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Title: The Panama Canal

Author: Frederic J. Haskin

Release date: January 9, 2013 [eBook #41807]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Panama Canal, by Frederic Jennings
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THE PANAMA CANAL

The 5 Points of
Authority in
this Book
1. All of the chapters in this book pertaining to the actual construction
of the Canal were read and corrected by Colonel George W. Goethals,
Chairman and Chief Engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission.
2. All of the illustrations were made from photographs taken by Mr.
Ernest Hallen, the official photographer of the Commission.

3. The book contains the beautiful, colored Bird's-eye View of the
Canal Zone, made under the direction of the National Geographic
Society, as well as the black-and-white official map of the Canal.
4. The extensive index was prepared by Mr. G. Thomas Ritchie, of the
staff of the Library of Congress.
5. The final proofs were revised by Mr. Howard E. Sherman, of the
Government Printing Office, to conform with the typographical style
of the United States Government.

———
"The American Government,"

by the same author, was read by millions of Americans, and still holds
the record as the world's best seller among all works of its kind.

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE PANAMA CANAL
ATLANTIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN
Courtesy, National Geographic Magazine, Washington, D. C.
Copyright, 1913, by the J. N. Matthews Co., Buffalo, N. Y.

THE PANAMA CANAL

BY

FREDERIC J. HASKIN
AUTHOR OF "THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT," ETC.

Illustrated from photographs taken by
ERNEST ALLEN
Official Photographer of the Isthmian Canal Commission

Garden City New York
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1913

Copyright, 1913, by

Doubleday, Page & Company

All rights reserved, including that of

translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian

Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Co.
New York

PREFACE
The primary purpose of this book is to tell the layman the story of the
Panama Canal. It is written, therefore, in the simplest manner possible,
considering the technical character of the great engineering feat itself, and
the involved complexities of the diplomatic history attaching to its
inception and undertaking. The temptation to turn aside into the pleasant
paths of the romantic history of ancient Panama has been resisted; there is
no attempt to dispose of political problems that incidentally concern the
canal; in short, the book is confined to the story of the canal itself, and the
things that are directly and vitally connected with it.
Colonel Goethals was good enough to read and correct the chapters relating
to the construction of the canal, and, when shown a list of the chapters
proposed, he asked that the one headed "The Man at the Helm" be omitted.
The author felt that to bow to his wishes in that matter would be to fail to
tell the whole story of the canal, and so Colonel Goethals did not read that
chapter.
Every American is proud of the great national achievement at Panama. If, in
the case of the individual, this book is able to supplement that pride by an
ample fund of knowledge and information, its object and purpose will have
been attained.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The grateful acknowledgments of the author are due to Mr. William Joseph
Showalter for his valuable aid in gathering and preparing the material for
this book. Acknowledgments are also due to Colonel George W. Goethals,
chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission, for reading
and correcting those chapters in the book pertaining to the engineering
phases of the work; to Mr. Ernest Hallen, the official photographer of the
Commission, for the photographs with which the book is illustrated; to Mr.
Gilbert H. Grosvenor, editor of the National Geographic Magazine, for
permission to use the bird's-eye view map of the canal; to Mr. G. Thomas
Ritchie, of the Library of Congress, for assistance in preparing the index;
and to Mr. Howard E. Sherman, of the Government Printing Office, for
revising the proofs to conform with the typographical style of the United
States Government.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Land Divided—The World United 3
II. Greatest Engineering Project 23
III. Gatun Dam 32
IV. The Locks 45
V. The Lock Machinery 57
VI. Culebra Cut 70
VII. Ends of the Canal 82
VIII. The Panama Railroad 93
IX. Sanitation 105
X. The Man at the Helm 118
XI. The Organization 133
XII. The American Workers 145
XIII. The Negro Workers 154
XIV. The Commissary 164
XV. Life on the Zone 176
XVI. Past Isthmian Projects 194
XVII. The French Failure 206
XVIII. Choosing the Panama Route 221
XIX. Controversy with Colombia 233
XX. Relations with Panama 246
XXI. Canal Zone Government 256
XXII. Congress and the Canal 268
XXIII. Sea Level Canal Impossible 277
XXIV. Fortifications 283
XXV. Fixing the Tolls 295
XXVI. The Operating Force 309
XXVII. Handling the Traffic 317
XXVIII. The Republic of Panama 326
XXIX. Other Great Canals 335
XXX. A New Commercial Map 347
XXXI. American Trade Opportunities 358

XXXII. The Panama-Pacific Exposition 368

THE ILLUSTRATIONS
Birdseye View of the Panama Canal Zone Color insert
FACING
PAGE
George W. Goethals, Chairman and Chief Engineer 10
A Street in the City of Panama 11
Theodore Roosevelt 18
William Howard Taft 18
Woodrow Wilson 18
Vendors in the Streets of Panama 19
A Native Boy Marketing 19
Lieut. Col. W. L. Sibert 43
The Upper Locks at Gatun 43
Toro Point Breakwater 43
Concrete Mixers, Gatun 50
A Center Wall Culvert, Gatun Locks 50
The Machinery for Moving a Lock Gate 51
Steam Shovels Meeting at Bottom of Culebra Cut 74
L. K. Rourke 74
The Man-made Canyon at Culebra 75
The Disastrous Effects of Slides in Culebra Cut 82
U. S. Ladder Dredge "Corozal" 83
A Mud Bucket of the "Corozal" 83
W. G. Comber 83
Col. William C. Gorgas 106
The Hospital Grounds, Ancon 106
Lieut. Frederic Mears 107
The Old Panama Railroad 107
Sanitary Drinking Cup 114
Mosquito Oil Drip Barrel 114
Spraying Mosquito Oil 114
Typical Quarters of the Married Laborer 115
A Native Hut 115

Maj. Gen. George W. Davis 138
Rear Admiral J. G. Walker 138
Theodore P. Shonts 138
John F. Wallace 138
John F. Stevens 138
Charles E. Magoon 138
Richard Lee Metcalfe 139
Emory R. Johnson 139
Maurice H. Thatcher 139
Joseph Bucklin Bishop 139
H. A. Gudger 139
Joseph C. S. Blackburn 139
Brig. Gen. Carroll A. Devol 146
American Living Quarters at Cristobal 146
Harry H. Rousseau 147
Lowering a Caisson Section 147
John Burke 170
Meal Time at an I. C. C. Kitchen 170
Washington Hotel, Colon 171
Major Eugene T. Wilson 171
The Tivoli Hotel, Ancon 171
Floyd C. Freeman 178
I. C. C. Club House at Culebra 178
A. Bruce Minear 179
Reading Room in the I. C. C. Club House, Culebra 179
Col. Chester L. Harding 202
The Gatun Upper Locks 202
Lieut. Col. David D. Gaillard 203
Culebra Cut, Showing Cucaracha Slide in Left
203
Center
The Man of Brawn 210
Ferdinand de Lesseps 211
An Old French Excavator Near Tabernilla 211
Philippe Bunau-Varilla 211
S. B. Williamson 234
The Lower Gates, Miraflores Locks 234
Middle Gates, Miraflores Locks 235

H. O. Cole 235
The Pay Car at Culebra 242
Edward J. Williams 242
Uncle Sam's Laundry at Cristobal 243
Smoke from Heated Rocks in Culebra Cut 266
Tom M. Cooke 267
The Post Office, Ancon 267
A Negro Girl 274
A Martinique Woman 274
San Blas Chief 274
An Indian Girl 274
An Italian 274
A Timekeeper 274
A Spaniard 274
A Negro Boy 274
Testing the Emergency Dam, Gatun Locks 275
Col. Harry F. Hodges 275
The Ancon Baseball Park 298
Caleb M. Saville 299
Gatun Spillway from Above and Below 299
An Electric Towing Locomotive in Action 306
Blowing Up the Second Dike South of Miraflores
307
Locks

DIAGRAMS
A Graphic Illustration of the Material Handled at Panama 25
A Cross Section of the Gatun Dam 35
Plan of the Gatun Dam and Locks 36
A Profile Section of the Canal 40
From a Model of Pedro Miguel Lock 48
A Cross-section of Locks, Giving an Idea of Their Size 49
One of the 92 Gate-leaf Master Wheels 64
A Mauretania in the Locks 67
The Effect of Slides 72
Average Shape and Dimensions of Culebra Cut 75
The Corozal and its Method of Attack 85
International Shipping Routes 351
A Map Showing Isthmus with the Completed Canal 379

The Panama Canal
"I have read the chapters in 'The Panama Canal' dealing with the
engineering features of the Canal and have found them an accurate
and dependable account of the undertaking."

Geo. W. Goethals.

THE PANAMA CANAL

CHAPTER I
THE LAND DIVIDED—THE WORLD UNITED

The Panama Canal is a waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans, cut through the narrow neck of land connecting the continents of
North and South America. It is the solution of the problem of international
commerce that became acute in 1452 when the Eastern Roman Empire fell
before the assaults of the Turks, and the land routes to India were closed to
Western and Christian Europe.
Forty years after the Crescent supplanted the Cross on the dome of St.
Sophia in Constantinople, Columbus set sail to seek a western route to the
Indies. He did not find it, but it was his fortune to set foot on the Isthmus of
Panama, where, more than four centuries later, the goal of his ambition was
to be achieved; not by discovery, but by virtue of the strength and wealth of
a new nation of which he did not dream, although its existence is due to his
own intrepid courage.
Columbus died not knowing that he had multiplied the world by two, and
many voyagers after him also vainly sought the longed-for western passage.
Magellan sought it thousands of leagues to the southward in the cold and
stormy seas that encircle the Antarctic Continent. Scores of mariners sought
it to the northward, but only one, Amundsen, in the twentieth century, was
able to take a ship through the frozen passages of the American north seas.
Down the western coast of the new continent from the eternal ice of Alaska
through the Tropics to the southern snows of Tierra del Fuego, the mighty
Cordilleras stretch a mountain barrier thousands and thousands and
thousands of miles.
Where that mountain chain is narrowest, and where its peaks are lowest,
ships may now go through the Panama Canal. The canal is cut through the
narrowest part of the Isthmus but one, and through the Culebra Mountain,
the lowest pass but one, in all that longest, mightiest range of mountains.
There is a lower place in Nicaragua, and a narrower place on the Isthmus

east of the canal, but the engineers agreed that the route from Colon on the
Atlantic to Panama on the Pacific through Culebra Mountain was the most
practicable.
The canal is 50 miles long. Fifteen miles of it is level with the oceans, the
rest is higher. Ships are lifted up in giant locks, three steps, to sail for more
than 30 miles across the continental divide, 85 feet above the surface of the
ocean, then let down by three other locks to sea level again. The channel is
300 feet wide at its narrowest place, and the locks which form the two
gigantic water stairways are capable of lifting and lowering the largest ships
now afloat. A great part of the higher level of the canal is the largest
artificial lake in the world, made by impounding the waters of the Chagres
River, thus filling with water the lower levels of the section. Another part of
the higher level is Culebra Cut, the channel cut through the backbone of the
continent.
Almost before Columbus died plans were made for cutting such a channel.
With the beginning of the nineteenth century and the introduction of steam
navigation, the demand for the canal began to be insistent.
Many plans were made, but it remained for the French, on New Year's Day
of 1880, actually to begin the work. They failed, but not before they had
accomplished much toward the reduction of Culebra Cut. They expended
between 1880 and 1904 no less than $300,000,000 in their ill-fated efforts.
In 1904 the United States of America undertook the task. In a decade it was
completed and the Americans had spent, all told, $375,000,000 in the
project.
Because the Atlantic lies east and the Pacific west of the United States, one
is likely to imagine the canal as a huge ditch cut straight across a neck of
land from east to west. But it must be remembered that South America lies
eastward from North America, and that the Isthmus connecting the two has
its axis east and west. The canal, therefore, is cut from the Atlantic south-
eastward to the Pacific. It lies directly south of Pittsburgh, Pa., and it brings
Peru and Chile closer to New York than California and Oregon. The first 7
miles of the canal, beginning at the Atlantic end, run directly south and
from thence to the Pacific it pursues a serpentine course in a southeasterly
direction.

At the northern, or Atlantic, terminus are the twin cities of Colon and
Cristobal, Colon dating from the middle of the nineteenth century when the
railroad was built across the Isthmus, and Cristobal having its beginnings
with the French attempt in 1880. At the southern, or Pacific, terminus are
the twin cities of Panama and Balboa. Panama was founded in 1673 after
the destruction by Morgan, the buccaneer, of an elder city established in
1519. The ruins of the old city stand 5 miles east of the new, and, since their
story is one, it may be said that Panama is the oldest city of the Western
World. Balboa is yet in its swaddling clothes, for it is the new American
town destined to be the capital of the American territory encompassing the
canal.
The waterway is cut through a strip of territory called the Canal Zone,
which to all intents and purposes is a territory of the United States. This
zone is 10 miles wide and follows the irregular line of the canal, extending
5 miles on either side from the axis of the channel. This Canal Zone
traverses and separates the territory of the Republic of Panama, which
includes the whole of the Isthmus, and has an area about equal to that of
Indiana and a population of 350,000 or about that of Washington City. The
two chief Panaman cities, Panama and Colon, lie within the limits of the
Canal Zone, but, by the treaty, they are excepted from its government and
are an integral part of the Republic of Panama, of which the city of Panama
is the capital. Cristobal and Balboa, although immediately contiguous to
Colon and Panama, are American towns under the American flag.
The Canal Zone historically and commercially has a record of interest and
importance longer and more continuous than any other part of the New
World. Columbus himself founded a settlement here at Nombre de Dios;
Balboa here discovered the Pacific Ocean; across this narrow neck was
transported the spoil of the devastated Empire of the Incas; here were the
ports of call for the Spanish gold-carrying galleons; and here centered the
activities of the pirates and buccaneers that were wont to prey on the
commerce of the Spanish Main.
Over this route, on the shoulders of slaves and the back of mules, were
transported the wares in trade of Spain with its colonies not only on the
west coasts of the Americas, but with the Philippines.

Not far from Colon was the site of the colony of New Caledonia, the
disastrous undertaking of the Scotchman, Patterson, who founded the Bank
of England, to duplicate in America the enormous financial success of the
East India Company in Asia.
Here in the ancient city of Panama in the early part of the nineteenth
century assembled the first Pan American conference that gave life to the
Monroe doctrine and ended the era of European colonization in America.
Here was built with infinite labor and terrific toll of life the first railroad
connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans—a railroad less than 50
miles in length, but with perhaps the most interesting story in the annals of
railroading.
Across this barrier in '49 clambered the American argonauts, seeking the
newly discovered golden fleeces of California.
This was the theater of the failure of Count de Lesseps, the most stupendous
financial fiasco in the history of the world.
And this, now, is the site of the most expensive and most successful
engineering project ever undertaken by human beings.
It cost the French $300,000,000 to fail at Panama where the Americans, at
the expenditure of $375,000,000, succeeded. And, of the excavation done
by the French, only $30,000,000 worth was available for the purpose of the
Americans. That the Americans succeeded where the French had failed is
not to be assigned to the superiority of the American over the French nation.
The reasons are to be sought, rather, in the underlying purposes of the two
undertakings, and in the scientific and engineering progress made in the
double decade intervening between the time when the French failure
became apparent and the Americans began their work.
In the first place, the French undertook to build the canal as a money-
making proposition. People in every grade of social and industrial life in
France contributed from their surpluses and from their hard-earned savings
money to buy shares in the canal company in the hope that it would yield a
fabulously rich return. Estimates of the costs of the undertaking, made by
the engineers, were arbitrarily cut down by financiers, with the result that
repeated calls were made for more money and the shareholders soon found

to their dismay that they must contribute more and yet more before they
could hope for any return whatever. From the beginning to the end, the
French Canal Company was concerned more with problems of promotion
and finance than with engineering and excavation. As a natural result of this
spirit at the head of the undertaking the whole course of the project was
marred by an orgy of graft and corruption such as never had been known.
Every bit of work was let out by contract, and the contractors uniformly
paid corrupt tribute to high officers in the company. No watch was set on
expenditures; everything bought for the canal was bought at prices too high;
everything it had to sell was practically given away.
In the next place, the French were pitiably at the mercy of the diseases of
the Tropics. The science of preventive medicine had not been sufficiently
developed to enable the French to know that mosquitoes and filth were
enemies that must be conquered and controlled before it would be possible
successfully to attack the land barrier. Yellow fever and malaria killed
engineers and common laborers alike. The very hospitals, which the French
provided for the care of the sick, were turned into centers of infection for
yellow fever, because the beds were set in pans of water which served as
ideal breeding places for the death-bearing stegomyia.
In this atmosphere of lavish extravagance caused by the financial
corruption, and in the continual fear of quick and awful death, the morals of
the French force were broken; there was no determined spirit of conquest;
interest centered in champagne and women; the canal was neglected.
Yet, in spite of this waste, this corruption of money and morals, much of the
work done by the French was of permanent value to the Americans; and
without the lessons learned from their bitter experience it would have been
impossible for the Americans or any other people to have completed the
canal so quickly and so cheaply.
The Americans brought to the task another spirit. The canal was to be
constructed not in the hope of making money, but, rather, as a great national
and popular undertaking, designed to bring the two coasts of the great
Republic in closer communication for purposes of commerce and defense.
The early estimates made by the American engineers were far too low, but
the French experience had taught the United States to expect such an

outcome. Indeed, it is doubtful if anybody believed that the first estimates
would not be doubled or quadrupled before the canal was finished.

George Goethals
Chairman and Chief Engineer

A STREET IN THE CITY OF PANAMA
The journey of the U. S. S. Oregon around the Horn from Pacific waters to
the theater of the War with Spain in the Caribbean, in 1898, impressed upon
the American public the necessity of building the canal as a measure of
national defense. Commercial interests long had been convinced of its
necessity as a factor in both national and international trade, and, when it
was realized that the Oregon would have saved 8,000 miles if there had
been a canal at Panama, the American mind was made up. It determined
that the canal should be built, whatever the cost.

From the very first there was never any question that the necessary money
would be forthcoming. It is a fact unprecedented in all parliamentary
history that all of the appropriations necessary for the construction and
completion of the Isthmian waterway were made by Congress without a
word of serious protest.
During the same War with Spain that convinced the United States that the
canal must be built, a long forward step was taken in the science of
medicine as concerned with the prevention and control of tropical diseases.
The theory that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes had been
proved by a Cuban physician, Dr. Carlos Finley, a score of years earlier. An
Englishman, Sir Patrick Manson, had first shown that disease might be
transmitted by the bites of insects, and another Englishman, Maj. Roland
Ross, had shown that malaria was conveyed by mosquitoes. It remained,
however, for American army surgeons to demonstrate, as they did in Cuba,
that yellow fever was transmissible only by mosquitoes of the stegomyia
variety and by no other means whatsoever.
With this knowledge in their possession the Americans were able to do what
the French were not—to control the chief enemy of mankind in torrid
climes. In the first years of the work the public, and Congress, reflecting its
views, were not sufficiently convinced of the efficacy of the new scientific
discoveries to afford the means for putting them into effect. The Isthmian
Canal Commission refused to honor requisitions for wire screens, believing
that they were demanded to add to the comfort and luxury of quarters on the
Zone, rather than for protection against disease. But the outbreak of yellow
fever in 1905 was the occasion for furnishing the Sanitary Department,
under Col. W. C. Gorgas, with the necessary funds, and thus provided, he
speedily and completely stamped out the epidemic. From that time on, no
one questioned the part that sanitation played in the success of the project.
The cities of Panama and Colon were cleaned up as never were tropical
cities cleaned before. All the time, every day, men fought mosquitoes that
the workers in the ditch might not be struck down at their labors.
The Americans, too, made mistakes. In the beginning they attempted to
build the canal under the direction of a commission with headquarters in
Washington. This commission, at long distance and by methods hopelessly
involved in red tape, sought to direct the activities of the engineer in charge

on the Isthmus. The public also was impatient with the long time required
for preparation and insistently demanded that "the dirt begin to fly."
The work was begun in 1904. It proceeded so slowly that two years later the
chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission asserted that it must be let out
to a private contractor, this being, in his opinion, the only way possible to
escape the toils of governmental red tape. The then chief engineer, the
second man who had held that position while fretting under these methods,
was opposed to the contract system. Bids were asked for, however, but all
of them were rejected.
Fortunately, Congress from the beginning had left the President a
practically free hand in directing the course of the project. Mr. Roosevelt
reorganized the commission, made Col. George W. Goethals, an Army
engineer, chairman of the commission and chief engineer of the canal. The
constitution of the commission was so changed as to leave all the power in
the hands of the chairman and to lay all of the responsibility upon his
shoulders.
It was a master stroke of policy, and the event proved the choice of the man
to be admirable in every way. From the day the Army engineers took charge
there was never any more delay, never any halt in progress, and the only
difficulties encountered were those of resistant Nature (such as the slides in
Culebra Cut) and those of misinformed public opinion (such as the absurd
criticism of the Gatun Dam).
The Americans, too, in the early stages of the work were hampered by
reason of the fact that the final decision as to whether to build a sea-level
canal or a lock canal was so long delayed by the conflicting views of the
partisans of each type in Congress, in the executive branches of the
Government, and among the engineers. This problem, too, was solved by
Mr. Roosevelt. He boldly set aside the opinion of the majority of the
engineers who had been called in consultation on the problem, and directed
the construction of a lock canal. The wisdom of this decision has been so
overwhelmingly demonstrated that the controversy that once raged so
furiously now seems to have been but a tiny tempest in an insignificant
teapot.

One other feature of the course of events under the American régime at
Panama must be considered. Graft and corruption had ruined the French;
the Americans were determined that whether they succeeded or not, there
should be no scandal. This, indeed, in part explains why there was so much
apparently useless circumlocution in the early stages of the project.
Congress, the President, the engineers, all who were in responsible position,
were determined that there should be no graft. There was none.
Not only were the Americans determined that the money voted for the canal
should be honestly and economically expended, but they were determined,
also, that the workers on the canal should be well paid and well cared for.
To this end they paid not only higher wages than were current at home for
the same work, but they effectively shielded the workers from the exactions
and extortions of Latin and Oriental merchants by establishing a
commissary through which the employees were furnished wholesome food
at reasonable prices—prices lower, indeed, than those prevailing at home.
As a result of these things the spirit of the Americans on the Canal Zone,
from the chairman and chief engineer down to the actual diggers, was that
of a determination to lay the barrier low, and to complete the job well
within the limit of time and at the lowest possible cost. In this spirit all
Americans should rejoice, for it is the highest expression of the nearest
approach we have made to the ideals upon which the Fathers founded our
Republic.
It is impossible to leave out of the reckoning, in telling the story of the
canal, the checkered history of the diplomatic engagements on the part of
the United States, that have served both to help and to hinder the
undertaking. What is now the Republic of Panama has been, for the greater
part of the time since continental Latin America threw off the yoke of
Spain, a part of that Republic having its capital at Bogota, now under the
name of Colombia, sometimes under the name of New Granada, sometimes
a part of a federation including Venezuela and Ecuador. The United States,
by virtue of the Monroe doctrine, always asserted a vague and undefined
interest in the local affairs of the Isthmus. This was translated into a
concrete interest when, in 1846, a treaty was made, covering the
construction of the railroad across the Isthmus, the United States engaging
always to keep the transit free and open. Great Britain, by virtue of small

territorial holdings in Central America and of larger claims there, also had a
concrete interest, which was acknowledged by the United States, in the
Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, under which a projected canal should be
neutral under the guarantee of the Governments of the United States and
Great Britain.
For years the United States was inclined to favor a canal cut through
Nicaragua, rather than one at Panama, and, after 1898, when the American
nation had made up its mind to build a canal somewhere, the partisans of
the Panama and Nicaragua routes waged a bitter controversy.
Congress finally decided the issue by giving the President authority to
construct a canal at Panama, with the proviso that should he be unable to
negotiate a satisfactory treaty with Colombia, which then owned the
Isthmus, he should proceed to construct the canal through Nicaragua. Under
this threat of having the scepter of commercial power depart forever from
Panama, Colombia negotiated a treaty, known as the Hay-Herran treaty,
giving the United States the right to construct the canal. This treaty,
however, failed of ratification by the Colombian Congress, with the
connivance of the very Colombian President who had negotiated it.
But President Roosevelt was most unwilling to accept the alternative given
him by Congress—that of undertaking the canal at Nicaragua—and this
unwillingness, to say the least, encouraged a revolution in Panama. This
revolution separated the Isthmus from the Republic of Colombia, and set up
the new Republic of Panama. As a matter of fact, Panama had had but the
slenderest relations with the Bogota Government, had been for years in the
past an independent State, had never ceased to assert its own sovereignty,
and had been, indeed, the theater of innumerable revolutions.
The part the United States played in encouraging this revolution, the fact
that the United States authorities prevented the transit of Colombian troops
over the Panama Railway, and that American marines were landed at the
time, has led to no end of hostile criticism, not to speak of the still pending
and unsettled claims made by Colombia against the United States. Mr.
Roosevelt himself, years after the event and in a moment of frankness,
declared: "I took Panama, and left Congress to debate it later."

Whatever may be the final outcome of our controversy with Colombia, it
may be confidently predicted that history will justify the coup d'état on the
theory that Panama was the best possible site for the interoceanic canal, and
that the rupture of relations between the territory of the Isthmus and the
Colombian Republic was the best possible solution of a confused and
tangled problem.
These diplomatic entanglements, however, as the canal is completed, leave
two international disputes unsettled—the one with Colombia about the
genesis of the canal undertaking, and the other with Great Britain about the
terms of its operation.
Congress, in its wisdom, saw fit to exempt American vessels engaged
exclusively in coastwise trade—that is to say, in trade solely between ports
of the United States—from payment of tolls in transit through the canal.
This exemption was protested by Great Britain on the ground that the Hay-
Pauncefote treaty, which took the place of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty,
provided that the canal should be open to all nations on exact and equal
terms. The future holds the termination of both these disputes.
Congress, that never begrudged an appropriation, indulged in many disputes
concerning the building and operation of the canal. First, there was the
controversy as to site, between Nicaragua and Panama. Next, came the
question as to whether the canal should be at sea level or of a lock type.
Then there was the question of tolls, and the exemption of American
coastwise traffic. But, perhaps the most acrimonious debates were on the
question as to whether or not the canal should be fortified. Those who
favored fortification won their victory, and the canal was made, from a
military standpoint, a very Gibraltar for the American defense of, and
control over, the Caribbean. That this was inevitable was assured by two
facts: One that the trip of the Oregon in 1898 crystallized public sentiment
in favor of constructing the canal; and the other that the canal itself was
wrought by Army engineers under the direction of Colonel Goethals.
Colonel Goethals never for a moment considered the possibility that
Congress would vote against fortifications, and the whole undertaking was
carried forward on that basis.

If the military idea, the notion of its necessity as a feature of the national
defense, was the determining factor in initiating the canal project, it remains
a fact that its chief use will be commercial, and that its money return,
whether small or large, nearly all will be derived from tolls assessed upon
merchant vessels passing through it.

THE THREE PRESIDENTS UNDER
WHOSE DIRECTION THE CANAL
WAS BUILT

VENDERS IN THE STREETS OF PANAMA

A NATIVE BOY MARKETING
The question of the probable traffic the canal will be called upon to handle
was studied as perhaps no other world-wide problem of transportation ever
was. Prof. Emory R. Johnson was the student of this phase of the question
from the beginning to the end. He estimates that the canal in the first few
years of its operation will have a traffic of 10,000,000 tons of shipping each

year, and that by 1975 this will have increased to 80,000,000 tons, the full
capacity of the canal in its present form. Provision has been made against
this contingency by the engineers who have so constructed the canal that a
third set of locks at each end may be constructed at a cost of about
$25,000,000, and these will be sufficient almost to double the present
ultimate capacity, and to take care of a larger volume of traffic than now can
be foreseen.
Americans are interested, first of all, in what the canal will do for their own
domestic trade. It brings Seattle 7,800 miles nearer to New York; San
Francisco, 8,800 miles nearer to New Orleans; Honolulu 6,600 miles nearer
to New York than by the Strait of Magellan. Such saving in distance for
water-borne freight works a great economy, and inevitably must have a
tremendous effect upon transcontinental American commerce.
In foreign commerce, also, some of the distances saved are tremendous. For
instance, Guayaquil, in Ecuador, is 7,400 miles nearer to New York by the
canal than by the Strait of Magellan; Yokohama is nearly 4,000 miles nearer
to New York by Panama than by Suez; and Melbourne is 1,300 miles closer
to Liverpool by Panama than by either Suez or the Cape of Good Hope.
Curiously enough, the distance from Manila to New York, by way of Suez
and Panama, is almost the same, the difference in favor of Panama being
only 41 miles out of a total of 11,548 miles. The difference in distance from
Hongkong to New York by the two canals is even less, being only 18 miles,
this slight advantage favoring Suez.
But it is not by measure of distances that the effect of the canal on
international commerce may be measured. It spells the development of the
all but untouched western coast of South America and Mexico. It means a
tremendous up-building of foreign commerce in our own Mississippi Valley
and Gulf States. It means an unprecedented commercial and industrial
awakening in the States of our Pacific coast and the Provinces of Western
Canada.
While it was not projected as a money-making proposition, it will pay for
its maintenance and a slight return upon the money invested from the
beginning, and in a score of years will be not only self-supporting, but will

yield a sufficient income to provide for the amortization of its capital in a
hundred years.
The story of how this titanic work was undertaken, of how it progressed,
and of how it was crowned with success, is a story without a parallel in the
annals of man. The canal itself, as Ambassador Bryce has said, is the
greatest liberty man has ever taken with nature.
Its digging was a steady and progressive victory over sullen and resistant
nature. The ditch through Culebra Mountain was eaten out by huge steam
shovels of such mechanical perfection that they seemed almost to be alive,
almost to know what they were doing. The rocks and earth they bit out of
the mountain side were carried away by trains operating in a system of such
skill that it is the admiration of all the transportation world, for the problem
of disposing of the excavated material was even greater than that of taking
it out.
The control of the torrential Chagres River by the Gatun Dam, changing the
river from the chief menace of the canal to its essential and salient feature,
was no less an undertaking. And, long after Gatun Dam and Culebra Cut
cease to be marvels, long after the Panama Canal becomes as much a matter
of course as the Suez Canal, men still will be thrilled and impressed by the
wonderful machinery of the locks—those great water stairways, operated
by machinery as ingenious as gigantic, and holding in check with their
mighty gates such floods as never elsewhere have been impounded.
It is a wonderful story that this book is undertaking to tell. There will be
much in it of engineering feats and accomplishments, because its subject is
the greatest of all engineering accomplishments. There will be much in it of
the things that were done at Panama during the period of construction, for
never were such things done before. There will be much in it of the history
of how and why the American Government came to undertake the work, for
nothing is of greater importance. There will be something in it of the future,
looking with conservatism and care as far ahead as may be, to outline what
the completion of this canal will mean not only for the people of the United
States, but for the people of all the world.
Much that might be written of the romantic history of the Isthmian territory
—tales of discoverers and conquistadores, wild tales of pirates and

buccaneers, serio-comic narratives of intrigue and revolution—is left out of
this book, because, while it is interesting, it now belongs to that antiquity
which boasts of many, many books; and this volume is to tell not of
Panama, but of the Panama Canal—on the threshold of its story, fitted by a
noble birth for a noble destiny.

