The Panama canal

THE PANAMA CANAL

THE PANAMA CANAL

BY

FREDERIC J. HASKIN

AUTHOR OF " THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT." ETC.

Illustrated from photographs taken by

ERNEST HALLEN
Official Photographer of the Isthmian Canal Commission

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1914

r
..US

.Copyright, 1913, ly
DOUBLED AY, PAGE & COMPANY

reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian

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 complex-
ities 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 con-
nected 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 in-
formation, its object and purpose will have been
attained.

285741

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS }

THE grateful acknowledgments of the author are
due to Mr. William Joseph Showalter for his valu-
able 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 pertain-
ing 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 Govern-
ment Printing Office, for revising the proofs to
conform with the typographical style of the United
States Government.

CONTENTS

CHAPTEB PAGE

I. The Land Divided— The World United .... 3

II. Greatest Engineering Project 23

III. Gatun Dam 33

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 . . . w M :., .... 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

The First Boat to Pass Through the Gatun Locks 19

Lieut. Col. W. L. Sibert . . ' V: . 42

The Upper Locks at Gatun 42

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. kourke 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 . • w 114

Spraying Mosquito Oil : 114

The Gatun Locks, with the Atlantic Entrance 115

Opening the Lower Guard Gates of the Gatun Locks . . '". . . 115

Maj. Gen. George W. Davis 138

Rear Admiral J. G. Walker . . 138

Theodore P. Shonts . >' • • • 138

John F. Wallace . . V . . . 138

vin

ILLUSTRATIONS ix

FACING PAGE

John F. Stevens . ,: > .:.>.>:.: 138

Charles E. Magoon ...>........ > . 138

Richard Lee Metcalfe 139

Emory R. Johnson . K r. 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

x ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

San Bias Chief 274

An Indian Girl 274

An Italian 274

A Timekeeper r. 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 299

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

"7 have redd the chapters in ' The Panama Canal9
dealing with the engineering features of the Canal
and have found them an accurate and dependable
account of the undertaking"

GEO. W. GOETHALS.

4 THE PANAMA CANAL

sage. Magellan sought it thousands of leagues to
the southward in the cold and stormy seas that
encircle the Antarctic Continent. Scores of mar-
iners 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 thou-
sands 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

THE LAND DIVIDED 5

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 con-
necting 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

8 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 estab-
lished 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 swad-
dling clothes, for it is the new American town des-
tined to be the capital of the American territory
encompassing the canal.

The waterway is cut through a strip of terri-
tory 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 Re-
public 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 LAND DIVIDED 7

the city of Panama is the capital. Cristobal and
Balboa, although immediately contiguous to Colon
and Panama, are American towns under the Amer-
ican 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 cen-
tered 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 Philip-
pines.

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

8 THE PANAMA CANAL

and the Pacific Oceans — a railroad less than 50
miles in length, but with perhaps the most in-
teresting 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 under-
taken 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 avail-
able 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

THE LAND DIVIDED 9

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 Com-
pany was concerned more with problems of pro-
motion 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 con-
tractors 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 suf-
ficiently 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-bear-
ing stegomyia.

In this atmosphere of lavish extravagance caused
by the financial corruption, and in the continual

10 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 ex-
perience had taught the United States to expect
such an outcome. Indeed, it is doubtful if any-
body believed that the first estimates would not
be doubled or quadrupled before the canal was
finished.

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. Com-
mercial interests long had been convinced of its
necessity as a factor in both national and inter-
national trade, and, when it was realized that
the Oregon would have saved 8,000 miles if there

Chairman and Chief Engineer

A STREET IN THE CITY OF PANAMA

THE LAND DIVIDED 11

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 Isth-
mian 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 put-

12 THE PANAMA CANAL

ting them into effect. The Isthmian Canal Com-
mission 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 com-
pletely 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 dis-
tance 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

THE LAND DIVIDED 13

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 di-
recting 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 chair-
man 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 misin-
formed 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 con-

14 THE PANAMA CANAL

troversy 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 regime 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
fche money voted for the canal should be honestly
and economically expended, but they were deter-
mined, 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 extor-
tions of Latin and Oriental merchants by estab-
lishing a commissary through which the employees
were furnished wholesome food at reasonable
prices — prices lower, indeed, than those pre-
vailing at home.

As a result of these things the spirit of the Ameri-
cans 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

THE LAND DIVIDED 15

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 tran3lated 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 terri-
torial 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 pro-
jected 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 some-

16 THE PANAMA CANAL

where, 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, encour-
aged a revolution in Panama. This revolution
separated the Isthmus from the Republic of Co-
lombia, 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 sov-
ereignty, and had been, indeed, the theater of
innumerable revolutions.

The part the United States played in encourag-
ing this revolution, the fact that the United States
authorities prevented the transit of Colombian
troops over the Panama Railway, and that Ameri-
can marines were landed at the time, has led to

THE LAND DIVIDED 17

no end of hostile criticism, not to speak of the
still pending and unsettled claims made by Colom-
bia 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'
etat 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 appropria-
tion, indulged in many disputes concerning the

18 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 forti-
fication 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 forti-
fications, 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.

The question of the probable traffic the canal
will be called upon to handle was studied as
perhaps no other world-wide problem of trans-
portation ever was. Prof. Emory R. Johnson
was the student of this phase of the question from

THE THREE PRESIDENTS UNDER WHOSE DIRECTION
THE CANAL WAS BUILT

THE LAND DIVIDED 19

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; Yoko-
hama 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. Curi-
ously 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

20 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 Mis-
sissippi Valley and Gulf States. It means an
unprecedented commercial and industrial awaken-
ing 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 under-
taken, 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 Am-
bassador Bryce has said, is the greatest liberty
man has ever taken with nature.

Its digging was a steady and progressive vic-
tory over sullen and resistant nature. The ditch
through Culefara 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

THE LAND DIVIDED 21

such skill that it is the admiration of all the trans-
portation 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 stair-
ways, 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 under-
taking to tell. There will be much in it of engi-
neering feats and accomplishments, because its
subject is the greatest of all engineering accomplish-
ments. 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 com-
pletion 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

22 THE PANAMA CANAL

history of the Isthmian territory — tales of dis-
coverers 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 engineer-
ing 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 Geo-
graphic 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 com-
parable 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 Monu-

23

24 THE PANAMA CANAL

ment. 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 water-
way 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.55 We are told that it required a hundred
thousand men 10 years to make ready for the
building of that great structure, and £0 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 mate-
rial 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 con-
ception of the work of digging the big water-
way is to consider that enough material had to
be removed by the Americans to make a tunnel

GREATEST ENGINEERING PROJECT 2i.

through the earth at the equator more than 12 feet )
square. «j

But perhaps the comparison that will best il-
lustrate the immensity of the task of digging
the ditch is that of the big Lidgerwood dirt car,

A GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF THE MATERIAL HANDLED AT PANAMA

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 dig-
ging a ditch, for there were some immense struc-
tures 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 mate-
rial, enough to build more than 500 solid shafts
like the Washington Monument. Then there
was the dam at Pedro Miguel — "Peter Magill,"

26 tTHE PANAMA CANAL

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 proj-
ect, they calculated that 103,000,000 cubic yards
of material would have to be excavated, and pre-
dicted 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

GREATEST ENGINEERING PROJECT 27

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 dis-
mayed the engineers. They simply attacked their
problem with renewed zeal and quickened en-
ergy, with the result that they excavated in
seven years of actual operations more than twice
as much jnaterial 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

28 THE PANAMA CANAL

themselves for a still higher record. They forced
up the mark to two million a month, and straight-
way 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 J cents a cubic yard to operate a steam shovel;
in 1911 this had been forced down to 8J cents a
yard. In 1908 more than 18| 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 £ 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

GREATEST ENGINEERING PROJECT 29

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 en-
countered, 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

30 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 pro-
portions 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 Span-
iards 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 mil-
lion pounds of butter — these are some of the
items handled in a single year.

Wherever one turns he finds things which fur-
nish collateral evidence of the magnitude of the
work. The Sanitary Department used each year

GREATEST ENGINEERING PROJECT 31

150,000 gallons of mosquito oil, distributed
thousands of pounds of quinine, cut and burned
millions of square yards of brush, and spent hah6
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 sev-
eral years around Gatun Dam. It was attacked
on this side and that; its foundations were pro-
nounced bad and its superstructure not watertight.
Doubt as to the stability of such a structure
led some of the members of the Board of Con-
sulting Engineers to recommend a sea-level canal.
Further examination of the site and experimen-
tation 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

GATUN DAM S3

X,

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 rush-
ing 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
Taf t 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 criti-
cism 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.

34 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 abso-
lutely 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 re-
quire 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 sur-
face 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.

GATUN DAM 35

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

<, A CROSS-SECTION OF THE GATUN DAM

Culebra Cut. After this comes the hydraulic
fillo 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 bot-
tom, 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.
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.

36 THE PANAMA CANAL

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.

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 peace-
ful, 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

GATUN DAM 37

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 dis-
charge 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 ar-
ranged 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

38 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 £22,000
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 con-
tingency.

