government expressly conceded the right of the United States
+to fortify the canal and to exercise absolute rights of sovereignty so
+far as military considerations were concerned. It would constitute an
+interesting chapter in diplomatic history if someone would tell the
+real reason why the English Government waived its rights of demanding
+a neutral canal under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
+
+Those who advocated the fortification of the canal contended that the
+United States had acquired practical sovereignty over the Canal Zone,
+and that thereunder it had a perfect right to provide for the defense
+of the territory. They asserted that the canal was undertaken because
+of the military necessities of the United States, as demonstrated by
+the trip of the _Oregon_ from the Pacific to the Atlantic, during the
+Spanish-American War and that to fail to fortify the canal would be to
+lose the military advantages which its construction had given to the
+United States.
+
+It was further contended that to allow the canal to be neutral would,
+in the case of war between the United States and some foreign power,
+compel the United States to keep its own warships out of the canal its
+own blood and money had built, or else compel its permanent operating
+force at Panama to commit a sort of legal treason by putting the
+enemy's ships through the big waterway on the same terms with American
+ships.
+
+This contention was answered by those who took the opposite view with
+the statement that all treaties would be suspended in case of war and
+that neutralization would cease between the United States and its
+enemies at such a time.
+
+The other side replied that if this were true, it would then be too
+late properly to fortify the Isthmus, and that if the United States
+expected ever to deny to any country the neutrality provisions of the
+Hay-Pauncefote treaty, the fortifications should by all means be built
+in advance.
+
+The long and earnest debate brought forth from some the prediction
+that England would not acquiesce in such a construction of the treaty,
+and from others the statement that under the terms of that instrument
+other nations had a right to protest against the fortification of the
+canal. In the face of these arguments, however, Congress determined by
+a substantial majority to fortify the canal, and the whole world has
+acquiesced. England not only did not protest, but in its toll
+controversy notes expressly declared that the United States had the
+right to fortify the canal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+FIXING THE TOLLS
+
+
+Long before the Panama Canal was finished shipping interests in every
+part of the world began inquiring minutely as to probable rates of
+toll, stating that it would be necessary for them to have this
+information before making plans to meet the changed conditions. Some
+wanted to plan construction of new ships, while others desired
+principally to readjust their transportation lines in accordance with
+the new conditions.
+
+With this in mind, President Taft in 1912 recommended to Congress the
+passage of a law fixing the tolls and providing for the permanent
+operation of the canal. Congress, acting upon this recommendation,
+passed what is known as the Permanent Canal Law. In this law are
+stated the terms under which the canal may be used by the shipping
+world. It authorizes the President to prescribe, and from time to time
+to change, the tolls that shall be levied by the Government of the
+United States for the use of the canal. No tolls may be levied on
+vessels passing through the canal from one United States port to
+another. Provision was also made that tolls might be based upon gross
+or net registered tonnage, displacement tonnage, or otherwise, and
+that they might be lower on vessels in ballast than upon vessels
+carrying cargo. When based upon net registered tonnage, for ships of
+commerce, the tolls can not exceed $1.25 per ton, nor be less, other
+than for vessels of the United States and its citizens, than the
+estimated proportional cost of the actual maintenance and operation of
+the canal. The toll for each passenger was fixed at not more than
+$1.50.
+
+Acting under the law authorizing him to fix the rates within the
+limitations stated by the law itself, President Taft issued a
+proclamation fixing the toll at $1.20 per net registered ton on all
+ships of commerce, other than those carrying cargo from one United
+States port to another. The net registered ton is the unit of
+measuring a ship's cargo-carrying capacity, used throughout the world
+in general, and by British shipping in particular. It consists of 100
+cubic feet of space, so that when a ship is measured its net
+registered tonnage is determined by the number of these units of space
+it contains. A ton of cargo seldom fills a hundred cubic feet of
+space; frequently it will not fill more than 40 cubic feet. The charge
+per ton of actual freight under this toll of $1.20 per net registered
+ton ranges from 44 to 80 cents a long ton upon the freight carried,
+depending upon the class of cargo. Such a toll adds from 2 to 4 cents
+per hundredweight to the freight rate between two points through the
+canal. It might cost 5 cents to take a barrel of flour from Colon to
+Panama, or vice versa.
+
+While ships will be charged tolls on the basis of net registered
+tonnage, not all ships carry freight upon that basis. In the majority
+of cases cargo is taken on at "ship's option"--either by weight or
+space. Forty cubic feet is estimated as the space occupied by an
+ordinary ton of freight, and ships usually carry cargo at rates based
+on that amount of space for each ton. The 40 cubic feet method of
+determining the amount of cargo carried is adopted by maritime
+interests because a long ton of wheat occupies about that amount of
+space. From this it will be seen that for the purpose of collecting
+tolls the United States allows 100 cubic feet of space for a ton,
+while the ordinary shipping firm allows only 40 feet per ton. Thus it
+happens that a shipowner charges the shipper for carrying 2-1/2 tons
+where the United States charges the shipowner for carrying 1 ton.
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that the shipowner collects for the carrying
+of 2-1/2 tons where he pays toll on 1 ton, he still has to pay what
+seems, in the aggregate, a large sum of money each time his ship
+passes through the canal. An ordinary 5,000-ton ship will be charged
+$6,000 for passing from one ocean to the other. A ship like the
+_Cleveland_, the first around the world tourist steamer advertised to
+pass through the canal, will have to pay $14,000 for the 12-hour trip
+from Colon to Panama. A steamship like the _Lusitania_ will have to
+put up some $30,000 for a single passage. The average ship will pay
+from $5,000 to $10,000 for its passage. This seems like a high rate,
+even though it does amount to only 2 or 4 cents per hundredweight of
+cargo, but when one takes into consideration the time saved in passing
+through the canal, and the cost of maintaining a ship on the high
+seas, the rate becomes a reasonable one.
+
+The average ship costs about 10 cents per net registered ton per day
+for keeping it in operation. Thus a 10,000-ton ship will save about a
+thousand dollars for each day its voyage is shortened. If this voyage
+be shortened by 20 days, the shipowner makes a net saving of $8,000
+when he selects the Panama route over some other route. In fact, he
+may save even more than this, for the other route might involve the
+giving of additional space for bunker coal, which otherwise would be
+used for cargo. Convenient coaling stations mean a minimum of space
+required for the operation of the ship and a maximum of cargo-carrying
+capacity. In this way a merchant ship might save several thousand
+dollars additional by choosing the Panama route over the Strait of
+Magellan.
+
+It is estimated that the tolls it will be necessary to collect to make
+the canal self-supporting will be $15,500,000 a year, since that
+amount will be required to meet the expense of operation and return 3
+per cent interest on the investment. The $15,500,000 is made up of
+$3,500,000 for operations, $250,000 for sanitation and government and
+$11,250,000 for interest on the $375,000,000 the canal cost. This
+takes no account of approximately $10,000,000 which will be required
+for the support of the troops on the Isthmus. Should this be
+considered, the total annual charges to be made would approximate
+$25,000,000, but this, in the view of those who have considered the
+matter, is not a proper charge against the cost of operation.
+
+[Illustration: THE ANCON BASEBALL PARK]
+
+[Illustration: CALEB M. SAVILLE
+
+GATUN SPILLWAY FROM ABOVE AND BELOW]
+
+It has been stated that a proper system of finances would provide
+for the repayment of the cost of constructing the canal in a hundred
+years. This would mean an annual charge of $3,750,000, and would bring
+the total annual outlay, exclusive of the cost of protection, up to
+$19,250,000. From this viewpoint the canal will not be self-sustaining
+until the total traffic approximates 17,000,000 tons a year, which it
+will reach about 1925.
+
+It has been estimated by Prof. Emory R. Johnson, the Government expert
+on canal traffic, that the total tonnage which will pass through the
+canal during the first year of its operation will approximate
+10,500,000 net registered tons. Since the shipping of the United
+States is permitted to pass through without paying tolls, the tonnage
+upon which toll will be collected will yield a gross revenue of
+approximately $10,000,000. This will afford the United States an
+income of a little less than 2 per cent on the money invested, after
+paying the actual cost of operation. On this basis it probably will be
+four or five years from the opening of the canal before the returns
+will yield 3 per cent on the investment.
+
+The ships of the world use approximately 75,000,000 tons of coal
+annually. The opening of the Panama Canal will save several million
+tons a year and the money thus saved will, in part, fall into the
+coffers of Uncle Sam. A vessel en route from Chile to Europe can save
+nearly enough in the cost of coal alone to pay the tolls that will be
+exacted at Panama.
+
+When the United States came to frame its system of toll charges and
+collections, it was found that there was a wide difference of opinion
+as to the right of the United States Government to exempt coastwise
+shipping from the payment of tolls. Under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty
+with Great Britain there was also a wide variance of opinion as to the
+question of whether the United States, as a matter of national policy,
+ought to exempt from the payment of tolls, ships trading between its
+own ports on the two coasts. These questions were argued pro and con,
+and Congress finally decided by a very close vote that the United
+States ought to allow ships trading between its own ports to use the
+canal free of charge. No foreign ships are permitted under any
+circumstances to engage in such traffic.
+
+Those who advocated the exemption of ships trading exclusively between
+United States ports from the payment of tolls, did so on the ground
+that it would build up a wealthy American merchant marine which would
+be invaluable to the United States in time of war, and also that it
+would tend to reduce freight rates between Atlantic and Pacific
+points. They argued that every cent added to the cost of
+transportation through the canal would be reflected in freight rates
+between the East and the West.
+
+Those who opposed the exemption of American coastwise shipping from
+the payment of tolls, asserted that the coastwise shipowners already
+had a monopoly on the handling of cargo between American ports, and
+that no further encouragement was needed. They argued that it would
+make little or no difference in rates whether tolls were charged or
+not, and that the only people who would benefit would be the
+shipowners. They contended that the United States ought to charge
+everybody alike and use the tolls collected for the purpose of
+repaying the money it spent in building the canal. Some of them also
+contended that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty bound the United States to
+treat all shippers alike, and that the United States could not
+discriminate in favor of the American coastwise traffic without
+contravening the treaty with Great Britain. This view, however, did
+not prevail, and the law, as enacted, exempted coastwise shipping.
+
+England immediately protested against this exemption on the ground
+that it was in contravention of the treaty between the two countries.
+The story of how the United States came to be bound by a treaty with
+Great Britain in the building of an Isthmian canal goes back for more
+than half a century. The year 1850 found the North American continent,
+north of the Rio Grande, in the possession of the United States,
+England, and Russia. The United States had only recently finished its
+continental expansion, and each of the two countries needed a canal to
+connect their east and west coasts. England had long possessed a west
+coast in Canada, but the United States had only recently come into
+possession of a Pacific seaboard. When it came to consider the
+question of connecting its two coasts the United States found that
+Great Britain was holding the position of advantage in the Isthmian
+region. It held the Bahamas, Bermuda, Jamaica, the Barbados, Trinidad,
+the Windward and Leeward Islands, British Guiana and British
+Honduras; and held a protectorate over the "Mosquito Coast," now the
+east coast of Nicaragua. That protectorate covered the eastern
+terminus of the only ship canal then deemed possible.
+
+Under these conditions the United States concluded that it was
+necessary for the support of the Monroe doctrine that some sort of an
+understanding should be reached between the two countries. England
+assented to such an understanding only after Nicaragua and Costa Rica
+had given to the United States its consent to the building of a canal
+across its territory. These treaties with Nicaragua and Costa Rica
+were negotiated but never ratified, and were used as a club to force
+Great Britain to make a treaty. The result was the Clayton-Bulwer
+treaty, which provided that neither Government should ever obtain or
+maintain for itself any exclusive control over an Isthmian canal, and
+that neither Government should ever secure for itself any rights or
+advantages not enjoyed by the other in such a canal. The proposed
+canal was to be entirely neutral, and the treaty set forth that the
+two countries agreed jointly to protect the entire Isthmian region
+from Tehauntepec to South America, and that the canal always should be
+open to both countries on equal terms. The canal under this treaty was
+intended to be entirely neutral with reference to defense, with
+reference to tolls, and with reference to such other nations as might
+join in maintaining neutrality.
+
+When the United States decided to build the Panama Canal, it found the
+Clayton-Bulwer treaty wholly unsuited to its aims and desires. It
+therefore asked England to enter into a new convention; the
+Hay-Pauncefote treaty was the result. This document declared that its
+purpose was to remove any objections that might arise under the
+Clayton-Bulwer treaty to the construction of an Isthmian canal under
+the auspices of the Government of the United States without impairing
+the general principle of neutralization.
+
+Under this treaty the Government of Great Britain made a protest
+against the decision of the United States to exempt its coastwise
+traffic from the payment of tolls, claiming such exemption to be a
+violation of the neutrality agreement. This protest came in the form
+of two notes to the American Government. The first was written as a
+warning to Congress that the British Government would regard the
+exemption of American coastwise traffic from the payment of tolls as a
+discrimination against British shipping, and a violation of the
+neutrality agreement between the two countries. It admitted that if
+the United States were to refund or to remit the tolls charged, it
+would not be a violation of the letter of the treaty, and acknowledged
+that if the exemption of coastwise American shipping from toll charges
+were so regulated as to make it certain that only bona fide coastwise
+traffic, which is reserved for American vessels, would be benefited by
+this agreement, then Great Britain could have no objection. But it
+declared that England did not believe that such regulation was
+possible.
+
+After Congress, with this note in mind, had passed the canal toll law
+with an exemption to ships carrying goods between the two coasts of
+the United States, President Taft, in approving the measure, declared
+that the canal was built wholly at the cost of the United States on
+territory ceded to it by a nation that had the indisputable right to
+make the cession, and that, therefore, it was nobody else's business
+how we managed it. He contended that for many years American law had
+given to American ships the exclusive right to handle cargo between
+American ports, and that, therefore, England was not hurt at all when
+that shipping was exempted from toll charges.
+
+England responded, in a second note, that the clear obligation of the
+United States under the treaty was to keep the canal open to the
+citizens and subjects of the United States and Great Britain on equal
+terms, and to allow the ships of all nations to use it on terms of
+entire equality. It also contended that the United States is embraced
+in this term of "all nations"; that the British Government would
+scarcely have entered into the Hay-Pauncefote treaty if it had
+understood that England was to be denied the equal use of the Panama
+Canal with America. The three direct objections urged by the British
+against the American canal law were: That it gives the President the
+right to discriminate against foreign shipping; that it exempts
+coastwise traffic from paying tolls; and that it gives the
+Government-owned vessels of the Republic of Panama the right to use
+the canal free. The answer of the United States to the first of these
+objections was that the right of the President to fix tolls in a way
+that would be discriminatory against British shipping was a question
+that could be considered only when the President should exercise such
+action.
+
+The British Government expressed the fear that the United States, in
+remitting tolls on coastwise business, would assess the entire charges
+of maintenance of the canal upon the vessels of foreign trade and thus
+cause them to bear an unequal burden. This, the second objection was
+answered with the statement that, whereas the treaty gives the United
+States the right to levy charges sufficient to meet the interest of
+the capital expended and the cost of maintaining and operating the
+canal, the early years of its operation will be at a loss and,
+therefore, at a lower rate than Great Britain could ask under the
+treaty. The third objection was considered insignificant.
+
+The British Government, after laying down its objections to the
+American canal toll law, requested that the matter be submitted to The
+Hague tribunal for adjudication. The American Government declared that
+this course would not be just to the United States, since the majority
+of the court would be composed of men, the interests of whose
+countries would be identical with those of England in such a
+controversy. Before leaving office President Taft proposed that the
+matter should be submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States.
+The whole question was left in that situation when the change from the
+Taft to the Wilson administration took place.