CHAPTER II
GREATEST ENGINEERING PROJECT

The Panama Canal is the greatest engineering project of all history. There is
more than the patriotic prejudice of a people proud of their own
achievements behind this assertion. Men of all nations concede it without
question, and felicitate the United States upon the remarkable success with
which it has been carried out. So distinguished an authority as the Rt. Hon.
James Bryce, late British ambassador to Washington, and a man not less
famous in the world of letters than successful in the field of diplomacy,
declared before the National Geographic Society that not only is the
Panama Canal the greatest undertaking of the past or the present but that
even the future seems destined never to offer any land-dividing, world-
uniting project comparable to it in magnitude or consequence.
We are told that the excavations total 232,000,000 cubic yards; that the
Gatun Dam contains 21,000,000 cubic yards of material; and that the locks
and spillways required the laying of some 4,500,000 cubic yards of
concrete. But if one is to realize the meaning of this he must get out of the
realm of cubic yards and into the region of concrete comparisons. Every
one is familiar with the size and shape of the Washington Monument. With
its base of 55 feet square and its height of 555 feet, it is one of the most
imposing of all the hand reared structures of the earth. Yet the material
excavated from the big waterway at Panama represents 5,840 such solid-
built shafts. Placed in a row with base touching base they would traverse
the entire Isthmus and reach 10 miles beyond deep water in the two oceans
at Panama. Placed in a square with base touching base they would cover an
area of 475 acres. If all the material were placed in one solid shaft with a
base as large as the average city block, it would tower nearly 100,000 feet
in the air.
Another illustration of the magnitude of the quantity of material excavated
at Panama may be had from a comparison with the pyramid of Cheops, of
which noble pile some one has said that "All things fear Time, but Time

fears only Cheops." We are told that it required a hundred thousand men 10
years to make ready for the building of that great structure, and 20 years
more to build it. There were times at Panama when, in 26 working days,
more material was removed from the canal than was required to build
Cheops, and from first to last the Americans removed material enough to
build sixty-odd pyramids such as Cheops. Were it all placed in one such
structure, with a base as large as that of Cheops, the apex would tower
higher into the sky than the loftiest mountain on the face of the earth.
Still another way of arriving at a true conception of the work of digging the
big waterway is to consider that enough material had to be removed by the
Americans to make a tunnel through the earth at the equator more than 12
feet square.

A GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF THE
MATERIAL HANDLED AT PANAMA
But perhaps the comparison that will best illustrate the immensity of the
task of digging the ditch is that of the big Lidgerwood dirt car, on which so
much of the spoil has been hauled away. Each car holds about 20 cubic
yards of dirt, and 21 cars make a train. The material removed from the canal
would fill a string of these cars reaching about three and a half times around
the earth, and it would take a string of Panama Railroad engines reaching
almost from New York to Honolulu to move them.
Yet all these comparisons have taken account of the excavations only. The
construction of the Panama Canal represents much besides digging a ditch,
for there were some immense structures to erect. Principal among these, so
far as magnitude is concerned, was the Gatun Dam, that big ridge of earth a
mile and a half long, half a mile thick at the base, and 105 feet high. It
contains some 21,000,000 cubic yards of material, enough to build more
than 500 solid shafts like the Washington Monument. Then there was the
dam at Pedro Miguel—"Peter Magill," as the irreverent boys of Panama

christened it—and another at Miraflores, each of them small in comparison
with the great embankment at Gatun, but together containing as much
material as 70 solid shafts like our Washington Monument.
Besides these structures there still remain the locks and spillways, with their
four and a half million cubic yards of concrete and their hundreds and
thousands of tons of steel.
With all these astonishing comparisons in mind, is it strange that the
digging of the Panama Canal is the world's greatest engineering project?
Are they not enough to stamp it as the greatest single achievement in human
history? Yet even they, pregnant of meaning as they are, fail to reveal the
full and true proportions of the work of our illustrious army of canal
diggers. They tell nothing of the difficulties which were overcome—
difficulties before which the bravest spirit might have quailed.
When the engineers laid out the present project, they calculated that
103,000,000 cubic yards of material would have to be excavated, and
predicted that the canal diggers would remove that much in nine years.
Since that time the amount of material to be taken out has increased from
one cause or another until it now stands at more than double the original
estimate. At one time there was an increase for widening the Culebra Cut by
50 per cent. At another time there was an increase to take care of the 225
acres of slides that were pouring into the big ditch like glaciers. At still
another time there was an increase for the creation of a small lake between
the locks at Pedro Miguel and Miraflores. At yet another time it was found
that the Chagres River and the currents of the Atlantic and the Pacific
Oceans were depositing large quantities of silt and mud in the canal, and
this again raised the total amount of material to be excavated. But none of
these unforeseen obstacles and additional burdens dismayed the engineers.
They simply attacked their problem with renewed zeal and quickened
energy, with the result that they excavated in seven years of actual
operations more than twice as much material as they were expected to
excavate in nine years. In other words, the material to be removed was
increased 125 per cent and yet the canal was opened at least 12 months
ahead of the time predicted.

How this unprecedented efficiency was developed forms in itself a
remarkable story of achievement. The engineers met with insistent demands
that they "make the dirt fly." The people had seen many months of
preparation, but they had no patience with that; they wanted to see the ditch
begin to deepen. It was a critical stage in the history of the project. If the
dirt should fail to fly public sentiment would turn away from the canal.
So John F. Stevens addressed himself to making it fly. Before he left he had
brought the monthly output almost up to the million yard mark. When that
mark was passed the President of the United States, on behalf of himself
and the nation, sent a congratulatory message to the canal army. Many
people asserted that it was nothing but a burst of speed; but the canal
diggers squared themselves for a still higher record. They forced up the
mark to two million a month, and straightway used that as a rallying point
from which to charge the heights three million. Once again the standard was
raised; "four million" became the slogan. Wherever that slogan was flashed
upon a Y.M.C.A. stereoptican screen there was cheering—cheering that
expressed a determined purpose. Finally, when March, 1909, came around
all hands went to work with set jaws, and for the only time in the history of
the world, there was excavated on a single project, 4,000,000 cubic yards of
material in one month.
With the dirt moving, came the question of the cost of making it fly. By
eliminating a bit of lost motion here and taking up a bit of waste there, even
with the price of skilled labor fully 50 per cent higher on the Isthmus than
in the States, unit costs were sent down to surprisingly low levels. For
instance, in 1908 it was costing 111⁄2 cents a cubic yard to operate a steam
shovel; in 1911 this had been forced down to 87⁄8 cents a yard. In 1908 more
than 181⁄2 cents were expended to haul a cubic yard of spoil 8 miles; in 1911
a cubic yard was hauled 12 miles for a little more than 151⁄5 cents.
Some of the efficiency results were astonishing. To illustrate: One would
think that the working power of a ton of dynamite would be as great at one
time as another; and yet the average ton of dynamite in 1911 did just twice
as much work as in 1908. No less than $50,000 a month was saved by
shaking out cement bags.

It was this wonderful efficiency that enabled the United States to build the
canal for $375,000,000 when without it the cost might have reached
$600,000,000. In 1908, after the army had been going at regulation double-
quick for a year, a board was appointed to estimate just how much material
would have to be taken out, and how much it would cost. That board
estimated that the project as then planned would require the excavation of
135,000,000 cubic yards of material, and that the total cost of the canal as
then contemplated would be $375,000,000. Also it was estimated that the
canal would be completed by January 1, 1915. After that time the amount of
material to be excavated was increased by 97,000,000 cubic yards, and yet
so great was the efficiency developed that the savings effected permitted
that great excess of material to be removed without the additional expense
of a single penny above the estimates of 1908, and in less time than was
forecast.
Although the difficulties that beset the canal diggers were such as engineers
never before encountered, they were met and brushed aside, and all the
world's engineering records were smashed into smithereens. It required 20
years to build the Suez Canal, through a comparatively dry and sandy
region. When the work at Panama was at its height the United States was
excavating the equivalent of a Suez Canal every 15 months. Likewise it
required many years to complete the Manchester Ship Canal between
Liverpool and Manchester, a distance of 35 miles. This canal cost so much
more than was estimated that money was raised for its completion only with
the greatest difficulty. Yet at Panama the Americans dug four duplicates of
the Manchester Ship Canal in five years. All of this was done in spite of the
fact that they had to work in a moist, hot, enervating climate where for nine
months in a year the air seems filled with moisture to the point of
saturation, and where, for more than half the length of the great ditch, the
annual rainfall often amounts to as much as 10 feet—all of this falling in
the nine months of the wet season.
A few comparisons outside of the construction itself will serve to illustrate
the tremendous proportions of the work. Paper money was not handled at
all in paying off the canal army. It took three days to pay off the force with
American gold and Panaman silver. When pay day was over there had been
given into the hands of the Americans, and thrown into the hats of the
Spaniards and West Indian negroes, 1,600 pounds of gold and 24 tons of

silver. When it is remembered that this performance was repeated every
month for seven years, one may imagine the enormous outlay of money for
labor.
The commissary also illustrates the magnitude of the work. Five million
loaves of bread, a hundred thousand pounds of cheese, more than 9,000,000
pounds of meat, half a million pounds of poultry, more than a thousand
carloads of ice, more than a million pounds of onions, half a million pounds
of butter—these are some of the items handled in a single year.
Wherever one turns he finds things which furnish collateral evidence of the
magnitude of the work. The Sanitary Department used each year 150,000
gallons of mosquito oil, distributed thousands of pounds of quinine, cut and
burned millions of square yards of brush, and spent half a million dollars
for hospital maintenance.
No other great engineering project has allowed such a remarkable "margin
of safety"—the engineering term for doing things better than they need to
be done. The engineers who dug the canal took nothing for granted. No rule
of physics was so plain or so obvious as to escape actual physical proof
before its acceptance, when such proof was possible. No one who knows
how the engineers approached the subject, how they resolved every doubt
on the side of safety, and how they kept so far away from the danger line as
actually to make their precaution seem excessive can doubt that the Panama
Canal will go down in history as the most thorough as well as the most
extensive piece of engineering in the world.

CHAPTER III
GATUN DAM

The key to the whole Panama Canal is Gatun Dam, that great mass of earth
that impounds the waters of the Chagres River, makes of the central portion
of the canal a great navigable lake with its surface 85 feet above the level of
the sea, and, in short, renders practicable the operation of a lock type of
canal across the Isthmus.
Around no other structure in the history of engineering did the fires of
controversy rage so furiously and so persistently as they raged for several
years around Gatun Dam. It was attacked on this side and that; its
foundations were pronounced bad and its superstructure not watertight.
Doubt as to the stability of such a structure led some of the members of the
Board of Consulting Engineers to recommend a sea-level canal. Further
examination of the site and experimentation with the materials of which it
was proposed to construct it, showed the engineers that it was safe as to site
and satisfactory as to superstructure. The country had about accepted their
conclusions, when, in the fall of 1908, there was a very heavy rain on the
Isthmus, and some stone which had been deposited on the soil on the
upstream toe of the dam, sank out of sight—just as the engineers expected it
to do. A story thereupon was sent to the States announcing that the Gatun
Dam had given way and that the Chagres River was rushing unrestrained
through it to the sea. The public never stopped to recall that the dam was
not yet there to give way, or to inquire exactly what had happened, and a
wave of public distrust swept over the country.
To make absolutely certain that everything was all right, and to restore the
confidence of the people in the big project, President Roosevelt selected the
best board of engineers he could find and sent them to the Isthmus in
company with President-elect Taft to see exactly what was the situation at
Gatun.

They examined the site, they examined the material, they examined the
evidence in Colonel Goethal's hands. When they got through they
announced that they had only one serious criticism to make of the dam as
proposed. "It is not necessary to tie a horse with a log chain to make sure he
can not break away," observed one of them, "a smaller chain would serve
just as well." And so they recommended that the crest of the dam be
lowered from 135 feet to 115 feet. Still later this was cut to 105 feet. They
found that the underground river whose existence was urged by all who
opposed a lock canal, flowed nowhere save in the fertile valleys of
imagination. The engineers had known this a long time, but out of deference
to the doubters they had decided to drive a lot of interlocking sheet piling
across the Chagres Valley. "What's the use trying to stop a river that does
not exist?" queried the engineers, and so the sheet piling was omitted.
As a matter of fact, Gatun Dam proved the happiest surprise of the whole
waterway. In every particular it more than fulfilled the most optimistic
prophecies of the engineers. They said that what little seepage there would
be would not hurt anything; the dam answered by showing no seepage at
all. They said that the hydraulic core would be practically impervious; it
proved absolutely so. Where it was once believed that Gatun Dam would be
the hardest task on the Isthmus it proved to be the easiest. Culebra Cut
exchanged places with it in that regard.
Gatun Dam contains nearly 22,000,000 cubic yards of material. Assuming
that it takes two horses to pull a cubic yard of material it would require
twice as many horses as there are in the United States to move the dam
were it put on wheels. Loaded into ordinary two-horse dirt wagons it would
make a procession of them some 80,000 miles long. The dam is a mile and
a half long, a half mile thick at the base, 300 feet thick at the water line, and
100 feet thick at the crest. Its height is 105 feet.
Yet in spite of its vast dimensions it is the most inconspicuous object in the
landscape. Grown over with dense tropical vegetation it looks little more
conspicuous than a gradual rise in the surface of the earth. Passengers
passing Gatun on the Panama Railroad scarcely recognize the dam as such
when they see it, so gradual are its slopes. An excellent idea of the gentle
incline of the dam may be had by referring to the accompanying figure,
which shows the outlines of a cross section of the dam.

The materials of which it is constructed are also shown there. Starting on
the upstream side there is a section made of solid material from Culebra
Cut. Beyond this is the upstream toe of the dam, which is made of the best
rock in the Culebra Cut. After this comes the hydraulic fill. This material is
a mixture of sand and clay which, when it dries out thoroughly, is compact
and absolutely impervious to water. It was secured from the river channel
and pumped with great 20-inch centrifugal pumps into the central portion of
the dam, where a veritable pond was formed; the heavier materials settled to
the bottom, forming layer after layer of the core, while the lighter particles,
together with the water, passed off through drain pipes. In this way the
water was not only the hod carrier of the dam construction, but the stone
mason as well. Where there was the tiniest open space, even between two
grains of sand, the water found it and slipped in as many small particles as
were necessary to stop it up.

A CROSS-SECTION OF THE GATUN DAM
Above the hydraulic fill on the upstream side is a layer of solid material,
while that part of the face of the dam exposed to wave action is covered
with heavy rock. The same is true of the crest. On the downstream half of
the dam there is approximately 400 feet of hydraulic fill, then 400 feet of
solid fill, then a 30-foot toe, and then ordinary excavated material.
The Chagres Valley is a wide one until it reaches Gatun. Here it narrows
down to a mile and a half. It is across this valley that the Gatun Dam is
thrown in opposition to the seaward journey of the Chagres waters. At the
halfway point across the valley there was a little hill almost entirely of solid
rock. It happened to be planted exactly at the place the engineers needed it.
Here they could erect their spillway for the control of the water in the lake
above.

GATUN LAKE PLAN OF THE GATUN DAM AND
LOCKS
The regulation of the water level in Gatun Lake is no small task, for the
Chagres is one of the world's moodiest streams. At times it is a peaceful,
leisurely stream of some 2 feet in depth, while at other times it becomes a
wild, roaring, torrential river of magnificent proportions. Sometimes it
reaches such high stages that it sends a million gallons of water to the sea
between the ticks of a clock.
In controlling the Chagres, the engineers again took what on any private
work would have been regarded as absurd precaution. In the first place,
Gatun Lake will be so big that the Chagres can break every record it
heretofore has set, both for momentary high water and for sustained high
water, and still, with no water being let out of the lake, it can continue to
flow that way for a day and a half without disturbing things at all. It could
flow for two days before any serious damage could be done. Thus the canal
force might be off duty for some 45 hours, with the outlet closed, before
any really serious damage could be done by the rampage of the river.
But of course no one supposes that it would be humanly possible that two
such contingencies as the highest water ever known, and everybody asleep
at their posts for two days, could happen together. When the water in the
lake reached its normal level of 87 feet the spillway gates would be opened,
and, if necessary, it would begin to discharge 145,000 feet of water a
second. This is 17,000 feet more than the record for sustained flow
heretofore set by the Chagres. But if it were found that even this was
inadequate the culverts in the locks could be brought into play, and with

them the full discharge would be brought up to 194,000 feet a second, or
57,000 more than the Chagres has ever brought down. But suppose even
this would not suffice to take care of the floods of the Chagres? The
spillway is so arranged that as the level of the water in the lake rises the
discharging capacity increases. With the spillway open, even if the Chagres
were to double its record for continued high water, it would take many days
to bring the lake level up to the danger point—92 feet. When it reached that
height the spillway would have a capacity of 222,000 feet, which, with the
aid of the big lock culverts, would bring the total discharge up to 262,000
feet a second—only 12,000 cubic feet less than double the highest known
flow of the Chagres.
But this is only characteristic of what one sees everywhere. Whether it be in
making a spillway that would accommodate two rivers like the Chagres
instead of one, or in building dams with 63 pounds of weight for every
pound of pressure against it, or yet in building lock gates which will bear
several times the maximum weight that can ever be brought against them,
the work at Panama was done with the intent to provide against every
possible contingency.
The spillway through which the surplus waters of Gatun Lake will be let
down to the sea level, is a large semicircular concrete dam structure with
the outside curve upstream and the inside curve downstream. Projecting
above the dam are 13 piers and 2 abutments, which divide it into 14
openings, each of them 45 feet wide. These openings are closed by huge
steel gates, 45 feet wide, 20 feet high, and weighing 42 tons each. They are
mounted on roller bearings, suspended from above, and are operated by
electricity. They work in huge frames just as a window slides up and down
in its frame. Each gate is independent of the others, and the amount of water
permitted to go over the spillway dam thus can be regulated at will.
When a huge volume of water like a million gallons a second is to be let
down a distance of about 60 feet, it may be imagined that unless some
means are found to hold it back and let it descend easily, by the time it
would reach the bottom it would be transformed into a thousand furies of
energy. Therefore, the spillway dam has been made semicircular, with the
outside lines pointing up into the lake and the inside lines downstream, so
that as the water runs through the openings it will converge all the currents

and cause them to collide on the apron below. This largely overcomes the
madness of the water. But still further to neutralize its force and to make it
harmless as it flows on its downward course, there are two rows of baffle
piers on the apron of the spillway. They are about 10 feet high and are built
of reinforced concrete, with huge cast-iron blocks upon their upstream
faces. When the water gets through them it has been tamed and robbed of
all its dangerous force. The spillway is so constructed that when the water
flowing over it becomes more than 6 feet deep it adheres to the downstream
face of the dam as it glides down, instead of rushing out and falling
perpendicularly.
The locks are situated against the high hills at the east side of the valley,
after which comes the east wing of the dam, then the spillway, then the west
wing of the dam, which terminates on the side of the low mountain that
skirts the western side of the valley. With the hills bordering the valley and
the dam across it, the engineers have been able to inclose a gigantic
reservoir which has a superficial surface of 164 square miles. It is irregular
in shape and might remind one of a pressed chrysanthemum, the flower
representing the lake and the stem Culebra Cut. The surface of the water in
this lake is normally 85 feet higher than the surface of the water seaward
from Gatun and Miraflores. The lake is entirely fresh water supplied by the
Chagres River. The accompanying figure shows the profile of the canal.

A PROFILE SECTION OF THE CANAL
The Chagres River approaches the canal at approximately right angles at
Gamboa, some 21 miles above Gatun. The lake will be so large that the
river currents will all be absorbed, the water backing far up into the
Chagres, the river depositing its silt before it reaches the canal proper.
With the currents thus checked, the Chagres will lose all power to interfere
with the navigation of the canal, although upon the bosom of its water will
travel for a distance of 35 miles all the ships that pass through the big

waterway from Gatun to Miraflores. This fresh water will serve a useful
purpose besides carrying ships over the backbone of the continent.
Barnacles lose their clinging power in fresh water, and when a ship passes
up through the locks from sea level to lake level and from salt water to
fresh, the barnacles that have clung to the sides and bottom of the vessel
through many a thousand mile of "sky-hooting through the brine" will have
their grip broken and they will drop off helplessly and fall to the bed of the
lake, which, in the course of years, will become barnacle-paved. How many
times in dry-dock this will save can only be surmised, but the ship that goes
through the canal regularly will not have much bother with barnacles.
The engineer who worked out the details of the engineering examination of
the dam in 1908 was Caleb M. Saville, who had had experience on some of
the greatest dams in the world. In the first place, the whole foundation was
honeycombed with test borings, and several shafts were sunk so that the
engineers could go down and see for themselves exactly what was the
nature of the material below. There are some problems in engineering where
a decision is so close between safety and danger that none but an engineer
can decide them. But Gatun Dam could speak for itself and in the layman's
tongue.
After investigating the site and getting such conclusive evidence that the
proverbial wayfaring man might understand it the engineers next conducted
a series of experiments to determine whether or not the material of which
they proposed to build the dam would be watertight. They wanted to make
sure whether enough water would seep through to carry any of the dam
material along with it. The maximum normal depth of the water is 85 feet.
The material it would have to seep through is nearly a half mile thick. In
order to determine how the water would behave they took some 3 feet of
the material and put it in a strong iron cylinder with water above it and
subjected it to a pressure equivalent to a head of 185 feet of water. Only an
occasional drop came through. If only an occasional drop of clear water
gets through 3 feet of material under a pressure of 185 feet of water, it does
not require a great engineer to determine that there will not be any seepage
through more than a thousand feet of the same material under a head of
only 85 feet.

And that is only a sample of their seeking after the truth. When they had
gone thus far it was then decided to build a little dam a few yards long
identical in cross section with Gatun Dam. It was built on the scale of an
inch to the foot, by the identical processes with which it was intended to
build the big dam. The result only added confirmation to the other
experiments. With a proportionate head of water against it, it behaved
exactly as they had concluded the big dam would when completed. Every
engineer who has read Saville's report pronounces it a masterpiece of
engineering investigation. It proved conclusively that the site of the dam is
stable, and the dam itself impervious to seepage. The engineers who visited
the Isthmus at the time with President-elect Taft unanimously agreed that
those investigations removed every trace of doubt.

LIEUT. COL. W. L. SIBERT
THE UPPER LOCKS AT GATUN

TORO POINT BREAKWATER
The Gatun Dam covers about 288 acres. The material in it weighs nearly
30,000,000 tons. The pressure of the highest part of the dam on the
foundations beneath amounts to many tons per square foot. The old
bugaboo about earthquakes throwing it down is a danger that exists only in
the minds of those who see ghosts. Some of the biggest earth dams in the
world are located in California. The Contra Costa Water Company's dam at
San Leandro is 120 feet high and not nearly so immense in its proportions
as Gatun Dam, yet it weathered the San Francisco earthquake without
difficulty. In Panama City there is an old flat arch that once was a part of a

church. It looks as though one might throw it down with a golf stick, and
yet it has stood there for several centuries. As a matter of fact, Panama is
out of the line of earthquakes and volcanoes, but even if shocks much worse
than those at San Francisco were to come, there is no reason to fear for the
safety of the big structure.
The lack of knowledge of some of those who in years past criticized the
Gatun Dam was illustrated by an amusing incident that occurred at a
senatorial hearing on the Isthmus. Philander C. Knox, afterwards Secretary
of State, was then a Senator and a member of the committee which went to
the Isthmus. Another Senator in the party had grave doubts about the
stability of Gatun Dam, and asked Colonel Goethals to explain how a dam
could hold in check such an immense body of water. Colonel Goethals, in
his usual lucid way, explained that it was because of that well-known
principle of physics that the outward pressure of water is determined by its
depth and not by its volume—that a column of water 10 feet high and a foot
thick would have just as much outward pressure as a lake 200 square miles
in extent and 10 feet deep. Still unconvinced, the Senator pressed his
examination further. At this juncture Senator Knox, who is a past master at
the art of answering a question with a question, interposed, and asked his
colleague: "Senator, if your theory holds good, how is it that the dikes of
Holland hold in check the Atlantic Ocean?"

CHAPTER IV
THE LOCKS

Ships that pass Panama way will climb up and down a titanic marine
stairway, three steps up into Gatun Lake and three steps down again. These
steps are the 12 huge locks in which will center the operating features of the
Isthmian waterway. The building of these locks represents the greatest use
of concrete ever undertaken. The amount used would be sufficient to build
of concrete a row of six-room houses, reaching from New York to Norfolk,
via Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and Richmond—houses enough to
provide homes for a population as large as that of Indianapolis.
The total length of the locks and their accessories, including the guide
walls, approximates 2 miles. The length of the six locks through which a
ship passes on its voyage from one ocean to the other is a little less than
7,000 feet.
If one who has never seen a lock canal is to get a proper idea of what part
the locks play in the Panama Canal, he must follow attentively while we
make an imaginary journey through the canal on a ship that has just come
down from New York. Approaching the Atlantic entrance from the north,
we pass the end of the great man-made peninsula, jutting out 11,000 feet
into the bay known as Toro Point Breakwater. It was built to protect the
entrance of the canal, the harbor, and anchorages from the violent storms
that sweep down from the north over that region. Omitting our stops for the
payment of tolls, the securing of supplies, etc., we steam directly in through
a great ditch 500 feet wide and 41 feet deep, which simply permits the
ocean to come inland 7 miles to Gatun. When we arrive there we find that
our chance to go farther is at an end unless we have some means of getting
up into the beautiful lake whose surface is 85 feet above us. Here is where
the locks come to our rescue. They will not only give us one lift, but three.
When we approach the locks we find a great central pier jutting out into the
sea-level channel. If our navigating officers know their duty they will run

up alongside of this guide wall and tie up to it. If they do not they will run
the ship's nose into a giant chain, with links made of 3-inch iron, that is
guaranteed to bring a 1,000-ton ship, going at the rate of 5 knots per hour,
to a dead standstill in 70 feet. When we are once safely alongside the guide
wall, four quiet, but powerful locomotives, run by electricity, come out and
take charge of our ship. Two of them get before it to pull us forward, and
two behind it to hold us back. Then the great chain, which effectively would
have barred us from going into the locks under our own steam, or from
colliding with the lock gates, is let down and we begin to move into the first
lock.
Starting at the sea-level channel, the first, second, and third gates are
opened and our ship towed into the first lock. Then the second and third
gates are closed again, and the lock filled with water, by gravity, raising the
ship at the rate of about 2 feet a minute, although, if there is a great rush of
business, it may be filled at the rate of 3 feet a minute. When the water in
this lock reaches the level of the water in the lock above, gates four and five
are opened, and we are towed in. Then gate four is closed again, and water
is let into this lock until it reaches the level of the third one. Gates six,
seven, and eight are next opened, and we are towed into the upper lock.
Gates six and seven are now closed, and the water allowed to fill the third
lock until we are up to the level of Gatun Lake. Then gates nine and ten are
opened, the emergency dam is swung from athwart the channel, if it
happens to be in that position, the fender chain like the one encountered
when we entered the first lock, and like the ones which protect gates seven
and eight, is let down, the towing engines turn us loose, and we resume our
journey, with 32 miles of clear sailing, until we reach Pedro Miguel. Here,
by a reverse process, we are dropped down 301⁄3 feet. Then we go on to
Miraflores, a mile and a half away, where we are lifted down 542⁄3 feet in
two more lifts. This brings us back to sea level again, where we meet the
waters of the Pacific, and steam out upon it through a channel 500 feet wide
and 8 miles long.
Having learned something of the part the locks play in getting us across the
Isthmus, by helping us up out of one ocean into Gatun Lake and then
dropping down into the other ocean, it will be interesting to note something
of the mechanism. A very good idea of how a lock looks may be gathered
from the accompanying bird's-eye view of the model of Pedro Miguel Lock.