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

GATUN DAM 39

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 over-
comes the madness of the water. But still fur-
ther 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 rein-
forced 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 con-
structed 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

40 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 accompany-
ing figure shows the profile of the canal.

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

GATUN DAM 41

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 en-
gineering 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 pro-
posed 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 hah6 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

42 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 conclu-
sively 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 investi-
gations removed every trace of doubt.

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

TORO POINT BREAKWATER

GATUN DAM 43

biggest earth dams in the world are located in
California. The Contra Costa Water Com-
pany'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 earth-
quake 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 Fran-
cisco 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 illus-
trated 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 ex-
plain 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 uncon-
vinced, the Senator pressed his examination fur-
ther. At this juncture Senator Knox, who is a

44 THE PANAMA CANAL

past master at the art of answering a question
with a question, interposed, and asked his col-
league: "Senator, if your theory holds good,
how is it that the dikes of Holland hold in check
the Atlantic Ocean?'7

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 under-
taken. The amount used would be sufficient to
build of concrete a row of six-room houses, reach-
ing 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 acces-
sories, 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

45

46 THE PANAMA CANAL

Toro Point Breakwater. It was built to protect
the entrance of the canal, the harbor, and anchor-
ages 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

THE LOCKS 47

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 J feet. Then we go on to
Miraflores, a mile and a half away, where we are
lifted down 54f 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 inter-
esting to note something of the mechanism. A

\ \

48; THE PANAMA CANAL

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.

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

THE LOCKS 4£

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 float-
ing 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 sec-
tion of the twin locks. The side walls are from
45 to 50 feet thick at the floor. At a point 24|
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 42J 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.

A CROSS-SECTION OF LOCKS, GIVING AN IDEA OF THEIR SIZE

50 THE PANAMA CANAL

In this figure D and G are the big 18-foot cul-
verts 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 cul-
verts 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 cul-
vert 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.

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 some-
thing like giant windows in frames. They are
mounted on roller bearings to make them work
without friction. The others are ordinary cylin-
drical 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

CONCRETE MIXERS, GATUN

A CENTER AY ALL CULVERT, GATUN LOCKS

THE LOCKS 51

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 dif-
ferent gates. The lowest ones are 47 feet high
and the highest ones 82 feet, their height depend-
ing 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 pre-
caution 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, weigh-
ing 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

52^ THE PANAMA CANAL

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, an-
other 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 LOCKS 53

The first task was getting the lock building plant
designed and built. At Gatun the plant con-
sisted 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 connect-
ing 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 pro-
gressed. The cables connecting them were of
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 endur-
ance 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

54 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 car-
ried 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

THE LOCKS % 55

was somewhat different. Instead of cableways
there were great cantilever cranes built of struc-
tural steel. Some of these were in tEe 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.

56 THE PANAMA CANAL

Before the locks could be built it became nec-
essary to excavate down to bed rock. This re-
quired 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 to-
gether 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, rggks 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 pre-
sented 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 emer-
gency 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 auto-
matically 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 every-
where.

67

58 THE PANAMA CANAL

The first thing a ship encounters when it ap-
proaches 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 re-
verse 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 open-
ings 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 accord-

_THE LOCK MACHINERY 59

ingly. 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 operat-
ing 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

60 THE PANAMA CANAL

pits. This automatically moves the switch con-
trolling 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

THE LOCK MACHINERY

emergency dams, like the fender chains, are de-
signed 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 con-
crete of the lock floor. This makes a sort of in-
clined 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

62 THE PANAMA CANAL

stream going through the locks several feet shal-
lower. Then another row of plates is let down on
these, and the stream becomes that much shal-
lower. 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 com-
plete 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 emer-
gency 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 per-
mitting 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 112J 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

THE LOCK MACHINERY 63

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 con-
crete of the wall and bolted there with huge bolts
11 feet long and £j 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

64

THE PANAMA CANAL

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 con-
necting 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 pre-
cautions are entirely independent of and supple-
mental 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.

Wfrt

ONE OF THE 92 GATE-LEAF MASTER WHEELS

THE LOCK MACHINERY 65

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 con-
struction 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 inter-
esting 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

66 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 wind-
lass 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 pro-
vided 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 LOCK MACHINERY

67

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.

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

68 THE PANAMA CANAL

eventually it may furnish the power for an elec-
trified 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 con-
trolled 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 some-
times 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 cul-
verts, 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.

THE LOCK MACHINERY 69

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 dis-
turbed 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 con-
fident, 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 vol-
canic 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

70

CULEBRA CUT , 71

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 con-
ditions 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 mean-
ing 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

72 THE PANAMA CANAL

prism slipped into it and had to be removed by the
steam shovels.

THE EFFECT OF SLIDES

No less than 26 slides and breaks were encount-
ered 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 debris, 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 engi-
neers 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 care-
ful and thorough cost-accounting systems ever
devised. This system was instituted for the
purpose of keeping a check upon all expenditures

CULEBRA CUT 73

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 llj 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 opera-
tion, 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 ma-
terial as compared with less than 5 cents in 1912.
The whole operation of excavating and removing

74 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 ad-
dition 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 load-
able 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.

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

o

CULEBRA CUT

75

operation, one for each 2J miles of track in the
Central Division, which was approximately 32
miles long. A huge steam shovel, taking up 5

AVERAGE SHAPE AND DIMENSIONS OP CtTLEBRA CUT

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.

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 locomo-
tive 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

76 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 fro at
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 unload-
ing and spreading the material was kept up until
the embankment became wide enough to permit
the track to be shifted over. Here another espe-
cially 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.

CULEBRA CUT 77

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

78 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 fre-
quent delays. Then someone thought of putting
between the cable and the plow a link whose break-
ing 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 spread-
ers 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, up-
ward 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 con-
verted 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

CULEBRA CUT 79

sluicing the material down the side of the hills
into the valley beyond. To this end a big hy-
draulic 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 in-
stalled. 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 pre-
dicted. There were those who opposed the build-
ing 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 pocket-
books of the Americans could remove. Others

80 THE PANAMA CANAL

saw the handwriting of Failure on the wall in
the heaving up of the bottom of the cut, inter-
preting 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 ma-
terial, 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

CULEBRA CUT 81

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 dyna-
mite, 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 direc-
tion 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 dig-
ging 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 exca-
vating soft material, washing it loose with power-
ful streams of water and pumping it out with
giant pumps.

82

ENDS OF THE CANAL 83

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 exca-
vation 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 com-
mission, 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

84 . ^ THE PANAMA CANAL

with powerful 20-inch centrifugal pumps. When at
work they steamed up and down the channel, suck-
ing 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

fiven place, and keeps on attacking the material
eneath 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.

Several old French ladder dredges were rescued
from the jungle and put into commission at the
beginning of the work, and they held out faith-
fully 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

86 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 endo 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 advis-
able to let the water come further inland, so that
the dredges could extend the field of their activi-
ties. To do this another dike was thrown across
the channel about a mile north of the first one,

ENDS OF THE CANAL 87

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. There-
fore they filled the basin between the two dikes
by siphon and by pumping, a process which re-
quired the drawing in of billions of gallons of
water. This was accomplished in due time, how-
ever, 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

88 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 dis-
posed 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 com-
pletion, but the indications were that they would
be finished within the time limit originally set for
the completion of the canal itself. These ter-
minal 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 Com-
mission and the Panama Railroad also will be
made a part of the permanent terminal plant on
that side of the Isthmus.

ENDS OF THE CANAL 89

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 coal-
ing 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 adminis-
trative 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 Mira-
flores and Pedro Miguel. Near by will be the
permanent home of the marines who will be sta-
tioned 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 hy-
draulic material into a swamp and by dumping
spoil from Culebra Cut.

90 THE PANAMA CANAL

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. Wher-
ever 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 con-
crete 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

ENDS OF THE CANAL 91

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 rilled up with con-
crete, 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 rein-
forced 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 deteriora-
tion 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. Spe-
cial efforts have been made to provide for the
quick loading of colliers in case of war. The coal

92 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 compart-
ments 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 prop-
erties of the new French Canal Company
it found itself in the possession of a rail-
road 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 pur-
chase of the assets of the new French Canal Com-
pany 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 rail-
road. 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 conces-
sion. 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

93

94 THE PANAMA CANAL

operations which in 10 ye&rs 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 Com-
pany decided to undertake the building of the
canal, it found that the Panama Railroad Com-
pany held concessions that were absolutely nec-
essary 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 communica-
tion 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
.vas 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

THE PANAMA RAILROAD 95

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 con-
struction. 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

96 THE PANAMA 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 Rail-
road 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 sep-

THE PANAMA RAILROAD 97

arate and distinct as though they were under
entirely different ownership. The Panama Rail-
road 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 reappro-
priated 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 opera-
tion 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 pos-
sesses 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

08 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 organi-
zation, 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

THE PANAMA RAILROAD 99

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 com-
parable 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 commis-
sary. 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 be/.

/100 THE PANAMA CANAL

came advisable to determine what role the Panama
Railroad should play after the permanent organi-
zation 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 oper-
ated purely as an auxiliary of the canal with no
separate existence? This matter was carefully
weighed by the canal authorities and the Govern-
ment 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 Steam-
ship 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 quar-
ters 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

THE PANAMA RAILROAD lot-

Secretary of War that the Panama Railroad Com-
pany 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 construc-
tion adapted to tropical needs.