+
+As to the merits of the controversy, there is no unanimity of opinion
+on either side of the Atlantic. Some British authorities entirely
+justify the American position, while some American authorities take
+the British position. It is probable that the controversy will require
+years for settlement.
+
+Before the canal was open for traffic there was much speculation as to
+what rate policies the railroads would adopt to meet the situation
+caused by the competition of the Panama Canal. If the same classes of
+goods are handled through the canal as across the United States, there
+will be more than 3,000 different articles on the tariff books of
+steamship lines using the canal. In his report on the effects of canal
+tolls on railroad rates, Prof. Emory R. Johnson expressed the opinion
+that the payment of tolls by ships engaged in coast trade would affect
+neither the rates of the regular steamship lines nor the charges of
+the transcontinental railroads.
+
+[Illustration: AN ELECTRIC TOWING LOCOMOTIVE IN ACTION]
+
+[Illustration: BLOWING UP THE SECOND DIKE SOUTH OF MIRAFLORES LOCKS]
+
+A provision of the canal toll law forbids any railroad to be directly
+or indirectly interested in any ship passing through the canal,
+carrying freight in competition with that railroad. This provision was
+inserted to prevent the railroads from controlling the steamship lines
+using the canal, and through that control fixing rates between the two
+coasts on such a basis as to prevent effective competition with the
+railroads themselves. The result was that a number of railroads had to
+dispose of their steamships engaged in coastwise trade. This provision
+affects several Canadian railroads, and after it was made the British
+Government served notice on the United States that it intended to take
+up this question and consider whether or not the law in this
+particular does not infringe upon British rights.
+
+Nothing seems more certain than that, in the course of years, canal
+tolls will be materially lowered from the $1.20 fixed by the
+President. It seems inevitable that the Panama Canal and the Suez
+Canal will enter into a lively battle for the great volume of trade
+between eastern Asiatic and Australasian points and western European
+ports. On this dividing line between the two great interoceanic
+highways there originates many millions of tons of traffic, and this
+will be largely clear gain to the canal which gets it. The
+considerations which will draw this trade one way or the other are the
+rates of toll, the convenience of coaling stations, the price of coal,
+and the certainty of the ability to secure proper ship stores. This
+spirit of competition will probably serve to lower rates more rapidly
+than they otherwise might be reduced. With some 10,000,000 tons of
+traffic on the great divide between the two canals, ready to be sent
+forward by the route which offers the best inducements, it is certain
+that good business policy will call for some hustling on the part of
+both canals. As the business of the Panama Canal expands, it can
+afford to reduce rates. With an ultimate capacity of 80,000,000 tons a
+year, as the canal stands to-day, the rate of toll could be cut down
+to 25 cents a ton when that capacity is reached, and still afford the
+United States an income large enough to take care of the operation and
+maintenance of the canal, and sanitation and government of the Canal
+Zone, to meet the interest on the cost of building it, and to
+amortize the entire debt in a hundred years.
+
+It is certain that the United States made a good investment at Panama.
+Assuming that the coastwise traffic is worth to the Government the
+amount of the tolls it is exempted from paying, the canal becomes a
+self-supporting institution from the day of its opening, leaving all
+the military and trade advantages it affords the United States as
+clear profit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE OPERATING FORCE
+
+
+It will require a force of about 2,700 persons to operate the Panama
+Canal. The major portion of this force will be engaged on the port
+works at the two ends of the waterway. With a large mechanical plant
+at Balboa, with large docks for the transhipment of cargo, and with
+other facilities required for making the canal the best equipped
+waterway in the world for handling marine business, more men will be
+needed for the conduct of the auxiliary works than for actually
+putting ships through the locks.
+
+The force required at the locks will be comparatively small. It will
+consist of men in general charge of the lock operations, men in charge
+of the towing operations, men who handle the various mechanism and
+operate the several types of valves for the regulation of the water in
+the locks; and the general labor force consisting of a few hundred
+operatives at each end of the canal. A force will be required to
+operate the big hydro-electric station at Gatun Spillway, where the
+electricity for the operation of the locks and for the lighting of the
+canal will be generated. Another force will be required at the
+auxiliary power plant at Miraflores which will be operated by steam.
+Fewer than a thousand men will be required in putting ships through
+the canal.
+
+When the question of placing the canal on a permanent operating basis
+arose one of the first considerations was the scale of salaries to be
+fixed. Having in mind the fact that salaries paid during the
+construction period (which were 50 per cent above the standard in the
+United States) were based upon conditions existing in the early days
+of the American occupation, it was decided that this was an unfair
+basis for the permanent organization. The salaries for the
+construction period were made high because they had to be. It was more
+a question of reducing men to risk their lives than of fixing fair
+rates of compensation. The conclusion reached was that there was no
+longer any reason why the Government should pay salaries so much
+higher than obtained in the States, especially in view of the fact
+that all positions under the permanent organization would carry with
+them free quarters, free medical attendance, free fuel, free light,
+free hospital service and the like. It was finally determined that it
+would be fair to both the employee and the employer to establish as a
+basis of compensation for services in the permanent organization a
+scale of salaries not to exceed 25 per cent higher than obtained for
+similar positions in the United States. This decision was made on the
+basis that it would be fair to the employee and at the same time would
+allow the canal to be operated at a cost which would impose no undue
+burden on shipping.
+
+When Congress took up the matter in the enactment of the permanent
+canal law, it reflected the recommendations of the chairman and chief
+engineer of the Canal Commission in almost every particular. With
+reference to the canal employees, that body provided that they should
+be appointed by the President or by his authorities, and that they
+should be removable at his pleasure; also, that their compensation
+should be fixed by him until such time as Congress should regulate it
+by law.
+
+The head of the permanent force on the Canal Zone will be known as the
+Governor of the Panama Canal. He is to be appointed by the President
+with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a four-year term, or
+until his successor shall be appointed and qualified. He will receive
+a salary of $10,000 a year, and will be the personal representative of
+the President on the Isthmus. Indeed, the permanent organic act
+provides that the President himself is authorized, after the
+disbanding of the Isthmian Canal Commission--which is to take place
+whenever the President thinks the work has approached a sufficient
+degree of completion to warrant it--to complete, govern, and operate
+the Panama Canal, and to govern the Canal Zone, if he desires to do it
+himself; or "cause it to be completed, governed, and operated through
+a governor of the canal." Of course, the President will prefer to
+"cause it to be completed, governed, and operated" through such a
+governor. As a matter of fact, when the question of selecting a
+governor comes before the President it may be expected that he will
+choose a man in whom he has every confidence to carry out the organic
+law on the Canal Zone, and to place the canal in operation. This man
+will be as much of an autocrat on the Zone under the permanent
+organization as the chairman and chief engineer was during the
+construction.
+
+When President Roosevelt undertook to carry out the provisions of the
+Spooner Act, and to have the canal dug by a board of seven
+commissioners, each independent of the other, he soon found that it
+would not work. After repeated trials he came to the conclusion that
+the control of affairs on the Isthmus should be concentrated largely
+under the chairman and chief engineer. He therefore issued an
+executive order requiring that all officials on the Isthmus should
+report to the chairman and chief engineer, giving him practically all
+control over the entire project. This brought both the Canal Zone
+Government and the sanitary department under the supervision of the
+chairman and chief engineer. The result was a coordination of the work
+and a satisfactory organization for its prosecution.
+
+When Congress came to make the permanent canal law it profited by the
+unsatisfactory results that would have grown out of a rigid adherence
+to the principles of the Spooner Act, and concentrated all authority
+under the governor of the Canal Zone. There were those who thought the
+sanitary department should not be under the control of the governor,
+and still others who felt that the operation of the canal probably
+should be under one man and the civil government under another. But
+these suggestions were not followed, and the act as finally adopted
+makes the President practically a czar of the Isthmus, and under him
+the governor need give account to no one but the President.
+
+It has been the ambition of the present chief engineer of the canal to
+see the operating force fully installed and things moving along on a
+satisfactory working basis before leaving the Isthmus. He thinks
+arrangements should be made whereby acute changes of policy should be
+prevented. This he would do by having a principal assistant who would
+succeed the governor at the end of his four-year term. This would
+permit a continuous policy and an unbroken line of action which,
+according to his view, would make for the efficiency of the operating
+force. In speaking of this phase of the matter, he stated that were a
+new man chosen at the end of the four-year term of his predecessor--a
+man who had had no previous experience on the Isthmus--there would
+always be a tendency to make radical changes.
+
+He would have on the governor's staff a doctor from the Army to have
+charge of the work of sanitation on the Canal Zone, who would report
+directly to the governor. The quarantine officer, in his opinion,
+should be under the Public Health Service of the United States. Under
+the plan as adopted in the permanent canal law, any officer of the
+Army or of the Navy chosen to fill a position in the canal operating
+force will be paid the same salary as a civilian, with the exception
+that he would get only the difference between his regular Army or Navy
+pay and the salary his position carried.
+
+It is estimated that the expense of operating the canal will amount to
+about $3,500,000 a year. This includes the cost of operating a number
+of dredges which will have to be maintained in connection with the
+canal work. The estimate was made upon the amount of business handled
+at the Sault Ste. Marie Canal which has the largest traffic of any
+canal in the world.
+
+There will be five departments for the operation of the canal outside
+of the work of maintaining the civil government and sanitation. The
+operating department will have charge of the operation of docks and
+wharves at the terminals, pilotage, lockage, and the lighting of the
+canal. It is estimated that it will cost $400,000 a year to maintain
+the terminals, $150,000 a year to light the canal, and that it will
+require 60 pilots, at $1,800 each a year, to take ships through.
+During the first years of operation it is believed that a single shift
+can handle all the business that comes, but, as the years go by, it
+may require two shifts and eventually three to keep the work going.
+
+The engineering department will require about 500 men and will have
+charge of all the construction and repair work pertaining to the canal
+property, and of all excavation and dredging in the canal. It will
+cost approximately a million dollars a year to maintain this
+department, of which three-fourths will be required for the operation
+of the dredges and other equipment for keeping the canal open.
+
+The quartermaster's department will have charge of the construction,
+repair, and maintenance of all buildings, roads, and municipal
+improvements in the Zone settlements and of the receipt, care, and
+issue of all property and material. This department will require
+nearly a thousand men and the total expense will be in the
+neighborhood of $600,000.
+
+The electrical and mechanical department will have charge of the
+mechanical and electrical apparatus belonging to the canal, and of the
+permanent works at its two ends.
+
+The accounting department will require some 60 men with annual
+salaries amounting to approximately a hundred thousand dollars. It is
+estimated that the cost of materials for the operation of the canal
+will range around three-fourths of a million dollars a year.
+
+The force which will be maintained on the Isthmus, with their
+families, will make a Canal Zone population of approximately 5,000.
+These, in addition to the eight or nine thousand troops and marines
+which will be quartered there, will bring the total population up to
+about thirteen or fourteen thousand. Of these perhaps three-fourths
+will be along the southern 10-mile section of the canal. But, in spite
+of the greater population at the Pacific side, the Atlantic end will
+probably not lack for attraction. It is likely that Gatun Lake will be
+stocked with a supply of fresh-water fish, and that shooting preserves
+will be established adjacent to Gatun, to be conducted in connection
+with the Washington Hotel at Colon. There is also some talk of
+constructing golf links adjacent to Gatun, which will be open alike to
+the employees of the canal and to the guests of the two big Government
+hotels--the Washington and the Tivoli.
+
+While a freight-carrying steamer will make its stay as short as
+possible, the probabilities are that the passenger-carrying steamer
+will require at least 48 hours to make its calls at the two terminal
+cities and pass through the canal. They will probably handle the major
+portion of the package cargo, leaving the bulk cargo business entirely
+for freighters. When going through the canal from the Atlantic to the
+Pacific they probably will have cargo bound for a large number of
+Pacific ports on diverse routes. This would be discharged at Balboa
+and there be put into other ships to be carried to its destination.
+During the time the shipping and unshipping of cargo, replenishing
+stores, taking on coal and like operations are being performed, the
+traveler will be afforded opportunity to get acquainted with dry land
+again, and to enjoy for a day or two a respite from his long sea
+journey.
+
+The plan advocated on the Isthmus for perfecting the permanent
+organization was as follows: The chairman and chief engineer would
+call upon each of the departments to furnish a list with the ratings
+of the best men. The man having the best record would be offered a
+position under the permanent organization similar to the one held by
+him under the construction organization. If he chose to accept this
+position under the wage standard laid out he could do so; if he did
+not, the next man would be given the opportunity, and so on down. In
+this way it was expected that the entire force would be chosen because
+of records made in the service.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+HANDLING THE TRAFFIC
+
+
+Four or five years before the earliest probable opening date, shipping
+interests began to arrange their future schedules with respect to the
+Panama Canal.
+
+One can scarcely realize how rapidly the facilities of the canal will
+be utilized. At the rate of expansion witnessed in the world's marine
+traffic during the past two or three decades, 17,000,000 tons of
+shipping will be handled through the canal in 1925, 27,000,000 tons in
+1935, and 44,000,000 tons in 1945.
+
+The maximum capacity of 80,000,000 tons assumes a passage of 48
+vessels a day through the canal, or one for every half hour of the
+twenty-four. Two vessels a day of 4,000 tons each, at the present
+charge, will render the canal self-supporting.
+
+While the great Isthmian highway will be completed far enough ahead to
+be ready to handle all traffic that offers long before the official
+opening date, it will, on the other hand, never reach that stage where
+dredges will not be needed. There are 22 rivers which wend their way
+from the watersheds of the canal, and pour their loads of sand and
+silt into it. Of course, these rivers are small--so small, indeed,
+that few of them would be dignified by being called rivers in the
+United States. But when the heavens open and the floods descend, as
+they do so frequently during the rainy season at Panama, these usually
+quiet, lazy, little streams become almost as angry as the mighty
+Chagres itself, and they rush down to the canal heavily freighted with
+sand and silt. If the water in the great interoceanic channel is to be
+kept at its appointed depth of 41 feet, dredging perforce must be
+continued from year to year, summer and winter, spring and fall. And
+so it is that the dredges will be met by every ship that steers its
+course from Cristobal to Balboa, or from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
+
+Few ships large enough to tax the dimensional capacity of the locks
+ever will go through the canal. Full 90 per cent of all the ships that
+sail the seas could go through locks one-half the size of those at
+Panama. So far as commercial shipping is concerned, a 15,000-ton
+vessel plying tropical waters is considered large, and a 20,000-ton
+ship is an exception. According to the best shipping authorities, the
+day when vessels of more than 25,000 tons will find it profitable to
+ply on the routes which lead through the Panama Canal is so far in the
+future that they are not able to discern it. With reference to the
+Navy, naval experts generally agree that the United States will
+celebrate many a decade of passing years before a battleship too large
+to use the present lock chambers is a possibility.
+
+When a ship makes its maiden voyage through the canal, the
+measurements to determine its net register will be taken by the
+shipping experts in the employ of the United States. When this work
+is completed the master of the ship will be required to pay the toll
+before he can take his vessel through the canal. If he should fail to
+pay the toll the vessel itself would be put on the block and sold at
+auction, if necessary, to reimburse the United States for its passage.
+However, it is not to be expected that such contingencies as these
+will arise. When once a ship has been measured, the formality will not
+have to be gone through with on future visits. It is not expected that
+each ship will be actually measured for every dimension as it comes to
+the canal on its first trip, since its net register tonnage probably
+will have been determined long before, and the canal officials will
+only check up the work already done elsewhere to assure its accuracy.
+
+Many ships will go to Panama which will not use the canal. For
+instance, there will be those which will leave European ports, loaded
+in part with cargo bound to Pacific points and in part with cargo for
+Atlantic points on the South and Central American coast. Such ships
+will simply call at Colon, discharge their cargo bound to Pacific
+points, and take on what additional cargo they can get bound for
+points for which they are sailing on the Atlantic side. In stopping at
+Colon they will probably replenish their supplies from the commissary
+department of the canal.