FROM A MODEL OF PEDRO MIGUEL
LOCK
It will be seen that there are two of them side by side—twin locks, they are
called, making them like a double-track railway. The lock on the right is
nearly filled for an upward passage. The ship will be seen in it, held in
position by the four towing engines, which appear only as tiny specks
hitched to hawsers from the stem and stern. Behind the ship are the
downstream gates. They were first opened to admit the ship, and then
closed to impound the water that flows up through the bottom of the lock.
Ahead are the upstream gates, closed also until the water in the lock is
brought up to the level of the water in the lake. Then the gates will be
opened, the big chain fender will be dropped down, and the ship will be
towed out into the lake and turned loose. On the side wall of the right lock
there is a big bridge set on a pivot so that it can be swung around across the
lock and girders let down from it to serve as a foundation upon which to lay
a steel dam if anything happens to the locks or gates. On the other lock the
bridge has been swung into position, and the steel girders let down. Great
steel sheets will be let down on live roller bearings on these girders, and
when all are in place they will form a watertight dam of steel. Between this
bridge and the reader is a huge floating tank of steel, which may be used to
dam all the water out of the locks when that is desired.

Referring to the next figure we see a cross section of the twin locks. The
side walls are from 45 to 50 feet thick at the floor. At a point 241⁄3 feet above
the floor they begin to narrow by a series of 6-foot steps until they are 8 feet
wide at the top. The middle wall is 60 feet wide all the way up, although at
a point 421⁄2 feet above the lock floor room is made for a filling of earth and
for a three-story tunnel, the top story being used as a passageway for the
operators, the second story as a conduit for electric wires, and the lower
story as a drainage system.

A CROSS-SECTION OF LOCKS, GIVING AN
IDEA OF THEIR SIZE
In this figure D and G are the big 18-foot culverts through which water is
admitted from the lake to the locks. Each of these three big culverts, which
are nearly 7,000 feet long, is large enough to accommodate a modern
express train, and is about the size of the Pennsylvania tubes under the
Hudson and East Rivers. H represents the culverts extending across the lock
from the big ones. Each of them is big enough to accommodate a two-horse
wagon, and there are 14 in each lock. Every alternate one leads from the
side wall culvert and the others from the center wall culvert. F represents
the wells that lead up through the floor into the lock, each larger in diameter
than a sugar barrel in girth. There are five wells on each cross culvert, or 70
in the floor of each lock.

CONCRETE MIXERS, GATUN

A CENTER WALL CULVERT, GATUN LOCKS

THE MACHINERY FOR MOVING A LOCK GATE
The flow of the water into the locks and out again is controlled by great
valves. The ones which control the great wall tunnels or culverts are called
Stoney Gate valves, and operate something like giant windows in frames.
They are mounted on roller bearings to make them work without friction.
The others are ordinary cylindrical valves, but, having to close a culvert
large enough to permit a two-horse team to be driven through it, they must
be of great size. When a ship is passing from Gatun Lake down to the
Atlantic Ocean, the water in the upper lock is brought up to the level of that
in the lake, being admitted through the big wall culverts, whence it passes
out through the 14 cross culverts and up into the locks through the 70 wells
in the floor. Then the ship is towed in, the gates are shut behind it, the
valves are closed against the water in the lake, the ones permitting the
escape of this water into the lock below are opened, and it continues to flow
out of the upper lock into the lower one until the water in the two has the
same level. Then the gates between the two locks are opened, the ship is
towed into the second one and the operation is repeated for the last lock in
the same way.
The gates of the locks are an interesting feature. Their total weight is about
58,000 tons. There are 46 of them, each having two leaves. Their weight

varies from 300 to 600 tons per leaf, dependent upon the varying height of
the different gates. The lowest ones are 47 feet high and the highest ones 82
feet, their height depending upon the place where they are used. Some of
these are known as intermediate gates, and are used for short ships, when it
is desired to economize on both water and time. They divide each lock
chamber into two smaller chambers of 350 and 550 feet, respectively.
Perhaps 90 per cent of all the ships that pass Panama will not need to use
the full length lock—1,000 feet. Duplicate gates will always be kept on the
ground as a precaution against accident. Each leaf is 65 feet wide and 7 feet
thick. The heaviest single piece of steel in each one of them is the lower sill,
weighing 18 tons. It requires 6,000,000 rivets to put them together. In the
lower part of each gate is a huge tank. When it is desired that the gate shall
have buoyancy, as when operating it, this tank will be filled with air. When
closed it is filled with water. The gates are opened and closed by a huge
arm, or strut, one end of which is connected to the gate and the other to a
huge wheel in the manner of the connecting rod to the driver of a
locomotive. Leakage through the space between the gate and the miter sill
on the floor of the lock is prevented by a seal which consists of heavy
timbers with flaps of rubber 4 inches wide and half an inch thick. A special
sealing device brings the edges of the two leaves of a gate together and
holds them firmly while the gates are closed.
Remembering that these gates are nothing more than Brobdingnagian
double doors which close in the shape of a flattened V, it follows that they
must have hinges. And these hinges are worth going miles to see. That part
which fastens to the wall of the lock weighs 36,752 pounds in the case of
the operating gates, and 38,476 pounds in the protection gates. These latter
are placed in pairs with the operating gates at all danger points—so that if
one set of gates are rammed down, another pair will still be in position. The
part of the hinge attached to the gate was made according to specifications
which required that it should stand a strain of 40,000 pounds before
stretching at all, and 70,000 pounds before breaking. Put into a huge testing
machine, it actually stood a strain of 3,300,000 pounds before breaking—
seven times as great as any stress it will ever be called upon to bear. The
gates are all painted a lead gray, to match the ships of the American Navy.
Those which come into contact with sea water will be treated with a
barnacle-proof preparation.

Now that we have described the locks, we may go back and see them in
course of construction. The first task was getting the lock building plant
designed and built. At Gatun the plant consisted of a series of immense
cableways, an electric railroad, and enormous concrete mixers. Great
towers were erected on either side of the area excavated for the locks, with
giant cables connecting them. These towers were 85 feet high, and were
mounted on tracks like steam shovels, so that they could be moved forward
as the work progressed. The cables connecting them were of 21⁄2 lock steel
wire covered with interlocking strands. They were guaranteed to carry 6
tons at a trip, 20 trips an hour, and to carry 60,000 loads before giving way.
They actually did better than the specifications called for as far as
endurance was concerned.
The sand for making the concrete for Gatun came from Nombre de Dios
(Spanish for Name of God), and the gravel from Porto Bello. The sand and
gravel were towed in great barges, first through the old French Canal, and
later through the Atlantic entrance of the present canal. Great clamshell
buckets on the Lidgerwood cableways would swoop down upon the barges,
get 2 cubic yards of material at a mouthful, lift it up to the cable, carry it
across to the storage piles and there dump it. In this way more than
2,000,000 wagon loads of sand and gravel were handled.
A special equipment was required to haul the sand, gravel, and cement from
the storage piles to the concrete mixers. There were two circular railroads of
24-inch gauge, carrying little electric cars that ran without motormen. Each
car was stopped, started, or reversed by a switch attached to the car. Their
speed never varied more than 10 per cent whether they were going empty or
loaded, up hill or down. When a car was going down hill its motor was
reversed into a generator so that it helped make electricity to pull some
other car up the hill. The cars ran into a little tunnel, where each was given
its proper load of one part cement, three parts sand, and six parts gravel—2
cubic yards, in all—and was then hurried on to the big concrete mixers.
These were so arranged in a series that it was not necessary to stop them to
receive the sand, gravel, and cement, or to dump out the concrete.
On the emptying sides of the concrete mixers there were other little electric
railway tracks. Here there were little trains of a motor and two cars each,
with a motorman. The train, with two big 2-cubic-yard buckets, drew up

alongside two concrete mixers. Without stopping their endless revolutions
the mixers tilted and poured out their contents into the two buckets, 2 yards
in each. Then the little train hurried away, stopping under a great cable.
Across from above the lock walls came two empty buckets, carried on
pulleys on the cableway. When they reached a point over the train they
descended and were set on the cars, behind the full buckets. The full
buckets were then attached to the lifting hooks, and were carried up to the
cable and then across to the lock walls, where they were dumped and the
concrete spread out by a force of men. Meanwhile the train hustled off with
its two empty buckets, ready to be loaded again.
On the Pacific side the concrete handling plant was somewhat different.
Instead of cableways there were great cantilever cranes built of structural
steel. Some of these were in the shape of a giant T, while others looked like
two T's fastened together. Here the clamshell dippers were run out on the
arms of the cranes to the storage piles, where they picked up their loads of
material. This was put in hoppers large enough to store material for 10
cubic yards. The sand and stone then passed through measuring hoppers and
to the mixers with cement and water added. After it was mixed it was
dumped into big buckets on little cars drawn by baby steam locomotives,
which looked like overgrown toy engines. These little fellows reminded one
of a lot of busy bees as they dashed about here and there with their loads of
concrete, choo-chooing as majestically as the great dirt train engines which
passed back and forth hard by. The cranes would take their filled buckets
and leave empty ones in exchange, and this was kept up day in and day out
until the locks were completed. When the plant was removed from Pedro
Miguel to Miraflores, a large part of the concrete was handled directly from
the mixers to the walls by the cranes without the intermediary locomotive
service.
The cost of the construction of the locks was estimated in 1908 at upward
of $57,000,000. But economy in the handling of the material and efficiency
on the part of the lock builders cut the actual cost far below that figure. On
the Atlantic side about a dollar was saved on every yard of concrete laid—
about $2,000,000. On the Pacific side more than twice as much was saved.
Before the locks could be built it became necessary to excavate down to bed
rock. This required the removal of nearly 5,000,000 cubic yards of material

at Gatun. Then extensive tests were made to make certain that the floor of
the locks could be anchored safely to the rock. These tests demonstrated
that by using the old steel rails that were left on the Isthmus by the French,
the concrete and rock could be tied together so firmly as to defy the ravages
of water and time. A huge apron of concrete was built out into Gatun Lake
from the upper locks at that place, effectively preventing any water from
getting between the rocks and the concrete lying upon them.

CHAPTER V
THE LOCK MACHINERY

One of the problems that had to be solved before the Panama Canal could
be presented to the American people as a finished waterway, was that of
equipping it with adequate and dependable machinery for its operation.
Panama canals are not built every year, so it was not a matter of ordering
equipment from stock; everything had to be invented and designed for the
particular requirement it was necessary to meet. And the first and foremost
requirement was safety. When we look over the canal machinery we see
that word "safety" written in every bolt, in every wheel, in every casting, in
every machine. We see it in the devices designed for protection and in those
designed for operation as well. We see it in the giant chain that will stop a
vessel before it can ram a gate; we see it in the great cantilever pivot
bridges that support the emergency dams; we see it in the double lock gates
at all exposed points; we see it in the electric towing apparatus, in the limit
switches that will automatically stop a machine when the operator is not
attending to his business, in the friction clutches that will slip before the
breaking point is reached. Safety, safety, safety, the word is written
everywhere.
The first thing a ship encounters when it approaches the locks is the giant
chain stretched across its path. That chain is made of links of 3 inches in
diameter. When in normal position it is stretched across the locks, and the
vessel which does not stop as soon as it should will ram its nose into the
chain. There is a hydraulic paying-out arrangement at both ends of the
chain, and when the pressure against it reaches a hundred gross tons the
chain will begin to pay out and gradually bring the offending vessel to a
stop. After a ship strikes the chain its momentum will be gradually reduced,
its energy being absorbed by the chain mechanism. While the pressure at
which the chain will begin to yield is fixed at 100 gross tons, the pressure
required to break it is 262 tons. Thus the actual stress it can bear is two and
a half times what it will be called upon to meet. The mechanism by which
the paying-out of the chain is accomplished is exceedingly ingenious. The

principle is practically the reverse of that of a hydraulic jack. The two ends
of the 428-foot chain are attached to big plungers in the two walls of the
locks. These plungers fit in large cylinders, which contain broad surfaces of
water. They are connected with very small openings, which are kept closed
until a pressure of 750 pounds to the square inch is exerted against them. By
means of a resistance valve these openings are then made available, the
water shooting out as through a nozzle under high pressure. This permits
the chain plunger to rise gradually, while keeping the tension at 750 pounds
to the inch, and the paying-out of the chain proceeds accordingly. Of course
not all ships will strike the chain at the same speed, and in some cases the
paying-out process will have to be more rapid than in others. This is
provided for by the automatic enlargement of the hole through which the
water is discharged, the size of the hole again becoming smaller as the
tension of the chain decreases. This chain fender will stop the Olympic with
full load, when going a mile and a half an hour, bringing it to a dead
standstill within 70 feet, or it will stop an ordinary 10,000-ton ship in the
same distance even if it have a speed of 5 miles. The function of the
resistance valve is to prevent the chain from beginning to pay out until the
stress against it goes up to 100 tons, and to regulate the paying-out so as to
keep it constant at that point, so long as there is necessity for paying-out.
Any pressure of less than a hundred tons will not put the paying-out
mechanism into operation.
When a ship is to be put through the locks the chain will be let down into
great grooves in the floor of the lock. There is a fixed plunger operating
within a cylinder, which, in turn, operates within another cylinder, the
resulting movement, by a system of pulleys, being made to pay out or pull
in 4 feet of chain for every foot the plunger travels. The chain must be
raised or lowered in one minute, and always will have to be lowered to
permit the passage of a ship. The fender machines are situated in pits in the
lock walls. These pits are likely to get filled with water from drippings,
leakages, wave action, and drainage, so they are protected with automatic
pumps. Float valves are lifted when the water rises in the pits. This
automatically moves the switch controlling an electric motor, which starts a
pump to working whenever the water gets within 1 inch of the top of the
sump beneath the floor of the pit. Twenty-four of these chain fenders are

required for the protection of the locks, and each requires two such tension
machines.
No ship will be allowed to go through the canal except under the control of
a canal pilot. He will certainly bring it to a stop at the approach wall. But if
he does not, there is the chain fender. There is not a chance in a thousand
for a collision with it, and not a chance in a hundred thousand that the ship
will not be stopped when there is such a collision.
But if the pilot should fail to stop the ship, and it should collide with the
fender chain, and then if the fender chain should fail to stop it, there would
be the double gates at the head of the lock. There is not one chance in a
hundred that a ship, checked as it inevitably would be by the fender chain,
could ram down the first, or safety gate. But if it did, there would still be
another set of gates some 70 feet away. The chances here might be one in a
hundred of the second set being rammed down. From all this it will be seen
that the chances of the second pair of gates being rammed is so remote as to
be almost without the realm of possibility. But suppose all these precautions
should fail, and suddenly the way should be opened for the water of Gatun
Lake to rush through the locks at the destructive speed of 20 miles an hour?
Even that day has been provided against by the construction of the big
emergency dams. The emergency dams, like the fender chains, are designed
only for protection, and have no other use in the operation of the locks.
There will be six of these dams, one across each of the head locks at Gatun,
Pedro Miguel, and Miraflores.
These emergency dams will be mounted on pivots on the side walls of the
locks about 200 feet above the upper gates. When not in use they will rest
on the side wall and parallel with it. When in use they will be swung across
the locks, by electric machinery or by hand, and there rigidly wedged in. It
will require two minutes to get them in position by electricity and 30
minutes by hand. There is a motor for driving the wedges which will hold
the dam securely in position, and limit switches to prevent the dams being
moved too far.
When a bridge is put into position across the lock, a series of wicket girders
which are attached to the upstream side of the floor of the bridge are let
down into the water, the connection between the bridge and one end of each

girder being made by an elbow joint. The other end goes down into the
water, its motion being controlled by a cable attached some distance from
the free end of the girder and paid out or drawn in over an electrically
operated drum. This free end passes down until it engages a big iron casting
embedded in the concrete of the lock floor. This makes a sort of inclined
railway at an angle of about 30 degrees from the perpendicular, over which
huge steel plates are let down into the water. There are six of these girders,
and they are all made of the finest nickel steel. When they are all in
position, a row of six plates are let down, and they make the stream going
through the locks several feet shallower. Then another row of plates is let
down on these, and the stream becomes that much shallower. Another row
of plates is added, and then another, until there is a solid sheet of steel plates
resting on the six girders, and they make a complete steel dam which
effectively arrests the mad impulse of the water in Gatun Lake to rush down
into the sea. The plates are moved up and down by electrical machinery,
and are mounted on roller-bearing wheels, so that the tremendous friction
caused by their being pressed against the girders by the great force of the
water may be overcome. That the emergency dams will be effective is
shown by the experience at the "Soo" locks, on the canal connecting Lakes
Superior and Huron. There, a vessel operating under its own power,
rammed a lock gate. Although the emergency dam had grown so rusty by
disuse that it could be operated only by hand, it was swung across the lock
and effectively fulfilled its mission of checking the maddened flow of the
water.
Another protective device for the locks is the big caisson gates that will be
floated across the head and tail bays when it is desired to remove all the
water from the locks for the purpose of permitting the lower guard gates to
be examined, cleaned, painted, or repaired, and for allowing the sills of the
emergency dams to be examined in the dry. The caisson gates are 1121⁄2 feet
long, 36 feet beam, and have a light draft of 32 feet and a heavy draft of 61
feet. When one is floated into position to close the lock, water will be
admitted to make it sink to the proper depth. Then its large centrifugal
pumps, driven by electric motors, will pump the water out of the lock.
When the work on the lock is completed these pumps will pump the water
out of the caisson itself until it becomes buoyant enough to resume its light
draft, after which it will be floated away.

The machinery for opening and closing the lock gates called for unusual
care in its designing. The existing types of gate-operating machinery were
all studied, and it was found that none of them could be depended on to
prove satisfactory, so special machines had to be designed.
A great wheel, resembling a drive wheel of a locomotive, except that a little
over half of the rim is cog-geared, is mounted in a horizontal position on a
big plate, planted firmly in the concrete of the wall and bolted there with
huge bolts 11 feet long and 21⁄4 inches in diameter. This plate weighs over
13,000 pounds, and the wheel, cast in two pieces, weighs 34,000 pounds.
As the weight of the rim of the wheel on the eight spokes probably would
tax their strength too much when the wheel is under stress, this is obviated
by four bearing wheels, perpendicular to the big wheel, which support the
rim. Between the crank pin and the point of attachment on the gate leaf
there is a long arm, or strut, designed to bear an operating strain of nearly a
hundred tons. The wheel will be revolved by a motor geared to the cogged
part of the rim.
An ingenious arrangement of electric switches is that used to protect the
gate-moving machines from harm. The big connecting rod between the
master wheel and the gate leaf is attached to the gate leaf by a nest of
springs capable of sustaining a pressure of 184,000 pounds, in addition to
the fixed pressure of 60,000 pounds. Should any obstruction interfere with
the closing of the gate and threaten a dangerous pressure on the connecting
rod, the springs, as soon as they reach their full compression, establish an
electrical contact and thus stop the motor. Likewise, should any obstruction
come against the gate as the connecting rod is pulling it open, the springs
again permit the establishment of an electrical contact and stop the motor.
All of these precautions are entirely independent of and supplemental to the
limit switches, which cut off the power from the gate-moving machine
should the strain reach the danger line. These big machines move the huge
gate leaves without the slightest noise or vibration. Such a machine is
required for each of the 92 leaves used in the 46 gates with which the locks
are equipped. The operator can open or close one of these big gates in two
minutes.

ONE OF THE 92 GATE-LEAF MASTER WHEELS
The control of the water in the culverts of the locks is taken care of by an
ingeniously designed series of valves. The big wall culverts, 18 feet in
diameter, are divided into two sections at the points where the valves are
installed, by the construction of a perpendicular pier. This makes two
openings 8 by 18 feet. The big gates of steel are placed in frames to close
these openings just as a window sash is placed in its frame. They are
mounted on roller bearings, so as to overcome the friction caused by the
pressure of water against the valve gates. They must be mounted so that
there is not more than a fourth of an inch play in any direction. The big wall
culvert gates will weigh about 10 tons each, and must be capable of
operating under a head of more than 60 feet of water. They will be raised
and lowered by electricity.
The electric locomotives which will be used to tow ships through the locks
are one of the interesting features of the equipment. There will be 40 of
them on the 3 sets of locks. The average ship will require four of them, two
at the bow and two at the stern, to draw it through the locks. They will run
on tracks on the lock walls, and will have two sets of wheels. One set will
be cogged, and will be used when the locomotives are engaged in towing.
The other set will be pressed into service when they are running light. When
a vessel is in one lock waiting for the water to be equalized with that in the
next one and the gates opened to permit passage, the forward locomotives
will run free up the incline to the lock wall above, paying out hawser as
they go. When they get to the next higher level they are ready to exert their
maximum pull. Each locomotive consists of three parts: two motors hitched

together, and the tandem may be operated from either end. The third part is
a big winding drum around which the great hawsers are wound. This towing
windlass permits the line to be paid out or pulled in and the distance
between the ship and the locomotives varied at will. The locomotive may
thus exert its pull or relax it while standing still on the track, a provision
especially valuable in bringing ships to rest. In the main, however, the pull
of the locomotive is exercised by its running on the semi-suppressed rack
track anchored in the coping of the lock walls. Each flight of locks will be
provided with two towing tracks, one on the side and one on the center
wall. Each wall will be equipped with a return track of ordinary rails, so
that when a set of locomotives has finished towing a ship through the locks
they can be switched over from these tracks and hustled back for another
job. When they reach the inclines from one lock to the next above the rack
track will be pressed into service again until they reach the next level
stretch.
Here again one meets the familiar safeguard against accident. Some
engineer of one of these towing locomotives might sometime overload it, so
the power of doing so has been taken out of his hands. On the windlass or
drum that holds the towing hawser there is a friction coupling. If the
engineer should attempt to overload his engine, or if for any other reason
there should suddenly come upon the locomotive a greater strain than it
could bear, or upon the track, or upon the hawser, the friction clutch would
let loose at its appointed tension of 25,000 pounds, and all danger would be
averted.
When the locomotives are towing a ship from the walls it is natural that
there should be a side pull on the hawser. This is overcome by wheels that
run against the side of the track and are mounted horizontally. All of the
towing tracks extend out on the approach walls of the locks so that the
locomotives can get out far enough to take charge of a ship before it gets
close enough to do the locks any damage.

A Mauretania IN THE LOCKS
From the foregoing it will be seen that a great deal of electric current will
be required in the operation of the locks. This will be generated at a big
station at Gatun, with a smaller one at Miraflores, and they will be
connected. The overflow water will be used for generating the required
current, and in addition to the operation of the lock machinery it will
operate the spillway gates, furnish the necessary lighting current, and
eventually it may furnish the power for an electrified Panama Railroad.
In passing a ship through the canal it will be necessary to open and close 23
lock gates, of an aggregate weight of more than 25,000 tons, to lower and
raise 12 fender chains, each weighing 24,000 pounds, and to shut and open
dozens of great valves, each of which weighs tons. All these operations at
each set of locks will be controlled by one man, at a central switchboard. In
addition to these operations there is the towing apparatus. The arrangement
at Gatun is typical; there 4 fender chains must be operated, 6 pairs of miter
gates, and 46 valves. In all not less than 98 motors will be set in motion
twice, and sometimes this number may be increased to 143. Some of them
are more than half a mile away from the operator, and half of them are
nearly a quarter of a mile away.
The operator in his control house will be high enough to have an
uninterrupted view of the whole flight of locks over which he has
command. His control board will consist of a representation of the locks his
switches control. On his model he will see the rise and fall of the fender
chains as he operates them, the movement of the big lock gates as they
swing open or shut, the opening and closing of the valves which regulate
the water in the culverts, and the rise and fall of the water in the locks.

A system of interlocked levers will prevent him from doing the wrong thing
in handling his switches. Before he can open the valves at one end of a lock
he must close those at the other end. Before he can open the lock gates, the
valves in the culverts must be set so that no harm can result. Before he can
start to open a lock gate, he must first have released the miter-forcing
machine that latches the gates. Before he can close the gates protected by a
fender chain, he must first have thrown the switch to bring the fender chain
back to its protecting position, and he can not throw the switch to lower the
chain until he first has provided for the opening of the gate it protects. All
of this interlocking system makes it next to impossible to err, and taking
into consideration the additional safeguard of limit switches, which
automatically cut off the power when anything goes wrong, it will be seen
that the personal equation is all but removed from the situation.

CHAPTER VI
CULEBRA CUT

Culebra Cut! Here the barrier of the continental divide resisted to the
utmost the attacks of the canal army; here disturbed and outraged Nature
conspired with gross mountain mass to make the defense stronger and
stronger; here was the mountain that must be moved. Here came the French,
jauntily confident, to dig a narrow channel that would let their ships go
through. The mountain was the victor. And then here came the Americans,
confident but not jaunty. They weighed that mass, laid out the lines of a
wider ditch, arranged complicated transportation systems to take away the
half hundred million cubic yards of earth and rocks that they had measured.
Nature came to the aid of the beleaguered mountain. The volcanic rocks
were piled helter-skelter and when the ditch deepened the softer strata
underneath refused to bear the burden and the slides, slowly and like
glaciers, crept out into the ditch, burying shovels and sweeping aside the
railway tracks. Even the bottom of the canal bulged up under the added
stress of the heavier strata above.
Grim, now, but still confident, the attackers fought on. The mountain was
defeated.
Now stretches a man-made canyon across the backbone of the continent;
now lies a channel for ships through the barrier; now is found what
Columbus sought in vain—the gate through the west to the east. Men call it
Culebra Cut.
Nine miles long, its average depth is 120 feet. At places its sides tower
nearly 500 feet above its channel bottom, which is nowhere narrower than
300 feet.
It is the greatest single trophy of the triumph of man over the terrestrial
arrangement of his world. Compared to it, the scooping out of the sand
levels of Suez seems but child's play—the tunnels of Hoosac and Simplon
but the sport of boys. It is majestic. It is awful. It is the Canal.

When estimates for digging the canal were made, it was calculated that
53,000,000 cubic yards of material would have to be removed from the cut,
and that under the most favorable conditions it would require eight and a
half years to complete the work. But at that time no one had the remotest
idea of the actual difficulties that would beset the canal builders; no one
dreamed of the avalanches of material that would slide into the cut.
One can in no way get a better idea of the meaning of the slides and breaks
in Culebra Cut than to refer to the accompanying figure. There it will be
seen that whereas it was originally planned that the top width of the cut at
one point should be 670 feet, it has grown wider, because of slides and
breaks, to as much as 1,800 feet at one place. In all, some 25,000,000 cubic
yards of material which should have remained outside the canal prism
slipped into it and had to be removed by the steam shovels.

THE EFFECT OF SLIDES
No less than 26 slides and breaks were encountered in the construction of
Culebra Cut, their total area being 225 acres. The largest covered 75, and
another 47 acres. When the slides, which were more like earthen glaciers
than avalanches, began to flow into the big ditch, sometimes steam shovels
were buried, sometimes railroad tracks were caught beneath the débris, and
sometimes even the bottom of the cut itself began to bulge and disarrange
the entire transportation system, at the same time interfering with the
compressed air and water supplies. But with all these trials and tribulations,
the army that was trying to conquer the eternal hills that had refused
passage to the ships of the world for so many centuries, kept up its courage
and renewed its attack. The result is that ships sail through Culebra and that
engineers everywhere have new records of efficiency to inspire them.
These efficiency records are told in the cost-keeping reports based upon one
of the most careful and thorough cost-accounting systems ever devised.
This system was instituted for the purpose of keeping a check upon all
expenditures by reducing everything to a unit basis and then comparing the

cost of doing the same thing at different places. For instance, if it were
found that it cost more to excavate a cubic yard of material at one place
than at another, under identical conditions, this fact was brought to the
attention of the men responsible and an intimation given that there seemed
to be room for taking up a little lost motion. The lost motion usually was
recovered or else someone had to be satisfied that conditions were not
identical after all.
In no other part of the canal work do these cost-keeping reports tell such a
graphic story as in Culebra Cut. In spite of the fact that as the cut became
deeper it became narrower, and the slides and breaks became more
troublesome, to say nothing of the extra effort required to get the excavated
material out of the cut, every unit cost was forced down notch by notch and
year by year until the bottom in costs was reached only a little before the
actual bottom of the cut was exposed to view.
For instance, in 1908 it cost 111⁄2 cents a yard to load material with steam
shovels, while in 1912 it cost less than 7 cents. In 1908 it cost more than 14
cents a yard for drilling and blasting; in 1912 it cost less than 12 cents. In
1908 it cost $18.54 to haul away a hundred yards of spoil; in 1912 it
required only $13.31 to perform the same operation, although the average
distance it had to be hauled had increased 50 per cent. In 1908 it cost more
than 13 cents a yard to dump the material as compared with less than 5
cents in 1912. The whole operation of excavating and removing the
material, including overhead charges and depreciation, fell from $1.03 a
cubic yard in 1908 to less than 55 cents a yard in 1912. And that is why
232,000,000 cubic yards of material were removed for less than it was
estimated 135,000,000 cubic yards would cost.
To remove the 105,000,000 cubic yards of earth from the backbone of the
Americas required about 6,000,000 pounds of high-grade dynamite each
year to break up the material, so that it might be successfully attacked by
the steam shovels. To prepare the holes for placing the explosives required
the services of 150 well drills, 230 tripod rock drills, and a large corps of
hand drillers. Altogether they drilled nearly a thousand miles of holes
annually. During every working day in the year about 600 holes were fired.
They had an average depth of about 19 feet. In addition to this a hundred
toe holes were fired each day, and as many more "dobe" blasts placed on

top of large boulders to break them up into loadable sizes. So carefully was
the dynamite handled that during a period of three years, in which time
some 19,000,000 pounds were exploded in Culebra Cut, only eight men
were killed.