Built of concrete and cement blocks, it is con-
structed 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 fur-
nished. 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 swim-
ming pool in the world, affords ideal facilities
for those /ho 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 serv-
ice. Anyone who has visited the Hotel Washing-
ton, situated as it is on Colon Beach, where the
breakers sweep in from the Caribbean Sea, feels'

40«: THE PANAMA CANAL

that Uncle Sam is no less successful as a hotel
keeper than as a builder of canals.

The Panama Railroad, under the American
regime, 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^ 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 se-
cured 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,

THE PANAMA RAILROAD 103

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 monumen-
tally 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 encoun-
ter, 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.

104 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 20-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 Repub-
lic 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 mos-
quito was a potential messenger of death. The
buzzing, biting pests had defeated the French in
Panama without the French ever having recog-
nized 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 vic-
tories. One was that it made of the Canal Zone
the most healthful strip of land under tropic skies.
The other is the Panama Canal,

100

106 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 investiga-
tions 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 quar-
ters for generations that yellow fever was trans-
missible through mosquitoes; a theory already
partially proved by Dr. Carlos Finley, of Havana,
20 years earlier.

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.

o

LIEUT. FREDERIC MEAR8

pANAMA RAILROAD

SANITATION 107

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 stock-
ings 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 doc-
tors 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

108 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 transmit-
ting a mild infection, and the next problem was
to combat the work of the mosquito by isolation
of yellow fever patients, and by the extermina-
tion 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 com-
mission's investigations, Maj. 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 early acts was to appoint Dr.
Gorgas the chief sanitary officer of the Canal
Zone.

At first there was difficulty in establishing
practical sanitation at Panama. The chief sani-
tary officer was then a subordinate of the com-
mission, and, along with all of the other men who
were trying to do things on the Isthmus, he found

SANITATION 109

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 win-
dows, 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 trans-
portation 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 news-

110 THE PANAMA CANAL

papers 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;
'i 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 fatali-
ties 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

SANITATION 111

i

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 re-
corded 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 wrho goes there and sees the remarkable
evidence of the success of the efforts to conquer
the disease of the tropical jungles, finds a lesson

THE PANAMA CANAL

taught that is too impressive to need the confirma-
tion of medical statistics.

The United States, after the yellow fever out-
break 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 recupera-
tion 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 Isth-
mus 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

SANITATION 113

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 quar-
ters. 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 2j. 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

114 \THE PANAMA CANAL

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 mos-
quito is comparatively easy to exterminate. Its
life habits are such that a terrific mortality may
\>e 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 inhospit-
able 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.

THE GATUN LOCKS, WITH THE ATLANTIC ENTRANCE IN
THE DISTANCE

OPENING THE LOWER GUARD GATES OF THE GATUN LOCKS

'SANITATION 115

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 re-
laxed the mosquitoes again spread over the terri-
tory.

The United States Government will have to
continue with the utmost care its work of sani-
tation 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 de-
moralize 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 govern-
ment. 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

116 THE PANAMA CANAL

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.

SANITATION 117

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 construc-
tion 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.

after New Year's Day, 1907, the chief

THE MAN AT THE HELM 119

V

engineer of the canal, John F. Stevens, dissatis-
fied 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 coun-
try 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

120 THE PANAMA CANAL

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. Arriv-
ing 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

THE MAN AT THE HELM 121

at once to get the full benefit of all that was best
in the Army and in civil life tis 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 founda-
tions upon which he was to build the superstruc-
ture of his success had been laid by his predecessors,
but there were many weak points in these founda-
tions 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. Con-
fronting 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 as-
signment 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

122 THE PANAMA CANAt

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 unpreten-
tious little room in the corner of the administra-
tion building, about 18 feet square, containing
four windows, overlooking the cut from two sides,
its painted walls hung with maps, its floors un-
carpeted, 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 re-
sponsibilities 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

THE MAN AT THE HELM 123

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 pre-
siding 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

124 LTHE PANAMA CANAL

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 Mira-
flores.

"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 workjmder
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

THE MAN AT THE HELM 125

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 chiaf
engineer fell upon a new baby railway track which
was being laid through the eastern lock chambers.
"WThat 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.

126 THE PANAMA CANAL

"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 Irish-
man in charge of dumping the material on the
inside of the dam, now with a man in charge of some

THE MAN AT THE HELM 127

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 congratulat-
ing him upon the smooth manner in which the
canal-building machine seemed to be working.
"You ought tD attend one of my Sunday 'at
homes,'" he replied. "You would think that
there was no smoothness at all to its running."

128 THE PANAMA CANAL

i

A

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 can-
not. " 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 seewhatwe 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.

THE MAN AT THE HELM 129

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
mariner, that his "at homes" have been compared,
by the French ambassador to the United States,
to the court of justice held by Saint Louis be-
neath 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 nen issued an ulti-
matum saying that if he were not released by a cer-
tain 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 announce-
ment 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 be-
longs. 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

130 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 condi-
tions 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

THE MAN AT THE HELM 131

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 adminis-
tration 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 iden-
tical 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 the late Colonel Gaillard, 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 esti-
mates of 1908.

132 THE PANAMA CANAL

In btlier words, Colonel Goethals took that
gDlden rule of all great soldiers, "get there first
\\ith 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 construct-
ive 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 ques-
tion of gravity which pressed for consid-
eration was the creation of the organization by
which it was to be built. Many problems were en-
countered, 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 re-
sponsible 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 engi-
neer of the canal at a salary of $25,000 a year, the
appointment to be effective on the 1st day of June.

133

134 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 proj-
ect. There were hundreds of French houses,
but nearly all of them were in the jungle and prac-
tically 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 construc-
tion engineer. He could buy nothing without

THE ORGANIZATION 135

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 resigna-
tion of the existing Canal Commission, and to
appoint a new one, in which, instead of having
independent departments, with the governor inde-
pendent of the chief engineer, and the chief sani-
tary 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 Theo-
dore 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 En-
gineer Wallace, the control of the Panama Rail-
road 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 accompany T
ing 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 re-

136 THE PANAMA CANAL

sign. 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 Secre-
tary 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
£7, 1905. He found the Panama Railroad al-
most 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 pred-
ecessor he found Government red tape hamper-
ing, 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,

THE ORGANIZATION 13?

and against the eight-hour working day; and
President Roosevelt met his protests by exempt-
ing all employees except clerks from the operations
of civil-service rules, and by abrogating the eight-
hour day.

It was under the regime 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. Presi-
dent 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 in-
cluded 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 con-
tract. Here arose a difference between Mr.
Shonts and Mr, Stevens, and Chairman Shonts

138 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 con-
ditions 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 regime 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.

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 con-
solidated, and the governor was reduced to the
title of "head of the Department of Civil Adminis-
tration," reporting to the chairman, as, did the

MAJ. GEN. GEORGE W. DAVIS REAR ADMIRAL J. G. WALKER

JOHN F. STEVENS

CHARLES E. MAGOOX

RICHARD LEE METCALFE

EMORY R. JOHNSON

MAURICE H. THATCHER

JOSEPH BUCKLIN BISHOP

H. A. GUDGER

JOSEPH C. S. BLACKBURN

THE ORGANIZATION 139

chief sanitary officer and all of the division en-
gineers.

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 Ad-
ministration.

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 appoint-
ment 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

140 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 At-
lantic 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 en-
tered the employ of the United States through the
civil service, having been appointed a civil engi-
neer in the Navy with the rank of lieutenant, after
a competitive examination in 1898. For four

THE ORGANIZATION HI

years he was an engineer of the bureau of which he
afterwards became chief, and for four years follow-
ing, from 1903 to 1907, he was engineer of the
improvements of Mare Island Navy Yard, Cali-
fornia. 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.

142 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 suc-
ceed 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 Buck-
lin Bishop as its secretary. Mr. Bishop was made
the editor of the Canal Record, a weekly paper

THE ORGANIZATION 143

which was the official organ of the Canal Com-
mission. He is a born investigator and when any
matter arose concerning the work on the canal,
about which the chief engineer desired an im-
partial report, he usually referred it to Mr. Bishop.

When the matter of organizing the wrork 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 monu-
ment 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 engi-
neer at Gatun; W. G. Comber, who headed the
dredging work on the Pacific end of the canal dur-
ing 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. Fred-
erick 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. Wil-
liams, Jr., the disbursing officer; and Col. Tom

144 THE PANAMA CANAL

P. 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 suc-
cess at Panama. The organization was imbued
with a spirit of loyalty to the great tnsk, 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 sup-
ported and justified by all Americans.

CHAPTER XH

THE AMERICAN WORKERS

THE directory, supervisory, and mechanical
work in constructing the canal was done
by Americans. The engineers, the fore-
men, the steam shovelers, the operators of spoil
trains, the concrete mixers, and, in short, the
skilled workers were American citizens; the com-
mon 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

. 145

146 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 Commis-
sion 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 con-
ditions 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 oppor-
tunities it afforded for building up a comfortable
bank account.