+
+What the freight department is to a railroad the cargo ship will be to
+the Panama Canal--its greatest revenue producer. Such ships will do
+comparatively little loading and unloading of cargo at either end of
+the canal. The tramp steamer will figure largely in the traffic that
+passes from ocean to ocean at Panama. With no schedule of sailing
+dates and with no definite routes, the tramps constitute the flying
+squadron of the shipping world, moving hither and thither seeking
+cargoes wherever they can find them. A tramp steamer may load at
+Liverpool for San Francisco, reach that point through the Panama
+Canal, and, after discharging its cargo, go on up to Seattle and load
+for China. There it may discharge its cargo again and go thence to
+India to pick up a load of grain for Liverpool, passing through the
+Suez Canal. Its master always will turn its prow to the point where
+profitable cargo awaits it, and this may carry it by Panama once or a
+dozen times a year. The line steamers will have their regular sailing
+dates and will pass through the canal at stated intervals.
+
+The problem of providing coal for passing ships is one of the most
+important with which the canal authorities will have to deal. The
+cheaper that commodity can be sold to the ships, the more attractive
+the route will be. For instance, a 10,000-ton ship which saves a
+dollar a ton on a thousand tons of coal, saves the equivalent of the
+cost of operating the vessel for a period of from 24 to 36 hours, and
+this, with the rates at Suez and Panama on an equal basis, gives at
+least one day's advantage to the Panama route in figuring on a voyage.
+Pocahontas steaming coal costs $2.70 per ton laid down at Newport
+News. Under the carrying agreements with shipping interests that
+obtained during the construction period, this coal was carried to
+Panama for $1.395 a ton. It is estimated that the canal colliers,
+which have been authorized by Congress, with a capacity of 12,000 tons
+of coal and with a speed of 14 knots, can deliver to the Isthmus a
+half million tons of coal a year. The saving which will be effected by
+having the coal carried by Government colliers is a large one. A
+merchantman would get $368,000 for delivering 264,000 tons of coal,
+while the cost of delivery by collier for the same amount would
+approximate $184,000. The average life of a collier is 20 years. The
+saving effected in these 20 years by the Government carrying its own
+coal would be large enough to pay back the million dollars which the
+collier cost, and to yield an additional profit of $2,630,000 during
+the life of the vessel.
+
+The sale of coal at Suez, where an annual shipping traffic of some
+21,000,000 tons is handled, amounts approximately to 1,000,000 tons.
+Thus, it will require two colliers to handle the coal when the canal
+opens, and two more 13 years later.
+
+Not all the ships which use the canal will coal there. For instance,
+the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which was so forehanded in its
+effort to get a good share of the trans-Isthmian traffic that it
+acquired the Pacific Steam Navigation Company long before the canal
+opened, is building a coaling station at Kingston, Jamaica, where its
+ships will replenish their bunkers. This coaling station will, of
+course, always be at the disposition of the British Government in case
+of war, and of such British merchantmen that choose to pass that way.
+
+Some ships will not negotiate the canal under their own power. Many
+small vessels steer so badly that their masters would be afraid to
+risk them going through without aid. For instance, the skipper of the
+Cristobal, one of the 6,000-ton cement-carrying ships bought by the
+United States a few years ago, declared, in discussing this phase of
+the matter, that he would be afraid to trust his vessel going through
+the canal under its own power. To ships not sufficiently responsive to
+their helms, Government tugs will be furnished.
+
+Some skippers prefer to have their vessels towed by one powerful tug,
+while others prefer several smaller ones. Several tugs are now
+building for towing purposes, and they will also be used to tow
+vessels through the locks in the early days of operation, pending the
+completion of all of the electric towing locomotives.
+
+Two floating cranes will be provided in the permanent equipment at a
+cost of a quarter of a million dollars each. These cranes, with a
+lifting power of 250 tons, will be suitable for any wrecking
+operations in the canal and, also, for lifting the gates in case of
+repairs being required.
+
+The canal will probably be the death blow to the sailing ship of
+international commerce. Not being able to negotiate the canal under
+their own power, and because of the dead calms which prevail in the
+Gulf of Panama, sailing ships will be stopped from using the Isthmian
+waterway. When they attempt to journey around Cape Horn and the Cape
+of Good Hope in competition with steam vessels which pass through the
+Panama Canal, the operation will afford such little profit that in
+the course of a few years they will have to surrender what little
+share of international commerce they have succeeded in keeping.
+
+The Panamans are inclined to think the United States drove a hard
+bargain when the provision was inserted in the treaty that all
+supplies for the building and operation of the canal, and for the
+demands of shipping using it, when imported by the United States,
+should be free of duty. This practically gives the United States a
+monopoly of the business of catering to the needs of ships passing
+Panama. The present duty on imports is 15 per cent, and the local
+merchant who would sell supplies to the passing ships would be under
+the necessity of adding 15 per cent to his buying price before he
+could compete with the United States Government on equal terms. This
+advantage is made all the more marked by the reasons of the fact that
+the United States often can make much money out of the operation by
+selling at actual cost, the profit arising from the extra shipping
+which is thereby attracted to the canal.
+
+The United States will reimburse the owners of any vessels passing
+through the locks of the canal, under the control of its operatives,
+for any injury which may result to vessel, cargo, or passengers.
+Provision is made under the permanent canal law that regulations shall
+be promulgated by the President which will provide for the prompt
+adjustment, by agreement, and immediate payment of claims. In case of
+disagreement, suit may be brought in the district court of the Canal
+Zone against the governor of the Panama Canal. The law says: "The
+hearing and disposition of such cases shall be expedited and the
+judgment shall be immediately paid out of any moneys appropriated or
+allotted for canal operation."
+
+The character of misrepresentations made concerning the canal was
+illustrated in a story published in the midsummer of 1913. This story
+originated in London and declared that all of the big shipping
+interests were afraid of the Panama Canal, and that Lloyds would
+insure vessels and cargo only at much advanced rates. The article went
+on to state that the representative of one of the biggest European
+lines had visited the Isthmus and had returned with the announcement
+that his company could not afford to trust its vessels in the canal.
+
+As a matter of fact, with the United States Government standing
+responsible for any damage sustained in the canal, no shipping
+interest could sensibly regard it as extra hazardous to pass through
+it; rather, it would be less hazardous than to negotiate the tortuous
+Strait of Magellan, where thousands of wrecks tell of unseen dangers,
+or to round Cape Horn with its fierce storms and its grave perils.
+
+Much has been said about the probability of injury to the canal by
+persons of evil intent, and the Panama Canal law imposes heavy
+penalties on anyone attempting to inflict such an injury. The law
+provides that the governor of the Canal Zone shall make rules and
+regulations, subject to the approval of the President, touching the
+right of any person to remain upon or pass over any part of the Canal
+Zone. "Any person violating these rules or regulations shall be guilty
+of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction in the district court of the
+Canal Zone, shall be fined not exceeding $500 or imprisoned not
+exceeding a year, or both penalties in the discretion of the court.
+Any person who, by any means or any way, injures or obstructs or
+attempts to injure or obstruct any part of the Panama Canal, or the
+locks thereof, or the approaches thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a
+felony and on conviction shall be punished by a fine not to exceed
+$10,000 or by imprisonment not to exceed 20 years, or by the
+infliction of both of these penalties. If the act shall cause the
+death of any person within a year and a day thereafter, the person so
+convicted shall be guilty of murder and shall be punished
+accordingly." As a further precaution, individuals will not be allowed
+to approach the locks with any sort of packages unless they are
+properly vouched for.
+
+The possibility of serious injury to the locks will be carefully
+guarded against. They will be lighted at night by electric lamps of
+large candlepower and the whole lock structure will be kept as light
+as day throughout the night. Men will be always on sentry duty, and an
+adequate system of intercommunication will enable the sentries to call
+out a guard large enough to repulse any attack of any small surprising
+party.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA
+
+
+The Republic of Panama is one of the smallest countries in the world,
+its territory being about equal to that of the State of Indiana. It
+has no national debt, and has $7,000,000 invested in mortgages, on
+real estate in New York City.
+
+When it received $10,000,000 from the United States, in payment for
+the rights under which the Panama Canal was built, it immediately
+invested about 75 per cent of it, using the remainder for paying the
+expenses of the revolution, and for setting the new government on its
+feet. It now receives $250,000 a year from the United States as rental
+for the Canal Zone, and this, with the $350,000 received as interest
+from its real estate mortgages in New York, gives it an annual income
+of $600,000 outside of money raised by the usual processes of
+taxation.
+
+Under the treaty with the United States, Panama has its independence
+guaranteed, and recognizes the right of the United States to maintain
+order within its boundaries. This entirely does away with the
+necessity of maintaining an army and navy. The result is that with no
+appropriations required for military purposes, and with a $600,000
+income from the Canal Zone, it enjoys one of the lowest tax rates in
+the world.
+
+Although the Republic of Panama has its Declaration of Independence
+and its Glorious Fourth, the former was written by a foreigner, and
+the latter occurs in November. There is some dispute as to who wrote
+the declaration of independence, but the best information points
+either to Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a Frenchman, or to William Nelson
+Cromwell, an American. These two gentlemen differ upon this subject,
+each claiming that he was the Thomas Jefferson of Panama.
+
+When the $10,000,000 was paid to Panama by the United States, one of
+the first things done was to build a university, locally known as the
+National Institute. Some $800,000 was spent in the construction of the
+buildings, which are located near the line of the Canal Zone. But it
+so happens that Panama has few teachers qualified to hold university
+chairs, and fewer students qualified to pursue university courses; and
+the result is that the university is more a place of buildings than a
+seat of learning.
+
+No other country in the world calls in another nation to superintend
+its elections. When the first presidential election was held the
+United States took the initiative and demanded the right to supervise
+the balloting. Before the second election was held the President
+became ambitious to succeed himself, although the constitution
+provided that he could not do so. He thereupon decided to resign for a
+period of six months, in favor of one of his partisans, thinking that
+this would allow him to live up to the letter of the constitution
+even though he were violating its spirit in becoming a candidate for
+reelection. This situation was brought to the attention of the United
+States, and the President was politely but firmly informed that the
+subterfuge would not be permitted. When the election approached each
+side thought that the other was trying to win by fraud, and the United
+States was asked to referee the political battle.
+
+The City of Panama is famous for its wickedness. Men who have seen the
+seamy side of life in all of the big cities of the world declare that
+Panama is as bad as the worst of them. Until a few years ago
+bull-fighting was permitted, but the bulls were so poor and the
+fighters were such butchers that the Government finally outlawed this
+form of entertainment. Cock-fighting persists, and numerous cock pits
+are popular resorts every Sunday. Nowhere else can one witness a
+greater frenzy in betting than at one of these cocking mains. The
+backers of the rival birds nod their heads and place their bets so
+rapidly that it is more bewildering to the onlooker than the bidding
+at an auctioneer's junk sale.
+
+The prize ring has succeeded the bull ring in gratifying the
+Spaniard's thirst for gore, and scarcely a Sunday passes that there is
+not a prize fight in Panama. Few Americans who attend them come away
+without a feeling of disgust over the poor fighting, the brutality,
+and the trickery resorted to.
+
+While the Americans have done so much for public cleanliness in Panama
+and Colon, the masses seem to know little more about sanitary living
+today than before the Americans came. The stenches which greet the
+visitor in the native quarters are no less odorous than those
+encountered in other cities of tropical America. The bathtub is an
+unknown quantity among the masses. Most of the natives who live in the
+cities are engaged in some line of small trade. It may be that a shop
+has only a platter of sweetmeats and a few bottles of soda on ice, and
+that another has only a bushel of different kinds of tropical fruits,
+but out of the small sales large families manage in some way to exist.
+The markets open early in the morning. There is no spirit of rivalry
+among the market men, and they act usually as if they were conferring
+a favor upon the buyer. At the markets many Indians are encountered
+who bring their wares from the interior and offer them for sale. These
+usually consist of pottery, net bags, charcoal and the like.
+
+Life among the Panamans in the jungle is simple indeed. With his
+machete the householder may provide a thatched roof for his
+mud-floored hut, and he can raise enough beans, plantains and yams,
+and burn enough charcoal, and catch enough fish to meet all of his
+needs. In the kitchen the principal utensils are gourds and cocoanut
+shells. The most tempting morsel that the Panaman can get is the
+iguana, a lizard as big as a cat, whose meat is said to taste like
+spring chicken. It is about the ugliest creature in the animal world,
+and yet it means more to the native Panaman than does possum meat to
+the cotton-field darky of the South.
+
+The unconscious cruelty of the average native is remarked by almost
+every visitor. He is usually too lazy to be conscious of cruelty, for
+that would require exertion. When he catches the iguana, for
+instance, he takes it alive so that it may be fattened before being
+killed. Its short legs are twisted and crossed above its back, and the
+sharp claw of one foot is thrust through the fleshy part of the other,
+so as to hold them together without other fastening. The tail, being
+useless for food, is chopped off with the machete, and thus mutilated
+and unable to move, the lizard is kept captive until fat enough to
+eat.
+
+The fruits of Panama are neither so numerous nor so plentiful as those
+of Nicaragua or Jamaica. The mamei is a curious pulpy fruit the size
+of a peach, with a skin like chamois and with a smooth pit the size of
+a peach-stone. The sapodilla is a plum-colored fruit with seeds in a
+gelatinous mass. One is usually introduced to the sapodilla with the
+remark that, although the seeds are eaten, they have never been known
+to cause appendicitis.
+
+Cedar is preferred to mahogany in Panama. The Indians make their
+cayucas out of mahogany logs, and it is not uncommon to see bridges 40
+feet long and 5 feet thick, made of mahogany logs which would be worth
+several thousands of dollars in an American furniture factory.
+
+Panama is famous for its tropical flowers. Many of them are beautiful,
+but few are sweet smelling. Orchids abound, especially on the Atlantic
+side, and while the waters of the Chagres were being impounded in
+Gatun Lake, native boatmen would go out in their cayucas and gather
+orchids from the trees. One of the most beautiful of the orchids of
+Panama is the Holy Ghost orchid. It blooms biennially, and when its
+petals fold back they reveal a likeness to a dove.
+
+Some of the American Women on the Canal Zone became enthusiastic
+collectors of tropical flowers. Among these were Mrs. David Du Bose
+Gaillard and Mrs. Harry Harwood Rousseau. Both of these ladies spent
+much time hunting orchids and other flowers for the verandas of their
+houses and for their gardens. Mrs. Rousseau made trips into several of
+the other countries of Central America in her quest for new orchids.
+The collections made by these two ladies represent the finest on the
+whole Isthmus of Panama.
+
+The animal life of the Isthmus is not abundant, although some deer and
+a few tapirs are to be found. Alligators abound in the Chagres River
+and other streams of the Zone. Perhaps the most interesting form of
+animal life to be found on the Isthmus is the leaf-cutting ant. This
+ant seems to be nature's original fungus grower. As one walks around
+the American settlements, he frequently comes upon a long path filled
+with ants, passing back and forth. They resemble a sort of miniature
+yacht under full sail, except that the sails are green instead of
+white. Upon closer examination it is found that what seemed to be a
+sail is a triangular piece of leaf carried on the back of the ant,
+with its edges to the wind so as to overcome air resistance. The ants
+do not gather these leaves for food, but they store them in such a way
+that a fungus grows upon them. They eat the fungus, and when the
+leaves are no longer useful they are thrown out and new supplies
+brought in.