STEAM SHOVELS MEETING AT BOTTOM OF CULEBRA CUT
L. K. ROURKE

THE MAN-MADE CANYON AT CULEBRA
The transportation of the spoil from Culebra Cut was a tremendous job. A
large percentage of it was hauled out in Lidgerwood flat cars. Twenty-one
cars made up the average Lidgerwood train. It required about 140
locomotives to take care of the spoil, and the average day saw nearly 3,700
cars loaded and hauled out of the cut. In a single year 1,116,286 carloads of
material were hauled out. There were 75 trains in constant operation, for
each 21⁄2 miles of track in the Central Division, which was approximately 32
miles long. A huge steam shovel, taking up 5 yards of material at a
mouthful, would load one of these trains in less than an hour with some 400
yards of material. Then the powerful locomotive attached to it, assisted by a
helper engine, would pull the train out of the cut, and then, unassisted,
would haul it to the dumping ground some 12 miles or more away.

AVERAGE SHAPE AND DIMENSIONS OF
CULEBRA CUT
Arriving near the scene of the dump, another engine, having in front of it a
huge horizontal steam windlass mounted on a flat car, was hooked on the
rear end of the train. Then the locomotive which had brought the train to the
dump was uncoupled and moved away, and in its stead there was attached
an empty flat car, on which there was a huge plow. A long wire cable was
stretched from the big windlass at the other end of the train and attached to
this plow. As the drum of the windlass began to turn it gradually drew the
plow forward over the 21 cars, plowing the material off as it went forward.
The cars were equipped with a high sideboard on one side and had none at
all on the other. A flat surface over which the plow could pass from car to
car was made by hinging a heavy piece of sheet steel to the front end of
each car and allowing it to cover the break between that car and the next,
thus affording a practically continuous car floor over 800 feet long. The
operation of unloading 400 yards of material with this plow seldom
required more than 10 minutes.
After the plow had finished its work it left a long string of spoil on one side
of the track which must be cleared away. So another plow, pushed by an
engine, attacked the spoil and forced it down the embankment. This process
of unloading and spreading the material was kept up until the embankment
became wide enough to permit the track to be shifted over. Here another
especially designed machine, the track shifter, was brought into play. It was

a sort of derrick mounted on a flat car, and with it the track shifters were
able to pick up a piece of track and lift it over to the desired position. With
this machine a score of men could do the work that without it would have
required a gang of 600 men.
In addition to the Lidgerwood dirt trains there were a large number of trains
made up of steel dump cars which were dumped by compressed air, and still
other trains made up of small hand-dumped cars, and each class found its
own peculiar uses.
As has been said, the problem of digging the big ditch has been one of the
transportation of the spoil, and this has involved numerous difficulties. In
Culebra Cut no little difficulty was experienced in keeping open enough
tracks to afford the necessary room for dirt trains. Slides came down and
forced track after track out of alignment, burying some of them beyond the
hope of usable recovery; often the very bottom of the cut itself heaved up
under the stress of the heavy weight of faulty strata on the sides of the
mountain; and sometimes the slides and breaks threatened entirely to shut
up one end of the cut.
In hauling away the spoil one improvement after another was made in the
interest of efficiency. It was found at first that the capacity of a big
Lidgerwood flat car was only about 16 cubic yards, and that with a
sideboard on only one side of the car, the load did not center well on the car,
thus placing an undue strain on the wheels on one side. The transportation
department, therefore, extended the bed of the car further out over the
wheels on the open side, and this served a triple purpose—it permitted the
steam shovels to load the cars so that the load rested in the center, increased
the capacity of each car by about 3 yards, and permitted the unloader plow
to throw the spoil further from the track, thus adding to the efficiency of the
dumping apparatus.
Frequent breaks in the trains were caused by worn couplers. These
accidents were almost entirely overcome by equipping each train with a sort
of "bridle" which prevented the separation of the cars in the event of the
parting of a defective coupler. In the operation of the unloader plows it was
found that the big cables frequently broke when a plow would strike an
obstruction on the car, and this caused no end of annoyance and frequent

delays. Then someone thought of putting between the cable and the plow a
link whose breaking point was lower than that of the cable. After that when
a plow struck an obstruction the cable did not part—the link simply gave
way, and another was always at hand. On the big spreaders no less than 51
improvements were made, each the answer of the engineers to some
challenge from the stubborn material with which they had to contend.
The major portion of the material excavated from the canal had to be hauled
out and dumped where it was of no further use. From the Central Division
alone, which includes Culebra Cut, upward of a hundred million cubic
yards of material was hauled away and dumped as useless. At Tabernilla
one dump contained nearly 17,000,000 cubic yards. A great deal of spoil,
however, was used to excellent advantage. Wherever there was swampy
ground contiguous to the permanent settlements it was covered over with
material from the cut and brought up above the water level. Many hundreds
of acres were thus converted from malaria-breeding grounds into high and
dry lands.
During the last stages of the work in Culebra Cut it was found that some of
the slides were so bad that they were breaking back of the crest of the hills
that border the cut. Therefore it was found to be feasible to attack the
problem by sluicing the material down the side of the hills into the valley
beyond. To this end a big hydraulic plant which had been used on the
Pacific end of the canal was brought up and installed beyond the east bank
of the cut. A reservoir of water was impounded and tremendous pumps
installed. They pumped a stream of water 40 inches in diameter. This was
gradually tapered down to a number of 4-inch nozzles, and out of these
spouted streams of water with a pressure of 80 pounds to the square inch.
These streams ate away the dirt at a rapid rate.
The slides did not hold up the completion of the canal a minute, at least to
the point of usability. The day that the lock gates were ready there was
water enough in the canal to carry the entire American navy from ocean to
ocean. That day the big dredges from the Atlantic and the Pacific were
brought into the cut, and with them putting the finishing touches on the
slides at the bottom, and the hydraulic excavators attacking them at the top,
the problem of the slides was solved.

Viewing Culebra Cut in retrospect, it proved an immensely less difficult
task than some prophesied, and a much more serious one than others
predicted. There were those who opposed the building of the Panama Canal
because of the belief that Culebra Cut could not be dug, that Culebra
Mountain was an effective barrier to human ambition. Also, there were
those who asserted that Gold Hill and Contractor's Hill were in danger of
sliding into the big ditch and that they were mountains which neither the
faith nor the pocketbooks of the Americans could remove. Others saw the
handwriting of Failure on the wall in the heaving up of the bottom of the
cut, interpreting this as a movement from the very depths of the earth. Still
others saw it in the smoke that issued from fissures in the cut, which spoke
to them of volcanoes being unearthed and told them that the Babel of
American ambitions must totter to the ground. They did not know that these
were only little splotches of decomposing metals suddenly exposed to the
air, any more than their fellow pessimists knew that the heaving up of the
bottom of the cut was due to the pressure of the earth on the adjacent banks.
To-day Culebra Mountain bows its lofty head to the genius of the American
engineer and to the courage of the canal army. Through its vitals there runs
a great artificial canyon nearly 9 miles long, 300 feet wide at its bottom, in
places as much as a half mile wide at its top and nearly 500 feet deep at the
deepest point. Out of it there was taken 105,000,000 cubic yards of
material, and at places it cost as much as $15,000,000 a mile to make the
excavations. Through it now extends a great ribbon of water broad enough
to permit the largest vessels afloat to pass one another under their own
power, and deep enough to carry a ship with a draft beyond anything in the
minds of naval constructors to-day. With towering hills lining it on either
side, with banks that are precipitous here and farflung there, with great and
deep recesses at one place and another telling of the gigantic breaks and
slides with which the men who built it had to contend, going through
Culebra Cut gives to the human heart a thrill such as the sight of no other
work of the human hand can give. Its magnitude, its awe-inspiring aspect as
one navigates the channel between the two great hills which stand like
sentinels above it, and the memory of the thousands of tons of dynamite, the
hundreds of millions of money and the vast investment of brain and brawn
required in its digging, all conspire to make the wonder greater. It is the
mightiest deed the hand of man has done.

CHAPTER VII
ENDS OF THE CANAL

While the completed Panama Canal does not wed the two oceans, or permit
their waters to mingle in Gatun Lake, it does bring them a little closer
together. On the Atlantic side a sea-level channel has been dug from deep
water due south to Gatun, a distance of 7 miles. On the Pacific side a
similar channel has been dug from deep water in a northwesterly direction
to Miraflores, a distance of 8 miles. It follows that 15 of the 50 miles of the
canal will be filled with salt water. The remaining 35 miles will be filled
with fresh water supplied by the Chagres and the lesser rivers of Panama.
The task of digging these sea-level sections was a considerable one and
almost every method of ditch digging that human ingenuity has been able to
devise was employed. Steam shovels, dipper dredges, ladder dredges,
stationary suction dredges, and sea-going suction dredges, all contributed
their share toward bringing the waters of the Atlantic to Gatun and those of
the Pacific to Miraflores. In addition to these methods, on the Pacific side
use was made of the hydraulic process of excavating soft material, washing
it loose with powerful streams of water and pumping it out with giant
pumps.

THE DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF SLIDES IN CULEBRA CUT

W. G. COMBER
U. S. LADDER DREDGE "COROZAL" AND ONE OF HER MUD
BUCKETS

As one travels along the Pacific end of the canal he is reminded of the
words of Isaiah:

"Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be
made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a
plain."

Hundreds of acres of low, marshy land have been filled up, either with mud
from the suction dredges and the hydraulic excavators, or with spoil from
Culebra Cut. Much of this made land will be valuable for tropical
agriculture, while other parts will never serve any purpose other than to
keep down the marshes. But they afforded a dumping ground for material
taken out of the canal prism, and added something to the improvement of
health and living conditions on the Isthmus.
Probably the most interesting process of excavation in the sea-level
channels was that of the sea-going suction dredges. These dredges took out
material more cheaply than any other kind of excavating machinery used on
the Isthmus. Two of them were put to work in 1908, about the time the
operations reached full-blast and have been kept in commission ever since.
While it cost as much as $70,000 a year to keep each one in commission,
they were able to maintain an annual average of about 5,000,000 cubic
yards of material excavated at a cost per yard of 5 cents and even less. With
steam shovels it ranged from 10 to 20 times as much per yard. These big
dredges were built with great bins in their holds and equipped with
powerful 20-inch centrifugal pumps. When at work they steamed up and
down the channel, sucking up the mud, and carrying it out to sea.
Another interesting dredge used was the big ladder dredge Corozal. It is a
great floating dock, as it were, with a huge endless chain carrying 52
immense, 35-cubic-foot buckets. On the center line amidships there is a
large opening down to the water. The big elevator framework carrying the
endless chain goes down through this and into the water at a considerable
angle. The buckets pass around this, and as they round the end of it their
great steel lips dig down into the material until filled, then they come up at
the rate of three every five seconds and deposit their burden in a huge
hopper which conveys it to the barge at the side of the dredge. The dredge is
anchored fast at a given place, and keeps on attacking the material beneath

it until the desired level is reached. This dredge, with the sea-going suction
dredges, will be retained as the permanent dredging fleet. The stationary
suction dredges at the two ends of the canal were used to pump up the soft
material and to force it out through long pipe lines into the swamps or into
the hydraulic cores of the earth dams.

THE Corozal AND ITS METHOD OF ATTACK
Several old French ladder dredges were rescued from the jungle and put
into commission at the beginning of the work, and they held out faithfully
to the end, dividing honors with the newer equipment in hastening the day
when the oceans might go inland to Gatun and Miraflores. While they
looked like toys beside such giant excavators as the Corozal, they probably
showed more efficiency than any other class of excavators of their period of
construction. They were attended by large self-propelling scows built by the
French. When these were filled they steamed out to sea and dumped their
burden and then steamed back again for another load. Some of the dredges
were attended by ordinary barges which were towed out to sea by tugs and
dumped.
Another interesting machine used on the Pacific end of the canal was the
Lobnitz rock breaker. This consists of a sort of pile driver mounted on a
large barge. Instead of a pile driving weight there is a big battering ram
made of round steel, pointed at one end. It is lifted up perhaps 10 feet and
allowed to drop suddenly. As some of these rams weigh as much as 25 tons
their striking force may be imagined. When the ram struck the rock the top

would shake back and forth like a bamboo pole, in spite of the fact that it
was made of the best steel and more than 15 inches in diameter. Sooner or
later the rams would break off at the water line, this being due to the fact
that the constant flexion at that point set the molecules in the steel and took
away all its elasticity.
It was found desirable to excavate a part of the sea-level channel before the
water was let into it. To accomplish this a big dam, or dike, was built across
the channel several miles inland, and steam shovels were used behind this
dike. As the work neared completion, however, it was found advisable to let
the water come further inland, so that the dredges could extend the field of
their activities. To do this another dike was thrown across the channel about
a mile north of the first one, and water was admitted to the section of the
big ditch between these two dikes. The engineers were afraid to cut a small
ditch in the top of the first dike, and allow the water to eat the dam away as
it flowed in, for fear that it would rush in so rapidly it would destroy the
second dike. Therefore they filled the basin between the two dikes by
siphon and by pumping, a process which required the drawing in of billions
of gallons of water. This was accomplished in due time, however, and then
16 tons of dynamite was placed in the no longer useful dike. An electric
spark did the rest.
The distinguishing features of the ends of the canal are the big breakwaters
at Toro Point, at the Atlantic end, and Naos Island, at the Pacific end. The
former extends from the shore out into the sea for a distance of 2 miles and
has a large lighthouse at the seaward end. It was built by dumping stone
from the shore out into the sea, this process being followed by driving piles
into the dumped stone and building a railroad on the crest, over which the
stone was hauled for its further extension. The top of the breakwater is
covered with huge stones weighing from 8 to 20 tons each, these to make
sure that it will stand against the pounding of the waves. Two minor
breakwaters were also built at the Atlantic end to protect the terminal basin.
The big dike at Naos Island in the Pacific is more than 17,000 feet long and
transforms the island into the cape of a small peninsula. There was a
threefold purpose in its construction—to cut out the cross currents that
brought thousands of yards of sand and silt into the canal channel, to afford
a dumping place for a large quantity of the spoil from Culebra Cut, and to

make a connection with the mainland for the fortifications on Naos,
Flamenco, and Perico Islands. In building it the engineers were under the
necessity of first building a trestle on which the spoil trains could be backed
and dumped. The piles had to be driven in soft, blue mud, and as the rock
was dumped, it sank down and down until, at places, ten times as much
stone was required as would have been necessary if the ocean bottom had
been firm. In addition to this thousands of trainloads of material were
dumped in the landward end of the dike, some 20,000,000 cubic yards of
material being thus disposed of.
The last part of the canal work to be completed will be the terminal
facilities at the ends of the big waterway. At the time this book went to
press they were something more than a year from completion, but the
indications were that they would be finished within the time limit originally
set for the completion of the canal itself. These terminal facilities consist of
dry docks, wharfage space, storehouses, and everything else necessary to
perform any service that might ordinarily be required for passing ships,
whether they be those of commerce or of war. The main coaling station is to
be established at the Atlantic end. The storehouses, the laundry, the bakery,
and the other equipment of the Isthmian Canal Commission and the Panama
Railroad also will be made a part of the permanent terminal plant on that
side of the Isthmus.
A large dry dock is being built at the Pacific end having the same usable
dimensions as the canal locks, capable of accommodating any vessel that
can pass through the canal. The principal machine shops will also be
erected there, and a coaling plant of half the capacity of the one at the
Atlantic end will be provided. A little to the east of the Pacific terminal
works will be stationed the capital of the Canal Zone, where the
administrative offices, the governor's residence, and two new towns will be
built. The administration building, which is to be a three-story structure of
concrete, hollow tile, and structural steel, is to occupy an eminence on the
side of Ancon Hill, which will afford a splendid view of the Pacific
fortifications, the entrance to the canal channel, a part of the port works,
and of the canal itself from the great continental divide to the Pacific.
There one may sit and see ships coming into the canal, tying up at the
docks, sailing up the big ditch, and passing through the locks at Miraflores

and Pedro Miguel. Near by will be the permanent home of the marines who
will be stationed on the Isthmus, their barracks and grounds occupying the
broad plateau on the side of Ancon Hill made by taking out the millions of
cubic yards of stone required for the concrete works on the Pacific side of
the Isthmus. Two permanent towns will be built at Balboa, one for the
Americans and the other for the common laborers. The American town will
be built under the capitol hill on a broad plain that was made by pumping
hydraulic material into a swamp and by dumping spoil from Culebra Cut.
When the terminal plant at Balboa is completed it will represent probably
the most extensive and adequate port works in the New World. In addition
to the main dry dock it will have a second one which will be smaller, but
which will be large enough to accommodate a majority of the ships that will
pass through the canal. The existing dry dock at the Atlantic end will be
continued in service.
It is certain that none of these port works will ever fail by reason of insecure
foundations. Wherever unusual loads were to be carried great piers of
reinforced concrete were sent down to solid rock, often a distance of 60 feet
below the surface. They consisted of a hollow shell of reinforced concrete
which was allowed to sink to hardpan of its own accord or under heavy
weight. These shells were built in sections 6 feet high. The bottom section
was 10 feet in diameter, and the lower end was equipped with a sharp steel
shoe. As the section cut down into the earth of its own weight and that
above it, laborers on the inside removed the material under the shoe and as
they did so it sank further down. The sections above were only 8 feet in
diameter, and did not quite fill up the hole made by the bottom of the
section, thus overcoming all skin friction, and permitting the full weight of
the series of sections to fall on the lower one. A jet of water was forced
around the sinking pier all the time it was going down, and this made its
progress the more easy. At times the weight of the superimposed sections
was sufficient to force the pier down through the soft mud, while at other
times the material became so heavy that even a 25-ton weight on top of the
pier scarcely moved it. At one place a stratum of material was struck about
25 feet below the surface which yielded sulphuretted hydrogen gas. This
affected the laborers' eyes, and some of them had to go to the hospital for
treatment. The work of digging out the material was continued until the
lower section reached bed rock, where it was anchored. The sections

themselves were tied together with heavy iron rods. After they were firmly
in place the interior was filled up with concrete, itself reinforced, so that the
foundations became, in reality, a series of huge concrete piles, 8 feet in
diameter, anchored to bed rock.
The coaling plants at the two terminals will be the crowning features of the
terminal facilities. With an immense storage capacity, and with every
possible facility for the rapid handling of coal, both in shipping and
unshipping it, no other canal in the world will be so well equipped. The coal
storage basin at the Atlantic end will hold nearly 300,000 tons. This basin
will be built of reinforced concrete, and will permit the flooding of the coal
pile so that one-half of it will be stored under water for war purposes. It is
said that deterioration in coal is not as great in subaqueous storage, and at
the same time the pile is less subject to fire. The plant will be able to
discharge a thousand tons of coal an hour and to load 2,000 tons an hour.
Ships will not go alongside the wharves to be coaled, but will lie out in the
ship basin and be coaled from barges with reloader outfits. Special efforts
have been made to provide for the quick loading of colliers in case of war.
The coal handling plant at the Pacific entrance will have a normal capacity
of 135,000 tons and will be able to handle half as much coal in a given time
as the one at the Atlantic end.
There will be big supply depots where ships can get any kind of stores they
need from a few buckets of white lead to an anchor or a hawser; a laundry
in which a ship's wash can be accepted at the hour it begins its transit of the
canal, for delivery by railroad at the other end before it is ready to resume
its ocean journey; an ice plant which will replenish the cold storage
compartments of ships lacking such facilities. In short, it is proposed to
attempt to do everything that may be done to make more attractive the bid
of the canal for its share of business.

CHAPTER VIII
THE PANAMA RAILROAD

When the United States acquired the properties of the new French Canal
Company it found itself in the possession of a railroad for which it had
allowed the canal company $7,000,000. This road, in the high tide of its
history, had proved a bonanza for its stockholders, and during the 43 years
between 1855 and 1898 it showed net profits five times as great as the
original cost of its construction.
When the United States took over the road someone described it as being
merely "two streaks of rust and a right of way." While the Panama road as
acquired by the United States in its purchase of the assets of the new French
Canal Company might have been all that this phrase implies, it was none
the less as great a bargain as was ever bought by any Government, and
probably the greatest bargain ever sold in the shape of a railroad. It was not
the rolling stock that was valuable, nor yet the road itself; the real value was
to be found in the possibilities of the concession. Not only was this road
destined to render to the United States a service in the building of the
Panama Canal, worth to Uncle Sam a great many times more than its cost,
but it was also destined to yield a net profit from its commercial operations
which in 10 years would amount to double the price paid for it. Since the
Americans took it over it has been yielding net returns ranging from a
million and a quarter to a million and three-quarters dollars a year. In these
10 years it has brought an aggregate profit of some $15,000,000 into the
coffers of the United States.
While $7,000,000 may have been a high price, judged from the standpoint
of the physical value of the road, it was a very reasonable one, indeed, as
compared with the price paid for it by the new French Canal Company. This
company, which sold it to the United States for $7,000,000, paid the
Panama Railroad Company $18,000,000 for it 23 years before. When the
French Canal Company decided to undertake the building of the canal, it
found that the Panama Railroad Company held concessions that were

absolutely necessary to the construction of the canal. The Colombian
Government had granted the company the concession to complete the road
in 1849, and had agreed that no other interoceanic communication should
be opened without the consent of the railroad. This gave to the railroad
company the whip hand in trading with the canal company and it was able
to name its own price.
When the United States wanted to buy the rights and properties of the new
French Canal Company the shoe was on the other foot. There was only one
buyer—the United States; and it could choose between the Panama and
Nicaragua routes. If the United States did not buy the property its principal
value would have been what it was worth as an uncertain prospect that at
some future time a second Isthmian canal might be built. That is why the
United States was able to buy from the French for $7,000,000 property that
they had bought for $18,000,000.
After the United States acquired possession of the railroad, one change after
another took place—now in the location, now in the rolling stock, now in
directorate, and again in location—until almost all that remained of the
original road was its name. It is now built almost every foot of the distance
on a new location and the permanent Panama Railroad is a thoroughly
modern, well-ballasted, heavy-railed, block-signal operated line of railway,
built along the east bank of the Panama Canal from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. Nearly half of the old right of way lies on the bottom of Lake
Gatun, while the new line skirts that artificial body of water along its
eastern shore, at places crossing its outlying arms over big bridges and
heavy trestles. The construction of this new line was attended with much
difficulty and probably no other road in the world has such a great
percentage of fills and embankments in proportion to its length. One
embankment, a mile and a quarter long and 82 feet high, required upward of
2,500,000 yards of material for its construction. The road is built about 10
feet above the water's edge, and more than 12,000,000 cubic yards of
material was required to make the fills necessary to carry the road bed at
this elevation.
When the United States took over the French property it was decided that
the canal work and the railroad operations should be maintained as distinct
activities. It was agreed that the Canal Commission should have the right to

haul its dirt trains over the Panama Railroad, and in compensation therefor
the commission undertook to build a new road to take the place of the old
line, which was in the way of the completion of the canal.
The work of relocating the road was undertaken early in the construction of
the canal in order that it might be completed by the time the old road had to
be abandoned. It was built at a cost of approximately $9,000,000, or close
to $170,000 a mile. It is interesting to note that the cost of this thoroughly
modern railroad was only about a million dollars more than the cost of the
first Panama road which has been built with rather less than usual attention
to grades, and with small rails and light bridges. The relocated Panama
Railroad was turned over to the railroad company in 1912.
How good a bargain the United States secured when it acquired the Panama
Railroad is shown by the fact that during the 10 years of canal work the net
earnings of the railroad company have reimbursed the United States for the
cost of the old road and the construction of the new one, to say nothing of
the invaluable aid rendered in the building of the canal.
The relations existing between the Isthmian Canal Commission and the
Panama Railroad Company during the years of the construction of the canal
were somewhat peculiar. The Panama Railroad Company is as much the
property of the United States as the canal itself, yet the books of the two
organizations were kept as carefully separate and distinct as though they
were under entirely different ownership. The Panama Railroad Company,
being a chartered corporation, under the terms of its ownership could
engage in commercial business with all of the facility of a private
corporation. Money received by the Isthmian Canal Commission from
outside sources had to be covered into the treasury and reappropriated for
distinct and special purposes. On the other hand, the railroad company
could use its money over and over again without turning it back into the
treasury. This advantage of operation was a useful one in conducting the
road itself, and also in the construction of the canal.
There was another reason which led the canal authorities to advocate the
maintenance of the two organizations as separate entities. This had to do
with the concession rights. Under the terms of the concession of the railroad
company the property was to revert to the Republic of Colombia in 1967, or

at any earlier date should the company cease to exist as such. While most
authorities agree that with the secession of Panama and the setting up of the
new Government all of Colombia's rights in the railroad company passed
with the territory, and while the treaty between the United States and the
Republic of Panama expressly provides that the United States shall have
"absolute title—free from every present or reversionary interest or claim" in
the railroad, the Republic of Colombia contends that it possesses some
rights with reference to the railroad and, not desiring to complicate matters,
the canal authorities thought it best to live up to the letter of the treaty, in
spite of Panama's express grant of title free from reversionary interest or
claim.
While it was deemed desirable to have the Panama Railroad operated as a
separate organization, it was equally important that it should be operated in
a way that its interests always would be subordinate to those of the canal. It
was decided that the best way to accomplish this was to make the chairman
and chief engineer of the Canal Commission the president of the railroad
company, and the members of the commission its directors. The stock of the
company is held in the name of the Secretary of War, with the exception of
a few shares held by the directors to entitle them to membership on the
board. There are also a few directors chosen from other parts of the
Government service, but their activities are purely perfunctory.
In addition to the railroad, the Panama Railroad Company also operates a
steamship line between New York and Colon. This line was acquired with
other properties of the new French Canal Company as a part of the Panama
Railroad's holdings. There were only a few years during the construction
period when this steamship line did not show a loss. But the advantages of
having a steamship line for carrying the supplies of the canal were so great,
because of the special facilities that could be provided, that the loss was
more than compensated by them. During the year 1912 the cost of operating
this steamship line was $305,000 greater than the revenues derived from its
operation. But, at the same time there was a return of net earnings by the
Panama Railroad of over $2,000,000, at least a part of which was made
possible by the operation of the steamship line. Even after deducting the
losses sustained in the operation of the steamship company there was a net
profit of more than $1,700,000, which for a railroad of less than 50 miles in
length is no small item.

As a matter of fact, Government ownership of railways as applied at
Panama is remarkably successful from the standpoint of the Government,
and partially so to the patrons of the railroad. Probably no railroad in the
United States could show net earnings per mile of line anywhere
comparable with those of the Panama Railroad.
The rates for passengers and baggage across the Isthmus were rather high
for first-class passengers, the fare for the 48-mile trip being $2.40, or 5
cents a mile. The second-class rate was only half as much. On the handling
of freight the railroad had to divide the through rate with the steamship
companies of the Atlantic and the Pacific, but, while the rates were high,
judged by American standards, and the percentages of profits very large, the
service maintained was so superior to that encountered on the privately
owned railroads of the Tropics that no one ever seriously complained of the
charges.
One of the most important services rendered by the Panama Railroad
Company in the construction of the canal was in connection with the
commissary. It had more to do with the maintenance of a reasonable
standard of living cost on the Isthmus than anything else.
When the canal was nearing completion it became advisable to determine
what rôle the Panama Railroad should play after the permanent organization
went into effect. Should it be continued as a separate entity distinct from the
canal but controlled by the canal authorities? Or should it be merged into
the Canal Government and operated purely as an auxiliary of the canal with
no separate existence? This matter was carefully weighed by the canal
authorities and the Government at Washington, and it was finally decided
that the best plan would be to operate them as separate entities, but to have
all the work done by single organization. Another question that arose was
whether the Panama Railroad Steamship Line should be operated as a
Government line after the completion of the canal. Recalling the fact that
the line never had been a profitable one, and that there was no further
reason why it should be continued in operation with an annual deficit, the
recommendation was made by the chairman and the chief engineer that the
ships should be disposed of and the line discontinued.