As the work moved forward those of weak pur-

HARRY H. ROUSSEAU LOWERING A CAISSON SECTION

THE AMERICAN WORKERS 147

pose 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 pur-
pose 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 be-
ginning 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

148 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 £ 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 Com-
missioner 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 char-
acter of the work all conspire against the man who
can not be patient. He soon finds that the Isth-
mus 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

THE AMERICAN WORKERS 149

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 suc-
cessful completion with such unprecedented rapid-
ity. These men knew full well that their sacri-
fices 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

150 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 elimin-
ation that went on continuously during the con-
struction 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 con-
struction 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 pleas-
ant 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 Com-
missioner Rousseau, advised him to make a

THE AMERICAN WORKERS 151

Panaman citizen of little Harry Harwood Rous-
seau, 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 em-
ployment hi 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 com-
mission 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.

152 .THE PANAMA CANAL

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 Presi-
dent 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 occu-
pation. 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

s THE AMERICAN WORKERS 153

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 dis-
tributed. 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 c«nt 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

154

THE NEGRO WORKERS 155

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, permis-
sion was given them to live hi 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 length-
ened, 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 enjoy-
ment 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

156 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 work-
ing 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 in-
dustrious, 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

THE NEGRO WORKERS 157

Jamaica carried with it some who had made what
they considered a sufficient fortune. Every com-
munity 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 sav-
ings 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 steam-
ship 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 in-
clined 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 under-
stood, "Beg pardon, Sir." He would no more
omit the honorific than a Japanese maiden ad-

158 THE PANAMA CANAL

dressing 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 prac-
tically 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 wheel-
barrow 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 pictur-

THE NEGRO WORKERS 159

esque 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 en-
trances were for silver employees and which for
gold employees. The commissaries had the same
provisions, and the railroad company made thp

160 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 em-
ployees," rather than black and white employees,
was originated by E. J. Williams, Jr., the dis-
bursing 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 inter-
mingling 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

THE NEGRO WORKERS 161

size as our own silver dollars and to carry them
around was something of a task.

When the negroes were asked what they pro-
posed 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 hi the hands of negro workmen soon as-
sumed 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 Is-
lands of the West Indies. Ships calling at King-
ston, 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 pig-
eons, and some little old sawbuck-fashioned folding
beds covered with canvas. As soon as inspected
by the doctor for trachoma each negro would

162 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 seasick-
ness 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 grpup 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 irrespon-
sible, 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 oh the money it
paid him in wages.

Under the firm but gentle guidance of the

THE NEGRO WORKERS 163

master American hand, lie 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 be-
fore 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 coun-
tries, 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

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 atmos-
phere 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 com-
missary 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

164

THE COMMISSARY 165

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 regime 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 extra-
ordinary inducements it would be next to impos-
sible 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 obtain-
ing 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 high-
est 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

166 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 pa-
trons 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 distri-
bution 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 remem-
bered 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 distri-
bution 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 con-
sumer at rates much lower than those obtaining in
the United States. According to the most authen-
tic information dressed beef laid down at Panama

THE COMMISSARY 167

v

costs more, quality for quality, than it costs the
ordinary retail butcher in the States. At one time
in 1912 the commissary was paying $11.94j a hun-
dred 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 com-
modities at Panama as meats. Only the very
best goods are handled in the commissary. Any

168 THE PANAMA CANAL

reasonable need of any employee could be sup-
plied 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 inter-
rupted 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 mer-
chants made a long and persistent fight to get the
privilege of doing the business which is done by
the cummissary, 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 busi-
ness of nearly $7,000,000 a year during the height
of the construction period, it received compara-
tively 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.

THE COMMISSARY 169

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 com-
missary 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 establish-
ments. It had a bakery using some 20,000 bar-
rels 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 com-
mission established four different kinds of eating

170 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 accommoda-
tion of visitors; and of those high-class employees
who desired modern hotel facilities. This hotel is
the social center of the Canal Zone. Here prac-
tically 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.

The line hotels were, more properly speaking,
merely dining-rooms where the American em-
ployees 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 Mon-
tana, 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 hear-
ings on the Isthmus Representative T. W. Sims,

WASHINGTON
HOTEL, COLON /

THE TIVOLI HOTEL, ANCON

THE COMMISSARY 171

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, nat-
ural 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, show-
ing a net profit of $38,000 on 1,108,000 rations.
The net profit per day's ration approximated 3j
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 Span-

172 THE PANAMA CANAL

iards who constituted the major portion of the
European employees, it was a "rancho," which is a
mixture of stewed meat, potatoes, cabbage, toma-
toes 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 labor-
ers 40 cents a day for their meals. Their mess
halls were large, airy, comfortable and conspicu-
ously 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 settle-
ment 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

THE COMMISSARY 173

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 comfort-
able. 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 pro-
vided with necessary furniture at Government
expense.

174 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 quarter-
master and demanding to know why such dis-
crimination 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 commis-
sion 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 con-
sequently 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 anticipa-
tion 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

THE COMMISSARY 175

canal digging operation. It has proved the effi-
ciency of government agencies in fields far removed
from the ordinary operations of government, and
it may be that its experience will be used to ad-
vantage 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 Dutch-
man 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

176

LIFE ON THE ZONE 177

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 kabit that he had not fixed upon as neces-
sary 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 relig-
ious devotion that he wears it in India when the
mercury is running out of the top of the thermom-
eter. 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 peo-
ples. 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 quanti-
ties 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

178 THE PANAMA CANAL

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, ho less for
comfort's sake than health's. And then he de-
mands 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 con-
sumes, 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.

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 thea-
ters 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

LIFE ON THE ZONE 179

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, put-
ting 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 sea-
son 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

180 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 light-
ened 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 sortie-
thing 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 in-
vited 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 form-
ing 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

LIFE ON THE ZONE 181

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 character-
ized 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 Ameri-
can 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

182 THE PANAMA CANAL

ready for engagement as household servants. They
were polite and efficient. Almost without ex-
ception 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 un-
suitable 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 Ameri-
can stranger.

LIFE ON THE ZONE 183

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 giv-
ing 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 pur-
poses. These buildings were 70 by 36 feet, witt
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.
\Yhen 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

184 THE PANAMA CANAL

themselves in any movement for good in their
communities. A few years since there was a
little blind boy on the Isthmus and the Federa-
tion 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 institu-
tion for the education of the blind. When the
Federation disbanded, owing to the gradual de-
parture 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

LIFE ON THE ZONE 185

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, reac-
tionaries, 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 cir-
culated showing the Panama Railroad to be a
monopolistic corporation; flaring handbills prov-
ing that the latest town grouch had not acquitted
himself properly in office; statistical tables show-
ing 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 unsatis-
factory to the men themselves as it was to the

186 THE PANAMA CANAL

moral sentiment of those behind the work, and
almost as dangerous to the success of the under-
taking 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 As-
sociation, 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 content-
ment and happiness of the people can be appre-
ciated 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

LIFE ON THE ZONE 187

Isthmus. Bowling alleys, billiard rooms, gym-
nasiums, and many other features for entertain-
ment 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 pro-
vided 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

188 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 ex-
amination 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
at the clubhouses. They gave 85 entertainments

LIFE ON THE ZONE 189

which had a total attendance of 21,000. Local
talent and moving pictures provided 406 enter-
tainments with a total attendance of 96,000.
Amateur oratorio societies, operatic troupes, min-
strel troupes, glee clubs, mixed choruses, vaude-
ville and black-face sketches were organized
during the year through the efforts of the mem-
bers cooperating with the secretaries. These
organizations made the whole circuit of the Isth-
mus. 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 hun-
dred thousand bowling games and nearly 300,000
games of pool and billiards were played during
the year. Trained physical directors were em-
ployed 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 de-
veloping 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 meet-
ings 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

190 THE PANAMA CANAL

like were served on the cool verandas of the club-
houses, 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 advis-
ory 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 perform-
ances of the several clubs in the American and
National leagues. When there was a champion-
ship series to be played there was just as much
excitement over it as if it were a post-season con-
test between the Athletics and the Giants.

It is probable that better amusements will be
provided under the permanent regime than were
during the construction period. With ships con-
stantly passing through the canal, many opera
companies, especially those from Spain and Italy,

LIFE ON THE ZONE 191

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 car-
riages 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 anticipa-
tion 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 hunt-

192 THE PANAMA CANAL

ing 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 entertain-
ment 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 tem-
porary, 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

LIFE ON THE ZONE 193

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 at-
mosphere of the Tropic jungle. He brought with
him his home life, his base ball and his soda foun-
tain. 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

F | AHE digging of an Isthmian Canal was a
dream in the minds of many men in
JL 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 Isth-
mus 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

194

PAST ISTHMIAN PROJECTS 195

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 de-
cided 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 opportuni-
ties, 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 prac-

196 THE PANAMA CANAL

tically 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 com-
pany 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 in-
structed 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

PAST ISTHMIAN PROJECTS 197

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 opposi-
tion 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 coun-
tries 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 Govern-

198 THE PANAMA CANAL

ment, 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 con-
sideration 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.