+
+The native remedies used by the Panamans are many and interesting. For
+stomach troubles, which are very rare, they eat papaya. The papaya is
+a sort of fruit which might be a cross between a cantaloupe, a
+watermelon and a pumpkin, except that it grows on trees. It has the
+rind of a green pumpkin, the meat of a cantaloupe, and the seeds of a
+watermelon. It is probably richer in vegetable pepsin than any other
+plant in existence--a pepsin which neutralizes either alkaline or acid
+conditions in the stomach. It is said that a tough steak, wrapped in
+the leaf of the papaya tree overnight, becomes tender as the result of
+the digestive action of the pepsin in it.
+
+The Indians and Panamans who live in the jungle use the wood of the
+cacique, or "monkey cocoanut," to stop any flow of blood. In their
+materia medica they have a large number of tropical plants which they
+use for their ailments.
+
+The way in which sanitary instruction may be made efficient is
+illustrated among some of the people of Panama. Upon one occasion the
+Canal Record carried a small diagram of how to make a sanitary
+drinking cup out of a sheet of paper. After that there were many
+Panamans who, although in a hundred ways indifferent to contagion,
+would no longer drink from common drinking cups, but would make their
+own sanitary cups. Even the Jamaican negroes employed around the
+offices of the commission in many instances would not think of using
+the common drinking glass at the office water-cooler.
+
+Two tribes of Indians on the Isthmus have not mixed with the
+Caucasians or the negroes. They are the Chucunoques and the San Blas
+Indians. The latter tribe has never been known to allow a white man to
+remain in its territory after sundown. Even the higher officials of
+the Panaman Government are forced to respect this tradition when they
+treat with the San Blas chiefs.
+
+Government land in Panama can be bought at the rate of $49.60 for 247
+acres, with reductions for larger areas. The Government invites
+foreign capital, declaring that the United States stands as a
+perpetual guarantee against revolutions within and aggressions
+without.
+
+The story of the early days in Panaman history is a strange admixture
+of romance and cruelty. The Isthmus was discovered in 1500, and first
+settled by an adventurer who had been the Royal Carver in the king's
+household at Madrid. Balboa, carrying with him a small force of men
+and a lot of bloodhounds, one of them a dog of mighty prowess, known
+as Lioncico, or "Little Lion," which drew a captain's pay because of
+its fighting qualities, crossed the Isthmus in 1513 and discovered the
+Pacific Ocean. After him came a new governor of the Isthmus, who put
+Balboa to death.
+
+The Spaniards were unspeakably cruel to the Indians. Even those who
+received them kindly were tortured and roasted to death, because they
+did not produce enough gold. One governor rode a mule, which was noted
+for the frequency of its braying. The Indians were taught that the
+mule was asking for gold, and in meeting these demands they not only
+had to give what they possessed, but were forced to rob the graves of
+their ancestors as well. Upon one occasion the Indians, having
+captured a number of Spaniards, melted a lot of the yellow metal and
+poured it down their throats, telling them to drink until their
+thirst for gold was quenched.
+
+After the Spaniards had established themselves upon the Isthmus, the
+English buccaneers, Drake and Morgan, fell upon their cities and
+despoiled them. The ruins at Old Panama, which once was a city of
+30,000 inhabitants, to-day tell the story of the effective work of
+Henry Morgan when he raided it and captured its treasure.
+
+While the Spanish conquerors, the French filibusters, and the English
+buccaneers, who took their turns in pillaging Panama, were cruel
+beyond imagination, they were always famous for their outward
+evidences of religion and piety. The Spanish were always chanting
+hymns and honoring the saints; the French would shoot down their own
+soldiers for irreverent behavior during mass; the English pirate
+captains never failed to hold divine services on Sunday, and often
+prohibited profanity and gambling.
+
+Where once Spaniards tortured Indians and British buccaneers raided
+Spaniards, where once revolution after revolution left a poor and
+desolate country, to-day the gates of Panama are open to the world,
+and its trade is invited again to pass that way. The people of the
+Isthmus believe that the glory which departed when Morgan sacked Old
+Panama, forcing the Pacific trade to seek the Strait of Magellan, will
+return with the opening of the Panama Canal, and that their capital,
+whose walls cost so much that the Spanish king thought he could see
+them from his chamber window in Madrid, will retrieve its ancient
+glory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+OTHER GREAT CANALS
+
+
+While the Panama Canal seems destined to endure for all time as the
+greatest artificial shipway in the world, there are other waterways,
+while small in comparison, that are in themselves wonderful works of
+engineering. In point of traffic the greatest canal in the world is
+the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, popularly called the "Soo." In point of
+economy of distance and world-affecting consequence the Suez Canal
+ranks with, or next to, Panama.
+
+The Suez Canal was built while the Civil War was raging in the United
+States, and was opened for the passage of vessels on November 17,
+1869. It is about twice as long as the Panama Canal, the distance from
+Port Said, at the Mediterranean terminus, to Suez at the Red Sea end,
+being approximately 100 miles. When constructed its depth was 26 feet,
+3 inches, and its bottom width 72 feet. The maximum vessel draft
+permitted was 24 feet 7 inches. The canal was in operation for 11
+years before vessels of this draft presented themselves for passage.
+
+During the first dozen years of its operation various curves were
+straightened, the turning-out places where vessels passed one another
+were enlarged, and their number increased to 13. This work of
+straightening curves and widening the canal has continued from that
+time until the present, and to-day vessels may pass one another
+through a large part of its length. The policy increasing the general
+dimensions of the canal was begun in 1887. By 1890 its depth had been
+increased to 29-1/2 feet, so that it could accommodate ships having a
+draft of 26 feet 3 inches. The work of deepening continued, and when
+the United States began to build the Panama Canal this work was
+speeded up, so that by 1908 a depth of 32-3/4 feet was attained and
+vessels of 28 feet draft could be accommodated. In 1909 it was decided
+that it would be necessary to make the canal still deeper, and a
+project, which will not be completed until 1915, was then undertaken,
+calling for a depth of 36 feet 1 inch. By 1898 the width of the canal
+had been increased from 72 feet to 98-1/2 feet. This is now being
+still further increased to 134-1/2 feet. Even when this project is
+completed in 1915, the Panama Canal still can accommodate ships of 5
+feet greater draft than the Suez Canal.
+
+The maximum draft of ships permitted to use the Suez Canal is demanded
+in comparatively few instances. A recent report showed that 94 per
+cent of the ships using the canal had a draft of less than 26-1/4
+feet, and that only 1 per cent had a draft of 28 feet. The increase in
+the depth of the canal, therefore, was made largely in anticipation of
+future shipping requirements.
+
+When the canal was completed it required 49 hours for a ship to pass
+through it. The growth in its dimensions, together with the increase
+in the number and size of passing stations, the straightening of
+curves, and the improvement of facilities, have brought down to 17
+hours the average length of time required for the transit. Ships not
+equipped with electric searchlights are not permitted to pass through
+at night. The improvements being made on the canal are being paid for
+mainly from the revenues derived from tolls.
+
+The Suez Canal was constructed, and has been enlarged and managed, by
+a private corporation which has invested from the beginning of the
+construction up to the present time about $127,000,000 of which
+approximately two-thirds has been secured from the sale of securities,
+and one-third from the earnings. The original capital of the Suez
+Canal Company, issued in 1859, was 400,000 shares of $100 each. These
+shares partake of the nature of both bonds and stock, for they are
+entitled to interest of 5 per cent as well as to participation in the
+company's profits. Provision is made for their redemption, but when
+redeemed they continue to share in the profits and merely lose the
+interest-bearing feature. On December 31, 1911, 378,231 of these
+shares were in circulation.
+
+In 1875 the British Government, through Lord Beaconsfield, purchased
+the 176,602 shares held by the Khedive of Egypt, paying some
+$20,000,000 for them. The British Government does not own a majority
+of the shares, and the Suez Canal is controlled and operated by a
+French company. The annual dividends have increased from 4.7 per cent
+to 33 per cent. The shares are closely held and trading in them is
+light. The stock sells at a premium of over 1,000 per cent. When the
+work of building the canal was undertaken, 100,000 shares were given
+to the founders. These shares are not stock, but are, rather,
+certificates of obligation, requiring the company to pay 10 per cent
+of its profits to the promoters and founders of the original company
+and their heirs and assigns. The net profits of the canal amount to
+about $17,000,000 a year. Of this the stockholders get $12,000,000,
+the Egyptian Government $2,500,000, the founders of the company
+$1,500,000 and the administrative officers and the employees divide
+$100,000 among them.
+
+The traffic of the Suez Canal during the first two years was
+relatively small, for the reason that the canal is not a practicable
+one for sailing vessels, and steam vessels had to be built. These,
+being much less efficient than freight steamers are to-day, were slow
+in securing the trade that had been enjoyed by the sailing vessels.
+The rate of tolls charged by the Suez Canal Company has declined
+steadily since the canal went into operation. On January 1, 1912, they
+approximated $1.30 a ton, with a reduction of nearly a third for
+vessels in ballast. On January 1, 1913, the rate was made
+approximately $1.20 a ton, the fraction of a cent higher than the rate
+at Panama. The passenger tolls are $2 for passengers above 12 years
+and $1 for children from 3 to 12 years of age; children below 3 years
+are carried free. The highest toll charged on the Suez Canal was in
+1874 when it was $2.51 a ton.
+
+The Suez Canal has proved highly profitable to its owners. No one
+believes that the Panama Canal will yield as great a return on the
+capital invested. The cost of the Panama Canal will be four times the
+cost of Suez, and it is doubted by traffic authorities whether the
+Panama Canal will ever handle as much business.
+
+The Manchester Ship Canal, which connects Manchester with Liverpool,
+was constructed only after years of preliminary agitation. There was
+opposition by the railways, and from the industrial and commercial
+centers with which Manchester competes. Over 300 petitions were
+presented to Parliament before its consent was obtained for the
+construction of the canal. Work was begun in November, 1887, at which
+time it was estimated that the canal would cost $42,000,000. It was
+opened for traffic January 1, 1894, after $75,000,000 had been spent
+in building it. Of this about $60,000,000 went into actual
+construction work. The Manchester Canal is 35-1/2 miles long. It
+extends from Eastham, about 6 miles from Liverpool, to Manchester. Its
+original depth was 26 feet, but this has been increased to 28 feet.
+Ships with a length of 550 feet, a beam of 61 feet, a height of 70
+feet, and a draft of 27 feet can use the canal. There is a difference
+of 58 feet 6 inches in level between Eastham and Manchester, and this
+is overcome by five sets of locks. The highest lift is 16 feet.
+
+The Manchester Canal Company owns the Bridgewater Canal and makes
+connections with 13 other barge canals. It handles about 6,000,000
+tons of freight a year, of which the bulk is sea-borne. Although it
+connects with 13 barge canals, the amount of barge traffic handled is
+less to-day than it was a decade ago. From the beginning the
+Manchester Canal has had to compete with the railroads, and they cut
+their rates to such a basis that they get the business and force the
+canal company to operate as a losing venture to its stockholders.
+
+In spite of the competition of the railroads, the canal has managed to
+increase its business at about the same rate that traffic through the
+Suez Canal has increased, and a little more rapidly than it has been
+estimated that traffic through the Panama Canal will grow. The
+shareholders have not yet received any dividends, but it seems
+probable that in the course of a few years all of the securities will
+earn an annual income. Many shareholders have been more than
+compensated for their subscriptions by the collateral benefits they
+have received from the canal.
+
+The Government of Germany constructed a canal connecting its Baltic
+and North Sea ports, and named it the Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal. The
+natural route from the Baltic to the North Sea around Denmark is
+circuitous, dangerous because of storms, and is guarded by foreign
+powers. The canal was begun in 1887 and completed in 1895, and was
+constructed primarily for military and naval purposes, although it has
+proved to be of great value to the commerce of Germany. It connects
+Brunsbuttel Harbor on the Elbe with Holtenau on Kiel Bay. It passes
+through low lands and lakes and along river valleys. It is 61 miles
+long and, as it was first constructed, had a width of 72 feet and a
+depth of 29-1/2 feet. The total cost of the canal was approximately
+$37,000,000. It was in operation only 12 years until it was found
+necessary to enlarge it. The reconstruction of the canal was
+authorized by the German Government in 1907, and the work, which is
+expected to be completed in 1914, was started in 1909. When this work
+is completed the canal will be 144 feet wide and 36 feet deep. At 10
+places it will be widened so as to permit ships to pass. New twin
+locks, built for the regulation of the tides--for the canal itself is
+at sea level--will be 82 feet longer and 37 feet wider than the Panama
+locks. The maximum depth of these locks will be 45 feet, although at
+low tide they will be a little less than 40 feet.
+
+During a recent year commercial vessels with an aggregate net register
+of over 7,000,000 tons used the Kiel Canal. The increase of business
+during the first decade of the present century amounted to 70 per
+cent, or a little more than the estimated increase for each decade at
+Panama. The net receipts from the operation of the canal are not
+sufficient to pay interest on the investment. No effort is made to
+levy tolls that will provide for interest charges, or for the
+amortization of the principal. The canal does not connect regions of
+enormous traffic, nor does it greatly shorten ocean routes. The
+longest route is cut down only 429 miles. The German Empire was so
+well pleased with the success of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal that the
+enlargement it is now making represents an expenditure one and a half
+times the original cost.
+
+The Amsterdam Canal was built to connect Amsterdam with the sea.
+Formerly, ocean-going vessels were small and the Zuider Zee River was
+then a stream of considerable depth. Gradually, however, the Zuider
+Zee became shallower and the size of ocean vessels larger, so that
+the commercial supremacy of Amsterdam was threatened by the
+competition of Rotterdam and Antwerp and north German ports. In 1818 a
+corporation constructed what was known as the "North Holland Canal,"
+which was large enough to accommodate ships employed in the East India
+trade. It had a minimum depth of 20 feet and a minimum width of 100
+feet. This canal, however, had numerous curves and it was constructed
+by a roundabout route of 52 miles from Amsterdam northward to the
+North Sea, while Amsterdam is less than 17 miles from the sea by
+direct route.
+
+In 1863 a concession for the construction of the North Sea Canal was
+granted and two years later active work began. It was finished in
+1876. There were no serious engineering difficulties to be met, there
+being no rivers to be crossed, no towns to block the way, and only
+three bridges to be built. The work consisted mainly of building
+embankments, draining and reclaiming land, and dredging the channel.
+The canal was not completed according to the original plan. Extensive
+enlargements and improvements were decided on, and a larger additional
+lock was undertaken in 1889 and completed in 1896. At that time it was
+the largest canal lock in the world. Plans are now being considered
+for building another new lock, which will be larger than those at
+Panama. The bottom width of the canal is now 164 feet. It can
+accommodate vessels 721 feet long, with a 79-foot beam and of 30 feet
+draft. The construction of the canal cost $16,000,000. Improvements
+have brought the total amount up to about $24,000,000. Since 1893 all
+toll charges have been eliminated, and the canal has been operated at
+the expense of the State. The annual average cost of operation and
+maintenance is about $200,000. This canal bears about the same
+relation to the city of Amsterdam that the Delaware River Channel
+bears to the city of Philadelphia, or the improvements on the lower
+Mississippi to the city of New Orleans.
+
+The Cronstadt and St. Petersburg Canal is 16 miles long and gives St.
+Petersburg an outlet to the Gulf of Finland. It was built at a total
+cost of about $10,000,000. It has a minimum width of 220 feet and a
+navigable depth of about 20-1/2 feet. It was built primarily as a
+military undertaking, but has proved of great service to Russian
+commerce.
+
+Another important European canal is that extending from the Gulf of
+Corinth to the Gulf of Aegina in southern Greece. Its length is about
+4 miles, a part of which was cut through soft granite rock and the
+remainder through soil. It has no locks. The bottom width is 72 feet
+and the depth 26-1/4 feet. The average tolls are 18 cents per ton and
+20 cents for passengers.