As the tide of tourist travel set toward Panama, the serious problem of
taking care of thousands of visitors confronted the canal authorities. There
were times when every available facility for taking care of lodgers was
called into requisition, and still hundreds of American tourists had to find
quarters in cheap, vermin-infested native hotels at Colon. Believing that the
situation demanded a modern hotel at the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, and
having in mind the success of the Government in the construction and
maintenance of the Tivoli Hotel at the Pacific side, it was decided by the
Secretary of War that the Panama Railroad Company should build a new
hotel at Colon, to be operated by that company for the Government. The
result was the beautiful Washington Hotel, in whose architecture one finds
the world's best example of northern standards of hotel construction adapted
to tropical needs.
Built of concrete and cement block, it is constructed in a modified Spanish
Mission style that makes it cool and comfortable at all times. Its public
rooms, from the main lobby to the dining-rooms, from the ladies' parlor to
the telephone and cable rooms, from the barber shop to the billiard room,
are large, airy, and most attractively furnished. Its ball room, opening on
three sides to the breezes borne in from the Caribbean is a delight to the
disciples of Terpsichore, while its open-air swimming pool, said to be the
largest hotel swimming pool in the world, affords ideal facilities for those
who otherwise would sigh for the surf. Persons who have visited every
leading hotel in the New World, from the Rio Grande southward to the
Strait of Magellan, say that it is without a superior in all that region and,
perhaps, without an equal except for one in Buenos Aires.
Here one may find accommodations to suit his taste and largely to meet the
necessities of his pocketbook. The best rooms with bath cost $5 a day for
one, or $6 for two. Table d'hote meals are served at $1 each, while those
who prefer it may secure club breakfasts and a la carte service. Anyone who
has visited the Hotel Washington, situated as it is on Colon Beach, where
the breakers sweep in from the Caribbean Sea, feels that Uncle Sam is no
less successful as a hotel keeper than as a builder of canals.
The Panama Railroad, under the American régime, has always looked well
after the comfort of its patrons. The coaches are of the standard American
type, and enough of them are run on every train to make it certain that no

patron need stand for lack of a seat. The most popular trains carry from 8 to
12 cars. These trains are run on convenient schedules, permitting a person
to go and come from any point on the road in any forenoon or afternoon.
All coaches are supplied with hygienic drinking cups, and in every way the
Panama Railroad shows that Uncle Sam is solicitous for the welfare of his
patrons.
All the rolling stock on the Isthmus is built on a 5-foot gauge, this having
been the gauge of the original Panama Railroad. As the rolling stock of the
Canal Commission had to run over the lines of the Panama Railroad, it also
was built on the gauge. When this rolling stock is disposed of it will be
necessary to readjust the gauge to meet the ordinary American standard
which is 21⁄2 inches narrower. It has been estimated that the engine axles can
be shortened for $750 per locomotive and those of cars at prices ranging
from $27 to $31 per car.
The first attempt to build the Panama Railroad was made in 1847, when a
French company secured a charter from the Government of Colombia for a
building of a road across the Isthmus. This company was unable to finance
the project and the concession lapsed.
In 1849 William H. Aspinwall, John L. Stevens, and Henry Chauncey, New
York capitalists, undertook the construction of the road. The terms of the
concession provided that the road would be purchased by the Government
at the expiration of 20 years after its completion for $5,000,000. The loss of
life in the construction of this road, serious as it was, has been
monumentally exaggerated. It is an oft-repeated statement that a man died
for every tie laid on the road. This would mean that there were 150,000
deaths in its construction. As a matter of fact, the total number of persons
employed during the six years the line was being built did not exceed 6,000.
But among these the death rate was very high. Several thousand Chinese
were brought over and they died almost like flies. Malaria and yellow fever
were the great scourges they had to encounter, although smallpox and other
diseases carried away hundreds.
The road was completed in January, 1855. Before the last rail was laid more
than $2,000,000 had been taken in for hauling passengers as far as the road
extended. The way in which the original 50-cent per mile rate across the

Isthmus was established is interesting. The chief engineer encountered
much trouble from people who wanted to use the road as far inland as it
went from Colon, so he suggested that a 50-cent rate be established,
thinking to make it prohibitory. But the people who wanted to cross the
Isthmus were willing to pay even 50 cents a mile. Hence for years after the
completion of the road the passenger rate continued at $25 for the one-way
trip across the Isthmus.
The railroad proved to be such an unexpectedly good investment that the
Republic of Colombia began to establish its claim to acquire ownership of
the road at the expiration of the 2-year term, which would take place in
1875. It was necessary therefore, that the railroad company should take
steps to save the railroad from a forced sale with $5,000,000 as the
consideration. Representatives were dispatched to Bogota with instructions
to get an extension of the concession under the most favorable terms
possible. As it was realized that the Republic of Colombia held the whip
hand in the negotiations, the railroad company understood that if it wished
to escape selling its great revenue producing road for $5,000,000 it would
have to meet any terms Colombia might dictate. The result of this mission
was an agreement by the railroad that in consideration of an extension of
the concession for a term of 99 years it would pay to the Colombian
Government $1,000,000 spot cash and $250,000 a year during the life of the
concession. That annual payment was continued as long as the Isthmus
remained a part of the Republic of Colombia. Under the terms of the treaty
between the United States and the Republic of Panama it was resumed
again in 1913, to be paid by the United States to the Republic of Panama
throughout all the years that the United States maintains and operates the
Panama Canal.

CHAPTER IX
SANITATION

Primarily, the conquest of the Isthmian barrier was the conquest of the
mosquito. Not mountains to be leveled, nor wild rivers to be tamed, nor yet
titanic machinery to be installed, presented the gravest obstacles to the
canal builders. Their most feared enemies were none of these, but the
swarms of mosquitoes that bred in myriads in every lake, in every tiny pool,
in every clump of weeds on the rain-soaked, steaming, tropical land. For
these mosquitoes were the bearers of the dread germs of yellow fever and of
malaria; and the conditions that encouraged their multiplication bred also
typhoid and all manner of filthy disease. Each mosquito was a potential
messenger of death. The buzzing, biting pests had defeated the French in
Panama without the French ever having recognized the source of the attack.
It was because the Americans, thanks to Great Britain and to Cuba, knew
the deadly qualities of the mosquitoes that they were able to plan, under the
leadership of Col. W. C. Gorgas, a sanitary campaign of unprecedented
success. It achieved two victories. One was that it made of the Canal Zone
the most healthful strip of land under tropic skies. The other is the Panama
Canal.
When one looks about in an effort to place the credit for these great sanitary
achievements he must go back to Cuba, where the yellow fever
commission, consisting of Reed, Carroll, Lazear, and Agrimonte, made the
remarkable investigations proving that yellow fever is transmissible only
through the bite of a mosquito. He must go still further back to Maj. Roland
Ross of the British Army, and his epoch-making discovery that malaria is
conveyed only by the bite of another kind of mosquito. And, if he is just to
all who have contributed to the establishment of the insect-bearing theory of
disease, he must not forget Sir Patrick Manson who first proved that any
disease could be transmitted by insect bites. It was he who discovered that
filariasis is transmissible by this method alone. It was from him that Ross
gathered the inspiration that is releasing humanity from one of the most
insidious of all the diseases to which mortal flesh is heir. And it was from

Ross's malaria discoveries, in turn, that Reed carried forward to successful
proof the theory which had persisted in some quarters for generations that
yellow fever was transmissible through mosquitoes; a theory already
partially proved by Dr. Carlos Finley, of Havana, 20 years earlier.

COL. WILLIAM C. GORGAS THE HOSPITAL GROUNDS,
ANCON

LIEUT. FREDERIC MEARS
THE OLD PANAMA RAILROAD
But all of the surmises and theories came short of the truth until Reed,
Carroll, Lazear, and Agrimonte (Lazear at the cost of his life and Carroll at
the cost of a nearly fatal attack of yellow fever) took up the work of proving
that there was only one way in which yellow fever could be transmitted;
namely, by the bite of the mosquito. Sleeping with patients who had yellow
fever, wearing the clothes of those who had died from it, eating from
utensils from which yellow fever victims had eaten—in short, putting to the
most rigid test every other possible method of infection, they proved by

every negative test that yellow fever could not be produced in any way
other than by the bite of a mosquito.
The next step was to give affirmative proof that yellow fever was caused by
the bite of the female "stegomyia"—she of the striped stockings and the
shrill song. This meant that someone had to have enough love for humanity
to risk his life by inviting one of the worst forms of death to which human
flesh is heir. Those doctors knew that they could not as brave men ask
others to undergo the risks that they themselves might not accept, so in a
little council chamber in Havana the three Americans—Reed, Carroll, and
Lazear—entered into a compact that they themselves would permit infected
mosquitoes to bite them. Reed was called home, but Carroll and Lazear
stood with the keen and cold eyes of scientists and saw the mosquitoes
inject the fateful poison into their blood. Later, after Lazear had died and
Carroll had stood in the jaws of death, soldiers of the American army in
Cuba volunteered in the interest of humanity to undergo these same risks.
And it was thus, at this price, that the world came to know how yellow
fever is caused, and that the United States was to be able to build the
Panama Canal.
After the guilt of the female "stegomyia" mosquito was firmly established
the next problem was to find a method of combating her work. Dr. Reed
and his associates thought that it might be done through a process of
immunization, using the mosquito to bite patients with very mild cases, and
after the necessary period of incubation, to transmit the disease to those
who were to be rendered immune. It was soon found, however, that there
was no method of transmitting a mild infection, and the next problem was
to combat the work of the mosquito by isolation of yellow fever patients,
and by the extermination of the mosquitoes themselves.
In Havana at this time there was another army surgeon who was destined to
write his name high upon the pages of medical achievement. He was Dr.
William C. Gorgas. Under the patronage of Gen. Leonard Wood, himself a
physician and alive to the lessons of the yellow fever commission's
investigations, Major Gorgas undertook to apply the doctrine of yellow
fever prevention promulgated by the commission, and his efforts were
attended with brilliant success. The result was that Havana, in particular,
and Cuba, in general, were freed from this great terror of the Tropics. When

President Roosevelt came to provide for the building of the Panama Canal
one of his earlier acts was to appoint Dr. Gorgas the chief sanitary officer of
the Canal Zone.
At first there was difficulty in establishing practical sanitation in Panama.
The chief sanitary officer was then a subordinate of the commission, and,
along with all of the other men who were trying to do things on the Isthmus,
he found himself hindered by unsatisfactory conditions both as to supplies
and as to force; consequently, his work was no more satisfactory to himself
than it was to the commission or to the American people. Under these
conditions an epidemic of yellow fever broke out in Panama in 1905, and it
was not long before the yellow fever mosquito had seemingly established
an alibi and had secured a reopening of her case before the jury of public
sentiment. People, to emphasize their disbelief in the mosquito theory of the
transmission of the disease, tore the screens from their doors and windows,
and otherwise proclaimed their contempt for the doctors and their doctrines.
This matter went so far that the Isthmian Canal Commission proposed not
only a change in method but a change in personnel as well.
At this juncture Charles E. Magoon became governor of the Canal Zone,
and he declared that Dr. Gorgas should have adequate financial and moral
support. He was determined that the panic which the yellow fever outbreak
had engendered should be halted—and a panic it was, for men rushed
madly to Colon and defied the efforts of the commission, and of the
captains and crews of the Panama Railroad steamships, to prevent them
from returning to the States without other transportation arrangements than
a determination to get aboard and stay there until the Statue of Liberty had
been passed in New York Harbor. So great was this panic that Chief
Engineer Stevens declared that there were three diseases at Panama: Yellow
fever, malaria, and cold feet: and that the greatest of these was cold feet.
The newspapers of the United States at that time quoted the poetry of such
writers as Gilbert, who said:
"Beyond the Chagres River
'Tis said (the story's old)
Are paths that lead to mountains
Of purest virgin gold;
But 'tis my firm conviction

What e'er the tales they tell,
That beyond the Chagres River
All paths lead straight to hell."
It did not matter that in four months there were only 47 deaths on the
Isthmus from yellow fever as compared with 108 from malaria in the same
period—men do not stop to study mortality tables and to compare the
relative fatalities of diseases when yellow fever stares them in the face.
But after all, the yellow fever panic of 1905 served a good purpose, for if
the mosquito thereby secured a reopening of its case, it stirred the United
States Government to give to the sanitary officers of the Canal Zone the
powers they needed, and the means required to prove finally and forever in
the court of last resort, the guilt of the mosquito, and to establish for once
and all the method of combating its stealthy work.
The whole world recognizes the remarkable results in sanitary work that
have been achieved at Panama. While it must be remembered that the
population of the Canal Zone is made up largely of able-bodied men, and
that, therefore, the death rate naturally would be lower than under like
conditions with a normal population of infancy and old age, the fact
remains that sanitary science has converted the Zone from a mosquito
paradise of swamp and jungle into a region where mosquitoes have all but
disappeared, and where men are as free from danger of epidemic diseases as
in the United States itself.
The sanitary statistics of the Canal Zone, and of the cities of Panama and
Colon, were based for several years upon an erroneous assumption of
population. The Department of Sanitation estimated the population of the
Canal Zone by deducting the recorded emigrants from the recorded
immigrants and assumed that the difference represented a permanent
addition to the Zone's population. Under this method of estimating
population a serious error crept in, since hundreds of people came into
Panama from the Panaman outports and were recorded as arrivals, but who,
departing in small sailing vessels and launches at night after the port
officers had gone home, were not recorded as having departed. In this way
the sanitary department estimates of population in the Canal Zone reached a
total of 93,000 in 1912. The census taken that year showed only 62,000

population in the Zone. This served to make the death rate given out by the
Department of Sanitation 50 per cent lower than was justified by actual
population conditions.
But one does not need to consider figures to realize what has been
accomplished at Panama. Anyone who goes there and sees the remarkable
evidence of the success of the efforts to conquer the disease of the tropical
jungles, finds a lesson taught that is too impressive to need the confirmation
of medical statistics.
The United States, after the yellow fever outbreak of 1905, never counted
the cost when the health of the canal army was at stake. Not only was Uncle
Sam successful in his efforts to make the Canal Zone and the terminal cities
of Panama and Colon healthful places of abode, but no worker on the canal
was denied the privilege of the best medical care. An average of $2,000,000
a year was expended in the prevention of sickness and the care of those who
were sick. At Ancon and at Colon large hospitals were maintained where
the white American and the West Indian negro had their respective wards.
At Taboga a large sanitarium was maintained to assist the recuperation of
those who had recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital. Besides this
there were rest camps along the line for those not ill enough to be removed
to the hospitals, and dispensaries where those who felt they were not in
need of other medical attention could consult with the physicians and get
the necessary medicines. All medical services to the employees of the Canal
Commission and the Panama Railroad were free, and only nominal charges
were made for members of their families. No passenger train crossed the
Isthmus of Panama without carrying a hospital car for taking patients to or
from the hospitals. No way station was without its waiting shed bearing the
inscription: "For Hospital Patients Only." Each community had its
dispensary, its doctor, and its sanitary inspector.
During the year 1912 there were 48,000 cases of sickness in the Canal
Zone, of which 26,000 were white and 22,000 colored. During the same
year 633,000 trips to the dispensaries were made by employees and
nonemployees, divided almost evenly between white and colored. The
average number of employees constantly sick in Ancon Hospital was 712;
in Colon Hospital 209; and in Taboga Sanitarium 54. An average of 119
were in the sick camps all the time and 50 in the quarters. The average

number of days' treatment per employee in the hospitals was a little over 14;
in the sick camps a little under 3; and in quarters 21⁄3. It cost $160,000 a year
to feed the patients in the hospitals and $739,000 a year to operate the
hospitals.
The work of sanitation proper cost some $400,000 a year. This includes
many items. During one year about 16,000,000 square yards of brush were
cut and burned; a million square yards of swamp were drained; 30,000,000
square yards of grass were cut; 250,000 feet of ditches were dug; and some
2,000,000 linear feet of old ditches were cleaned. During the same year
nearly a million garbage cans and over 300,000 refuse cans were emptied.
In addition to looking after the health of the Canal Zone itself, it was
necessary to care for that of the cities of Panama and Colon. In the city of
Panama 11,000 loads of sweepings and 25,000 loads of garbage were
removed in one year; 3,000,000 gallons of water were sprinkled on the
streets and as much more distributed to the poor of the city.
During one year the quarantine service, which keeps a strict lookout for
yellow fever, bubonic plague, and other epidemic diseases, inspected over
100,000 passengers coming into the Zone. It required about 150,000 gallons
of mosquito oil a year to keep down the mosquitoes. There are 50 known
breeds of these insects on the Isthmus and perhaps some 20 species more
which have not been identified. Of the 50 or more species of mosquitoes 11
belonged to the malaria-producing family—anopheles. Their cousins of the
yellow-fever-producing family—the stegomyias—boast of only two
species. What the other 40 or more kinds are doing besides annoying
suffering humanity has not been determined. The mosquito is comparatively
easy to exterminate. Its life habits are such that a terrific mortality may be
produced among them during infancy. The average young mosquito, during
its "wriggler" state of development, lives under the water and has to make
about 8,000 trips to the surface for air before it can spread its wings and fly.
If oil is poured upon the water it can get no air and death by asphyxiation
follows. Two classes of larvaecide are used on the waters to exterminate the
baby mosquitoes: One is an oil used to make a scum over the surface; the
other a carbolic solution which poisons the water. At the head of every little
rivulet and tiny, trickling stream one sees a barrel out of which comes an
endless drip! drip! drip! These drops of oil or poison are carried down the
stream and make inhospitable all of the mosquito nurseries of the marshes

through which the waters flow. In addition to these barrels, men go about
with tanks on their backs, spraying the marshy ground and the small,
isolated pools of water with larvaecides.

SANITARY DRINKING CUP MOSQUITO OIL DRIP BARREL SPRAYING
MOSQUITO OIL

TYPICAL QUARTERS OF THE MARRIED
LABORER

A NATIVE HUT
This method of treatment has not exterminated all mosquitoes on the
Isthmus, but it has so materially reduced their number that one may stay in
the Zone for weeks without seeing a single one. This is a freedom, however,
that must be paid for by vigilance of the most painstaking and unremitting
sort. The moment the work is relaxed the mosquitoes again spread over the
territory.
The United States Government will have to continue with the utmost care
its work of sanitation and quarantine at Panama. If, after the canal is
completed, an epidemic of bubonic plague or yellow fever should break out,
it might very seriously interfere with the operation of the canal in several
ways. To begin with, it would demoralize the operating force. Further than
this, India and China are afraid of yellow fever because in both of these
countries the stegomyia mosquito abounds. If the disease should obtain a
foothold there it would be difficult to exterminate. Europe, also, might be
expected to quarantine against Panama under such conditions. A 10,000-ton
freighter carrying cargo through the canal would lose at least a thousand
dollars for every day it was detained in quarantine by reason of having
visited the canal.

A shrewd observer has said that the successful sanitation of the Isthmus of
Panama is a triumph at once of medical science and of despotic
government. Probably this does not overstate the case. The methods
employed at Panama were arbitrary, and had to be. They probably could not
be enforced at all in a democratic community in ordinary times. The people
would rebel against the severity of the regulations and against the incidental
invasion of their privacy. But strike any community, however free, with the
fear of a swift and deadly disease and it will submit—as witness the shot-
gun quarantines that used to demark the northern limits of the yellow fever
zone in our own Southern States, or the despotism that governed New
Orleans in the terror of 1905. At Panama this fear is ever present, so there is
little danger that a responsible majority there ever would resist the sanitary
work on the grounds of outraged democracy. It may be that a popular
government would become careless, or inefficient, but it would not
renounce the pretension. This has been proved in Cuba.
The sanitarians at Panama gave to the workers there a sense of security that
contributed no little to the spirit of determination so universally remarked
and commended by visitors to the Zone during the era of construction.
While there was no immunity from sickness and death, yet there was no
panic, no constant dread, such as destroyed the morale of the French force.
The Isthmus of Panama still remained hot, its inhabitants still were forced
to take the precautions that aliens must take in the Tropics; but they were
inspired with a confidence that if these precautions were taken they would
not be in any greater danger than if they had remained in their northern
homes.
Pestilence, the scourge of the on-sweeping epidemic, the plague of swift
death that is only a little worse than the panic of fear it inspires—this was
the thing that was stamped out.
Not since the Science of Healing opened its doors to the Science of
Prevention have physicians scored a greater victory in their fight against
disease and death than on the Isthmus of Panama. Not only did they help to
build the canal; they demonstrated that tropical diseases are capable of
human control and thereby opened up a vista of hope undreamed of to all
that sweltering and suffering mass of humanity that inhabits the Torrid
Zone.

CHAPTER X
THE MAN AT THE HELM

In 1905, William H. Taft, then Secretary of War, made a trip to the Isthmus
of Panama to look over the preparations for the construction of the Panama
Canal, and at the same time to consider the question of the fortification of
the big waterway. On that trip a member of the General Staff of the Army,
who at that time was but little known outside of Army circles, went with
him. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, bronze-faced, gray-haired man, 47
years old. He came and went unheralded. Few people knew of the
engineering record he had made, and no one on the Isthmus dreamed that he
was destined to become the commander in chief of the army that would
conquer the Isthmian barrier.
He returned to the United States and wrote his report—a report which, from
the deep mastery of the subject it revealed, attracted the favorable attention
of the Secretary of War. Later when the board of consulting engineers came
to make its report upon the type of canal which should be built—whether it
should be a sea level or a lock canal—the Secretary of War asked this
officer to prepare a draft of his report to the President recommending the
lock canal.
Soon after New Year's Day, 1907, the chief engineer of the canal, John F.
Stevens, dissatisfied with the relations that existed between the Government
and himself, came to the conclusion that he could not build the canal
hampered as he was by red tape at Washington. It then became a question of
whether or not the canal should be built by contract or by the Army.
President Roosevelt asked for a preliminary report upon this proposition
and the unheralded Army engineer who had visited the Canal Zone in 1905,
made it. A few days later there was a conference between President
Roosevelt, Gen. Alexander MacKenzie, Chief of Engineers of the United
States Army, and the Secretary of War. After this conference Maj. George
Washington Goethals was summoned to the White House and informed by
the President that it had been determined to build the Panama Canal under

the auspices of the Army, and that he was appointed chairman and chief
engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission. He was requested to keep the
fact of his appointment a secret and to prepare immediately to go to
Panama. A ship sailed for the Isthmus three days thereafter, and he was
ready to sail when the President advised him that he might wait over and
arrange affairs in Washington, leaving in time to get to the Isthmus to take
charge on the first of April.
When the announcement was made to the country that the work of building
the canal was to be put in the hands of the Army, the whole country began
to inquire: Who is Major Goethals? that inquiry revealed the fact that he
was a man who had accomplished much in his 49 years. Born in 1858, of
Dutch parents, whose ancestors had settled in New York when it was still
New Amsterdam, he was appointed to the United States Military Academy
at West Point where he was graduated in the class of 1880 with such honors
that he was entitled to enter the Engineer Corps of the Regular Army.
In 1891 he rose to the rank of captain, and in 1898 became lieutenant
colonel and chief engineer of the First Volunteer Army Corps in Cuba. On
the last day of that year he was honorably discharged from the volunteer
service, and, in 1900, became a major in the Engineer Corps of the Regular
Army. For a number of years prior to 1898 he had been instructor in civil
and military engineering at West Point. He had been in charge of the Mussel
Shoals canal construction on the Tennessee River, a work which won praise
from engineers both in civil and in military life. It was in a measure his
record made on the Tennessee River work that led to his appointment as
chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal.
When he took charge of the work at Panama he was promoted to lieutenant
colonel. Arriving there he immediately informed all hands that while the
work of building the canal had been placed under Army engineers, no man
who was then on the job and faithfully executing his work need fear
anything from that administration. From that time down to the last stages of
the work that statement held good. Trained at West Point, brought up in the
atmosphere of the Army, a lover of its traditions and in full sympathy with
its spirit, he laid aside everything that might handicap the success of the
undertaking and sought at once to get the full benefit of all that was best in
the Army and in civil life as well. He put his uniform in moth balls when he

started to the Isthmus, and from that day to this no man has ever seen him
on the Canal Zone wearing an Army uniform.
When he took charge of the big job, the foundations upon which he was to
build the superstructure of his success had been laid by his predecessors,
but there were many weak points in these foundations as well as many
strong ones. With a spirit of utilizing to the fullest extent every advantage
that the administrations of the former chief engineers had left on the
Isthmus, he undertook to make only such changes as time demonstrated
were necessary to the success of the project. At that time 6,000,000 cubic
yards of material had been removed from the big waterway. Confronting
him was the task of removing some 215,000,000 yards the while building a
great dam containing 21,000,000 cubic yards, constructing a series of
gigantic locks containing four and a half million cubic yards of concrete,
and providing for the happiness and welfare of the sixty-odd thousand
people who constituted the canal army and its camp followers.
In the years that followed his appointment he proved himself in every way
worthy of his assignment as the managing director of the most stupendous
piece of work ever undertaken by man. Furthermore, he established a claim
to the title of the "Great Digger." No other man in the history of the world
has ever superintended the excavation of an amount of earth half as great as
that which has been taken out of the Panama Canal during his
administration. Since he went to the canal to "make the dirt fly" the material
excavated under his command, together with that placed in the locks and
dams, equals the amount necessary to take out to cut a tunnel 13 feet square
through the earth at the Equator.
No man ever carried to a great position less fuss and feathers than Colonel
Goethals took to his work as chairman and chief engineer of the Panama
Canal. When, during the construction period, one visited his office at
Culebra, on almost any afternoon, he would find there an unpretentious
little room in the corner of the administration building, about 18 feet square,
containing four windows, overlooking the cut from two sides, its painted
walls hung with maps, its floors uncarpeted, and in the center a large
double-sided, flat-top desk covered with papers. A swivel chair at the desk
and two or three other chairs constituted the furnishings of this room. The
visitor walked directly into the office of his private secretary and the chief

clerk, and if he had anything worth while about which to see the chairman
and chief engineer he was detained only long enough for the man ahead of
him to get out. With "no time like the present" as his motto in handling the
business of his office, he, the busiest man on the Isthmus, and one of the
busiest in the world for that matter, always seemed to have more time than
many men of lesser responsibilities and far fewer burdens. He once
declared that he had a contempt for the man who always tried to make it
appear that he was too busy to see his callers, because his callers were
frequently as busy as he himself.
The fact is that he is a man with a very unusual gift in the dispatch of work.
System has been the key-note of his success. With thousands of details
every day to look after, he has always kept his work so well in hand that to
the casual observer he seemed to be the most leisurely man on the Isthmus.
He maintained a well-established routine all through his career on the canal.
His mornings usually were spent going over the work. When the morning
trains passed Culebra at 7 o'clock they found him up, breakfasted, and at the
station.
Although these trains carried parlor cars, one would seldom see the
chairman and chief engineer riding in them. Rather, he consistently chose to
ride in the ordinary day coaches with his sub-engineers, with the steam-
shovel men, and with the rank and file of the Americans who made possible
the success of the work at Panama. There were few of these Americans
whom he did not know by name, and with whom he did not pass a pleasant
word whenever he chanced to meet them.
A morning trip over the work with this presiding genius of the big ditch
reveals perhaps better than anything else the makeup of the man and the
secret of his success.
"Meet me on the early train to-morrow morning at Miraflores," said he to
one of his visitors in the early summer of 1913, "and we will go over the
Pacific end of the work."
This meant that both the chief engineer and the visitor had to leave
comfortable beds at 5 o'clock in the morning to keep the appointment. At 7
o'clock they met at Miraflores. "We will walk through the tunnel if you

don't mind," said he, "as I don't want to hold up a dirt train if it can be
avoided."
At the other end of the railroad tunnel, the only one on the Isthmus, a
railway motor car stood on the siding ready to pick up the distinguished
engineer and carry him to the Miraflores Locks. This motor car is
something like a limousine on railroad trucks, and was affectionately
known by the people on the Isthmus, as "the yellow peril" and "the brain
wagon." The first stop was at the concrete work on the spillway dam at
Miraflores.
"How soon do you expect to have this dam up to its full height?" he asked
of the division engineer who joined him there. "Can't you find room to
operate another temporary concrete mixer down there?" he queried further.
"Is there anything else you need to keep the work moving forward so as to
be certain to complete the dam by the time you promised?"
Going a little farther he came to a place where one division was doing some
work for another division. "Don't you think it would be more satisfactory to
keep both parts of that work under one division? Why don't you allow it all
to be done by the other people?"
Walking across the locks on the temporary bridge the chief engineer and his
assistant came to a point where the concrete lamp posts for lighting the
locks were being set up. "Don't you think that it would better avoid any
settling if you were to place beams of railroad iron across those spaces and
rest the posts on them?" he queried.
A little farther on he met the engineer in charge of the work of the company
erecting the gates. "When do you think you will have the gates in the west
chambers completed so that we can put the dredge through?" he inquired of
Mr. Wright.
"Well, sir," replied Mr. Wright, "if we have good luck I hope to have them
done by the first of September; if we have fair luck we ought to have them
completed by the middle of September; but at the lowest calculation I can
promise them to you by the first of October."
"But have you taken into consideration all of the time you are likely to lose
as the result of heavy rains?" queried the chief engineer.

"I have made full allowance therefor, I think," responded Mr. Wright.
Walking on, the watchful eye of the chief engineer fell upon a new baby
railway track which was being laid through the eastern lock chambers.
"What are you planning to do there?" he asked of the division engineer.
"We wanted to get some additional material through the locks and Mr.
Wright informed us that if we would furnish the timbers, he would make it
so that we could run these little engines through there," responded the
engineer.
"But did you have a definite understanding with him that this should afford
no excuse for any further delay in completing the gates?" queried Colonel
Goethals.
"We did, sir," responded the division engineer.
"All right then, go ahead."
At this point the party boarded the motor car again and was taken to the big
dike which was to hold the Pacific Ocean from flooding the locks after a
dike a mile farther down had been blown out. "How much water do you
have in the stretch between the two dikes?" he asked of the division
engineer. He next wanted to know how many million cubic feet they were
able to pump and siphon in, and how much the Rio Grande was bringing in
per day. Then he wanted to know if every possible precaution had been
taken to insure the watertightness of the new dike; how many thousand
pounds of dynamite had been placed under the one to be blown up; how
many holes this dynamite was placed in; and a large number of other bits of
information which would tell him whether every safeguard had been thrown
around the plan to insure its success.
Going up on the other side of the canal the party came to the earth dam
joining the west lock walls with the hills, so as to impound 58 feet of water
in Miraflores Lake. "How soon do you expect to get that connection made
between the lock walls and the dam proper?" he queried of the engineer in
immediate charge.
"In four weeks, sir."