PAST ISTHMIAN PROJECTS 199

A little later Cornelius Vanderbilt became in-
terested 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 naviga-
tion 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 in-
formed 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 representa-
tions the concession was canceled.

In 1876 the first Nicaraguan Canal Commission
created by the American Congress made a unan-
imous report in favor of a canal across Nicara-
gua, after it had investigated all the proposed
routes from eastern Mexico to western South
America. It asserted that this route possessed,

200 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 inter-
oceanic 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 or-
ganized in 1889 by A. G. Menocal, under conces-
sions 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.

PAST ISTHMIAN PROJECTS 201

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 4 6 -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 esti-
mates, 228,000,000 cubic yards. This would have
been increased, perhaps, by half, to make a
canal large enough to accommodate ships such as

202 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 re-
markable,, 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 Mis-
sissippi proved him to be one of the foremost en-
gineers 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.

If one can imagine a ship railway across the

PAST ISTHMIAN PROJECTS 203

Allegheny Mountains between Lewiston Junc-
tion and Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvania Rail-
road, 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 diametri-
cally opposite directions. The road is well-built,
and, as one crosses the backbone of the con-
tinent, 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 Isth-
mus 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

204 THE PANAMA CANAL

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, de-
claring that they had no hesitation in guarantee-
ing 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 Isth-
mus 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 Bias route. It was found that a canal built
along any one of these routes would require a

PAST ISTHMIAN PROJECTS 205

r

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 XVH

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 prob-
lems.

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.

206

THE FRENCH FAILURE 207

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 dis-
cover 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 de-
feated 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 dis-
appointed 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 en-
acted by the Americans, one might have felt him-

208 THE PANAMA CANAL

self 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 £0 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 Dingier
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

THE FRENCH FAILURE 209

Ancon and Colon cost $7,000,000, and the office
buildings over $5,000,000. Where a $50,000 build-
ing 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 cele-
bration 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 water-
way. 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 Ameri-
cans who took possession in 1904 found a small

210 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 regimes illus-
trates 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 Com-
pany 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.

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, per-
haps, concentrated in any single spot so much

THE MAX OF BRAWN

THE FRENCH FAILURE 211

swindling and villainy, so much vile disease, and
such a hideous mass of moral and physical abom-
inations.

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 con-
struct 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 suc-
ceeded to the khediviate of Egypt, and his pro-
posals 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

THE PANAMA CANAL

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 con-
struction 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 nego-
tiations, 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 col-
lection of tolls on transit and navigation should
begin. The promoters were allowed 2 years to

THE FRENCH FAILURE

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 con-
structed 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 sub-
ject found their opinions least in demand. M.
de Lesseps dominated the conference. Several
members who were radically opposed to its con-
clusions, 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

THE PANAMA CANAL

Universelle du Canal Interoceanique (The Uni-
versal 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 asso-
ciates 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 Rail-
road. 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 cham-
pagne and conviviality, and a fine display of fire-
works at night. The next day, with a chart be-
fore 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

THE FRENCH FAILURE £15

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 celebra-
tion 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 de-
scribed 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 horse-
man, he delighted in mounting the wildest steeds
that Panama could furnish. Riding over the
rough country in which the canal was being lo-
cated 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

216 THE PANAMA CANAL

— fe^h.

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 blink-
ing, 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 build-
ing 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

THE FRENCH FAILURE 217

much more expensive to build a lock canal with
twin chambers than to build a sea-level water-
way. 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 de-
voted 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 estab-
lished a bulletin for the dissemination of informa-
tion concerning the canal; during the entire
period of his connection with the project this
bulletin was filled with the most exaggerated re-
ports, and the most reckless mis-statements in
favor of a successful prosecution of the work.
By 1888 the confidence of the French people i»

218 THE PANAMA CANAL

de Lesseps waned. Unable to raise more money,
and now popularly dubbed the "Great Under-
taker," 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 repa-
triated over 6,000 negroes. The Chilean Govern-
ment 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 every-
thing 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 con-
cession would expire before the work could be

THE FRENCH FAILURE 219

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 con-
cession 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 equip-
ment 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 vol-
umes 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 over-

220 THE PANAMA CANAL

enthusiasm 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 be-
ginning 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 Amer-
ican 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 Decem-
ber, 1898, President McKinley recommended
the building of the Nicaragua Canal. Two days
later Senator John T. Morgan, of Alabama, made

221

222 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 re-
peatedly 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 har-
bors 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 de-
feated in the House and the matter went to con-
ference. If the House conferees stood pat in
their opposition to the Senate amendment, the
whole rivers and harbors bilj 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 proj-

CHOOSING THE PANAMA ROUTE 223

ect at this juncture lay in a dispute between
the House and Senate as to the manner of build-
ing the canal. The Senate wanted to do it by
the reorganization of the Maritime Canal Com-
pany, with the majority of its board of directors
appointed by the President, using that corpor-
ation as the agent of the Government for
constructing and operating the canal. Represen-
tative 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 con-
vert 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 expen-
ses of an investigation into all of the various
routes for an Isthmian Canal. This investi-
gation 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 inter-

224 THE PANAMA CANAL

ests 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 Com-
mission, 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 commis-
sion made its report, the House vo'ted 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 pro-

CHOOSING THE PANAMA ROUTE 225

tocols 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 Com-
mission 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

226 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 Pan-
ama Canal Company by the House, President
Roosevelt again called the members of the Isth-
mian Canal Commission together, and asked
them to make a supplementary report in view
of the offer in question. On a motion of Com-
missioner 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 ac-
cept 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 Ad-
miral Walker had called him out of the committee
room and pleaded with him to do so, stating that
the President demanded a unanimous report. Pro-
fessor Haupt afterwards publicly admitted the truth
of this story in a signed article in a magazine.

About this time the Senate Committee on In-

CHOOSING THE PANAMA ROUTE 227

teroceanic 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 Com-
mission 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 set-
tlement 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 Repub-
lic 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 es-
pouse the Panama route. He declared he would
not recommend the acceptance of the propo-
sals 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

£28 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 ex-
act no less than $20,000,000 from the New Pan-
ama Canal Company for Colombia's permis-
sion to transfer its concessions. This demand
was based on the following reasons: First, be-
cause 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 val-
ued at $18,000,000; third, because under the pro-
posed 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 Col-
ombian 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 Com-
pany 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 Colom-
bia ought to require the New Panama Canal Com-
pany to pay $3,000,000 of the $40,000,000, for

CHOOSING THE PANAMA ROUTE 229

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 proj-
ect. 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

330 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 re-
sulted in the selection of the Panama route.
M. Banau-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. Banau-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 Nic-
aragua route. A few years ago the city of Cart-
ago, 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 under-

CHOOSING THE PANAMA ROUTE 231

standing 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 forth-
coming 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 repeat-
edly urged to come to terms, and after one Col-
ombian 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 de-
clared that if Colombia should refuse to hear
the American proposal that a new treaty be
entered into, the United States would, in retalia-
tion, denounce the treaty of 1846, and there-
after view with complacency any events which
might take place in Panama inimical to Colom-
bia'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 Colom-
bia than any damage the Republic might suffer
by the ratification of a treaty with the United
States permitting the building of the canal.

THE PANAMA 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 ter-
ritory, 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 re-
quiring 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 for-
mation 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 Colom-
bia. 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 con-
cession 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*

283

234 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 dun-
geon where he soon died. The Vice President thus
became the head of the Government. Anyone
who knows conditions in such countries as Colom-
bia, 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.

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

MIDDLE GATES, MIRAFLORES LOCKS

H. O. COLE

CONTROVERSY WITH COLOMBIA 235

treaty. Or, failing that, the President would
declare martial law, by virtue of vested consti-
tutional 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 ex-
tended 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, 1904, 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 Repre-
sentative 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

236 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 Govern-
ment 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 invita-
tion from Bogota to put itself under the Govern-
ment 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

-CONTROVERSY WITH COLOMBIA 237

1840, the Isthmus again won complete indepen-
dence. 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 with-
draw and set up an independent government at
any time. In 1885 a new constitution was pro-
claimed 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 Govern-
ment 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 inhabi-
tants 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,

238 THE PANAMA CANAL

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. Ac-
cording 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 Wil-
liam 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-

CONTROVERSY WITH COLOMBIA 239

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. Crom-
well to shield himself and his company from re-
sponsibility. 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 Colom-
bian troops to move across the Isthmus, while
at the same time he would not allow the revolu-
tionists 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 insur-

240 THE PANAMA CANAL

gents were permitted to use the railroad, Colom-
bia 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 pre-
venting 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 coun-

CONTROVERSY WITH COLOMBIA 241

try 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 con-
tended 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 con-
tention of the Colombian Government that the
United States undertook to guarantee the sover-
eignty 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 right to a
finish; the third was to recognize the indepen-
dence of the Republic of Panama and forbid
Colombia to land troops on the Isthmus. Presi-
dent 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 Presi-
dent!" The result of the revolution, and the
recognition of the independence of the Republic of
Panama, was that Colombia, which had tried to

242 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 Isth-
mus — 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 circum-
venting 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 pro-
posed to submit affected the honor of the United
States and that these matters were not arbitrable.