+
+No other canal in the world can rival the one at Sault Ste. Marie,
+Mich., which connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron, in the enormous
+volume of its shipping. There are really two canals--one owned by the
+Canadian Government, and one by the United States Government. The
+canal belonging to the United States was begun in 1853 by the State of
+Michigan, and opened in 1855. It had a length of about a mile and was
+provided with twin locks 350 feet long, allowing the passage of
+vessels drawing 12 feet of water. The United States Government, by
+consent of the State of Michigan, began in 1870 to enlarge the canal,
+and, by 1881, had increased its length to 1.6 miles, its width to an
+average of 160 feet and its depth to 16 feet. A lock 515 feet long, 80
+feet wide, and 17 feet deep was located south of the locks which were
+built by the State.
+
+In 1882 the United States Government took over the entire control of
+the canal. Five years later the locks that had been built by the State
+were torn down, and a new one 800 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 22
+feet deep was put into commission in 1896. The Canadian Canal, 1-1/8
+miles long, 150 feet wide, and 22 feet deep, was built on the north
+side of the river during the years 1888 to 1895. Its locks are 900
+feet long, 60 feet wide, and 22 feet deep.
+
+The traffic through the Sault Ste. Marie Canals averages around
+60,000,000 tons a year. This is as much as the Panama Canal can expect
+to get 40 years after its opening. The tonnage of the American Soo
+Canal passed the million mark in 1873, reached the 20,000,000 mark in
+1899, and amounted to 46,000,000 net tons in 1909. It now ranges
+around 50,000,000 tons. It will be seen from this that the American
+Canal, built on the south side of St. Mary's River, gets about ten
+times as much traffic as the Canadian Canal, built on the north side
+of the river. This gives the American Soo Canal more than twice as
+much traffic as the Suez Canal, and about four times as much as the
+Panama Canal expects to begin with.
+
+A canal which was built primarily for drainage purposes, but which
+seems destined to fill an important place as a traffic-carrying
+waterway, is the Chicago Drainage Canal connecting Lake Michigan at
+Chicago with the Illinois River at Lockport--a distance of 34 miles.
+It was built for the purpose of reversing the movement of water in the
+Chicago River and preventing the pollution of Lake Michigan. The
+sewage of the city now goes to the faraway Mississippi instead of the
+Lakes. The minimum depth of the canal is 22 feet, and its bottom width
+160 feet. To complete the project the excavation of nearly 44,000,000
+yards of material was required--enough, if deposited in Lake Michigan
+in 40 feet of water, to form an island a mile square with a surface 12
+feet above the water. The city of Chicago and the State of Illinois
+have agreed to turn this canal over to the United States Government,
+if it will deepen the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to 14 feet
+between Lockport and St. Louis. This would give a complete water
+connection from upper Mississippi River points to Lake Michigan, and
+open up a highway to the Gulf of Mexico. The estimated cost of this
+project is $25,000,000.
+
+The completion of the Panama Canal will probably result in an
+unprecedented activity in the development of inland waterways in the
+United States. The new markets which it will open up to American
+products and the old markets it will stimulate and extend, will demand
+large additional facilities for getting the products of the American
+farm and factory to the seaboard. Already preparations for
+capitalizing the commercial opportunities which the opening of the
+canal will afford, are being made in various parts of the country.
+
+The Erie Canal, connecting Buffalo and Albany and giving the Great
+Lakes a water outlet at New York, is being widened and deepened at an
+expense of $101,000,000. The propaganda of the American Rivers and
+Harbors Congress, looking to the appropriation of $500,000,000 to be
+spent in a systematic program of inland waterway development, is
+meeting with encouragement in every part of the country, and it is the
+expectation of those who believe that the Government should commit
+itself to such a program, that within 25 years the stimulus to
+waterway development given by the opening of the Panama Canal, will
+give to the United States one of the finest systems of inland
+waterways in the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+A NEW COMMERCIAL MAP
+
+
+The most rapid change in the commercial map of the world wrought in
+centuries will be witnessed during the years following the completion
+of the Panama Canal. Cities that heretofore have been mere way
+stations on the international routes of trade will grow into rich
+centers where the new roads of the commercial world will cross. On the
+other hand, cities which in the past have gloried in a trade supremacy
+of international recognition will see themselves displaced and their
+prestige lost. The readjustment will not be the matter of a day or a
+year; even a generation may pass before it is completed; but the
+ultimate changes will certainly be greater and more world-encompassing
+than anyone now can forecast.
+
+The capture of Constantinople by the Turks was directly responsible
+for the discovery of the New World. It cut off the cities of the
+Mediterranean from communication with India, and sent Columbus
+westward in quest of another passage, which could not be obstructed by
+the Mussulman tyrants of the East. At last the Panama Canal is to
+afford that passage, and to bring the whole earth into smaller
+compass.
+
+Of course, the United States will be the first to realize the great
+benefits of the canal. It will double the efficiency of the American
+Navy by permitting it to concentrate its forces on either ocean in
+shorter time, by weeks, than can be done by any other nation;
+consequently, it will add to American military prestige throughout the
+world. The benefits immediately accruing to the people of the United
+States will be as great in a commercial way as in military advantage.
+As the capture of Constantinople caused the up-building of many
+notable regions through the transformation of international trade
+routes, so will the completion of the Panama Canal open up new markets
+and new opportunities to the Mississippi Valley, the world's greatest
+granary. Its grain and meat products, loading by way of Gulf ports,
+can go to the ends of the earth with but little outlay for expensive
+rail transportation. It is even probable that the great awakening
+incident to the opening of the canal, may hasten the day when the
+Lakes-to-the-Gulf waterway will be an accomplished fact and when ships
+may load in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Paul, and Minneapolis and
+sail directly to the ports of the world, thus beginning an era of
+commercial development surpassing even the wonderful growth of the
+half century just closed.
+
+Pittsburgh may then be able to send its tremendous output of
+manufactures to all parts of the world without transhipment; Kansas
+City will feel the stimulus of the new waterway; and the Pacific
+coast, long cut off from the eastern section of the United States by
+high mountain barriers that have been only partially overcome by
+railroads, will find its great resources within marketable distance of
+the Eastern States.
+
+Canada, too, will feel the stimulus of the canal. No longer will its
+great crops have to find their slow outlet over railroads that must
+cross the backbone of a continent, but, pursuing the avenues of least
+resistance, they may move to all parts of the world by way of the
+Great Lakes and the Mississippi River.
+
+South America will greatly benefit by the completion of the canal.
+Already its west coast countries and cities are getting ready for the
+boom of business that is to follow. Brought thousands of miles nearer
+to all western trade centers--so close that their raw products and
+American manufactured products can be exchanged to advantage--there
+will be a growth of trade whose prospect already has awakened the
+lethargic South American to the possibilities ahead.
+
+These possibilities well may be considered by the business men of the
+United States. To-day North America buys a large percentage of the
+products of South America; but, when the South Americans have money to
+spare, they spend only $1 out of $8 in North America--the other $7
+goes to Europe. The American exporter will find himself quickened by
+the history-making change the canal will produce and, if he goes at it
+in earnest, he will be in a position to reverse the present situation
+and get $7 of South American trade where Europe gets only $1.
+
+Australia and New Zealand will experience, perhaps, a greater change
+in the trade routes than any other countries outside of the Americas.
+The Australian commerce now is largely carried by way of Suez. The
+opening of the Panama Canal will place New Zealand 1,200 miles nearer
+to London than it is by way of Suez, and the eastern ports of
+Australia will be as near to England by way of Panama as by Suez. All
+Australasian ports will be brought several thousand miles closer to
+the Atlantic ports of the United States than they are to-day. No one
+who has heard an Australasian complain of the long delays and the
+excessive freight rates that intervene between him and his American
+shoes, can doubt that the closer proximity of American markets will be
+welcomed in that faraway land under the southern cross. Sydney will be
+4,000 miles nearer to New York through the Panama Canal, and 5,500
+miles nearer to New Orleans and Galveston.
+
+The transcontinental tonnage now handled by the railroads, which
+ultimately will go by the canal, aggregates 3,000,000 tons a year. The
+seaboard sections of the United States, of course, will benefit more
+largely than interior points, for the reason that interior points will
+have to take a combined rail-and-water route. This will involve
+railroad transportation and transhipment of cargo, also rehandling
+charges. After the canal is opened it is probable that the railroads
+will prefer to supply the intermountain States directly from eastern
+sources, instead of maintaining the existing policy of giving low
+rates to Pacific coast cities, so as to give them dominance over the
+shipping business of the intermountain region. The total
+coast-to-coast traffic of the railroads is said to approximate
+one-fifth of the entire traffic carried across the Rocky Mountains.
+Only one-third of the through traffic of the transcontinental lines
+from the East to the West originates east of a line drawn through
+Buffalo and Pittsburgh. It is this third of the westward business that
+will be affected mainly by the operation of the canal.
+
+[Illustration: INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING ROUTES]
+
+The principal effect the Panama Canal will have in the readjustment of
+the trade map of the world is not, perhaps, as much in changing
+existing routes as in creating new avenues of business. In every
+region where there is promise of unusual benefit by reason of the
+opening of the Panama Canal, an effort is being made to capitalize the
+advantages to be derived therefrom. The west coast of South America
+feels the stimulus of suddenly being brought thousands of miles closer
+to the best markets of the world, and anyone who travels down the
+coast from Panama may see at every port signs of a determination to
+reap full advantage of the new opportunities.
+
+Even Guayaquil, a city that for years has been a hissing and a byword
+to the masters of all ships plying up and down the west coast because
+of its absolute indifference to all requirements of sanitation, has
+prepared for a campaign of cleaning-up, in order that it may become a
+port of call for all the ships passing that way. Heretofore, masters
+of ships, in order to comply with quarantine regulations elsewhere,
+have given it a wide berth whenever possible.
+
+Chile, Peru, and Ecuador--all three have caught the spirit of the new
+era which a completed canal proclaims, and are striving to set their
+houses in order for the quickened times they see ahead. With the
+Central American Republics it is the same. Handicapped as they are by
+revolutions that sap their life-blood, or dominated by rulers who have
+no other object in governing the people than to exploit them, these
+countries still hope for much from the canal, and new activities are
+beginning to spring up in every one of them.
+
+It is not improbable that the canal will play an important part in
+transforming the economic situation of the world during the
+generations immediately ahead of us. One needs only to study the
+distribution of humanity over the countries of the earth to find how
+unevenly the population is scattered, and to learn what great tides of
+immigration will have to flow westward to establish the equilibrium of
+population, which some day is bound to come. When Asia has a
+population of 50 per square mile and Europe a population of 100 a
+square mile, while North America has 15 and South America has 7, it is
+apparent that the future holds great changes in store. The potential
+development of the two Americas challenges the imagination. South
+America, with its virgin soil all but untouched, can support a
+population half as dense as that of Europe. This means that it can
+make room for 300,000,000 immigrants. Likewise, it is fair to assume
+that North America, with its up-to-date methods of agriculture,
+industry, and commerce, can support a population as dense as that of
+Asia with its primitive methods of manufacture and agriculture. This
+means that North America has room to accommodate 300,000,000 souls. In
+other words, room still remains for 600,000,000 persons on the
+continents which the Panama Canal divides. When the day comes, as it
+seems certain that it will, that the Americas reach their full growth,
+even the Panama Canal, larger by far than any other artificial
+waterway in the world, will be much too small to accommodate the
+traffic which naturally would pass its way.
+
+The foreign trade of the United States with its 90,000,000 of
+population, aggregates 60,000,000 tons a year. Assuming that foreign
+trade would grow in the same proportion as population, it will be seen
+that the foreign trade of the two Americas at a time when the
+population of South America becomes half as dense as that of Europe,
+and that of North America half as dense as that of Asia, will
+approximate 500,000,000 tons. Assuming further that only one-fifth of
+this would pass through the canal, the American commerce alone would
+exceed its capacity, leaving all the trade between the Orient and
+eastern Europe to be taken care of by future enlargements.
+
+More immediate, however, will be the realization of the prophecy of
+William H. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, that the Pacific is
+destined to become the chief theater of the world's events. As the
+population of the earth stands to-day, more than half of all the
+people who inhabit the globe dwell on lands which drain into this
+greatest of oceans. Yet, in spite of that fact, the trade that sweeps
+over the Pacific is but small in comparison with that which traverses
+the Atlantic. Where a thousand funnels darken the trade routes of the
+Atlantic, a few hundred are seen on the Pacific.
+
+But in Japan one may find an example of the possibilities of the
+Pacific in the years to come. When China, with its 400,000,000 people,
+awakens as Japan has awakened, and builds up an international trade in
+proportion to that of Japan, it will send a commerce across the seas
+unprecedented in volume. When it buys and sells as Japan buys and
+sells, the waters of the Orient will vie with those of the Occident in
+the size of their fleets of commerce.
+
+The opening of the Panama Canal promises to be one of the factors in
+hastening the day when the Orient will become as progressive as the
+Occident, and when sleeping nations will arise from their lethargy and
+contribute uncounted millions of tons of traffic to the Pacific Ocean,
+making it a chief theater of commerce as well as of world events.
+
+In our own country the course of empire has been sweeping toward the
+Pacific. Where once the center of most things lay east of the
+Mississippi River, now we find its agriculture, its mining industries,
+and its commercial activities gradually moving westward. The center of
+cotton production, once in those States celebrated in the melodies of
+the Southern plantation, has moved westward and to-day in Texas,
+Oklahoma, and even Southern California, cotton is grown in a way which
+shows that King Cotton has caught the spirit of the age and is
+extending his territories westward toward the Pacific. And all of this
+means a growing business and an expanding traffic through the Panama
+Canal.
+
+On the Atlantic side there are signs without number that many nations
+will be up and doing in the reformation of the commercial map of the
+world. The islands of the Caribbean form a screen around the Atlantic
+end of the canal, and the majority of them are British possessions.
+Many of their cities will be situated upon the new international trade
+routes that will be called into being by the opening of the Panama
+Canal. At Kingston, Jamaica, great improvements are projected, coaling
+stations are planned, and other steps are being taken which will
+enable the British Government to reap what advantage it can from the
+construction of the canal. With its splendid diversity of climate,
+brought about by the wide range of elevated land, the fruits of the
+temperate zones may be grown, as well as those of the Tropics, and, as
+John Foster Fraser expresses it, Jamaica may become the orchard of
+Great Britain.
+
+Denmark is planning extensive shipping facilities in its beautiful
+harbor of Charlotte Amalia on the Island of St. Thomas. This island,
+which commands one of the principal passages from the Atlantic to the
+Caribbean Sea, might to-day be a possession of the United States had
+this Government been willing to buy it when Denmark was anxious to
+sell. It was here that the bold pirates of the _Spanish Main_ hid
+their crews in the all but landlocked harbor, and waited for the
+shipping which passed through Mona passage. Here Bluebeard's castle
+still stands a mute reminder of the romantic days when buccaneers
+dominated the _Spanish Main_.
+
+The north coast of South America also expects to figure largely in the
+new commercial map. The northern cities of Venezuela are on the route
+from eastern South America through the canal, and on one of the
+natural routes from Pacific ports to Europe. Nowhere else in the world
+will one find a more delightful climate or a more picturesque city or
+scenery than in northern Venezuela. Caracas, the capital, is but two
+hours' ride from the port of La Guaira, and less than a day's journey
+from Puerto Cabello, and, while the commerce which may be developed in
+Venezuela will, for the most part, find its outlet to the sea through
+the Orinoco River, La Guaira and Puerto Cabello will always prove
+attractive ports of call for passenger-carrying ships.