"All right," answered Colonel Goethals, "you can't get that done any too
soon to suit me."
And so he went over the work around Miraflores from beginning to end,
talking now with an Irishman in charge of dumping the material on the
inside of the dam, now with a man in charge of some concrete work, and
now with the division engineer himself. By 11 o'clock he had inspected
every part of this division and was ready to take his car back to Culebra. In
four hours he had seen every man responsible for any important work
around Miraflores; had offered a suggestion there, a word of encouragement
here, and had obtained a bit of information at another place.
Each day's morning program was like this one except as to the place he
visited and the people with whom he talked. One morning he might be
tramping over Cucaracha Slide, studying the prospects of its future. Another
morning he might be down at Gatun watching an official test of an
emergency dam. On these trips he usually wore either a most unmilitary-
looking blue serge or gray cheviot, with a somewhat weather-beaten sailor
straw hat, and carried a cheap dollar umbrella.
When Colonel Goethals went to the Isthmus he promised that every man
with a grievance should have a hearing. Each Sunday morning he had at his
office at Culebra what he termed his Sunday "at homes," the best attended
functions on the Isthmus, where the blackest Jamaica negro on the job
found as much of a welcome as the highest official. These functions were
for the purpose of hearing the canal employees who had grievances. Once a
visitor was congratulating him upon the smooth manner in which the canal-
building machine seemed to be working. "You ought to attend one of my
Sunday 'at homes,'" he replied. "You would think that there was no
smoothness at all to its running."
Here is the wife of one of the engineers: She wants to find out why it is that
she cannot get bread from the Ancon Hospital bakery. She informs Colonel
Goethals that Joseph B. Bishop, secretary of the commission, gets bread
from the hospital bakery and wants to know why she cannot. "I will look
into the matter for you," says the chief engineer, and a note of this
complaint is made. Later the telephone bell rings and Mr. Bishop is asked if
he gets bread at the hospital bakery. He replies in the affirmative, explaining

that about three years ago he had breakfasted with Colonel Gorgas who
arranged for him to buy his bread there instead of at the commissary, this
bread being more to his liking. "Can't any other employee of the Canal
Commission get bread there under the same terms?" queries the chief
engineer. "I will see, sir," responds the secretary of the commission. "If they
can not," answers the chief engineer, "you must have your bread stopped at
once." And it was stopped.
The next person received is the representative of the Kangaroos, a fraternal
order. "The Spanish American War veterans get free transportation on a
special train on Memorial Day," he is informed, "and the fraternal orders on
the Zone are crowded out." "Let a committee of all the fraternal orders
appear next Sunday and talk it over with me and we will see what we can
do," responds the chief engineer.
Here comes a negro who says that his boss is a tyrant and abuses his men:
"I will look into that," responds the presiding genius of the canal, and the
Jamaican goes away with an expansive smile on his face.
And so it went. Small affairs, big affairs, and indifferent ones were brought
to his attention. In perhaps 80 per cent of them he could not do what was
requested, but when able he did it so promptly, and in such a positive,
straightforward manner, that his "at homes" have been compared, by the
French ambassador to the United States, to the court of justice held by Saint
Louis beneath the oak at Vincennes.
A railroad engineer on one of the dirt trains got drunk and ran over a negro.
He was sent to the penitentiary. The railroad men issued an ultimatum
saying that if he were not released by a certain hour on a certain day, every
dirt train on the canal would stop. A committee conveyed this ultimatum to
Colonel Goethals and asked his decision. "You will get it at the
penitentiary," he replied. "This man will remain in prison and every man
who quits work on that account will be dropped from the rolls." There was
no strike of engineers.
At another time the waiters at the Tivoli Hotel went on strike. The whole
force was promptly discharged, and the official paper of the Canal
Commission carried their names with the announcement that thereafter they
would not be eligible to employment in any capacity on the Canal Zone.

If the chairman and chief engineer of the canal is just and firm in his
relations with his men, he is no less generous in giving credit where credit
belongs. Upon one occasion he was talking about the success of the canal
project with a friend, and declared that the world would never give to John
F. Stevens the credit that was due him in the construction of the canal. "You
know," said he, "the real problem of building this canal has been that of
removing the spoil; that problem was preeminently the problem of a
railroad man and to solve it demanded the services of one of the best men in
the railroad business. We have extended the facilities laid out by Mr.
Stevens, and have modified them as experience and conditions have
demanded, but they have been operated from that day to this under the
general plan of transportation laid out by Mr. Stevens. I do not think that
any Army engineer in the United States could have laid out such excellent
transportation facilities."
At another time, in discussing this same matter, he declared that it was his
firm opinion that the canal could have been built by either of the former
chief engineers, John F. Wallace or John F. Stevens, if they had been
allowed a free hand. "You see," said he, "they were men who were
accustomed to handling big construction jobs. They would outline their
project and the cost of executing it to a board of directors who would pass
upon it and then leave them absolutely unhampered in the matter of
personnel and method, with results as the only criterion of their success.
When they came to the Isthmus they found their hands tied by red tape.
They had never dealt with a President, a Secretary of War, a Congress, and
the public at large. Naturally, they grew restive under the conditions which
confronted them and resigned.
"The whole difference is largely that of training. The Army officer knows
from the time he leaves West Point that he has to work in harmony with his
superiors, with the President, the Secretary of War, and Congress. That is
why we have been able to stay where men from civil life have thrown up
the job."
Another remarkable characteristic of the Great Digger is his desire to do his
work economically as well as to do it promptly. When he went to the
Isthmus there was an insistent demand that the dirt be made to fly. Along
with the administration in Washington he realized that the only way to gain

the faith and confidence of the people in the work, a faith and confidence
essential to its full success, was to measure up to their desire that the dirt
begin to fly. It was not a time to consider economies then. But, as soon as
those demands had been met and the people had been shown that the Army
could make good, a cost-keeping system was introduced. Men doing
identical work were pitted against one another; Army engineers were placed
in command of one task here and civilian engineers in command of another
task there; and thus a healthy rivalry was established.
As Colonel Gaillard, member of the commission, and engineer of the
Central Division, testified before a congressional committee, his early work
in Culebra Cut was to get out as much dirt as possible, while his later work
was given over largely to a study and comparison of cost sheets with a view
to cutting down the expense of removing a yard of material, with the result
that he was able to show a saving of $17,000,000 in a 9-mile section of the
Panama Canal as compared with the estimates of 1908.
In other words, Colonel Goethals took that golden rule of all great soldiers,
"get there first with the most men," and adapted it to read "dig the most dirt
with the least money." He had ever in mind three things: Safe construction,
rapid progress, and low costs. On these three foundation stones in his mind
was reared the structure that stands as the highest example of engineering
science, and as the proudest constructive accomplishment of the American
Republic.
At the northern entrance to the Suez Canal stands a statue of de Lesseps, a
beckoning hand inviting the shipping of the world to go through. Perhaps
no such statue of Goethals ever will stand at Panama, but there is no need.
The canal itself is his monument and its story will ever endure.

CHAPTER XI
THE ORGANIZATION

When the United States finally decided to build the Panama Canal, the next
question of gravity which pressed for consideration was the creation of the
organization by which it was to be built. Many problems were encountered,
and after repeated changes in personnel and rearrangements of duties, the
situation finally resolved into an organization headed by one man, clothed
with the necessary powers, and held responsible for the consequent results.
The completion of the preliminaries for the acquisition of title to the Canal
Zone and to the property and rights of the New Panama Canal Company
took place when Congress, on April 28, 1904, made an appropriation of
$10,000,000, which was to be paid to the Republic of Panama. Six days
later the United States formally took possession of the Canal Zone and of
the property of the Panama Canal Company, when at 7:30 o'clock in the
morning, Lieut. Mark Brooke, of the United States Army, took over the
keys and raised the American flag. The following day President Roosevelt
announced the appointment of John Findley Wallace, of Massachusetts, as
chief engineer of the canal at a salary of $25,000 a year, the appointment to
be effective on the 1st day of June.
The first ship to arrive at Panama carried Maj. Gen. George W. Davis, who
was to govern the Canal Zone; Col. William C. Gorgas, who was to make it
sanitary; and George R. Shanton, who was to drive out the criminal
element. Governor Davis was a member of the Isthmian Canal
Commission, Colonel Gorgas had proved his worth in the sanitation of
Cuba, and Shanton had been a "rough rider" with Colonel Roosevelt in the
Cuban campaign.
When Chief Engineer Wallace arrived on the scene he found there an all but
abandoned project. There were hundreds of French houses, but nearly all of
them were in the jungle and practically unfit for human habitation. He
found millions of dollars' worth of French machinery, but almost none of it

in condition to be put into service immediately. He knew in a general way
the line of the canal, but surveys were lacking to determine its exact
location at every point. With this situation in front of him, he found it
necessary to concentrate his efforts upon the problem of getting ready for
the work. While he was doing this the people at home began to demand that
the dirt fly. Colonel Gorgas also found conditions which challenged his best
efforts. Colon was a paradise of disease, Panama was no better. It was only
by making both of these cities over again, from a sanitary standpoint, that
any hope could be held out for reasonably healthy conditions.
During his stay on the Isthmus Mr. Wallace found himself handicapped at
every turn by red tape, a new thing in his experience as a construction
engineer. He could buy nothing without asking for bids; every idea he
sought to put into execution had to be submitted to Washington, and he
found himself so harassed and handicapped that he wanted a new plan of
organization.
Acting in accordance with his recommendations, President Roosevelt
decided to accept the resignation of the existing Canal Commission, and to
appoint a new one, in which, instead of having independent departments,
with the governor independent of the chief engineer, and the chief sanitary
officer independent of both the governor and the chief engineer, there
should be a more united relation, in which all questions were to be decided
by the commission as a whole, the final authority being vested in an
executive committee composed of the chairman, the governor of the Canal
Zone, and the chief engineer.
Under this plan, the second Isthmian Canal Commission was organized. It
consisted of Theodore P. Shonts, chairman; Charles E. Magoon, Governor
of the Canal Zone; John F. Wallace, chief engineer; Mordecai T. Endicott;
Peter C. Hains; Oswald H. Ernst; and Benjamin A. Harrod. Following the
suggestion of Chief Engineer Wallace, the control of the Panama Railroad
was also vested in the new commission.
While these changes were being made Chief Engineer Wallace was in
Washington. There was dissatisfaction on the Isthmus with an
accompanying spirit of unrest, and, to make matters worse, a yellow-fever
epidemic broke out. Only a few days after Mr. Wallace reached the Isthmus,

he cabled the Secretary of War that he wished to return to Washington,
hinting that he might resign. Secretary Taft cabled to Governor Magoon for
an opinion as to the motives which were behind this step on the part of Mr.
Wallace, and was advised that it was brought about by the offer of a better
salary and the fear of the yellow-fever epidemic. When Mr. Wallace reached
New York he had a stormy interview with Secretary Taft, who roundly
denounced him for quitting at such a critical time. Mr. Wallace declared his
lack of confidence in the ability of Colonel Gorgas to control the yellow-
fever epidemic, and asserted that the continual interference of red tape was
so distracting to him as to make new employment attractive. President
Roosevelt upheld his Secretary of War in his denunciation of Mr. Wallace,
and promptly appointed John F. Stevens chief engineer at a salary of
$30,000.
John F. Stevens arrived on the Isthmus on July 27, 1905. He found the
Panama Railroad almost in a state of collapse. He declared that the only
claim heard for it was that there had been no collisions for some time. "A
collision has its good points as well as its bad ones," he observed, "for it
indicates that there is something moving on the railroad."
Mr. Stevens immediately set to work to build up the road, and to provide
the means for housing and feeding the canal army. But like his predecessor
he found Government red tape hampering, and in his first annual report
begged for "a thorough business administration unhampered by any
tendency to technicalities, into which our public work sometimes drifts." He
protested against civil-service requirements on the Isthmus, and against the
eight-hour working day; and President Roosevelt met his protests by
exempting all employees except clerks from the operations of civil-service
rules, and by abrogating the eight-hour day.
It was under the régime of Mr. Stevens that the question arose as to whether
the canal should be built as a sea-level channel through the Isthmus, or as a
lock canal with the water in the middle section 85 feet above the level of the
sea. President Roosevelt thereupon appointed a board of consulting
engineers, made up of 14 members, to visit the Isthmus and determine what
type of canal should be built. Five members of this board of consulting
engineers were foreigners appointed by their respective Governments at the
request of President Roosevelt. They included the inspector general of

Public Works of France, the consulting engineer of the Suez Canal, the
chief engineer of the Manchester Canal, the chief engineer of the Kiel
Canal, and the chief engineer of the Dutch dike system. Three of the
American engineers and all five of the foreign engineers voted in favor of a
sea-level canal. Chief Engineer Stevens and all but one member of the
Isthmian Canal Commission concurred in the vote of the minority, made up
wholly of American engineers in favor of the lock canal. President
Roosevelt sustained the minority report, and Congress sustained him in the
law of June 29, 1906.
In the fall of 1906 Chairman Shonts came out in advocacy of a plan to build
the canal by contract. Here arose a difference between Mr. Shonts and Mr.
Stevens, and Chairman Shonts shortly thereafter resigned. A few months
later Chief Engineer Stevens also resigned. It is said that his resignation was
mainly due to his objection to the appointment of Army engineers as
members of the Canal Commission, and to a letter he wrote the President in
which he scored the limitations of red tape and Government methods
generally. When Mr. Stevens quitted the Isthmus he left behind him the
nucleus of the general organization for building of the canal. He saw
housing conditions brought up to the required standard, established the
necessary commissary where canal employees could supply their needs at
reasonable prices, and aided Colonel Gorgas in his fight to make the
Isthmus healthful.
At this juncture the organization destined to build the canal was put into
effect, with Colonel George W. Goethals at its head. Colonel Gorgas, the
chief sanitary officer, was the only important official of the old régime held
over. The other members of the commission were Maj. D. D. Gaillard and
Maj. William L. Sibert, of the United States Engineer Corps; Civil Engineer
H. H. Rousseau, of the United States Navy; and Messrs. J. C. S. Blackburn
and Jackson Smith.

MAJ. GEN. GEORGE W. DAVIS REAR ADMIRAL
J. G. WALKER
THEODORE P. SHONTS JOHN F. WALLACE
JOHN F. STEVENS CHARLES E. MAGOON

RICHARD LEE METCALFE EMORY R.
JOHNSON
MAURICE H. THATCHER JOSEPH BUCKLIN
BISHOP
H. A. GUDGER JOSEPH C. S. BLACKBURN

Under former commissions the Governor of the Canal Zone had ranked
above the chief engineer, and the chairman, the chief engineer, and the
governor had had rival powers, which resulted in a great deal of friction.
Under the new order the offices of chairman and chief engineer were
consolidated, and the governor was reduced to the title of "head of the

Department of Civil Administration," reporting to the chairman, as did the
chief sanitary officer and all of the division engineers.
This commission, in personnel, remained intact during the long period of
construction, except for the resignation in 1908 of Jackson Smith, who was
succeeded by Lieut. Col. Harry F. Hodges; and for the resignation in 1910
of Mr. Blackburn, who was succeeded by Morris H. Thatcher. Mr. Thatcher,
in turn, was succeeded in 1913 by Richard L. Metcalfe as head of the
Department of Civil Administration.
During the construction period there were several rearrangements of the
duties of the Army engineers associated with Colonel Goethals. From June,
1908, Major Gaillard, afterwards promoted to a lieutenant-colonelcy, was in
charge of the ditch-digging work between Gatun and Pedro Miguel, which
included the entire Gatun Lake and Culebra Cut sections. It is everywhere
admitted that so far as difficulties were concerned, he had the hardest job on
the Isthmus, next to the chief engineer. Colonel Gaillard entered the United
States Military Academy in 1884 and was graduated with honors entitling
him to appointment in the Corps of Engineers. Before being selected as a
member of the Canal Commission, he had had much experience in
important work. For two years he was in charge of all river and harbor
improvement in the Lake Superior region. When he first went to the
Isthmus he was assigned as the supervising engineer in charge of harbors,
the building of breakwaters, etc.
Lieut. Col. William L. Sibert, another of the Army engineers who was made
a member of the Canal Commission, was graduated from West Point in
1884 and was made a lieutenant of engineers. From 1892 to 1894 he was
assistant engineer in charge of the construction of the ship channel
connecting the Great Lakes. The four years following he was in charge of
the river and harbor work in Arkansas, and following that, spent one year
teaching civil engineering in the Engineering School of Application. He
then went to the Philippines as chief engineer of the Eighth Army Corps and
became chief engineer and general manager of the Manila & Dagupan
Railroad. From 1900 to 1907 he was in charge of the Ohio River
improvements between Pittsburgh and Louisville. As division engineer of
the Atlantic division of the Panama Canal he was in charge of the

construction of the Gatun locks, Gatun Dam, and the breakwaters at the
Atlantic entrance to the canal.
Civil Engineer Harry H. Rousseau, of the United States Navy, was
appointed a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission at the same time
that Chief Engineer Goethals was selected to head the organization. He had
had much experience in engineering work prior to the appointment and was
a personal appointee of President Roosevelt, with whom he had come in
contact when he was serving in the Bureau of Yards and Docks of the Navy
Department when Mr. Roosevelt was assistant secretary of that Department.
He entered the employ of the United States through the civil service, having
been appointed a civil engineer in the Navy with the rank of lieutenant,
after a competitive examination in 1898. For four years he was an engineer
of the bureau of which he afterwards became chief, and for four years
following, from 1903 to 1907, he was engineer of the improvements of
Mare Island Navy Yard, California. The duties of Commissioner Rousseau
were changed from time to time, and he was finally given charge of the
work of constructing the terminals at the ends of the canal. At the same time
he was made assistant to the chief engineer, having charge of all mechanical
questions arising on the canal.
When Jackson Smith, one of the two civilian members of the Canal
Commission, resigned, he was succeeded by an Army officer, Col. Harry F.
Hodges, who would have been a member of the commission from the first,
upon the request of Colonel Goethals, had not the United States Engineer
Corps required his services. Colonel Hodges was graduated from the United
States Military Academy in 1881, and immediately entered upon seven
years of duty on river and harbor improvements in the United States. This
was followed by four years' service as assistant professor of engineering at
West Point, and that duty, in turn, by six years of work on rivers and harbors
and fortifications. During the Spanish American War he served in Porto
Rico, and then returned to river and harbor duty for two years. In 1901-02
he was chief engineer of the Department of Cuba, from which duty he was
transferred to the War Department, where he became assistant to the chief
of engineers. His experience in river and harbor work, coupled with his
success as the designer of the locks of the American Sault Ste. Marie Canal,
fitted him for the work at Panama. He became assistant chief engineer and
purchasing agent of the canal in 1907, and the following year was chosen a

member of the commission to succeed Mr. Smith. The work of designing
the locks and the lock machinery fell upon his shoulders.
When President Roosevelt wanted a man to handle the delicate problems
arising out of the peculiar relations with the Republic of Panama and the
United States, he selected Joseph C. S. Blackburn, of Kentucky, who had
just finished a long term of service in the United States Senate. Senator
Blackburn was well equipped for such a position, combining that suavity
indicated by the velvet glove with that determination of purpose which lies
in the iron hand.
The service of Col. William C. Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer on the
Isthmus, began earlier than that of any of the higher officials. He went to
the Isthmus immediately after it was taken over by the United States. He
has been described as a man "with a gentle manner, but with a hard policy
toward the mosquito." He was born in Mobile, Ala., in 1854, the son of
Gen. Josiah Gorgas, of the Confederate Army. He became a member of the
Medical Corps of the United States Army in 1880, and since his work at the
head of the Cuban health campaign his name has been a household word in
the United States.
In establishing the Isthmian Canal Commission, which was destined to
make the Panama Canal a reality, President Roosevelt selected Joseph
Bucklin Bishop as its secretary. Mr. Bishop was made the editor of the
Canal Record, a weekly paper which was the official organ of the Canal
Commission. He is a born investigator and when any matter arose
concerning the work on the canal, about which the chief engineer desired an
impartial report, he usually referred it to Mr. Bishop.
When the matter of organizing the work arose it was decided to arouse a
spirit of emulation and rivalry, and S. B. Williamson, a civilian engineer,
was put in charge of the Pacific end of the canal, with duties similar to those
of the Army engineer on the Atlantic side. Mr. Williamson proved to be a
master of the art of accomplishing a great deal with a given amount of
money, and the cost sheets of the Pacific end will ever stand as a monument
to his efficiency.
The list of engineers and other officials who contributed to the success of
the work at Panama is a long one, but among them may be mentioned: Col.

Chester Harding, who was the resident engineer at Gatun; W. G. Comber,
who headed the dredging work on the Pacific end of the canal during the
early days of the American undertaking, of the entire canal during the final
stages; W. G. Rourke, who was resident engineer in Culebra Cut for a
number of years; Caleb M. Saville, who worked out the data for the
construction of the Gatun Dam; H. O. Cole, who succeeded S. B.
Williamson on the Pacific end work; Lieut. Frederick Mears, who relocated
the Panama Railroad; John Burke, who had charge of the commissary; Maj.
Eugene T. Wilson, the chief subsistence officer; Brig. Gen. C. A. Devol,
who was in charge of the quartermaster's department; E. J. Williams, Jr., the
disbursing officer; and Col. Tom F. Cook, the picturesque chief of the
Division of Posts and Customs.
To all these, and to scores of others who are not mentioned here merely
because of the limitations of space, the American people owe the great
success at Panama. The organization was imbued with a spirit of loyalty to
the great task, and having its accomplishment singly in mind there was little
room for jealous bickerings and none at all for scandal and corruption.
Every man who had a part in it always will be proud of his share, and that
pride will be supported and justified by all Americans.

CHAPTER XII
THE AMERICAN WORKERS

The directory, supervisory, and mechanical work in constructing the canal
was done by Americans. The engineers, the foremen, the steam shovelers,
the operators of spoil trains, the concrete mixers, and, in short, the skilled
workers were American citizens; the common and unskilled laborers were
West Indians and Europeans. It is to the American workers therefore that
the credit is due, for without their direction and aid in every operation the
work could not have been done.
Never was there a more loyal, a more earnest, a more enthusiastic band of
workmen than these same Americans. The steam shoveler felt as much
pride, as much responsibility, in the task as did the chief engineer.
The difficulties under which they labored, the enervating climate, the
absence from home, the lack of diversion and recreation, but served to
temper the steel in their make-up. The American spirit was there,
dominating every detail of the whole big job. Every man was determined to
"make good," not for himself alone, but for the organization of which he
was a part, and for his country.
In the beginning conditions were bad. There were few conveniences to
make life comfortable, and innumerable inconveniences harassing those
who went there. The food was bad and the water was not as good as the
food. The quarters were old French houses rescued from the jungle and
filled with scorpions.
The result was that few of those who first went to the Isthmus remained,
and those who returned to the United States spread far and wide reports of
bad conditions on the Isthmus.
With this situation in mind the Canal Commission decided that two things
had to be done. Wholesome living conditions had to be created for the
people who came to the Isthmus, and a standard of wages had to be set that

would prove attractive to good men at home. It was thus that the pay for the
Americans on the canal came to be placed at 50 per cent higher than pay for
the same character of work in the States. This soon proved a strong
incentive to men to leave the States and go to Panama, and as living
conditions were improved the number of men willing to accept work on the
Isthmus increased.
Two classes of Americans turned their faces toward the Tropics as a result
of the inducements held out by the Canal Commission. One was made up of
those who were willing to go and stay a year or two, accumulating in that
time experience and, perhaps, saving some little money; the other was made
up of men whose desire was to go to the Isthmus and stay with the job,
utilizing the opportunities it afforded for building up a comfortable bank
account.

BRIG. GEN. CARROLL A. DEVOL
AMERICAN LIVING QUARTERS AT CRISTOBAL

HARRY H. ROUSSEAU
LOWERING A CAISSON SECTION
As the work moved forward those of weak purpose and indifference to
opportunity gradually dropped out. Their places were taken by others, until
through a process of years of elimination there were approximately 5,000
Americans at Panama when the canal was finished; an army was made up
almost wholly of men with a purpose in life and consequently of men who
could be relied upon to do their work to the best of their ability. The result
was that the last years of the task of construction saw every man loyal to his
work and anxious to see the job move forward.

American visitors to the Isthmus had occasion to be proud of their
countrymen there. Every tourist from a foreign country has commented
upon the distinguished courtesy received at the hands of these men. One of
them, perhaps England's most noted travel lecturer, said:
"The thing which impressed me more than anything else, outside of the
gigantic work and the masterful way in which it is being done, was the
exquisite courtesy of every American I met during my stay. I found every
one of them not only ready to give such information as he might have but
glad to do so. Each man was as proud of the work as if it were his own, and
as ready to show his part of it to a stranger as if that stranger were his best
friend. It was a delight to me from beginning to end to see the magnificent
type of American manhood at work, and the pride taken by every worker in
the project."
Every other tourist brought away the same impression. A man who went
there without any other credentials than a desire to see the work was shown
the same courtesy and consideration as one with a pocketful of letters of
introduction.
The Americans on the Isthmus did not count any hardship too great if it
were demanded for the successful prosecution of the work. A case in point
is that of J. A. Loulan, the engineer in charge of the rock-crushing plant at
Ancon. One morning he was introduced to a visitor from the States who
remarked that everything seemed to be running so smoothly that he
supposed the work of a supervising engineer was no longer a difficult task.
"Well," replied the engineer, "at least it does not pay to worry. Last night at
2 o'clock I was called out of bed by telephone and informed that a Jamaican
negro hostler had accidentally knocked the chock from under the wheels of
an engine he was firing up, and that it had run down the grade and off the
end of the track into about two feet of soft earth. We worked from that time
on until breakfast to get the engine back, and were satisfied to know that the
accident did not delay the operations at the crusher. Not a man of the force
was late getting back to work after four hours of strenuous extra night
duty."
Speaking of the patience of the men Commissioner H. H. Rousseau said,
"The reason for all this is not far to seek; the man who has 'nerves' would

never stick it out on a job like this. The climate, the exile from home, and
the character of the work all conspire against the man who can not be
patient. He soon finds that the Isthmus is no place for him. The result is that
a process of elimination has gone on until the men who have 'nerves' have
all left and their places filled with those who are stoical enough to take
things as they come."
The Americans on the Isthmus were early risers. The first train from Colon
for Panama leaves about 5 o'clock and the first train from Panama for Colon
at 6:50. Almost any morning during the construction period one might walk
into the dining room at the Tivoli Hotel and see a number of canal engineers
breakfasting there who had left Colon on the early train. When one of them
was asked if he did not find it something of a hardship to rise so early, he
replied:
"Well, you see, from the standpoint of a man just from the States it would
seem rather an unheard-of hour for a man to get out and go to work; but we
have to meet conditions as we find them down here, and we soon get
reconciled to it. There is scarcely a night that I am not called by telephone
two or three times, and I have to get up in time to catch the early train
several mornings in the week, so I get up at the same hour the other
mornings as well. We are well paid, and we owe it to our country to make
whatever sacrifices the work demands. And after a month or two we get out
of the habit of feeling that it is a sacrifice."
It is this spirit of devotion to the work that enabled the canal authorities to
press it to a successful completion with such unprecedented rapidity. These
men knew full well that their sacrifices in the interest of progress were
appreciated. The most rigid spirit of friendly competition was maintained
from the beginning.
The spirit of rivalry nowhere counted for more than among the steam-
shovel men. In 1907 it was decided to publish in the Canal Record the best
steam-shovel performances from week to week. This immediately put every
steam-shovel gang on its mettle, and soon there was a great race with nearly
a hundred entries, a race that continued from that day until the completion
of the excavation. The result was that records of steam-shovel performances
were made eclipsing everything that had gone before. The average daily

excavation per shovel rose from year to year until it was double in the end
what it was in the beginning.
As heretofore pointed out, the process of elimination that went on
continuously during the construction work sent large numbers of American
workers back to the States from the Isthmus. During a single year about
three-fifths of the Americans threw up their jobs and returned home. The
average stay of Americans during the construction period was about a year.
Bachelors were much more given to returning to the States than married
men. The endless round of working, eating, sleeping, with its small chance
of diversion, made the average bachelor glad to get back to the States
within two years. On the other hand, the married men found home life just
about as pleasant as in the States. They had with them about 2,000 women,
and as many children. Many of the latter were born under the American
Eagle at Panama.
The boys who were born there may, if they choose, become native
Panamans. The son of a former President of Panama, in talking with
Commissioner Rousseau, advised him to make a Panaman citizen of little
Harry Harwood Rousseau, Jr. "You see," said he, and he spoke in all
earnestness and seriousness, "he will stand so much better chance of
becoming President of the Republic of Panama than of becoming President
of the United States."
The American children on the Zone, brimming over with life and health,
proved conclusively that the Tropics worked no hardship upon them.
The Canal Commission, from the beginning to the end, made the welfare of
the army of workers one of its first cares. As the days of a completed canal
approached, every effort was made to enable the employees who had to be
laid off to find employment in the States. Provision was made that they
could accumulate their leave of absence in such a way as to entitle them to
84 days of full pay after leaving. This was arranged so as to give them
sufficient time to establish connections in the States again, without being
forced to do it without pay.
Close records also were kept of each employee, and the official
immediately over each man was ordered to give him a rating card showing
his record on the Canal Zone. No higher credentials could be carried by

anyone seeking employment than to have a card from the Canal
Commission showing a rating of "Excellent."
Owing to the firmness with which the commission ruled, there was little
trouble in the way of strikes. In 1910 a lot of boiler makers who were
getting 65 cents an hour on the per diem basis, struck for 75 cents an hour.
Their demands were not met and some of them threw up their jobs. The
commission immediately arranged with its Washington office to fill their
places, and they had no chance whatever to get further employment on the
Isthmus.
The commission was given the power, by President Roosevelt, to order
anyone to leave the Isthmus whose presence there was regarded as a
detriment to the work. The result was that as soon as any man was found to
be fomenting trouble, he was advised that a ship was returning to the United
States on a certain date and that it would be expedient for him to take
passage thereon. This power of deportation was more autocratic than any
like power in the United States, but it proved of immense value in keeping
things going satisfactorily at Panama. It was a power whose exercise was
called for but few times, since the very fact that the commission had the
power was usually a sufficient deterrent.
There are two societies on the Isthmus which tell of the effects of
homesickness of the Americans in the employ of the Canal Commission—
the Incas, and the Society of the Chagres. The Incas are a group of men who
meet annually on May 4th for a dinner. The one requirement for
membership in this dining club is service on the canal from the beginning of
the American occupation. In 1913 about 60 men were left on the Isthmus of
all those Americans who were there at the time of the transfer of the canal
property to the United States in 1904.
The Society of the Chagres was organized in the fall of 1911. It is made up
of American white employees who have worked six years continuously on
the canal. When President Roosevelt visited the Isthmus in the late fall of
1906 he declared that he intended to provide some memorial or badge
which would always distinguish the man who for a certain space of time
had done his work well on the Isthmus, just as the button of the Grand
Army distinguishes the man who did his work well in the Civil War. Two

years later a ton of copper, bronze, and tin was taken from old French
locomotives and excavators and shipped to Philadelphia, where it was made
into medals by the United States Mint. These medals are about the size of a
dollar and each person who has served two years is entitled to one. It is
estimated that by the time the last work is done on the canal, about 6,000 of
these medals will have been distributed. For each additional two years a
man worked, the Canal Commission gave a bar of the same material.
The Society of the Chagres, therefore, is made up of men who have served
at least six years, and who have won their medals and two service bars. The
emblem of the society is a circular button showing on a small, black
background six horizontal bars in gold which are surrounded by a narrow
gold border. In 1913 only about 400 out of the many thousands of
Americans at one time or another employed in the construction of the
Panama Canal were entitled to wear the insignia of this society.