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

CONTROVERSY WITH COLOMBIA 243

pass upon the question of whether the cause thus
espoused was just — whether the people of Pan-
ama were exercising their just rights in maintain-
ing 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 indepen-
dent in its origin, and by nature and history a
separate political community; that it was feder-
ated 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 Govern-
ment 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 con-
flicting interests of the three parties by making
a just compensation in money. In pursuance of

244 THE PANAMA CANAL

this idea three treaties were negotiated: One
between the United States and the Republic of
Colombia, one between the United States and the
Republic of Panama, and one between the Govern-
ments of Colombia and Panama, all three being
interdependent, to stand or to fall together.
These treaties were negotiated at the instance of
Colombia and were framed with every desire to
accommodate their terms to the just expectations
of that country. They were accepted by the
Colombian Cabinet, but were not acted upon by
the Colombian Congress.

In the Knox treaty negotiated with Colombia
in 1910 that country proposed to agree to a popu-
lar election upon the separation of Panama and to
abide by the result. The United States offered
to sign an additional agreement to pay to Colom-
bia $10,000,000 for a permanent option for the
construction of an interoceanic canal through
Colombian territory, and for the perpetual lease
of the Islands of St. Andrews and Old Providence,
if Colombia would ratify the treaties with the
United States and Panama. This proposition
was refused. It was then proposed that in addi-
tion to the $10,000,000 the United States would be
willing to conclude with Colombia a convention
submitting to arbitration the question of the
ownership of the reversionary rights in the Pan-
ama Railroad — rights which the Colombian
Government asserts that it possesses. In addition
to this the United States offered its good offices
to secure the settlement of the Panama-Colombia
boundary dispute.

All of these propositions being rejected, the

CONTROVERSY WITH COLOMBIA 245

Republic of Colombia was asked if it would be
willing to accept $10,000,000 outright, in satis-
faction 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 administratigUt

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 Govern-
ment 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, repre-
senting 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 nego-
tiations, 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 coun-
try on earth does one nation possess ultimate
jurisdiction over the capital of another nation; yet

246

RELATIONS WITH PANAMA 247

this is what the United States possesses at Panama.
The first consideration of the treaty was the estab-
lishment of the Canal Zone. This gave to the
United States a territory 5 miles beyond the cen-
ter 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 per-
petuity with all rights, powers, and authority
that the United States would possess if it were
sovereign, and to the entire exclusion of the exer-
cise 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 per-
petuity with all sanitary ordinances, whether cura-
tive 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 deter-
mine when such action is necessary.,

248 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 Com-
pany 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

RELATIONS WITH PANAMA 249

shall have the right to bring laborers of any na-
tionality 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 to-
day 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 per-
petual annual payment of a quarter of a million
dollars beginning with the year 1913. The ten-
million-dollar cash payment gave the impover-
ished 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 Pan-
ama, and for the munitions of war of the Republic.
It also allows the Republic of Panama to trans-
mit 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 pri-

250 THE PANAMA CANAL

vate 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 im-
provements. For several years preceding the
acquisition of the Canal Zone, and the sanitization
of the cities of Panama and Colon, the late W. I.
Buchanan was the United States minister to Colom-
bia. He was transferred to another South Ameri-
can 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 Depart-
ment 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 Black-
burn 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

RELATIONS WITH PANAMA 251

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. WThere there
had been absolutely no attempt to solve the prob-
lems 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 stand-
ard of American municipal engineering.

When one considers that the Republic of Pan-
ama is made up largely of the cities of Panama and
Colon, with a large area of almost wholly un-
developed 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 sup-
porters. When the registration books were opened

THE PANAMA CANAL

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 con-
tinental which side won the election, but that it
was very deeply interested in maintaining condi-
tions of peace and amity on the Isthmus — con-
ditions 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 admin-
istration 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

RELATIONS WITH PANAMA 253

unpleasant experiences with the Republic of
Colombia when it, as a private corporation, under-
took 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 intrinsi-
cally 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 be-
tween the two countries, it has been difficult to
prevent some conditions which are contrary to
American ideas of morality. For instance, while

254 THE PANAMA CANAL

the Canal Commission was strongly opposed to
having a lottery on the Canal Zone, one is main-'
tained 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 lot-
tery 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 Govern-
ment. 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 prof-
its 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 com-
plaint. They have permitted the satisfactory
construction of the canal, and they will per-
mit 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

RELATIONS WITH PANAMA 255

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 respon-
sible 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 un-
willing 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

THE CANAL ZONE GOVERNMENT 257

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 admin-
istration 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 im-
provements 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

258 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 repug-
nant to American ideas of justice to deny to Ameri-
cans 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 effect-
ive 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 advisa-
ble to allow them to occupy land within the Zone.
There will be only five settlements in the Zone, if

THE CANAL ZONE GOVERNMENT 259

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 exeed 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

260 THE PANAMA CANAL

various parts of the Zone and fixed the value of
such holdings. The people were given free trans-
portation 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 aggre-
gate 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 exec-
utive orders covering points not touched by con-
gressional legislation, and under his instructions
the Secretary of War could promulgate certain
orders. In addition to this, the Canal Commis-

THE CANAL ZONE GOVERNMENT 261

sion had a right to serve as a sort of local legis-
lature. 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 Isth-
mian 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 prac-
tically 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

262 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 es-
tablished 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 fur-
nished 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-

THE CANAL ZONE GOVERNMENT 263

class white policemen, 116 colored policemen, 20
corporals, 8 sergeants, 7 lieutenants, and 2 in-
spectors, 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 con-
victions. 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 repres-
sive 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*

264 THE PANAMA CANAL

A well-organized, paid fire department was
maintained from the beginning and it was supple-
mented 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 of-
ficials, 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 neigh-
borhood were gathered up in wagons and trans-
ported 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

THE CANAL ZONE GOVERNMENT 265

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 ex-
tended 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 serv-
ice 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 water-
sheds of the Isthmus where no human habita-
tions 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 con-
ditions to the sanitary and other authorities.

266 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 unpleas-
ant flavor, due to the presence of decayed vegeta-
tion, 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 Presi-
dent 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.
'• Under the new Government all old laws, not

THE CANAL ZONE GOVERNMENT 267

specifically repealed, or contrary to the new ones,
will be continued in force. All executive orders
issued by the President, and all orders and or-
dinances promulgated by the Canal Commission,
during the construction period, not inconsistent
with the act creating a permanent form of govern-
ment, are made laws of the Canal Zone to con-
tinue 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 ap-
preciation of the needs of the executive
branch of the Government, spending money fool-
ishly here and being niggardly with its appropri-
ations 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 Washing-
ton, 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

CONGRESS AND THE CANAL 269

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 sup-
porter 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 esti-
mates 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 ac-
cordingly; consequently, the work was never
handicapped by appropriations deficient in one
branch and overabundant in another.

Congress for several years made its appropria-
tions 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. Ex-

270 THE PANAMA CANAL

perience showed clearly that all hands had hope-
lessly 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 antici-
pated 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

CONGRESS AND THE CANAL 271

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 main-
taining 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 pro-
vision 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

272 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 un-
doubtedly 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 pro-
posed 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 appro-
priation 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 AND THE CANAL 273

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 through-
out 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 juris-
diction 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

*THE PANAMA CANAL

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 tne 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 Com-
pany, but that it should be reimbursed for any
loss it might sustain from the appropriations
made by Congress for the building of the canal.
There were a number of committees in Congress
which dealt with canal legislation. Principal
among these were the Committees on Appropria-
tions of the two Houses, the Committee on
Interoceanic Canals of the Senate, and the Com-
mittee 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

CONGRESS AND THE CANAL 275

with their own eyes the projects for which each
individual appropriation was asked. The prac-
tice 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.

276 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 XXIH

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 Ameri-
can 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 de-
clared 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 en-
countered all during the construction period. The

277

278 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 actu-
ally removed was 105,000,000 cubic yards. Upon
this basis a sea-level Culebra Cut might have re-
quired 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 apprecia-
tion 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 Man-
chester Ship Canal, declared that Culebra Cut pre-
sented 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.

SEA-LEVEL CANAL IMPOSSIBLE 279

If President Roosevelt had followed the recom-
mendation of the majority of the board of consult-
ing engineers in favor of a sea-level canal, it seems
probable that the United States would have fol-
lowed the French in retiring defeated from the
Isthmus, or else would have reconsidered its pur-
pose 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 some-
what 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 sever-

280 THE PANAMA CANAL

ity, 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 be-
tween floods, but if two floods came in quick suc-
cession 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 Pan-
ama 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

SEA-LEVEL CANAL IMPOSSIBLE 281

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 inter-
oceanic 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 m the history

THE PANAMA CANAL

of the canal project he allowed himself to be con-
verted 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 situ-
ation 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 be-
came 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 num-
ber 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 affirma-
tive.