+
+The changes in the commercial situation of Asia and the Americas,
+brought about by the opening of the canal, will be many. There will be
+a sudden readjustment of existing trade routes and this will be
+followed by a long era of development of new conditions, which will be
+so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, and yet so immense as to
+excite the wonder of humanity when it stops to reckon its full effect
+and meaning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+AMERICAN TRADE OPPORTUNITIES
+
+
+The great development of the southern part of the New World, extending
+from the Rio Grande to the Strait of Magellan, certain to take place
+as a result of the opening of the Panama Canal, spells opportunity for
+American commercial expansion. This vast territory, covering an area
+nearly three times as great as that of the United States, has a
+population of only 50,000,000. Its resources have been merely
+scratched on the surface. Its potentialities, acre for acre, are as
+great as those of the United States.
+
+Porto Rico will serve for a criterion by which to measure the future
+possibilities of this Empire of the South. In Porto Rico one may see
+the benefits of the institution of a really good government, and the
+success which attends a proper effort to develop natural resources in
+tropical America. If American opportunities in all Latin America may
+be measured by American successes in that island, then, indeed, the
+future is rich with promise. During a single decade the external
+commerce of this little gem of the West Indies was more than
+quadrupled. It now amounts to some $80,000,000 a year, and only about
+12 other countries in the world buy more goods from the American
+manufacturer.
+
+The expansion of internal business has kept pace with the growth of
+external commerce. In seven years taxable values increased from less
+than $90,000,000 to more than $160,000,000. In a single year the
+amount of life insurance written in the island nearly doubled, and
+fire insurance increased nearly half. The exportation of sugar
+increased fivefold in 10 years, and the exportation of cigars 14
+times. The population of the island has increased by half under the
+beneficient policies of the United States, going up from 800,000 in
+1898 to 1,200,000 in 1912. During a single year Porto Rico buys about
+$35,000,000 worth of goods from the United States, and ships
+practically the same amount to this country.
+
+Should all Latin America prove as good a customer in proportion to
+area as Porto Rico, our trade with Latin America alone would be many
+fold greater than the entire foreign trade of the United States
+to-day. Should all Latin America, even with its present population,
+buy as liberally from the United States as Porto Rico does, we would
+sell annually to it nearly $2,000,000,000 worth of products.
+
+The most necessary step in developing the potentialities of Latin
+America is to provide good and stable government. Commercial
+statistics show how prosperity flourishes where good government
+reigns, and of how poverty dwells where misgovernment exists. One may
+go to Porto Rico, to Jamaica, to Curacao, or to St. Thomas, and in
+each of these countries may behold the wholesome rule of northern
+Europeans and their descendants. The people have at least those
+substantial rights which are necessary to the peace, happiness, and
+well-being of humanity; and equally without exception trade statistics
+show a greater foreign trade, in proportion to area and population,
+than is enjoyed in any country where misrule prevails. Porto Rico
+could be buried in a single lake of Nicaragua; it is only
+one-fifty-seventh as large as Central America; and yet Porto Rico has
+a foreign trade greater than all the territory from the Isthmus of
+Tehuantepec to the Isthmus of Panama.
+
+How to improve governmental conditions in those countries where
+misrule prevails is a most serious problem. Had it not been for the
+Monroe doctrine it is safe to say that not one of the Republics of
+tropical America would be in existence today. Instead, their territory
+would be colonial possessions of the several powerful nations, and
+their people would be living under the comparatively wholesome rule of
+those nations. As it is, in a majority of the Republics south of the
+Rio Grande there is a state of affairs which makes against the
+development of resources and the best interests of the people. The
+whole theory under which these countries are governed is that
+primitive one: "Let him take who has the power, and let him keep who
+can." The result is that they are Republics only in name, and that the
+only way to change administrations is to have a revolution.
+Revolutions mean poverty; poverty means undeveloped resources, and so
+in some of these countries conditions were as bad in 1913, after
+nearly a century of so-called republican rule, as they were when the
+yoke of Spain was thrown off in 1821. How to bring about those
+conditions of peace and amity essential to national growth and
+development in these countries is the problem that has vexed more than
+one administration in Washington.
+
+Some have answered that the best way to do it is to abrogate the
+Monroe doctrine and to let every Latin American tub stand on its own
+bottom, a proposal that might benefit these countries vastly, but
+which contains many possibilities of evil to the United States. Others
+have suggested that our experiment in Porto Rico offers the solution
+of the problem, at least so far as tropical North America is
+concerned. They assert that the end would justify the means, and that
+the planning of the same character of government in this territory
+that exists in Porto Rico today, would be the greatest godsend that
+the masses of the people of these countries could have. Still others
+have advocated a "hands-off" policy so far as the rule of these
+countries is concerned, allowing them to fight whenever, and in
+whatever way, they wish, but at the same time adhering rigidly to the
+Monroe doctrine against European interference.
+
+Whatever the ultimate conclusion, it seems useless to hope for
+prosperity and expansion in countries whose industries constantly
+suffer from the galling blight of ever-recurring revolution. The great
+problem that lies before the American people, if the Latin America of
+the future is to become like the Anglo-Saxon America of today, is that
+of devising a policy which will insure conditions of peace and good
+will in the several sword-ruled countries south of the Rio Grande.
+
+As matters stand today in the majority of the countries of Latin
+America, although their Governments owe their very existence to the
+United States, there is a feeling of antipathy against Americans,
+which places the American exporter on an unequal footing with his
+European rival. There is a prejudice against Americans, partly the
+result of a widespread feeling that the United States is the great
+land-grabber of the Western world, but mostly the result of the
+attitude of a large number of Americans who go into these regions. For
+instance, for years one could not go about the streets of Mexico City
+without hearing some American berating the "blankety blank greasers,"
+and asserting that the United States could take 5,000 men and capture
+Mexico City in a two-month campaign. It happens that the Mexican is a
+proud individual and naturally he bitterly resents such asseverations.
+
+The same is true elsewhere, and by personal contact prejudice rather
+than a feeling of friendship has been aroused. The European usually
+goes into these countries because there are few opportunities at home.
+He is usually representative of the best citizenship of his homeland,
+and quite as much the gentleman in Latin America as at home. While
+there are a great many splendid types of American citizenship
+scattered throughout Latin America, a greater number of people have
+gone there because they could not get along in the United States, and
+their hostile attitude toward the natives excites by far more
+prejudice than the better class of Americans can counteract by
+sympathy and good feeling. Americans who visit these countries
+expressing contempt for everything they see, and everything the people
+do, are the greatest hindrances to the realization of the commercial
+opportunities which the United States possesses in Latin America.
+
+If the manufacturers of the United States are to realize to the full
+the benefits which may be derived from the opening of the Panama Canal
+they will have to reform their methods of dealing with the Latin
+Americans. It is just as effective to send to buyers at home catalogs
+written in Greek or Sanscrit as to send to the majority of Latin
+Americans catalogs printed in English. In traveling through these
+countries, endeavoring to ascertain wherein Americans have failed in
+their efforts to get a proper share of their foreign trade, one hears
+on every hand the complaint that the American manufacturer seldom
+meets the conditions upon which their trade may be based. No
+satisfactory credits are given, and no effort is made to manufacture
+machinery fitted to their peculiar needs. Agricultural machinery, for
+instance, which may serve admirably in the United States, is wholly
+out of place in many of these countries; and yet the Latin American
+customer must either buy the surplus of these machines or go elsewhere
+for machinery built to answer his requirements.
+
+The European traveling salesman in these countries carries a line of
+goods immediately answerable to local requirements. Furthermore, the
+European exporter understands that the system of credits in Latin
+America is not the same as prevails in Europe and the United States,
+and he complies with their requirements. Of course, his prices are
+placed high enough so that he is nothing out of pocket for the seeming
+concessions he had made. The result is that in traveling in these
+countries, one meets three or four foreign "drummers" where he meets
+one American traveling man, in spite of their nearness to the United
+States. It will take years, even with the Panama Canal in operation,
+to overcome the disadvantage which bad business policy has placed upon
+the American manufacturers.
+
+If the opening of the Panama Canal spells new American commercial
+opportunities, it also develops a new field of international politics
+in which the United States must make itself the dominant factor, and
+in which it will have a transcendental interest. It will
+unquestionably give to the Monroe doctrine a new importance and render
+its maintenance a more urgent necessity than ever. Prior to this time
+the breaking down of the Monroe doctrine would have been greatly
+detrimental to the interests of the United States, but from this time
+forth the domination of the Caribbean by some other strong nation
+would likely prove most disastrous to American welfare. It might even
+lead to the loss of the canal itself, and we then would witness that
+great waterway transformed from a military asset of immeasureable
+benefit into a base of operations against us.
+
+Probably the chief danger to which the Monroe doctrine is exposed is
+from those countries whose rulers profit most by its enforcement.
+While the United States can control its own affairs in such a way as
+not to bring into question this doctrine, it is not so certain that
+the rulers of some of the Latin American nations will always do as
+well. In fact, some of the countries have conducted their affairs in
+such a way as might have involved the United States in a war with a
+foreign power. The knowledge that a small tropical American republic
+might act so as to force the United States into a critical situation
+has resulted in a desire on the part of the responsible authorities at
+Washington to exercise over the Republics of the Caribbean such a
+guiding control as would serve to prevent them, through any
+ill-considered or irresponsible act, from exposing the United States
+to dangerous controversies with foreign nations.
+
+For instance, here is a country which owes a large debt to British
+bondholders. It defaults on the interest for a period of years.
+Efforts to collect are futile. Finally it is decided by the President
+that he needs additional funds. He reaches an agreement with the
+representatives of the bondholders, by which they agree to refund the
+debt and to lend him an additional half a million dollars, upon the
+condition that he hypothecate the Government's export tax upon coffee
+to secure the amortization of the refunded debt. He does so. Matters
+move along quietly for a little while, but soon he needs additional
+funds. He negotiates with New York bankers, getting from them the
+funds he needs, and hypothecates with them the same coffee tax that he
+had hitherto hypothecated with the British bondholders. Of course, the
+British bondholders protest at this impairment of their securities.
+He laughs at their protest. England sends a warship to his ports. He
+appeals loudly to the United States for the maintenance of the Monroe
+doctrine; but the United States does not hear him, so he decides to
+treat the British bondholders fairly. If he had not done so, and
+England had been seeking to break down the Monroe doctrine, an ideal
+opportunity would have been afforded.
+
+It is to prevent such situations as these that many Americans hope
+that the Government may devise some plan that will at once protect the
+United States from such menaces, and at the same time allow the people
+of these countries to work out their own destiny in their own way.
+
+The situation in tropical America today, with a few exceptions, seems
+to be that the republics have the form of liberty without its
+substance, and the shadow of civilization without its realities. Some
+of them have had over fifty revolutions in as many years. Some of them
+have been in the grip of tyrants who were as heartless in exploiting
+their people as was Nero in ruling Rome. The masses have received
+nothing from the Government except oppression, and they live in that
+hopeless, heartless ignorance so well described by a Spanish writer,
+picturing conditions in Porto Rico before the American occupation. We
+know that this picture was a true one. It was drawn in 1897 and won
+the prize awarded by the Spanish Government at the centennial
+celebration of the retirement of the English from this island. After
+dilating upon the splendors and magnificence of Porto Rico, this
+artist of the pen said of the masses:
+
+"Only the laborer, the son of our fields, one of the most unfortunate
+beings in the world, with the pallid face, the bare foot, the
+fleshless body, the ragged clothing, and the feverish glance, strolls
+indifferently with the darkness of ignorance in his eyes. In the
+market he finds for food only the rotten salt fish or meat, cod fish
+covered with gangrenish splotches, and Indian rice; he that harvests
+the best coffee in the world, who aids in gathering into the granary
+the sweetest grain in nature, and drives to pasture the beautiful
+young meat animals, can not carry to his lips a single slice of meat
+because the municipal exactions place it beyond his means, almost
+doubling the price of infected cod fish; coffee becomes to him an
+article of luxury because of its high price, and he can use only sugar
+laden with molasses and impurities."
+
+That picture applies to more than 90 per cent of the people in
+tropical America to-day. It explains why these countries, which might
+be made to flow with the milk and honey of a wondrous plenty, are
+poverty-stricken and unable to work out a satisfactory destiny for
+themselves. It shows why Cuba, Porto Rico, and Jamaica to-day are rich
+in internal trade, and prosperous in foreign commerce, while other
+countries are eking out a bare and scanty existence.
+
+American commercial opportunities around the Mediterranean of the
+West, in particular, and in Latin America, in general, will reach
+their full when government there becomes government for the welfare of
+the people rather than for the aggrandizement of the ruling class.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE PANAMA-PACIFIC EXPOSITION
+
+
+When, on February 20, 1915, the Panama-Pacific International
+Exposition opens its gates to the world, in celebration of the
+completion of the Panama Canal, it expects to offer to the nations of
+the earth a spectacle the like of which has never been equaled in the
+history of expositions. It is estimated that $50,000,000 will be spent
+in thus celebrating the great triumph of American genius at Panama.
+And those who know the spirit of the people of California, who are
+immediately responsible to the United States and to the world for the
+success of the undertaking, understand that nothing will be overlooked
+that might please the eye, stir the fancy, or arouse the patriotism of
+those who journey to the Golden Gate to behold the wonders of this
+great show.
+
+The spirit that was San Francisco's following the terrible calamity of
+April 18, 1906, when the city was shaken to its foundations by a great
+earthquake, and when uncontrollable fire completed the ruin and
+devastation which the earthquake had begun, has been the spirit that
+has planned and is carrying to a successful culmination the
+Panama-Pacific Exposition. The San Francisco earthquake came as the
+most terrific blow that ever descended upon an American city. It left
+the metropolis of the Pacific a mass of ruins and ashes. In five years
+a newer and a prouder San Francisco arose from the ashes of the old,
+and greeted the world as the highest example of municipal greatness to
+which a community can rise at times when nothing is left to man but
+hope, and that hope is half despair.
+
+The fire destroyed 8,000 houses, leaving such a hopeless mass of
+débris that $20,000,000 had to be raised to reclaim the bare earth
+itself. In five years 31,000 finer and better houses had taken their
+places. Assessed values before the fire were $30,000,000 less than
+five years after. Bank clearings increased by a third and savings-bank
+deposits were greater after only five years than they were before the
+terrible catastrophe.
+
+It may be imagined what wonders this spirit of the Golden West will
+accomplish when applied to the creation of an exposition. It is easy
+to forecast that, beautiful as have been the expositions of the past,
+and magnificent as has been the scale upon which they were planned,
+fresh palms will be awarded to San Francisco and the great fair it
+will offer to the World in 1915.
+
+The city of the Golden Gate was planning a great celebration nearly
+two years before the calamity which overtook it in 1906. The first
+suggestion for holding a world's fair at San Francisco was made on
+June 12, 1904, when Mr. R. B. Hale wrote a letter to the San Francisco
+Merchants' Association advising its members that it would be wise to
+take steps toward securing for that city a great celebration of the
+400th anniversary of the discovery of the Pacific Ocean, in 1913. The
+matter was agitated for a year and a half and, a little more than
+three months prior to the earthquake, Representative Julius Kahn
+introduced in the National House of Representatives a bill providing
+for the celebration of the discovery of the Pacific, in 1913. Then
+followed the great catastrophe, and for the eight months next ensuing
+the problems of planning a new and greater San Francisco demanded all
+the attention of the people of that city. In December, 1906, however,
+the Pacific Ocean Exposition Company was incorporated with a capital
+stock of $5,000,000.
+
+By 1910 New Orleans had loomed up as an aspirant for the honor of
+holding the great international celebration of the completion of the
+Panama Canal, and San Francisco understood that time for action was at
+hand, and, moreover, that money raised at home for the exposition
+would be the most eloquent advocate before Congress. Realizing this, a
+great mass meeting was called and in two hours subscriptions amounting
+to $4,089,000 were raised, headed by 40 subscriptions of $25,000 each.