CHAPTER XIII
THE NEGRO WORKERS

The West Indian negro contributed about 60 per cent of the brawn required
to build the Panama Canal. When the United States undertook the work the
West Indian negro had a bad reputation as a workman. It was said that he
lacked physical strength; that he had little or no pluck; that he was
absolutely unreliable; that he was unusually susceptible to disease; and that
in view of these things the canal never could be finished if he were to
supply the greater part of the labor. But he lived down this bad reputation in
large part, and, although it must be admitted that he is shiftless always,
inconstant frequently, and exasperating as a rule, he developed into a good
workman.
The Government paid the West Indian laborer 90 cents a day, furnished him
with free lodgings in quarters, and sold him three square meals a day for 9
cents each, a total of 27 cents a day for board and lodging. On the balance
of 63 cents, the West Indian negro who saved was able to go back home and
become a sort of Rockefeller among his compatriots. His possible savings,
as a matter of fact, were about two and a half times the total wages he
received in his native country.
But the sanitary quarters, and the necessarily strict discipline maintained
therein, did not please him. He yearned for his thatched hut in the "bush,"
for his family, and the freedom of the tropical world. Thus the
homesickness of the well-quartered, well-fed negro became a greater
hindrance to the work than the ill-fed condition of the "bush dweller." The
result was that the commission reached the conclusion that it could better
maintain a suitable force by allowing the negroes to live as they chose.
Therefore, permission was given them to live in the "bush," and about nine-
tenths of them promptly exchanged the sanitary restrictions of the
commission quarters, and the wholesome food of the commission mess
kitchen, for the dolce far niente of the "bush." The result of this experiment
in larger liberty was in part a success and in part a failure. The list of names

on the roll of workers was largely lengthened, but there was no great
addition to the force of the men at work on any given day. It was a common
saying in the Zone that if the negro were paid twice as much he would work
only half as long. Most of them worked about four days a week and enjoyed
themselves the other three. It may be that the "bush dweller" was not fed as
scientifically as the man in the quarters, but he had his chickens, his yam
and bean patch, his family and his fiddle, and he made up in enjoyment
what he lost in scientific care.
Marriage bonds are loose in the West Indies, and common-law marriages
are the rule rather than the exception. But, as one traveled across the
Isthmus and saw the hundreds of little thatched huts lining the edge of the
jungle, he could see that the families who lived there seemed to be as
happy, and the children as numerous, as though both civil and religious
marriage ceremonies had bound man and wife together.
When the Americans first began work it was an accepted dictum that one
Spaniard or one Italian could do as much work as three negroes. The
negroes seemed to be weak. It took six of them to carry a railroad tie where
two Spaniards might carry it as well. This belief that the Spaniard was more
efficient than the negro stirred the West Indians to get down to work, and in
a year or two they were almost as efficient while they were working as were
the Spaniards, but the Spaniards worked six days a week while the negroes
worked only four.
Of course there were those who spent practically everything as they made
it, and they constituted no small percentage of the total negro force. But, on
the other hand, some of the negroes were industrious, constant, and thrifty.
They saved all they could, working steadily for a year or two, and then went
back to Jamaica or Barbados to invest their money in a bit of land and
become freeholders and consequently better citizens.
The negro laborers at first were obtained by recruiting agents at work in the
various West Indian Islands, principally Jamaica and Barbados. The
recruiting service carried about 30,000 to the Isthmus, of whom 20,000
were from Barbados and 6,000 from Jamaica. It was not more than a year or
two, however, after the work got under way, until there was little occasion
for recruiting. Every ship that went back to Barbados or to Jamaica carried

with it some who had made what they considered a sufficient fortune. Every
community possessed those who had gone to Panama with only the clothes
on their backs, a small tin trunk, a dollar canvas steamer chair and, mayhap,
a few chickens; and who had come back with savings enough to set them up
for life. This fired dozens from each of those same communities with the
desire to go and do likewise. The result was that the canal employment lists
were kept full by those who came on their own initiative.
The terms of entrance to the Canal Zone were easy, the steerage fares were
low, and as a result the excess of arrivals over departures sometimes
amounted to 20,000 in a single year. The steamship companies had to keep
careful and persistent watch to prevent stowaways. Even at that there were
hundreds who sought to reach the Isthmus in this way in spite of the fact
that they were usually carried back without being permitted to land at
Colon.
There was little or no friction between the whites and the blacks on the
Canal Zone. This immunity from racial clashes resulted from two causes—
one was the incomparable courtesy of the West Indian negro and the other
his knowledge that he could expect good treatment only so long as he kept
out of trouble. Few of them, indeed, were ever inclined to be offensive.
They are usually educated in the three "R's," and are also very polite. Ask
one a question and the answer will be: "Oh, yes, Sir," or "Oh, no, Sir," or if
he has not understood, "Beg pardon, Sir." He would no more omit the
honorific than a Japanese maiden addressing her father would forget to call
him "Honorable."
The different types of West Indian negroes found on the Canal Zone
constituted an endless study in human characteristics. They were all great
lovers of travel, and no regular train ever made a trip without from two to
half a dozen coaches filled with them. After pay day practically every negro
on the Zone was wont to get out and get a glimpse of the country.
Without exception they are adepts in carrying things on their heads;
consequently, they usually possess an erect carriage and splendid bearing. It
is said that the first ambition of a West Indian negro child is to learn to carry
things on its head in imitation of its parents. Frequently a negro will be seen
with nothing in either hand, but carrying a closed umbrella balanced

horizontally on his head. Once in a while one may be seen to get a letter
from the post office, place it on top of his head, weight it down with a
stone, and march off without any apparent knowledge that he has executed
a circus stunt.
Some of the negroes who came to work on the canal never saw a
wheelbarrow before arriving there. Upon one occasion some French
negroes from Martinique were placed on a job of pick and shovel work.
Three of them loaded a wheelbarrow with earth, then one of them stooped
down, the other two put the wheelbarrow on his head and he walked away
with it. But, with all of his inexperience, the Martinique negro proved to be
the best West Indian worker on the canal.
The Martinique negroes were the most picturesque of all the West Indians
on the job. The women wore striking though simple costumes, bandana
handkerchiefs around their heads, and bright-colored calico dresses usually
caught up on one side or at the back, thus anticipating the Parisian fashion
of the slit skirt by many years.
A large number of the negroes lived in small tenement houses built by
private capital, and oftener than not one room served the entire family.
Nearly every one of the American settlements had its West Indian quarter
where these buildings and the Chinese stores flourished to the exclusion of
everything else. At the Pacific end of the Panama Railroad there was a
suburb known as Caledonia, which was given over almost entirely to West
Indian families. One could drive through there any day and see half-grown
children dressed only in Eden's garb. In other parts of the canal territory one
saw very few naked children except in the back streets of Colon.
The Government took the best of care of the negroes on the work during the
entire construction period. There were hospital facilities at both ends of the
canal and sick camps along the line. The commissary protected them
against extortion by the native merchants and gave them the same favorable
rates enjoyed by the Americans. The color line was kindly but firmly drawn
throughout the work, the negroes being designated as silver employees and
the Americans as gold employees. The post offices had signs indicating
which entrances were for silver employees and which for gold employees.
The commissaries had the same provisions, and the railroad company made

the general distinction as much as it could by first and second class
passenger rates. Very few of the negroes ever made any protest against this.
Once in awhile an American negro would go to the post office and be told
that he must call at the "silver" window. He would protest for awhile, but
finding it useless, would acquiesce.
The idea of speaking of "silver and gold employees," rather than black and
white employees, was originated by E. J. Williams, Jr., the disbursing
officer of the Canal Commission. He first put this designation on the
entrances to the pay car and it was immediately adopted as the solution of
the troubles growing out of the intermingling of the races.
One of the most interesting experiences that could come to any visitor to the
Isthmus was a trip across the Zone on the pay car; to see 24 tons of silver
and 1,600 pounds of gold paid out for a single month's work; and to watch
the 30,000 negroes, the 5,000 Americans, and the 3,000 or 4,000 Europeans
on the job file through the pay car and get their money. The negroes were
usually a good-natured, grinning lot of men and boys, but they were wont to
get impatient, not with the amount of money they drew but with its weight.
Under an agreement with the Panama Government the Canal Commission
endeavored to keep the Panaman silver money at par. Two dollars Panaman
money was worth one dollar American, and the employees were paid in
Panaman coin. Thus a negro who earned $22 during the month would get
44 of the "spiggoty" dollars. These "spiggoty" dollars are the same size as
our own silver dollars and to carry them around was something of a task.
When the negroes were asked what they proposed to do with their money
the almost invariable reply was: "Put it to a good use, sir." American money
was always at a premium with them and the money-changers in the various
towns usually did a land-office business on pay day.
Paper money was not used on the pay car at all. In the first place, there was
always danger of its blowing away, and in the second place paper money in
the hands of negro workmen soon assumed a most unsanitary condition.
The negroes were always desirous of getting American paper money
because they could send it home more cheaply than gold.
Large numbers of West Indian women, the majority of them with their
relatives, lived on the Zone during the construction period. They were for

the most part industrious and made very good household servants. They
were nearly always polite and deferential, some of them even saying,
"Please, Ma'am," when saying "Good morning."
It was a rare experience to travel on a ship carrying workers to the Canal
Zone from the Islands of the West Indies. Ships calling at Kingston,
Jamaica, would usually take on a hundred or more passengers. They would
be quartered either forward or aft on the main deck. They would carry
aboard with them all kinds of small packages. Some would have small
boxes of chickens or pigeons, and some little old sawbuck-fashioned
folding beds covered with canvas. As soon as inspected by the doctor for
trachoma each negro would select the most favorable spot, gather his
furniture around him, and settle down in one place, there to remain almost
without moving during the whole of the 40-hour trip across the Caribbean.
When the water was fine and the sailing smooth the first cabin passengers
might conclude that they were carrying a negro camp meeting. On the other
hand, if the weather were bad and the sea rough, a sicker lot of people
nowhere might be found. One of the favorite negro preventives of
seasickness is St. Thomas bay rum applied liberally to the face, although to
the on-looker it never seems to prevent or cure a single case.
Before landing at Colon every one of these negroes had to be vaccinated.
Almost without exception they tried to prevent the virus "taking" by
rubbing the scarified spot with lime juice or with some other preparation.
Meals on board generally consisted of rice and potatoes, and, perhaps,
coffee and bread. One might see a dozen young girls in a group eating with
one hand and with the other polishing their complexions with the half of a
lime.
With all his faults—and they were not few—the West Indian negro laborer
probably was the best workman that could have been employed for the job
at Panama. He was usually as irresponsible, as carefree, and yet as reliable a
workman as our own American cottonfield hand. He made a law-abiding
citizen on the Zone, was tractable as a workman, and pretty certain always
to make a fair return to the United States on the money it paid him in
wages.

Under the firm but gentle guidance of the master American hand, he did his
work so well that he has forever erased from the record of his kind certain
charges of inefficiency and laziness that had long stood as a black mark
against him.
The Canal Commission so appreciated his good work that it made
arrangements to return him to his native country when his services no
longer were required, there to take up the life he led before he heard the call
of the "spiggoty" dollars that took him across the Caribbean.
He will miss the life on the Isthmus. He was worked harder, he was treated
better, and he was paid higher wages there than he ever will be again in his
life. Perhaps he has saved; if so, he retires to be a nabob. Perhaps he has
wasted; if so, he must go back to the hand-to-mouth existence that he knew
in the days before.
But after all, the experience of the thousands of West Indian negroes
employed on the canal will have a stimulating effect on their home
countries, and their general level of industrial and social conditions will be
raised.
At any rate, the American Republic always must stand indebted to these
easy-going, care-free black men who supplied the brawn to break the giant
back of Culebra.

CHAPTER XIV
THE COMMISSARY

To build the canal required the labor of some fifty thousand men. To induce
these men to go to Panama, to stay there, to work there, and to work there
efficiently, was no light undertaking. Health was promised them by the
most efficient sanitary organization that ever battled with disease. Wealth
was promised them, relatively speaking, in the form of wages and salaries
much higher than they could obtain at home for the same work. But health
and wealth, much desired and much prized as they are, can not of
themselves compensate for transplanting a man to an alien shore and an
alien atmosphere, especially if that shore be tropic and that atmosphere hot.
There must also be comfort.
And comfort was promised to the canal diggers by the commissary
department. Good food at prices cheaper than one pays in the United States,
and quarters of the best—these things the commissary held out as a part of
the rewards at Panama.
Of course this was not the chief object of the commissary department—it
was the incidental factor that in the end almost obscured the main issue. The
main business was so well done that everybody took it for granted, just as
no one will remark about the sun shining although that is the most
important fact we know. The main business of the commissary was to keep
the canal diggers fed and housed so that they would have the strength for
their tasks. How this was done, how fresh beef and ice cream were made
daily staples in tropic Panama, how the canal army was fed, is a big story in
itself.
The history of the French régime was such as to prejudice the whole world
against the canal region and to deter any but the most adventurous spirit
from entering there into a gamble with death. The Americans soon found
that without extraordinary inducements it would be next to impossible to
recruit a force able to build the canal. Therefore it was determined to make

the rewards so great that extra dollars to be gained by going to Panama
would outweigh the fears of those who had any desire to go. It was decided
to pay the employees of the Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad
Company wages and salaries approximately one-half higher than those
obtaining at home for the same work. Furthermore, it was decided that the
Government should furnish free quarters, free medical service, free light,
and other items which enter into the expense budget of the average family.
It was found advisable to establish Government hotels, messes, and
kitchens, where the needs of every employee from the highest officer to the
most lowly negro laborer could be met, and to operate them at cost.
Still another problem had to be faced; that of providing places where the
people employed in building the canal could escape from the high prices
fixed by the merchants of Panama and Colon. With this end in view, a great
department store, carrying upward of 5,000 different articles, was built at
Cristobal. This store established branches in every settlement of canal
workers where patrons could go to ship and receive the benefit of prices
much lower than those prevailing with regular Panaman merchants.
Anyone who will study carefully the annual reports of the operation of the
commissary of the Panama Railroad Company, will realize what great
profits are made by the various middlemen in the United States who handle
food products between the producer and the consumer. In 1912 the
commissary had gross sales amounting to $6,702,000, with purchases
amounting to $5,325,000. This represents a gross profit of 26 per cent. The
cost of transportation from New York and distribution on the Isthmus,
amounted to about 24 per cent, leaving a net profit of approximately 2 per
cent on the sales of goods. When it is remembered that transportation of
commissary products from New York amounted approximately to a quarter
of a million dollars a year, and that wagon deliveries on the Isthmus added
$50,000 a year to this, it will be seen that the expenses of distribution at
Panama were approximately on the same footing with those in the United
States.
In the case of dressed beef, one finds a most illuminating example of how it
is possible to sell the ordinary items of a family budget to the consumer at
rates much lower than those obtaining in the United States. According to the
most authentic information dressed beef laid down at Panama costs more,

quality for quality, than it costs the ordinary retail butcher in the States. At
one time in 1912 the commissary was paying $11.941⁄4 a hundred pounds for
whole dressed beeves laid down in New York. This was for the best corn-
fed western steers, a grade of beef that is found only in the best retail
butcher shops of any American city. Yet, with the expense of ocean-
refrigerator carriage added, and with other operating costs equal to those of
the retail butcher in the States, the commissary found it possible to sell to
the consumer, delivered at his kitchen door, porterhouse steaks from this
beef at 20 cents, sirloin steaks and roasts at 19 cents, and round steaks at 13
cents a pound. At this same time the average American housewife was
paying from 26 to 30 cents for porterhouse steaks, from 22 to 26 cents for
sirloin steaks and roasts, and from 17 to 22 cents for round steaks; and in
the butcher shops in the United States where grades of meat comparable to
those at Panama were handled the figures were usually around the top
quotations.
One cannot escape asking the question how it is that if the Panama Railroad
commissary could pay approximately 12 cents a pound for dressed beef at
New York, deliver it in refrigeration at Cristobal, thence to the housewife by
train and wagon, and make a gross profit of some 26 per cent by the
operation, that the American retail butcher can reasonably claim that at the
price he sells his meat he is making little or no net profit.
One finds the same scale of prices on other commodities at Panama as
meats. Only the very best goods are handled in the commissary. Any
reasonable need of any employee could be supplied by the commissary at
prices probably lower than a retail merchant in the United States could buy
the same commodities.
A few instances of how the commissary fared when its supply ran short will
serve to illustrate the grasping disposition of the average Panaman
merchant.
In one case high waters in the Chagres interrupted traffic on the Panama
Railroad, and the price of ice in Panama City promptly jumped from 50
cents to $1 a hundred pounds. At another time a ship bringing coffee to the
Isthmus ran aground and the commissary had to buy coffee in the Panama
market. It had to pay 6 cents a pound more at wholesale for the coffee than

it was selling for at retail in Panama the day before the ship went aground.
On another occasion a vessel carrying a supply of milk went ashore and the
wholesale price of that commodity jumped a hundred per cent overnight.
The Panaman merchants made a long and persistent fight to get the
privilege of doing the business which is done by the commissary, but the
canal officials were too wise to allow the working force to be dependent
upon native business men for family budget needs.
Although the commissary did an annual business of nearly $7,000,000 a
year during the height of the construction period, it received comparatively
little actual money for the commodities it sold. A great deal of this business
was with the subsistence department of the Canal Commission, furnishing
supplies for the hotels, European laborers' messes, and common laborers'
kitchens. Practically all of the remainder was with the employees of the
commission, and was done through coupon books. When an individual
wanted to buy from the commissary he asked that a coupon book be issued
him. If it were found that he had sufficient money coming to him for
services rendered to cover the cost of the book, it was issued to him and the
clerk in the commissary detached coupons to cover the purchases. When the
monthly pay roll was made up, the cost of the coupon books was deducted
from the amount due the employee for services. Many employees and their
families lived too far away from the commissaries to make daily visits, so
they simply deposited their coupon books with the main commissary at
Cristobal and sent their orders in by mail from day to day. The commissary
clerks would fill these written orders, sending the goods out on the first
train.
In addition to buying and selling products for the benefit of the canal
workers, the commissary operated a number of manufacturing
establishments. It had a bakery using some 20,000 barrels of flour, baking
6,000,000 loaves of bread and other things in proportion annually; an ice-
cream plant freezing 138,000 gallons of ice-cream annually; a laundry
washing 4,250,000 pieces a year; a coffee-roasting plant; and a large cold-
storage warehouse. About 70,000 people were constantly supplied with
commodities from the commissary.
In its efforts to meet the needs of the several classes of employees on the
Canal Zone the commission established four different kinds of eating

places,—a large general hotel, a score of line hotels, Spanish messes, and
West Indian laborers' kitchens. At Ancon it built the large Tivoli Hotel
costing half a million dollars, for the accommodation of visitors; and of
those high-class employees who desired modern hotel facilities. This hotel
is the social center of the Canal Zone. Here practically all of the tourists
come and stay while on the Isthmus.
During the year 1912 this hotel cleared $53,000 in its operations. The cost
of the supplies for the meals served, of which there were 161,000, was
approximately 51 cents per meal. The cost of services was approximately
19 cents, making a total of 70 cents per meal. The rates were $3 up to $5.50
a day, employees being given special concessions.

JOHN BURKE
MEAL TIME AT AN I. C. C. KITCHEN

WASHINGTON HOTEL, COLON
MAJOR EUGENE T. WILSON
THE TIVOLI HOTEL, ANCON
The line hotels were, more properly speaking, merely dining-rooms where
the American employees were furnished substantial meals for 30 cents each.
Outsiders paid 50 cents each for these meals. They were up to a very high
standard. Once the late Senator Thomas H. Carter, of Montana, was a
member of a Senate committee visiting the Isthmus and he invited the
subsistence officer, Maj. Wilson, to come to Washington and show the
manager of the Senate restaurant how to prepare a good meal. A year later,

after Senator Albert B. Cummins, of Iowa, had eaten one of the lunches at
Gatun, he renewed the invitation of Senator Carter, telling Maj. Wilson he
was sure that if he were to come Senators would get better meals for their
money. At one of the Congressional hearings on the Isthmus Representative
T. W. Sims, of Tennessee, asked that the menu of a meal he had eaten at one
of these hotels be inserted in the record. Major Wilson inserted the menu for
several days instead. The following is the menu at the Cristobal Hotel for
January 20, 1912:
Breakfast.—Oranges, sliced bananas, oatmeal, eggs to order, German
potatoes, ham or bacon, hot cakes, maple sirup, tea, coffee, cocoa.
Lunch.—Vegetable soup, fried pork chops, apple sauce, boiled potatoes,
pork and beans, sliced buttered beets, stewed cranberries, creamed parsnips,
lemon meringue pie, tea, coffee, cocoa.
Dinner.—Consomme vermicelli, beefsteak, natural gravy, lyonnaise
potatoes, stewed beans, sliced beets, stewed apples, carrots a la Julienne,
hot biscuits, ice-cream, chocolate cake, tea, coffee, cocoa.
The line hotels in 1912, which were operated at a loss of $12,000, served
over 2,000,000 meals. The cost of the supplies per meal amounted to
$0.2504 and the service to $0.0165, making the average meal cost $0.3065,
while the employees were charged 30 cents. Approximately 2,000
Americans were continuous patrons of the line hotels.
The messes for European laborers were operated in 1912 at a total cost of
$405,000. The returns from their operations amounted to $443,000,
showing a net profit of $38,000 on 1,108,000 rations. The net profit per
day's ration approximated 31⁄2 cents. The supplies entering into the ration
cost $0.3106 and the service of preparing it $0.0547.
The national diet for Europeans would appear very monotonous to
Americans. For the Spaniards who constituted the major portion of the
European employees, it was a "rancho," which is a mixture of stewed meat,
potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes and garbanzos heavily flavored with Spanish
sweet pepper. Their soups were made very stiff, really a meal in themselves,
since they were about the consistency of Irish stew mashed up. A day's
ration for Spanish laborers ran about as follows:

Breakfast.—Roast beef, pork sausage, corned-beef, sardines or bacon, one-
half loaf of bread, chocolate and milk.
Dinner.—Garbanzos or macaroni, roast beef or hamburger steak, fried
potatoes, oranges or bananas, one-half loaf of bread, coffee.
Supper.—Rice soup, peas or beans, rancho, one-quarter loaf of bread, tea.
The Government charged the European laborers 40 cents a day for their
meals. Their mess halls were large, airy, comfortable and conspicuously
clean. The European laborers nearly all patronized these mess halls; about
3,200 of them constantly were fed at these places.
Wherever there was a West Indian negro settlement along the line of the
canal the commission operated a mess kitchen. These kitchens were kept
scrupulously clean and the laborers were furnished meals at 9 cents each.
Each laborer who patronized the kitchen had his little kit into which the
attendants put his meal, and he could carry it anywhere he desired to eat it.
In spite of the fact that these meals corresponded almost exactly to the
American Regular Army field rations, they were never popular with the
West Indian negroes. Although there were some 25,000 of these laborers on
the canal in 1912, only a little more than a half million rations were issued
to them during the year. Less than 15 per cent of the negro force patronized
the commission kitchen.
The following is a specimen day's ration in a West Indian kitchen:
Breakfast.—Cocoa and milk, porridge, bread, jam.
Dinner.—Pea soup, beef, doughboys, rice, bread, bananas.
Supper.—Stewed beef, boiled potatoes, stewed navy beans, bread, tea.
During the construction period of the canal the average American received
approximately $150 a month for his labor. Those who were married and
remained in the service a reasonable time were provided, rent free, with
family quarters. Their light bills were never rendered, the coal for their
kitchen stoves cost them nothing, and the iceman never came around to
collect. The bachelors were provided with bachelor quarters with the
necessary furniture for making them comfortable. The average married

quarters cost from $1,200 to $1,800 each, and the average quarters for a
bachelor about $500 to construct. The higher officials had separate houses;
lesser officials were furnished with semi-detached houses. The majority of
the rank and file of American married employees were housed in roomy,
four-flat houses. The verandas were broad and screened in with the best
copper netting, and all quarters were provided with necessary furniture at
Government expense.
The assignment of quarters and furniture called for a great deal of
diplomacy on the part of the quartermaster's department, since, if Mrs.
Jones happened to visit Mrs. Smith, and found that she had a swell-front
dresser in her bedroom, while her own was a straight-front dresser, an irate
lady was very shortly calling on the district quartermaster and demanding to
know why such discrimination should be practiced. Perhaps she had been
on the Canal Zone longer than Mrs. Smith, and felt that if anyone were
entitled to the swell-front dresser she was the one. The district
quartermaster had to explain with all the patience at his command that it
was not a case of discrimination but merely that the commission had bought
swell-front dressers at a later date for the same price that it formerly had
paid for the straight-front ones, and that consequently the people who
furnished houses later got them.
On another occasion Mrs. Brown, calling on Mrs. White, found that Mrs.
White had an electric light on her side porch. She immediately fared forth
to pull the hair of the quartermaster for this discrimination, but was
somewhat taken back when that official calmly informed her that the light
had been put there for a few days in anticipation of a children's party that
was to be given by Mrs. White one night that week.
The marvelous success of the commissary, not only in affording its patrons
better service at lower prices, but also in making a substantial profit on the
undertaking, had been referred to as the most valuable lesson taught by the
whole canal digging operation. It has proved the efficiency of government
agencies in fields far removed from the ordinary operations of government,
and it may be that its experience will be used to advantage in combating the
high cost of living in the United States itself.

CHAPTER XV
LIFE ON THE ZONE

Transplant a man or a woman from a home in a temperate climate to an
abode in the Tropics, and there is bound to be trouble. Disturbances in the
body are expected and, proper precautions being taken, most often are
warded off. Disturbances in the mind are not anticipated, preventive
measures are seldom taken, and there comes the trouble. That is why the
Young Men's Christian Association and the American Federation of
Women's Clubs had their part to do in digging the Panama Canal, a part
second in importance only to the sanitary work under Colonel Gorgas.
It's an odd thing—this transplanting a man from the temperate to the torrid
zone. It affects men of different nations in different ways. It is disastrous in
inverse ratio to the adaptability of the man transplanted. A German or a
Dutchman goes to the Tropics and almost without a struggle yields to the
demands of the new climate all his orderly daily habits. Your Dutchman in
Java will, except on state occasions, wear the native dress (or undress); eat
the native food; live in the native house; and, like as not, take a native
woman to wife. One thing only—he will retain his schnapps. The German is
only a little less adaptable, clings only a little longer to the routine of the
Fatherland, but he, too, keeps his beer.
Your Englishman, on the contrary, defies the tropical sun and scorns to
make any changes in his daily habit that he had not fixed upon as necessary
and proper before he left his right little, tight little, island. He does, it is
true, wear a pith helmet. That is due partly, perhaps, to his fear of the sun,
but it is much more due to the fact that he associates it with lands where
faces are not white; therefore he wears it in Egypt in the winter when it is
shivery cold with the same religious devotion that he wears it in India when
the mercury is running out of the top of the thermometer. Your Englishman,
it is true, wears white duck clothes in the Tropics, but not the fiercest heat
that old Sol ever produced could induce him for one moment to exchange
his flannel underwear for cotton or to leave off his woolen hose. It is a

pretty theory and not without much support, that it is this British defiance of
tropical customs that has given him the mastery over Tropic peoples. And
wherever goes the Briton there goes also Scotch-and-soda.
The Americans steer a middle course. They dress for the heat and make
themselves comfortable as possible. They consume even greater quantities
of ice than they do at home, and the average American eats every day in
summer enough ice to kill a score of Englishmen. At least, that's what the
Englishmen would think.
But the American in the Tropics tenaciously clings to many of his home
habits, despite the changed conditions of his place of sojourn. He must have
his bath, even though he talks less about it than the Englishman. He must
have his three square meals a day, and breakfast must be a real breakfast.
He demands screens to protect him from pestiferous insects, no less for
comfort's sake than health's. And then he demands two other things—a soda
fountain and a base-ball team.
It is true that he often will indulge in a British peg of Scotch-and-soda, or in
a German stein of beer, but the native drink that he takes with him to the
Tropics, and one that he alone consumes, and the one that he, in season and
out of season, demands, is the sweet, innocent, and non-alcoholic product of
the soda fountain. How incomprehensible is this to the sons of other nations
no American may ever understand.
It may seem to be going far field to discuss even in the general way the
differing tempers of men of different nations transplanted from a temperate
to a torrid clime. But, as a matter of fact, it has a direct bearing on the
accomplishment at Panama, of which Americans are so proud.