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,

284 THE PANAMA CANAL

probably for the reason that better naval protec-
tion 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%o-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 en-
trance 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%o-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 quarter-
ing the eight companies of coast-defense troops
which will be stationed at the Pacific end of the

FORTIFICATIONS 285

canal. These islands are 3 miles from the main-
land 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

286 THE PANAMA CANAL

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, there-
fore, 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 im-
provements known to military science. The car-
riages for the big guns have been specially de-
signed, and were put through the most thorough

FORTIFICATIONS 287

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. Deter-
mining 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 lo-
cates 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 instru-
ment, 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.

288 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 amid-
ship on the enemy. Each man stands on a plat-
form 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

FORTIFICATIONS 289

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 hah6 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 corn-

290 THE PANAMA CANAL

panics of coast-defense troops will be permanently
stationed on the Isthmus. The field troops, con-
sisting of the infantry, cavalry, and field artillery,
will be stationed at Miraflores, where permanent
quarters will be provided together with the neces-
sary 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 conti-
nental 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

FORTIFICATIONS 291

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 Isth-
mus against a siege of 100,000 for a reason-
able 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 conten-
tion 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 State^ .was. under solemn obligations to

THE PANAMA CANAL

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 em-
bodied 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 observ-
ing 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 inter-
missions as may result from the necessities of the

service.'3

It will be seen from this that the language of the
treaty seems plainly to imply that the United

FORTIFICATIONS 293

States had no right to fortify the canal. It is
interesting to note, however, that when the con-
troversy over the tolls between the United States
and England arose, tte English Government ex-
pressly 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 ac-
quired practical sovereignty over the Canal Zone,
and that thereunder it had a perfect right to pro-
vide for the defense of the territory. They
asserted that the canal was undertaken because of
the military necessities of the Unite J 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

£94 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 provi-
sions of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, the fortifica-
tions 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 pro-
test against the fortification of the canal. In the
face of these arguments, however, Congress de-
termined 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 trans-
portation lines in accordance with the new condi-
tions.

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 Presi-
dent to prescribe, and from time to time to
change, the tolls that shall be levied by the Govern-
ment 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

295

296 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 hundred-
weight 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

FIXING THE TOLLS 297

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 ship-
ping firm allows only 40 feet per ton. Thus it
happens that a shipowner charges the shipper
for carrying 2j tons where the United States
charges the shipowner for carrying 1 ton.

Notwithstanding the fact that the shipowner
collects for the carrying of 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 pas-
sage. 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 main-

898 THE PANAMA CANAL

taining 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 thou-
sand dollars for each day its voyage is shortened.
If this voyage be shortened by 20 days, the ship-
owner 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 Pan-
ama 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 approxi-
mately $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.

It has been stated that a proper system of

GATUN SPILLWAY FROM ABOVE AND BELOW

FIXING THE TOLLS 299

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 ap-
proximates 17,000,000 tons a year, which it will
reach about 1925.

It has been estimated by Prof. Emory R. John-
son, 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

300 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 mer-
chant 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

FIXING THE TOLLS 301

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 hi 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 contra-
vention 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 ar 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

302 THE PANAMA CANAL

Honduras; and held a protectorate over the
" Mosquito Coast," now the east coast of Nica-
ragua. That protectorate covered the eastern ter\
minus of the only ship canal then deemed possible.

Under these conditions the United States con-
cluded that it was necessary for the support of
the Monroe doctrine that some sort of an under-
standing should be reached between the two
countries. England assented to such an under-
standing 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

FIXING THE TOLLS 303

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 neu-
tralization.

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 coast-
wise traffic from the payment of tolls as a dis-
crimination 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 cer-
tain that only bona fide coastwise traffic, which
is reserved for American vessels, would be bene-
fited 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

304 tTHE PANAMA CANAL

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 coast-
wise 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

FIXING THE TOLLS 305

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 opera-
ting 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, re-
quested that the matter be submitted to The Hague
tribunal for adjudication. The American Govern-
ment 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

306 THE PANAMA CANAL

unanimity of opinion on either side of the Atlantic.
Some British authorities entirely justify the Ameri-
can 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 en-
gaged in coast trade would affect neither the
rates of the regular steamship lines nor the charges
of the transcontinental railroads.

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 be-
tween the two coasts on such a basis as to pre-
vent 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

FIXING THE TOLLS 307

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 con-
siderations 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 cer-
tainty 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 traflSc
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

308 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 coast-
wise 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 per-
sons 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 com-
paratively small. It will consist of men in general
charge of the lock operations, men in charge of
the towing operations, men who handle the vari-
ous 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. An-
other force will be required at the auxiliary power
plant at Miraflores which will be operated by

30U .

310 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 or-
ganization. The salaries for the construction pe-
riod 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 at-
tendance, 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 em-
ployer 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 en-
actment of the permanent canal law, it reflected

THE OPERATING FORCE 311

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

812 THE PANAMA CANAL

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
hrve the canal dug by a board of seven commission-
ers, 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 super-
vision of the chairman and chief engineer. The
result was a coordination of the work and a satis-
factory 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 concen-
trated 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 fol-
lowed, and the act as finally adopted makes the
President practically a czar of the Isthmus, and

THE OPERATING FORCE 313

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 satis-
factory 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 oper-
ating force. In speaking of this phase of the mat-
ter, 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 Isth-
mus — 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 posi-
tion 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.

314 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 opera-
tion of the canal outside of the work of maintain-
ing 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 construc-
tion 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 opera-
tion 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 is-
sue of all property and material. This department

THE OPERATING FORCE 315

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 approxi-
mately a hundred thousand dollars. It is esti-
mated 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 popu-
lation at the Pacific side, the Atlantic end wTill
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 con-
ducted 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

816 THE PANAMA CANAL

that the passenger-carrying steamer will require
at least 48 hours to make its calls at the two ter-
minal 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 prob-
ably will he ve 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 per-
fecting 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 XXVH

HANDLING THE TRAFFIC

FOUR or five years before the earliest
probable opening date, shipping inter-
ests began to arrange their future sched-
ules with respect to the Panama Canal.

One can scarcely realize how rapidly the facili-
ties 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 as-
sumes 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 com-
pleted 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

317 ,

318 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 chan-
nel 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 ship-
ping 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

HANDLING THE TRAFFIC 319

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.

\Yhat 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

320 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 Pan-
ama 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 in-
stance, a 10,000-ton ship which saves a dollar
a ton on a thousand tons of coal, saves the equiv-
alent 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 steam-
ing coal costs $2.70 per ton laid down at Newport
News. Under the carrying agreements with ship-
ping interests that obtained during the con-
struction period, this coal was carried to Panama

HANDLING THE TRAFFIC 321

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 mer-
chantman would get $368,000 for delivering
264,000 tons of coal, while the cost of delivery
by collier for the same amount would approxi-
mate $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 Navi-
gation Company long before the canal opened,
is building a coaling station at Kingston, Ja-
maica, 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.

322 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 re-
sponsive 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 build-
ing 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 wreck-
ing 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

HANDLING THE TRAFFIC 323

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 ad-
vantage 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 perma-
nent canal law that regulations shall be promul-
gated by the President which will provide for
the prompt adjustment, by agreement, and im-
mediate payment of claims. In case of dis-
agreement, suit may be brought in the district

324 ATHE PANAMA CANAL

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 immedi-
ately paid out of any moneys appropriated or
allotted for canal operation."

The character of misrepresentations made con-
cerning the canal was illustrated in a story pub-
lished in the midsummer of 1913. This story
originated in London and declared that all of
the big shipping interests were afraid of the Pan-
ama Canal, and that Lloyds would insure ves-
sels and cargo only at much advanced rates.
The article went on to state that the represent-
ative 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 Magel-
lan, 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

HANDLING THE TRAFFIC 325

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, individ-
uals 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 ade-
quate 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 small-
est 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 main-
tain 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

326

THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 327

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 indepen-
dence, but the best information points either to
Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a Frenchman, or to William
Nelson Cromwell, an American. These two gen-
tlemen 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 con-
struction 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 univer-
sity chairs, and fewer students qualified to pursue
university courses; and the result is that the uni-
versity 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 pro-
vided that he could not do so. He thereupon de-
cided 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

328 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 entertain-
ment. 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 to-
day than before the Americans came. The
stenches which greet the visitor in the native
quarters are no less odorous than those encoun-

THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 329

tered 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 en-
gaged 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,

330 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 boat-
men 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.

THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 331

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 fre-
quently 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 ex-
amination 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

832 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 jun-
gle 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 tropi-
cal 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, al-
though 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 Bias Indians.
The latter tribe has never been known to allow a
white man to remain in its territory after sun-

THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 333

down. Even the higher officials of the Panaman
Government are forced to respect this tradition
when they treat with the San Bias 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 dis-
covered 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 cap-
tured a number of Spaniards, melted a lot of the
yellow metal and poured it down their throats,

334 THE PANAMA CANAL

telling them to drink until their thirst for gold was
quenchedo

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 fili-
busters, 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 arti-
ficial ship way 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 ter-
minus, to Suez at the Red Sea end, being approxi-
mately 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 en-
larged, and their number increased to 13. This

335

330 THE PANAMA CANAL

work of straightening curves and widening the
canal has continued from that time until the pres-
ent, 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 in-
creased to 29J 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 32f 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 98J feet. This
is now being still further increased to 134| 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 26J 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 straighten-

OTHER GREAT CANALS 337

ing 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 per-
mitted to pass through at night. The improve-
ments 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 con-
struction up to the present time about $127,000,000
of which approximately two-thirds has been se-
cured 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 en-
titled to interest of 5 per cent as well as to partici-
pation 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

338 THE PANAMA CANAL?

shares were given to the founders. These shares
are not stock, but are, rather, certificates of obli-
gation, 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 found-
ers of the company $1,500,000 and the administra-
tive 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 en-
joyed 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 be-
low 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

OTHER GREAT CANALS 339

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 J miles long. It ex-
tends 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
Bridge water 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

340 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 subscrip-
tions 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| feet. The total
cost of the canal was approximately $37,000,000.
It was in operation only 12 years until it was
found ueceasary to enlarge it* The reconstruction

OTHER GREAT CANALS, 341

of the canal was authorized by the German Govern-
ment 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, al-
though 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

342 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 com-
pleted 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.

OTHER GREAT CANALS 343

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 Am-
sterdam 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 20J feet.
It was built primarily as a military undertaking,
but has proved of great service to Russian com-
merce.

Another important European canal is that ex-
tending 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
26J 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

344 ; THE PANAMA CANAL

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 J 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 im-

OTHER GREAT CANALS 345

portant place as a traffic-carrying waterway, is the
Chicago Drainage Canal connecting Lake Michi-
gan at Chicago with the Illinois River at Lockport
— a distance of 34 miles. It was built for the pur-
pose 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 ma-
terial was required — enough, if deposited hi 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 con-
nection 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 prep-
arations for capitalizing the commercial oppor-
tunities which the opening of the canal will afford,
are being made in various parts of the country.

346 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 appro-
priation of $500,000,000 to be spent in a systematic
program of inland waterway development, is meet-
ing with encouragement in every part of the coun-
try, 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 fol-
lowing the completion of the Panama Canal.
Cities that heretofore have been mere way sta-
tions 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-encompass-
ing 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 Mediter-
ranean from communication with India, and sent
Columbus westward in quest of another passage,
which could not be obstructed by the Mussul-
man 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

347

348 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 inci-
dent 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 Minne-
apolis 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 tre-
mendous 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

A NEW COMMERCIAL MAP 349

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 w^here 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.

350 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 exist-
ing 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

A NEW COMMERCIAL MAP

351

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.

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 exist-

INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING ROUTES

ing 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

352 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 sanita-
tion, 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 be-
ginning 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 estab-
lish 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

A NEW COMMERCIAL MAP 853

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. As-
suming further that only one-fifth of this would
pass through the canal, the American commerce

354 THE PANAMA CANAL f

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.
WThen China, with its 400,000,000 people, awakens
as Japan has awakened, and builds up an inter-
national 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.

A NEW COMMERCIAL MAP 355

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 produc-
tion, 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 busi-
ness 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 inter-
national trade routes that will be called into being
by the opening of the Panama Canal. At King-
ston, Jamaica, great improvements are projected,
coaling stations are planned, and other steps are
being taken which will enable the British Govern-
ment to reap what advantage it can from the con-
struction 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.

356 THE PANAMA CANAL

Denmark is planning extensive shipping facili-
ties 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 re-
minder 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 Ven-
ezuela. 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 Ven-
ezuela 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

A NEW COMMERCIAL MAP 357

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 commerical expansion. This vast ter-
ritory, 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 govern-
ment, 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 prom-
ise. During a single decade the external com-
merce 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.

358

AMERICAN TRADE OPPORTUNITIES 359

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 govern-
ment 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 whole-
some rule of northern Europeans and their
descendants. The people have at least those sub-

360 THE PANAMA CANAL

stantial 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 pre-
vails. 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 Isth-
mus 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 Re-
publics 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 un-
developed 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

AMERICAN TRADE OPPORTUNITIES 361

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 use-
less to hope for prosperity and expansion in coun-
tries 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.

882 THE PANAMA CANAL

I

As matters stand today in the majority of the
countries of Latin America, although their Govern-
ments 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 op-
portunities 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

AMERICAN TRADE OPPORTUNITIES 363

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 condi-
tions 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,

564 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 con-
cessions 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 neces-
sity 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

AMERICAN TRADE OPPORTUNITIES 365

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 con-
ducted 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 hypothe-
cate 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
lypothecated with the British bondholders. Of
course, the British bondholders protest at this

866 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 op-
portunity 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 Govern-
ment at the centennial celebration of the retire-
ment 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:

AMERICAN TRADE OPPORTUNITIES 367

"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 im-
purities."

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 aggran-
dizement 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 under-
taking, understand that nothing will be over-
looked 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 com-
pleted the ruin and devastation which the earth-
quake had begun, has been the spirit that has
planned and is carrying to a successful culmina-
tion the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The San
Francisco earthquake came as the most terrific

PANAMA -PACIFIC EXPOSITION 369

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 com-
munity 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 debris 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 exposi-
tions 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 Fran-
cisco was made on June 12, 1904, when Mr. R. B.
Hale wrote a letter to the San Francisco Mer-
chants' Association advising its members that it
would be wise to take steps toward securing for
that city a great celebration_of the 400th anni-

870 THE PANAMA CANAL

» \

versary 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 in-
troduced in the National House of Representa-
tives 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 atten-
tion of the people of that city. In December,
1906, however, the Pacific Ocean Exposition Com-
pany 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 in-
ternational 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 amount-
ing to $4,089,000 were raised, headed by 40 sub-
scriptions of $25,000 each.

In the fall of that year San Francisco was af-
forded 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 State1
of California also gave its citizens an opportunity
to show their feeling, and by a vote of 174,000 to
fiO,000 made available bonds for $5,000,000 for

PANAMA -PACIFIC EXPOSITION 371

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 pur-
poses. To this, $30,000,000 will be added by
outside governments and by exhibitors and con-
cessionaires.

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 comple-
tion 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, stretch-
ing 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 coast-
line 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

372 THE PANAMA CANAL

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 exposi-
tion. 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 exposi-
tion. 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 break-
ing 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 re-
mind 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 cir-
cuit 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 Abund-
ance represents the Orient, and the Court of the

PANAMA -PACIFIC EXPOSITION 373

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 import-
ant exhibition palaces.

The Panama-Pacific Exposition will be differ-
ent 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 por-
tions of San Francisco and the towns of the sur-
rounding 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 Fran-
cisco 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 oranger-
ies, 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

874 THE PANAMA CANAL

j

supervision of the artist in charge of the color
scheme of the exposition. The roofs of the build-
ings will be harmoniously colored and the city
will be a great party-colored area of red tiles,
golden domes, and copper-green minarets. "Im-
agine," 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 indi-
rect 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. Sculp-
ture will stand out without shadow at night as by
day. Great searchlights, many of them con-
centrated 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 con-
tribute 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 stand-
ing 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 sculp-

PANAMA -PACIFIC EXPOSITION 375

tural 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 open-
ing 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 liber-
ality 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
wrill 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, pri-
vate 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 ship-
ping world and pass its representatives through
to the Pacific, whence they will sail to San Fran-

376 THE PANAMA CANAL

Cisco, 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 Amer-
ica 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 dur-
ing 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 Jan-
uary 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 tra-
ditions 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

PANAMA -PACIFIC EXPOSITION 377

been before. The expense of the month's car-
nival 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 ex-
travagant 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, after-
wards 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

378 THE PANAMA CANAL

Canal was the wildest orgy of modern times, the
last attempt to Orientalize a commercial under-
taking 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 enter-
tainment 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 Alle-
ghenies and the snow peaks of the Rockies,
Americans will go to the Golden Gate to com-
memorate 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

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 Con-
gress, 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, 2.2,2., 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 Tele-
graph 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

, 381

382

INDEX

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, 230, 237,

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., 232
Culverts, 50

Dams, Emergency, 60, 61
Davis, Charles H., 196
Davis, George W., 134, 256

Death rate, 103

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, 323

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

INDEX

383

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 R., 18, 299, 306

Kahn, Julius, 370

Kaiser - Wilhelm Canal, 340-341

Kiel Canal, 340-341

Knox, Philander C., 43, 243

Labor in passing ships through, 68, 69

Laborers, 367

Land, Prices of, 333

Laws of Canal Zone, 266, 267

Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 8, 132, 211-

219

Lidgerwood cableways, 53
Lidgerwood dirt car, 25
Lidgerwood dirt trams, 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

384

INDEX

Malaria, 9, 11, 105, 207, 211

Man-made peninsula, 45

Manchester ship canal, 29, 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, 331

Matrimony, Premium on, 179

Mears, Frederick, 143

Melbourne, 19

Menocal, A. G., 200

Metcalf, Richard L., 139

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,

T15

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, 236, 237, 239. 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, IOC
Pay-day, 160, 161
Pay of Americans, 173
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, 826
Religious activities, 183

INDEX

385

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 Bias 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 R, 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

Taberailla, 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,

loo

Washington Hotel, 101
Washington monument, 23, 25. 26
Water, Control of, 65
Water supply, 265, 266

INDEX

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,

176, 180, 207

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