+
+In the fall of that year San Francisco was afforded an opportunity of
+attesting the universality of its interest in the success of the
+exposition. A proposition to vote $5,000,000 worth of bonds for the
+exposition was referred to the people. It carried by a vote of 42,040
+to 2,122. The State of California also gave its citizens an
+opportunity to show their feeling, and by a vote of 174,000 to 50,000
+made available bonds for $5,000,000 for the purposes of the
+exposition. The result has been that from first to last, within the
+confines of California's borders, a sum approximating $20,000,000 has
+been raised for exposition purposes. To this, $30,000,000 will be
+added by outside governments and by exhibitors and concessionaires.
+
+The fight which led to the choosing of San Francisco as the city for
+holding the Panama celebration is, for the most part, familiar
+history. The law under which this choice was made was signed by
+President Taft on February 15, 1911. The presidential signature was
+the signal for the beginning of operations looking to the completion
+of all of the exposition buildings a full six months ahead of the
+opening date. The details of the site were worked out promptly. The
+site selected includes the western half of Golden Gate Park; Lincoln
+Park, which is situated on a high bluff overlooking the approach from
+the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate; and Harbor View, which is an
+extensive tract of level land, stretching along the shore of San
+Francisco Bay and back to the hills and the principal residential
+portion of the city.
+
+Each element in this extensive site possesses its own peculiar charm;
+Golden Gate Park with its great variety of flowers and semitropical
+plants and trees; Lincoln Park with its outlook on the broad Pacific
+and along the rugged coastline to the north; and Harbor View with the
+Golden Gate to the left, a chain of climbing hills across the harbor
+in front, and the long sweep of bay and islands to the right. What
+nature has not done for the site of the exposition will be done by
+the art of the landscape gardener.
+
+An ocean boulevard, to be made one of the most beautiful drives in the
+world, will become one of the permanent memorials of the exposition. A
+great esplanade, planted with cypress and eucalypti and liberally
+provided with seats, will extend along the water's edge for about half
+the entire length of the exposition grounds, affording ample
+opportunity for the thousands of visitors to watch the great water
+events which will constitute one of the features of the exposition. On
+the south side of this esplanade the principal exposition buildings,
+consisting of eight great palaces, will be located. A great wall, 60
+feet high, will be built along the northern and western waterfronts
+for the purpose of breaking the winds which sweep down the harbor, and
+will be continued around the other two sides of the exposition grounds
+proper so as to constitute a walled inclosure which, in appearance,
+will remind one of the old walled towns of southern France and Spain.
+
+The two principal gateways to the exposition grounds will open into
+great interior courts, around which the buildings will be ranged. It
+will be possible for the visitor to go from one building to another
+and complete the entire circuit of eight main exhibition palaces
+without once stepping from under cover. The three largest courts are
+named: The Court of the Sun and Stars, the Court of Abundance, and the
+Court of the Four Seasons. The Court of Abundance represents the
+Orient, and the Court of the Four Seasons, the Occident; the Court of
+the Sun and Stars, uniting the other two, will typify the linking of
+the Orient and the Occident through the completion of the Panama
+Canal. There will also be two lesser courts, known as the Court of
+Flowers and the Court of Palms. Outside of the walled city there will
+be five other important exhibition palaces.
+
+The Panama-Pacific Exposition will be different from any that has gone
+before. Where others have been built on broad, level plains, this one
+will be located in one of nature's most beautiful natural
+amphitheaters, with the residential portions of San Francisco and the
+towns of the surrounding country looking down upon it. The
+architecture will be of such a nature that will make the "Fair City"
+indeed a fair city to behold.
+
+If Chicago had its "White City," the San Francisco fair will be all
+aglow with rich color. It will be made to harmonize with the "vibrant
+tints of the native wild flowers, the soft browns of the surrounding
+hills, the gold of the orangeries, the blue of the sea." The artist in
+charge of this phase of the work declares that, "as the musician
+builds his symphony around a motif or chord," so it became his duty to
+"strike a chord of color and build his symphony upon it." The one
+thing upon which he insisted was that there should be no white, and
+the pillars, statues, fountains, masts, walls, and flagpoles that are
+to contrast with the tinted decorations are to be of ivory yellow.
+Even the dyeing of the bunting for flags and draperies is under the
+personal supervision of the artist in charge of the color scheme of
+the exposition. The roofs of the buildings will be harmoniously
+colored and the city will be a great party-colored area of red tiles,
+golden domes, and copper-green minarets. "Imagine," said Jules Guerin,
+the artist, "a gigantic Persian rug of soft melting tones with
+brilliant splotches here and there, spread down for a mile or more,
+and you may get some idea of what the Panama-Pacific Exposition will
+look like when viewed from a distance."
+
+The lighting of the exposition will be by indirect illumination,
+affording practically the same intensity of light by night as by day.
+Lights will be hidden behind the colonnades, above the cornices, and
+behind masts on the roofs. Sculpture will stand out without shadow at
+night as by day. Great searchlights, many of them concentrated upon
+jets of steam, and playing in varying color, will add to the beauty of
+the scene. Even the fogs of the harbor will be made to contribute to
+the night effect of the exposition, and auroras will spread like
+draped lilies in the sky over the exhibition.
+
+The sculpture will be unique in the history of exposition-giving. That
+phase of the work is under the control of Karl Bitter. In front of the
+main entrance, at the tower gate, there will be an allegory of the
+Panama Canal called "Energy; the lord of the Isthmian way." It will be
+represented by an enormous horse standing on a heavy pedestal, the
+horse carrying a man with extended arms pushing the waters apart. In
+the Court of the Sun and Stars two great sculptural fountains,
+typical of the rising and setting of the sun, will carry out the idea
+of "the world united and the land divided." In every part of the
+exposition scheme the sculpture will tell the story of the unification
+of the nations of the East and the West through the construction of
+the Panama Canal.
+
+Nothing seems to have been overlooked in the plans that have been made
+to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal at San Francisco. There
+will be a working model of the Panama Canal, with a capacity of
+handling 2,000 people every 20 minutes. A reproduction of the Grand
+Canyon of Arizona will be another feature. The liberality of the
+prizes offered is indicated by the fact that premiums in the
+live-stock exhibits alone aggregate $175,000.
+
+One of the greatest events of the exposition will be the rendezvous of
+representative ships from the fleets of all the nations of the earth
+in Hampton Roads in January and February, 1915. Their commanders will
+visit Washington and be received by the President. He will return with
+them to Hampton Roads and there review what promises to be the
+greatest international naval display in history. After this a long
+procession of fighting craft, perhaps accompanied by an equally long
+procession of tourist steamers, private yachts, and ships of commerce,
+will steam out of the Virginia Capes and turn their prows down the
+Spanish Main to Colon. Here the canal authorities will formally
+welcome the shipping world and pass its representatives through to the
+Pacific, whence they will sail to San Francisco, there to participate
+in the great celebration during the months which will follow. It may
+be that this great procession will be headed by the U. S. S. _Oregon_,
+whose trip around South America in 1898 proclaimed in tones that were
+heard in every hamlet in the United States the necessity of building
+the great waterway.
+
+In addition to the great exposition at San Francisco, another will
+throw open its gates during 1915--the Panama-California Exposition at
+San Diego. This exposition will be held at a total outlay of, perhaps,
+$20,000,000. Nearly $6,000,000 is being spent on a magnificent sea
+wall. The San Diego and Arizona Railway is being built on a new and
+lower grade for nearly 220 miles. About $5,000,000 will be spent in
+making the exposition proper in Balboa Park. Over 11 miles of docks
+and a thousand acres of reclaimed land for warehouses and factory
+sites will be ready when the exposition opens on January 1, 1915. The
+fair will have 30 acres of Spanish gardens. A great Indian congress
+and exhibit will be held, representing every tribe of North and South
+America. This exposition will in nowise interfere with the big show at
+San Francisco, but will be supplemental to it.
+
+When the Suez Canal was finished, its opening was celebrated by the
+most magnificent fete of modern times, the profligate Khedive Ismail
+Pasha apparently endeavoring to outdo the traditions of his Mussulman
+predecessors, Haroun al Raschid and Akbar. The fete lasted for four
+weeks, Cairo was decorated and illuminated as no city, of either
+Occident or Orient, ever had been before. The expense of the month's
+carnival was more than $21,000,000.
+
+An opera house was built especially for the occasion, and Verdi, the
+famous Italian composer, was employed to write a special opera for the
+occasion. That the opera was "Aida," and that it marked the high tide
+of Verdi's genius, was perhaps more than might have been expected of a
+work of art produced at the command of an extravagant prince's gold.
+
+The canal itself was opened on November 16, 1869, a procession of
+forty-eight ships, men of war, royal yachts and merchantmen, making
+the transit of the Isthmus in three days' time. In the first ship was
+Eugenie, Empress of the French. In another was the Emperor of Austria,
+and in still another the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VII. A
+more imposing gathering of imperial and royal personages never before
+had been witnessed, and all of them were the Christian guests of the
+Moslem Ismail.
+
+When the procession of royal vessels had passed through, the captains
+and the kings went to Cairo for the fete. The canal was open for
+traffic. It was significant that the first vessel to pass through in
+the course of ordinary business, paying its tolls, flew the British
+ensign. The building of the canal had wrecked Egypt, financially and
+politically; was destined to end forever the hope of Asiatic empire
+for France; and was to make certain England's dominion over India, a
+thing de Lesseps and Napoleon III had intended it to destroy.
+
+The celebration of the completion of the Suez Canal was the wildest
+orgy of modern times, the last attempt to Orientalize a commercial
+undertaking of the Age of Steam and Steel.
+
+The celebration at San Francisco will be more magnificent in its way,
+and will cost more money. But the millions will not be thrown away for
+the mere delectation of the senses of two score princes--they will be
+expended for the entertainment and the education of millions of
+people, the humblest of whom will have his full share in the
+celebration.
+
+From the spruce woods of Maine, from the orange groves of Florida,
+from the wide fields of the Mississippi Valley, from the broad plains
+of the Colorado, from the blue ridges of the Alleghenies and the snow
+peaks of the Rockies, Americans will go to the Golden Gate to
+commemorate in their American way the closer union of their States,
+the consummation of the journeys of Columbus: The Land Divided--the
+World United.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+[Illustration: A MAP SHOWING THE ISTHMUS WITH THE COMPLETED CANAL]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Accessory Transit Company, 199
+
+  Accidents, 72
+
+  Amador, Dr., 238, 239
+
+  Accounting department, 315
+
+  American Federation of Labor, 271
+
+  American clings to home habits, 177
+
+  American Federation of Women's Clubs, 176, 180
+
+  American mind wanted canal, 11
+
+  American Rivers and Harbors Congress, 346
+
+  Amsterdam Canal, 341-342
+
+  Amundsen, 4
+
+  Amusements, 178, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192
+
+  Ancon Hill, 89
+
+  Ancon Study Club, 183
+
+  Animal life, 331
+
+  Ants, 331
+
+  Appropriations for canal, 269
+
+  Aspinwall, William H., 102
+
+
+  Babel of American ambitions, 80
+
+  Bailey, John, 197
+
+  Balboa, 6, 7, 89, 90, 333
+
+  Barnacles, 40
+
+  Beef, Price of, 166, 167
+
+  Beauregard, P. T. G., 204
+
+  Bitter, Karl, 374
+
+  Blackburn, Joseph C. S., 138, 142, 250, 252, 258
+
+  Board of consulting engineers, 32
+
+  Boswell, Helen Varick, 180
+
+  Bridles, 77
+
+  British bondholders, 365
+
+  Brooke, Mark, 133
+
+  Bryce, James, 20, 23
+
+  Buccaneers, English, 334
+
+  Bull-fighting, 328
+
+  Bunau-Varilla, Philippe, 222, 230, 237, 238, 246, 327
+
+  Burke, John, 143
+
+  "Bush dwellers," 155
+
+
+  Cables, 78
+
+  Caisson gates, 62, 63
+
+  Caledonia, 159
+
+  Camp Fire Girls, 183
+
+  Cantilever pivot bridges, 57
+
+  Canada, Western, 20
+
+  Canal not constructed to make money, 10
+
+  Canal Zone, 6, 7, 247, 326
+
+  Canal Zone government, 256-267, 271, 312
+
+  Canals, 335-346
+
+  Canals, Isthmian, 194-205
+
+  Cargo ship, 319
+
+  Central and South American Telegraph Company, 253
+
+  Chagres River, 2, 5, 27, 32, 33, 36, 37, 40, 82, 110, 214, 280, 330
+
+  Chagres Valley, 33, 36
+
+  Chain for stopping vessels, 58, 59, 60
+
+  Channel, Sea-level, 46
+
+  Charles V, 194
+
+  Chauncey, Henry, 103
+
+  Cheops, Pyramid of, 24
+
+  Chicago Drainage Canal, 345
+
+  Childs, Orville, 199
+
+  Choice of route, 221-232
+
+  Chucunoques, 332
+
+  Civil administration, 138
+
+  Civil-service requirements, 136
+
+  Claims, Adjustment of, 323
+
+  Claims for lands, 260
+
+  Clay, Henry, 197
+
+  Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 15, 17, 198, 302, 303
+
+  Cleveland (Ship), 297
+
+  Clutches, Friction, 57
+
+  Clubhouses, 186
+
+  Coaling, 320
+
+  Coaling plants, 91, 92
+
+  Cock-fighting, 328
+
+  Cole, H. O., 143
+
+  Collisions, 60
+
+  Colombia, 227, 228, 231, 233-245
+
+  Colon Beach, 101
+
+  Columbus, Christopher, 3, 194, 347
+
+  Comber, W. G., 143
+
+  Commercial map, 347-357
+
+  Commissary, 164-175
+
+  Commissary department, 30
+
+  Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique, 213, 214
+
+  Concession, Extension of, 104
+
+  Concession to the French, 196
+
+  Concrete mixers, 54
+
+  Congress and the canal, 268-276
+
+  Conquerers, Spanish, 334
+
+  Constantinople, Capture of, 347, 348
+
+  Constantinople, Convention of, 292
+
+  Contra Costa Water Company, 43
+
+  Contract system, 13
+
+  Contractor's Hill, 79
+
+  Controversy with Colombia, 233-245
+
+  Cook, Thomas F., 144
+
+  Corozal (Dredge), 84
+
+  Corruption, 14
+
+  Corruption in building French canal, 9, 207
+
+  Cortez, Hernando, 195
+
+  Cost of canal, 5
+
+  Cost of French canal, 208
+
+  Cotton production, Center of, 355
+
+  Coupon books, 169
+
+  Court system, 261
+
+  Courtesy of West Indian Negro, 157
+
+  Courtesy of workmen, 147
+
+  Cranes, Floating, 322
+
+  Cristobal, 6, 7
+
+  Cromwell, William Nelson, 280, 287, 327
+
+  Cronstadt and St. Petersburg Canal, 343
+
+  Cruelty of natives, 329
+
+  Cruelty of Spaniards, 333
+
+  Culebra Cut, 5, 13, 21, 26, 34, 35, 40, 70-81, 214, 216, 277, 278
+
+  Culebra Mountain, 4, 20, 79, 80, 196, 277
+
+  Cullom, Shelby M., 282
+
+  Culverts, 50
+
+
+  Dams, Emergency, 60, 61
+
+  Davis, Charles H., 196
+
+  Davis, George W., 134, 256
+
+  Death rate, 303
+
+  Debts of American Republics, 365
+
+  Department store, 166
+
+  Deportation of laborers, 152
+
+  Devol, C. A., 143
+
+  Dikes, 126
+
+  Dikes of Holland, 44
+
+  "Dingler's folly," 208
+
+  Diplomatic entanglements, 17
+
+  Dredges, Ladder, 84
+
+  Dredges, Suction, 83
+
+  Duty on imports, 325
+
+  Dynamite, 28, 74
+
+
+  Eads, James B., 202, 203
+
+  Eastern Roman Empire, 3
+
+  Eating places, 170
+
+  Economy in handling material, 55
+
+  Efficiency records, 72, 73
+
+  Eight-hour working day, 137, 271
+
+  Elections in Panama, 251, 327
+
+  Electric current, 67
+
+  Electrical department, 315
+
+  Endicott, Mordecai T., 135
+
+  "Energy; the lord of the Isthmian way," 394
+
+  Engineering department, 314
+
+  Engineering difficulties, 29
+
+  Engineering project of all history, 23
+
+  Englishman defies Tropics, 177
+
+  Equipment for hauling material, 53
+
+  Erie Canal, 346
+
+  Expense of operating canal, 313
+
+  Extravagance in building French canal, 207
+
+  Ernst, Oswald H., 135
+
+
+  Filibusters, French, 334
+
+  Finley, Carlos, 11, 106
+
+  Fire department, 264
+
+  Fishing, 192
+
+  Flamenco Island, 88
+
+  Flowers, 330
+
+  Foreign trade of U. S., 353
+
+  Fortifications, 18, 283-294
+
+  Foundations, 90
+
+  Fraser, John Foster, 355
+
+  French began work in 1880, 5
+
+  French canal, 53
+
+  French failure, 206-220
+
+  French Panama Canal Company, 200
+
+  French spent $300,000,000, 8
+
+  French Canal Company, 9, 93, 252
+
+  Fruits, 330
+
+
+  Gaillard, D. D., 138, 139
+
+  Gamboa, 40
+
+  Gatun Dam, 13, 21, 23, 25, 26, 32-34, 36, 41-43, 56, 279
+
+  Gatun Lake, 36, 37, 38, 45, 47, 50, 56, 60, 62, 82, 95, 315, 330
+
+  Goethal, George Washington, 13, 18, 33, 43, 119-132, 273
+
+  Gold Hill, 79
+
+  Golf links, 315
+
+  Good Hope, Cape of, 19
+
+  Gorgas, William C., 105, 108, 134, 138, 142
+
+  Government ownership of railways, 99
+
+  Graft, 14
+
+  "Great undertaker," 218
+
+  Guayaquil, 19
+
+  Gudger, H. A., 263
+
+  Guerin, Jules, 374
+
+  Gulf States, 20
+
+
+  Hains, Peter C., 135
+
+  Handling the traffic, 317-325
+
+  Hanna, Marcus A., 227, 230
+
+  Harding, Chester, 143
+
+  Harrod, Benjamin A., 135
+
+  Hay, John, 246
+
+  Hay-Herran treaty, 16, 231, 232, 233, 235
+
+  Hay-Pauncefote treaty, 17, 225, 300, 301, 303, 304
+
+  Health of canal workers, 210
+
+  Heat of the Tropics, 179
+
+  Hepburn, William P., 223
+
+  High cost of living, 175
+
+  Hise, Elijah, 198
+
+  Hodges, Harry F., 139, 141
+
+  Honolulu, 19
+
+  Hoosac Tunnel, 71
+
+  Hospitals, 112, 208, 209
+
+  Hotels, 100, 101, 171
+
+  Hunter, Henry, 278
+
+  Hunting, 191, 192
+
+  Hydraulic excavation, 79
+
+  Hydraulic Fill, 35
+
+
+  Ice plant, 92
+
+  Ice, Price of, 168
+
+  Iguana, 329
+
+  Immigration, 157
+
+  Incas Society, 152
+
+  Injury to the canal, 324
+
+  International commerce, 3
+
+  Isthmian Canal Commission, 12, 88, 96, 97, 109, 119, 201, 224,
+        225, 229, 268, 269, 311
+
+
+  Johnson, Emory H., 18, 299, 306
+
+
+  Kahn, Julius, 370
+
+  Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal, 340-341
+
+  Kid Canal, 340-341
+
+  Knox, Philander C., 43, 243
+
+
+  Labor in passing ships through, 68, 69
+
+  Laborers, 307
+
+  Land, Prices of, 333
+
+  Laws of Canal Zone, 268, 267
+
+  Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 8, 132, 211-219
+
+  Lidgerwood cableways, 53
+
+  Lidgerwood dirt car, 25
+
+  Lidgerwood dirt trains, 76
+
+  Lidgerwood flat cars, 74, 77
+
+  Life on the zone, 176-193
+
+  Lighting of locks, 325
+
+  Liquor question, 186
+
+  Lloyd, J. A., 196
+
+  Lloyds, 324
+
+  Lock canal, 13, 18, 137, 216, 217, 281
+
+  Lock machinery, 57-67
+
+  Locks, 19, 26, 46, 48-55, 58, 62, 318
+
+  Locomotives, Electric, 65-67
+
+  Lottery, 217, 254
+
+  Loulan, J. A., 148
+
+  Lusitania, 297
+
+
+  Machinery, Dependable, 57
+
+  Machinery, Abandoned, 207
+
+  Machinery, Value of, 219
+
+  MacKenzie, Alexander, 119
+
+  Magellan, 4
+
+  Magellan, Straits of, 19
+
+  Magoon, Charles E., 109, 135, 136, 264
+
+  "Making the dirt fly," 27
+
+  Malaria, 9, 11, 106, 207, 211
+
+  Man-made peninsula, 45
+
+  Manchester ship canal, 20, 30, 339
+
+  Manila, 19
+
+  Manson, Sir Patrick, 11, 106
+
+  Manufacturers of U. S., 363
+
+  Margarita Island, 284
+
+  Maritime Canal Company, 200, 223
+
+  Markets, 329
+
+  Marriage, 155
+
+  Married men more content, 179
+
+  Materia medica of Panamans, 381
+
+  Matrimony, Premium on, 179
+
+  Mears, Frederick, 143
+
+  Melbourne, 19
+
+  Menocal, A. G., 200
+
+  Metcalf, Richard L., 189
+
+  Miraflores, 26, 27, 40, 47, 55, 61, 67, 82, 89, 126
+
+  Mississippi Valley, 20
+
+  Mistakes in building, 12
+
+  Mahogany, 330
+
+  Money for building always ready, 11
+
+  Monroe doctrine, 7, 15, 360, 361
+
+  Morgan, Henry, 334
+
+  Morgan, John T., 221
+
+  Mosquito Coast, 198
+
+  Mosquitoes, 9, 11, 12, 105-107, 114, 115
+
+
+  Naos Island, 87, 284
+
+  National geographic society, 23
+
+  National Institute, 327
+
+  Naval display, 375
+
+  Navy, Efficiency of, 348
+
+  Negroes, 154-163
+
+  Nelson, Horatio, 197
+
+  New Caledonia, 7
+
+  New Granada, 237
+
+  New Panama Canal Company, 133, 219, 221, 224-228, 233,
+        235-237, 242, 270
+
+  Nicaraguan Canal, 15, 16, 198, 199, 201, 222, 230, 231
+
+  Nicaraguan Canal Commission, 199
+
+  Nombre de Dios, 7, 53
+
+  North Sea Canal, 342-343
+
+
+  Olympic, 59
+
+  Operating force, 309-312
+
+  Orchids, 330
+
+  Oregon (U. S. Ship), 10
+
+  Organization, 133-144
+
+  Organization of government on Canal Zone, 313
+
+
+  Pacific Ocean Exposition Company, 370
+
+  Pacific Steamer Navigation Company, 321
+
+  Palmer, Aaron H., 197
+
+  Pan American Conference, 7
+
+  Panama, 230, 237, 238, 240, 241, 243, 246-255
+
+  Panama, Bay of, 280
+
+  Panama-California Exposition, 376
+
+  Panama Canal Company, 133, 218
+
+  Panama City, 12, 43
+
+  Panama-Pacific Exposition, 368-378
+
+  Panama (Republic), 6, 15, 326-334
+
+  Panama Railroad, 7, 34, 68, 88, 93, 104, 136, 214, 228, 245
+
+  Panama Railroad Steamship Line, 100
+
+  Pay-day, 160, 161
+
+  Pay of Americans, 178
+
+  Paying off canal army, 30
+
+  Pedro Miguel, 25, 27, 47, 48, 55, 61, 89
+
+  Pennsylvania tubes, 50
+
+  Perico Island, 88, 285
+
+  Pilots, Canal, 60
+
+  Police force, 262, 263
+
+  Population of the zone, 315
+
+  Porto Rico, 358-360
+
+  Position of canal, 5
+
+  Postal service, 261
+
+  Prize fighting, 328
+
+  Purchase of material, 272
+
+
+  Quartermaster's department, 174, 314
+
+  Quellenec, F., 278
+
+
+  Railroads opposed to canal, 222
+
+  Rates, Passenger, 103
+
+  Rates, Railroad, 99
+
+  Rating of employees, 151
+
+  Reed, Walter, 106
+
+  Reimbursement to owners of vessels for accidents, 323
+
+  Rental for Canal Zone, 326
+
+  Religious activities, 183
+
+  Roads, 191, 264, 265
+
+  Robinson, Tracy, 215, 216
+
+  Root, Elihu, 242
+
+  Ross, Roland, 11, 106
+
+  Rosseau, Armand, 217
+
+  Rourke, W. G., 143
+
+  Rousseau, Harry H., 138, 139, 148
+
+  Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, 321
+
+
+  Safety appliances, 57
+
+  Safety for ships, 281
+
+  Sailing ships, Death blow to, 322
+
+  Salaries, 310
+
+  San Blas Indians, 332
+
+  San Diego and Arizona Railway, 376
+
+  San Francisco earthquake, 368-369
+
+  Sanitary department, 30
+
+  Sanitation, 105-117, 328, 332, 352
+
+  Sault Ste. Marie canal, 314, 335, 343-344
+
+  Saville, Caleb M., 41, 143
+
+  School system, 264
+
+  Schools, Night, 187
+
+  Sea-level canal, 13, 18, 137, 272, 279-282
+
+  Secret societies, 184
+
+  Servants, 181, 182
+
+  Shanton, George R., 262
+
+  Shaw, Albert D., 232
+
+  Ship railway, 202, 203, 204
+
+  Shipping routes, International, 351
+
+  Shonts, Theodore P., 135, 137
+
+  Shovels, Steam, 83, 150
+
+  Sibert, William L., 138, 139
+
+  Simplon Tunnel, 71
+
+  Site of exposition, 371
+
+  Slides, 77, 78
+
+  Smith, Jackson, 138, 139
+
+  Social diversion, 182
+
+  Society of the Chagres, 152, 153
+
+  Soda fountain, 178
+
+  "Soo" locks, 62
+
+  Spanish American war veterans, 128
+
+  Spanish language, Study of, 181, 188
+
+  Spanish Main, 356
+
+  Spillway, 26, 37, 38, 39
+
+  Spooner, John C., 229
+
+  Steamship lines, 98
+
+  Stegomyia, 11, 107, 115, 211
+
+  Stevens, John F., 27, 102, 119, 129, 130, 136, 138
+
+  Stoney Gate valves, 50
+
+  Strangers' Club, 182
+
+  Street-car system, 191
+
+  Strikes, 129
+
+  Suez Canal, 21, 29, 335-339, 376, 377
+
+  Suez Canal rules, 292
+
+  Supplies for building canal free of duty, 323
+
+  Switches, Limit, 57
+
+
+  Tabernilla, 78
+
+  Taboga Island, 285
+
+  Taboga Sanitarium, 113
+
+  Taft, Wm. Howard, 33, 118
+
+  Tehuantepec, Isthmus of, 202, 204
+
+  Tehuantepec railroad, 203
+
+  Tierra del Fuego, 4
+
+  Thatcher, Maurice H., 139
+
+  Tivoli Hotel, 100, 170
+
+  Titanic marine stairway, 45
+
+  Tolls, 18, 295-308, 319
+
+  Toro Point, 46, 87, 284
+
+  Towing, 322
+
+  Track shifter, 76
+
+  Trade opportunities, 358-367
+
+  Traffic, 18, 19
+
+  Tramp steamer, 320
+
+  Transcontinental tonnage, 350
+
+  Transportation of material excavated, 75
+
+  Traveling salesmen, 363-364
+
+  Treaties with Colombia and Panama, 244
+
+  Tropics, Diseases of, 9
+
+  Type of canal, 275
+
+
+  University Club, 182
+
+
+  Vaccination of negroes, 162
+
+  Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 199
+
+  Voting, 184, 185
+
+
+  Wages, 146, 165
+
+  Wallace, John Findley, 130, 133, 135
+
+  Washington Hotel, 101
+
+  Washington monument, 23, 25, 26
+
+  Water, Control of, 65
+
+  Water supply, 265, 266
+
+  Watertight material, 41
+
+  Wickedness of the City of Panama, 328
+
+  Williams, E. J., 143, 160
+
+  Williamson, S. B., 143
+
+  Wilson, Eugene T., 143
+
+  Wilson, T. D., 204
+
+  Wire screens, 12
+
+  Women's clubs, 180, 181
+
+  Women's Federation of Clubs, 183
+
+  Wood, Leonard, 108
+
+  Workmen, 145-153
+
+  Wyse, Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte, 212, 218
+
+
+  Yellow fever, 9, 11, 12, 105, 109, 110, 112, 211
+
+  Yellow fever commission, 106
+
+  Young Men's Christian Association, 178, 180, 207
+
+
+
+
+The American Government
+
+The Book That Shows Uncle Sam at Work
+
+By Frederic J. Haskin
+
+
+This is the only book that tells accurately and without partisan bias
+just what the working machinery of the great American Government
+accomplishes for its people.
+
+It has been endorsed by scores of public officials, has been placed in
+hundreds of libraries, studied in thousands of schools and read by
+hundreds of thousands of Americans.
+
+It is the book Woodrow Wilson read on the night of his election to the
+Presidency.
+
+It will hold your interest whether you are nine or ninety, a man or
+woman, boy or girl. _Illustrated._
+
+Published by
+
+J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+
+Philadelphia
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Immigrant
+
+An Asset and a Liability
+
+By Frederic J. Haskin
+
+
+The author has succeeded to a remarkable degree in investing the
+subject of Immigration with intense interest. The story of the
+greatest human migration of all the ages is told in vivid, incisive
+and picturesque style. The three centuries of this great world
+movement are spread out before the reader like a panoramic parade of
+all nations. Accurate historical statement, philosophic presentation
+of the underlying principles and a judicial consideration of the
+ultimate influence on our country characterize this latest and in many
+respects most satisfactory and complete handbook. _Illustrated._
+
+Published by
+
+FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
+
+New York
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The Haskin Letter_
+
+The daily letter by Frederic J. Haskin has more readers than any other
+newspaper feature in the United States. Its great popularity is due to
+its accurate presentation of worth-while information.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The New Freedom
+
+By
+
+WOODROW WILSON
+
+
+Certain it is that the more pertinent phase: of present day conditions
+have never been more simply and more luminously set forth. The large,
+free lines in which the story is told, the easy style of
+extemporaneous talk, the homely illustrations, remove every impediment
+from the reader's mind and give to each sentence the tang of life.
+Every phrase is fresh as a May morning, and every thought is quick
+with life.
+
+_Fifth Large Printing_
+
+
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
+
+Garden City New York
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been
+retained except in obvious cases of typographical error.
+
+Facing page 10: The photo of George Goethals includes a signature.
+
+The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
+paragraphs, thus the page number of the illustration might not
+match the page number in the List of Illustrations.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41807 ***