FLOYD C. FREEMAN
I. C. C. CLUB HOUSE AT CULEBRA

A. BRUCE MINEAR
READING ROOM IN THE I. C. C. CLUB HOUSE, CULEBRA

When the Americans first undertook the task, the denizens of the Isthmus
prepared for them only such entertainment as had been acceptable in other
days. The only places open to the tired worker in the evening were the
saloons, selling bad whiskey and worse beer; or darker hells of sure and
quick damnation. There were no theaters that would appeal to the American
taste, no sports that the clean American would tolerate. In short, when the
American in the early days of the construction was wearied with that
weariness that would not respond to resting, there was but one thing left. He
got home—sick and drunk.
In those early days there were few women. Most of the men who came then
were moved rather by a spirit of adventure than by a determination to share
in a tremendous job of work, and such men were not married. It was not
long until the men at the head discovered that the married men were more
content, that they lost less time from the work, and produced more results
when on the job than did the bachelors. (This, of course, must not be taken
as an indictment against every individual bachelor who worked at Panama,
but rather as a characterization based on the average of that class.) Thus in
the very order of things it became the policy of the commission to
encourage unmarried men at work to marry, and to bring married men from
the States rather than bachelors. Inducements were held out, putting a
premium on matrimony. The bachelor worker had good quarters, but he
perhaps shared but a room in a bungalow, whereas the married man had a
four-room house of his own, with a big porch, and free furniture, free light,
and the problem of the cost of living solved by the paternal commissary.
So matrimony flourished. But when the women came in increasing
numbers, and with them many children, another problem arose. Women
born in temperate climes suffer more in the Tropics than do men. The dry,
dry heat of the dry season is succeeded by the wet, wet heat of the rainy
months. There is never any escape from that horrible, hateful, hellish heat.
Is it to be baked or steamed? The changing seasons offer no other
alternative. And the Fear! Not for a moment may one forget that sickness
and death stalk in the jungle; that a glass of water or an unscreened door
may be the end of it all. There is no normality, no relaxation, no care free
rest for the woman in the Tropics.

At Panama her housekeeping duties were lightened by the excellence of the
commissary system, so that they were not enough to keep her mind
occupied. She became homesick and hysterical.
So, then, it being desirable to have married men on the job, it became
necessary to do something to keep the women at the minimum stage of
unhappiness. The Y. M. C. A. clubhouse, with their gymnasiums, their
libraries, their games, their sports, and their clubiness, had been the
substitute for home offered to the lonely American man at Panama. The
Civic Federation was invited to do what it could for the women. It sent an
agent of the American Federation of Women's Clubs to Panama, who
organized women's clubs, and these, by putting the women to work, made
them, in a measure, forget the Heat and the Fear.
Miss Helen Varick Boswell visited the Isthmus in the fall of 1907 and
assisted the women in forming their clubs. She found them literally hungry
for such activities and they responded with a will to her suggestion. The
result was frequent meetings in every town in the Canal Zone and
innumerable activities on the part of the women interested in club work.
The transformation was most remarkable. Where almost every woman on
the Isthmus seemed to be unhappy, now everyone who needed an outlet for
her mental and social instincts found it in club work. Where once they
quarreled and disputed about their house furnishings, life on the Isthmus,
and the general status of things on the Canal Zone, now the women seemed
to take a happy and contented view of things, and became as much
interested in the work of building the canal as were their husbands, their
fathers, and their brothers. Looking back over the task, and realizing how
much longer the married men stayed on the job, and how much more
essential they were to the completion of the canal than the bachelors, the
cares of the canal authorities to keep the women satisfied was a master
stroke.
When the club movement was launched one of the first steps was to
organize classes in Spanish. Women from every part of the Zone attended
these Spanish classes and took up the work of learning the language with
zeal. Comparatively few of them had any opportunity to learn Spanish, even
in its most rudimentary form, from household servants, since the same

lethargy that characterized the native men of Panama, and made them
totally indifferent to the opportunities for work on the Canal Zone, also
characterized the Panaman women, with the results that most of the
American households at Panama had English-speaking Jamaican servants
instead of Spanish-speaking Panamans.
The servant problem was not as serious as it is in the average American city.
There was always a full supply of Jamaican negro women ready for
engagement as household servants. They were polite and efficient. Almost
without exception they had a deeply religious turn of mind, although they
might transgress the Mosaic law far enough to substitute plain water for
violet water on the boudoir table of their mistresses. Usually they were very
neat of person and very careful in the manner of doing their work. The
wages they commanded were approximately equal to those asked in the
ordinary American city.
The greatest social diversion of the Isthmus, of course, was dancing. Every
two weeks the Tivoli Club gave a dance at the Tivoli Hotel. Trains to carry
visitors were run all the way across the Isthmus and no American ever
needed to miss a dance at the Tivoli Hotel because of unsuitable railroad
accommodations.
Each small town had its own dancing clubs and in those towns where there
were Y. M. C. A. buildings, the dances were held in them. The new Hotel
Washington proved a very popular rendezvous for the dancers, and in the
future the big functions of this kind probably will alternate between the
Tivoli at one end of the canal and the Washington at the other.
The university men maintained the University Club in the city of Panama,
directly on the water front. This club frequently opened its doors to women
and its functions were always regarded as events in Isthmian social history.
In Colon there was organized several years ago a club known as the
Stranger's Club. This club, as did the University Club at Panama, welcomed
the American stranger.
The Isthmian Canal Commission always looked carefully after the religious
activities of the people of the Canal Zone. Its provision of places of worship
and facilities for getting to them was strictly nonsectarian, and directed
solely to giving every sect and every faith opportunity to worship in its own

way. Several chaplains were maintained at Government expense, and
railroad and wagonette service for carrying people to their places of
worship was maintained throughout the years of the American occupation.
The West Indian negroes were provided with churches and with homes for
the leaders of their spiritual flocks. Church buildings were erected at every
settlement, and in many cases were so constructed that the lower story
could be used for a church and the second story for lodge purposes. These
buildings were 70 by 36 feet, with lodge rooms 60 by 36 feet.
The women on the Canal Zone were interested in religious work from the
beginning of their residence there. An Isthmian Sunday School Association
maintained church extension work. When the Women's Federation of Clubs
finally disbanded, in April, 1913, it presented its library to this association
and its pictures to the Ancon Study Club. There was an art society at Ancon,
which did much to foster art work on the Zone during the days of the canal
construction. The organization of Camp Fire Girls extended its activities to
Panama, and many leading women there contributed both means and time
to help the girls on the Isthmus.
The women of the Zone did not fail to enlist themselves in any movement
for good in their communities. A few years since there was a little blind boy
on the Isthmus and the Federation of Women's Clubs decided that he ought
to have better educational advantages than could be provided at Panama.
Therefore, they agreed to finance his going to Boston to enter an institution
for the education of the blind. When the Federation disbanded, owing to the
gradual departure of members for the States, it did not do so until it had
created a committee which was to continue indefinitely in charge of the
education of this blind boy.
Many secret societies existed on the Isthmus, the oldest one made up of
Americans being the Sojourners Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons,
organized in Colon in 1898. There were Odd Fellows' lodges and lodges of
Redmen, Modern Woodmen, Knights of Pythias, Elks, Junior Order of
American Mechanics, and representative bodies of many other American
secret orders. An Isthmian order is that of the Kangaroos, whose motto is:
"He is best who does best." This order was organized in 1907 under the
laws of Tennessee, and the mother council was organized at Empire the

same year. The object of the Kangaroos is to hold mock sessions of court
and to extract from them all of the fun and, at the same time, all of the good
that they will yield.
The men on the Isthmus, almost completely isolated as they were from
American political concerns, never allowed their interest in political affairs
at home to become completely atrophied. There was a common saying that
the Panamans were the only people on the Isthmus that could vote, but at
times the Americans would at least simulate politics at home with the
resulting campaigns and elections. During the presidential campaign of
1912 it was decided to hold a mock election in several of the American
settlements. The elections were for national offices and for municipal
offices as well. There were a number of parties, and in the national elections
there were the usual group of insurgents, progressives, reactionaries, and
the like.
There were nominations for dog catchers and town grouches, while the
party platforms abounded in all the political claptrap of the ordinary
American document of like nature. Cartoons were circulated showing the
Panama Railroad to be a monopolistic corporation; flaring handbills
proving that the latest town grouch had not acquitted himself properly in
office; statistical tables showing that the dog catcher had allowed more dogs
to get away from him than he had caught; and all sorts of other campaign
tricks and dodges were brought into play, just as though there were real
issues at stake and real men to be elected. At Colon the presidential returns
showed 33 votes for Taft, 200 for Wilson and 224 for Roosevelt. There were
204 votes in favor of Woman Suffrage, both state and national, and 75 votes
against it.
As has been said, when the American first went to Panama the only
diversion a man could find was to go to a cheap saloon and meet his
friends. It was a condition that was as unsatisfactory to the men themselves
as it was to the moral sentiment of those behind the work, and almost as
dangerous to the success of the undertaking as would have been an outbreak
of some epidemic disease. This led the commission to urge the erection of
clubhouses in several of the more populous settlements, to be conducted
under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association, but to be

operated on a basis that would bring to the people those rational
amusements of which they stood so much in need.
From time to time clubhouses of this type were established in seven of the
American settlements and the work they did in promoting the contentment
and happiness of the people can be appreciated only by those who have
witnessed the conditions of living in Canal Zone towns where there were no
such clubhouses.
Almost the first effect of the construction of a clubhouse was a heavy
falling off in barroom attendance, and simultaneously a decline in the
receipts from the sales of liquor. It is estimated that these receipts fell off 75
per cent within a short time after the clubhouses were opened. The men who
had been buying beer at 25 cents a bottle, or whiskey at 15 cents a
thimbleful, were now frequenting the clubhouses, playing billiards, rolling
tenpins, writing letters, reading their home papers, or engaging in other
diversions which served to banish homesickness.
When the Y. M. C. A. clubhouses were opened a practical man was put at
the head of each. While no one would think of card-playing or dancing at a
Y. M. C. A. in the States, both were to be found in the association
clubhouses of the Isthmus. Bowling alleys, billiard rooms, gymnasiums,
and many other features for entertainment were established in the
clubhouses. Bowling teams were organized; billiard and pool contests were
started; gymnastic instruction was given; pleasant reading rooms with easy
chairs, cool breezes, and good lights were provided; circulating libraries
were established; good soda fountains were put in operation where one
could get a glass of soda long enough to quench the deepest thirst; and in
general the clubhouses were made the most attractive places in town—
places where any man, married or single, might spend his leisure moments
with profit and with pleasure.
Every effort was put forth to capitalize the spirit of rivalry in the interest of
the men. The result was that in each clubhouse there were continuous
contests of one kind or another, which afforded entertainment for those
engaged and held the interest of those who were looking on. Then the
champions of each clubhouse, whether individuals or teams, were pitted

against the stars of other places, and in this way there was always
"something doing" around each clubhouse.
In addition to maintaining a supervision over the sports of the Isthmus, the
clubhouses provided night schools for those who desired to improve such
educational opportunities. These night schools were rather well patronized
by the new arrivals on the Isthmus, but there is something in that climate
which, after a man has been there for a year, makes him want to rest
whenever he is off duty. Going to night school became an intolerable bore
by that time, so very few men kept up their attendance after the first year.
The study of Spanish was found to be one exception to this rule, for, besides
the satisfaction of being able to talk with native Panamans and the
Spaniards, there was the hope of financial reward. Any employee who could
pass an examination in Spanish stood a better show of getting promotion in
the service. Besides, the man who had grit enough to carry through a course
of study on the Isthmus, with its enervating climate, was almost certain to
climb the ladder of success wherever he went.
A review of the work of the seven Y. M. C. A. clubhouses for 1912 gives a
good idea of what they did during the entire construction period. It required
a force of 42 Americans and 64 West Indians to operate these seven
clubhouses. Twelve of the Americans were paid out of the funds of the
Canal Commission and 30 out of the funds of the Y. M. C. A. Of the negro
employees 43 were paid by the Canal Commission and 21 by the Y. M. C.
A. The American force for all seven clubhouses consisted of one
superintendent, four secretaries, four assistant secretaries, one clerk, ten
night clerks, six bowling alley night attendants, six pool room night
attendants, and seven barbers. At the end of that year there were 2,100
members of the Y. M. C. A., no less than 58 per cent of all the American
employees living in towns having clubhouses being members of the
association.
During the year seven companies of players and musicians were engaged to
provide amusement a the clubhouses. They gave 85 entertainments which
had a total attendance of 21,000. Local talent and moving pictures provided
406 entertainments with a total attendance of 96,000. Amateur oratorio
societies, operatic troupes, minstrel troupes, glee clubs, mixed choruses,
vaudeville and black-face sketches were organized during the year through

the efforts of the members cooperating with the secretaries. These
organizations made the whole circuit of the Isthmus. Weekly moving-
picture exhibitions were given and a man was employed who gave his
entire attention to them. Carefully chosen films were ordered from the
United States, special attention being given to educational features.
Special tournaments in bowling, billiards, and pool were organized and
gold, silver, and bronze medals were awarded the winners. Over a hundred
thousand bowling games and nearly 300,000 games of pool and billiards
were played during the year. Trained physical directors were employed to
direct the gymnastic exercises at the clubhouses and there was an
attendance of 15,000 at these classes during the year. A pentathlon meet was
held at Empire for the purpose of developing all-around athletes. Religious
meetings and song services were held at such times as not to interfere with
the organized religious work on the Zone, the average attendance at 214
meetings being 50 and the average attendance at Bible and discussion clubs
52. The average enrollment was 65 in the Spanish class. Forty-two thousand
books were withdrawn for home reading during the year.
Soft drinks, ice-cream, light lunches, and the like were served on the cool
verandas of the clubhouses, the receipts from these sales amounting to
approximately $50,000. Nearly 4,000 calls on hospital patients were made
by committees for the visitation of the sick. Boys from 10 to 16 years of age
were allowed special privileges in the clubhouses, and the secretaries
arranged several outings during the year. The total boys' membership was
146. The disbursements from the funds of the Isthmian Canal Commission
amounted to $50,000 and those from clubhouse funds amounted to
$114,000. The total receipts for the year amounted to $118,000. The affairs
of the clubhouses were in the hands of the advisory committee appointed by
the chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission.
In providing amusements the Canal Commission overlooked no opportunity
in the way of furnishing special trains and affording other facilities for
encouraging play by the canal workers. Each town had its ball team and its
ball park, and there was just as much enthusiasm in watching the standing
of the several clubs in the isthmian League as in the States in watching the
performances of the several clubs in the American and National leagues.
When there was a championship series to be played there was just as much

excitement over it as if it were a post-season contest between the Athletics
and the Giants.
It is probable that better amusements will be provided under the permanent
régime than were during the construction period. With ships constantly
passing through the canal, many opera companies, especially those from
Spain and Italy, will have opportunity to stop for a night or two at Panama,
while their ships are coaling or shipping cargo. In Panama City there is a
splendid theater built by the Panaman Government largely out of funds
derived from payments made by the United States on account of the canal
rights.
As the major portion of the permanent force will be quartered at Ancon and
Balboa, they will be able to drive to the theater or take the street car. A new
street-car system has just been established, and those who can not afford the
luxury of carriages will find in it opportunities for taking airings as well as
going to the theater. This system runs from the permanent settlement at
Balboa through the city of Panama and down over the savannahs towards
old Panama. It is the first street-car system ever operated on the Isthmus,
and will probably prove much more satisfactory than the little, old, dirty
coaches which have afforded the only means of transportation on the Zone.
The building of a number of roads along the canal to facilitate the
movement of military forces has made it possible to get a satisfactory use of
automobiles. Agencies already have been opened for a number of the lower-
priced cars in anticipation that a large number of the canal employees will
buy automobiles in order to get the benefit of these good roads. There are
few places where automobiling affords more pleasant diversion than at
Panama. After the sun goes down the evenings are just cool enough and the
breezes just strong enough to make an automobile ride a delightful
experience.
There are good opportunities for lovers of hunting and fishing on the
Isthmus. There is wild game in plenty—deer abounding in the entire region
contiguous to the canal and alligators being found in all of the principal
streams. There are both sea and river fishing, and some tapirs and other
wild animals still are left to attract the efforts of the modern huntsman.

The entertainment headquarters on the Canal Zone under the permanent
occupation will be the big clubhouse at Balboa, which is being built at a
cost of about $50,000. This clubhouse will not only have all of the features
of the clubhouses of the construction period, but will be equipped with a
large auditorium, with a complete library and with every facility for
amusement and entertainment that experience on the Isthmus has called for.
It can not be said that social life on the Isthmus during the period of canal
construction was ideal. Its inspiration was to be found in the desire to make
the best of a bad situation. Men and women all knew that their stay in
Panama was but temporary, none of them looked upon the Canal Zone as
home, and all of them counted time in two eras—Before we came to
Panama, and When we leave Panama.
Of course there was dining and dancing, and the bridge tables were never
idle. But every dinner hostess knew that every guest knew exactly what
every dish on the table cost, and she knew that guest knew she knew. The
family income was fixed and public. All one had to do was to read the
official bulletins.
The same paternalistic commissary that reduced the cost of living and made
housekeeping so easy, also tended with socialistic frankness to bring
everybody to a dead level. It was useless to attempt any of the little deceits
that make life so interesting at home.
Although the American is a home-loving animal, he managed to get on
fairly well in the alien atmosphere of the Tropic jungle. He brought with
him his home life, his base ball and his soda fountain. And, considering
how such things go in the Tropics, he managed to live a clean life while he
was doing a clean piece of work.

CHAPTER XVI
PAST ISTHMIAN PROJECTS

The digging of an Isthmian Canal was a dream in the minds of many men in
Europe and America from the day that Columbus found two continents
stretched across his pathway in his endeavor to discover a western route to
India. On his last voyage, as he beat down the coast of Central America,
here naming one cape "Gracias a Dios" and there another "Nombre de
Dios," testifying his thanks to God and his reverence for His name, he
touched the Isthmus near the present Atlantic terminus of the Panama
Canal. He little dreamed that some day ships 500 times as large as his own
would pass through the barrier of mountains which Nature interposed
between his ambitions and India.
The idea of a canal through the American Isthmus was in the mind of
Charles V of Spain as early as 1520. In that year he ordered surveys to
ascertain the practicability of a canal connecting the Atlantic and the
Pacific. His son, Philip II did not agree with him about the desirability of a
trans-Isthmian waterway, holding that a shipway through the Isthmus would
give to other nations easy access to his new possessions, and in time of war
might be of greater advantage to his enemies than to himself. He invoked
the Bible to put an end to these propositions to dig a canal across the
American Isthmus, calling to mind that the Good Book declared that "what
God hath joined together let no man put asunder."
The policy of Philip was continued for about two centuries, although in the
reign of his father many efforts had been made in the direction of a ship
waterway across the Isthmus. In fact, ships crossed the Isthmus nearly four
centuries before the completion of the canal. About 1521 Gil Gonzales was
sent to the New World to seek out a strait through the Isthmus. He sailed up
and down the Central American coast, entering this river and that, but
failing of course to find a natural waterway. Not to be outdone, he decided
to take his two caravels to pieces and to transport them across the Isthmus.
He carried them on the backs of Indians and mules from the head of

navigation on the Chagres River to the ancient city of Panama. There he
rebuilt them and set out to sea, but they were lost in a storm. Still
determined to make the most of his opportunities, Gonzales built others to
take their places and with these made his way up the Pacific coast through
the Gulf of Fonseca to Nicaragua, where he discovered Lake Nicaragua. A
few years later another explorer made a trip across Lake Nicaragua and
down the San Juan River to the Atlantic.
Cortez, the conquistador of Mexico, at one time was ordered to use every
resource at his command in a search for the longed-for strait. He did not
find it, but he did open up a line of communication across the Isthmus of
Tehauntepec, following practically the same line as was afterwards
followed by Eads with his proposed ship railway.
From those days to the time when the United States decided that the canal
should be built at Panama and that it should be made a national
undertaking, one route after another was proposed. In 1886, immediately
after the French failure, the Senate requested the Secretary of the Navy to
furnish all available information pertaining to the subject of a canal across
the Isthmus, and Admiral Charles H. Davis reported that 19 canal and 7
railway projects had been proposed, the most northerly across the Isthmus
of Tehauntepec and the most southerly across the Isthmus of Panama at the
Gulf of Darien, 1,400 miles apart. Eight of these projects were located in
Nicaragua.
In 1838 the Republic of New Granada, which then had territorial possession
of the Isthmus of Panama, granted a concession to a French company to
build a canal across the Isthmus. This company claimed to have found a
pass through the mountains only 37 feet above sea level. In 1843 the French
minister of foreign affairs instructed Napoleon Carella to investigate these
claims. That engineer found no such pass and reported the claims to be
worthless. He, in turn, advocated a canal along the route followed by the
present Panama Canal, with a 3-mile tunnel through Culebra Mountain and
with 18 locks on the Atlantic slope and 16 locks on the Pacific slope. He
estimated the cost of such a canal at $25,000,000. The first formal surveys
of the Panama route were made in 1827 by J. A. Lloyd. He recommended a
combination rail and water route, with a canal on the Atlantic side and a
railroad on the Pacific side.

The first serious proposition to build a Nicaragua Canal was made in 1779
when the King of England ordered an investigation into the feasibility of
connecting the Nicaraguan lakes with the sea. A year later Capt. Horatio
Nelson, destined to become the hero of Trafalgar, headed an expedition
from Jamaica to possess the Nicaraguan lakes, which he considered to be
the inland Gibraltar of Spanish America, commanding the only water pass
between the oceans. His expedition was successful as far as overcoming
Spanish opposition was concerned, but a deadlier enemy than the Don
decimated his ranks. Of the 200 who set out with Nelson only 10 survived,
and Nelson himself narrowly escaped with his life after a long illness.
In 1825 what now constitute the several countries of Central America were
embraced in one federation—the Central American Republic. It asked the
cooperation of the American people in the construction of a canal through
Nicaragua. Henry Clay, then Secretary of State, favored the proposition,
and, in 1826, the Federation entered into a contract with Aaron H. Palmer,
of New York, for the construction of a canal through Nicaragua capable of
accommodating the largest vessels afloat. Palmer was unable to command
the necessary capital and the concession lapsed. A few years later an
English corporation sent John Bailey to Nicaragua for the purpose of
securing a canal concession. He failed to get the concession but was later
employed by the Nicaraguan Government, which again had become
independent, to determine the most feasible location for a canal across
Nicaragua.
The United States Government became deeply interested in Isthmian Canal
projects during the Forties of the last century. The extension of the national
domain to the Pacific coast made the building of an Isthmian Canal a
consideration of prime importance to the United States, and made it a
dangerous policy to allow any other country to acquire a dominating hand
over an Isthmian waterway. The result was that the American Government
advised the British Government that it would not tolerate the control of any
Isthmian Canal by any foreign power. This later brought about the Clayton-
Bulwer treaty, which made neutral the proposed Nicaraguan Canal.
In 1849 Elijah Hise, representing the United States, negotiated a treaty with
Nicaragua, by the terms of which that country gave to the United States, or
its citizens, exclusive right to construct and operate roads, railways, canals,

or any other medium of transportation across its territory between the two
oceans. The consideration exacted by Nicaragua was that the United States
should guarantee the independence of that country—a consideration that
was then paramount because of the effort being made by Great Britain to
gobble up the "Mosquito Coast" as far east as the San Juan River. The
United States was not ready to give such a guarantee—although a half
century later it did give it to the Republic of Panama—and the Hise treaty
failed of ratification in the Senate.
A little later Cornelius Vanderbilt became interested in a canal and road
across Nicaragua under an exclusive concession running for 85 years.
Modifications of this concession permitted the Vanderbilt Company to
exercise exclusive navigation rights on the lakes of Nicaragua. As a result
the Accessory Transit Company established a transportation line from the
Atlantic through the San Juan River and across Lake Nicaragua, thence by
stage coach over a 13-mile stretch of road to San Juan del Sur on the
Pacific.
In 1852 Col. Orville Childs made a report to President Fillmore upon the
results of his surveys for a Nicaraguan Canal; and, if the United States, in
1902, had elected to build the Nicaraguan Canal, the route laid out by
Childs would have been followed for all but a few miles of the entire
distance. In 1858 a French citizen obtained from Nicaragua and Costa Rica
a joint concession for a canal, which contained a provision that the French
Government should have the right to keep two warships on Lake Nicaragua
as long as the canal was in operation. The United States politely informed
Nicaragua and Costa Rica that it would not permit any such agreement—
that it would be a menace to the United States as long as the agreement was
in force. Upon these representations the concession was canceled.
In 1876 the first Nicaraguan Canal Commission created by the American
Congress made a unanimous report in favor of a canal across Nicaragua,
after it had investigated all the proposed routes from eastern Mexico to
western South America. It asserted that this route possessed, both for the
construction and maintenance of the canal, greater advantages and fewer
difficulties from engineering, commercial, and economic points of view
than any one of the other routes shown to be practicable by surveys

sufficient in detail to enable a judgment to be formed of their respective
merits.
When the first French Panama Canal Company began its work all other
projects fell by the wayside for the time being, just as all other plans for
interoceanic canals were abandoned when the United States undertook the
construction of the present canal. After that company failed, however, the
Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua was organized in 1889 by A. G.
Menocal, under concessions from the Government of that country and
Costa Rica. The Atlantic end of this canal, as proposed by the Maritime
Canal Company, was located on the lagoon west of Greytown. The Pacific
end was located at Brito, a few miles from San Juan del Sur. This canal
company built three-fourths of a mile of canal, constructed a temporary
railway and a short telegraph line, but soon thereafter became involved in
financial difficulties which led to a suspension of operations. Even to this
day the visitor to Nicaragua may see many evidences of the wrecked hopes
of that period for whatever town he visits he finds there Americans and
Europeans who went to Nicaragua at the time of the opening of the work of
building a canal by the Maritime Canal Company. They expected to find a
land of opportunity. But, with failure of the canal project, they found
themselves in the possession of properties whose value lay only in staying
there and operating them.
When the first Isthmian Canal Commission, in 1899, undertook to
investigate all of the proposed routes across the connecting link between
North and South America, it placed on the Nicaraguan route alone 20
working parties, made up of 159 civil engineers, their assistants, and 455
laborers. The entire work of exploring the Nicaraguan route was done with
the greatest care. The depth of the canal, as adopted by the commission, was
35 feet and the minimum width 150 feet. The locks were to be 840 feet long
and 84 feet wide, and of these there were to be eight on the Pacific and six
on the Atlantic side. This canal was to be 184 miles long. At the Atlantic
end there was to be a 46-mile sea-level section and at the Pacific end a 12-
mile sea-level section, while the water in the middle 126-mile section was
to be 145 feet above the water in the two oceans. It was estimated that it
would cost $189,000,000 to build the Nicaraguan Canal.

Although the distance between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the United
States would have been more than 400 miles shorter by the Nicaragua
Canal than by the Panama Canal, it would have taken about 24 hours longer
to pass through the former than through the latter, so that, as far as length of
time from Atlantic to Pacific ports was concerned, the two routes would
have been practically on a par. The total amount of material it would have
been necessary to excavate at Nicaragua approximates, according to the
estimates, 228,000,000 cubic yards. This would have been increased,
perhaps, by half, to make a canal large enough to accommodate ships such
as will be accommodated by the present Panama Canal.
The three great trans-Isthmian projects may be said to have been: The
Panama Canal, the Nicaraguan Canal, and the James B. Eads ship railway
across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec. The latter proposition seems to be the
most remarkable, in some ways, of them all. In 1881, James B. Eads, the
great engineer who built the Mississippi River bridge at St. Louis, and
whose work in jetty construction at the mouths of the Mississippi proved
him to be one of the foremost engineers of his day, secured a charter from
the Mexican Government conveying to him authority to utilize the Isthmus
of Tehauntepec for the construction of a ship railway from the Atlantic to
the Pacific. His plan called for a railway 134 miles long, with the highest
point over 700 feet above the sea, and designed to carry vessels up to 7,000
tons. He calculated that the entire cost of the railway would not be more
than $50,000,000. His plan was to build a railroad with a large number of
tracks on which a huge cradle would run. This cradle would be placed under
a ship, and the ship braced in the manner of one in dry dock. Heavy coiled
springs were to equalize all stresses and to prevent shocks to the vessel. A
number of powerful locomotives would be hitched to the cradle and would
pull it across the Isthmus. Although the proposition was indorsed by many
authorities, it seems to anyone who has crossed the Isthmus of Tehauntepec
that it was a most visionary scheme.

COL. CHESTER L. HARDING
THE GATUN UPPER LOCKS

LIEUT. COL. DAVID D. GAILLARD CULEBRA CUT, SHOWING
CUCARACHA SLIDE IN LEFT CENTER

If one can imagine a ship railway across the Allegheny Mountains between
Lewiston Junction and Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvania Railroad, or between
Washington and Goshen, Va., on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, he will
have a very good idea of the difficulties which would be encountered in
building such a railway. The present Tehauntepec railroad is 188 miles long.
When crossing the Cordilleras there are numerous places on this road where
the rear car of the train and the engine are traveling in diametrically
opposite directions. The road is well-built, and, as one crosses the backbone
of the continent, and beholds the engineering difficulties that were
encountered in building an ordinary American railroad, he can not help but
marvel at the confidence of a man who would endeavor to build across
those mountains a shipway large enough and straight enough to carry a
7,000-ton ship. Yet Captain Eads estimated that his shipway could be
constructed in four years at one-half the cost of the Nicaraguan Canal; that
vessels could be transported by rail much more quickly than by canal; that
in case of accident the railway could be repaired more speedily; and that it
could be enlarged to carry heavier ships as business demanded.
He declared that he did not think it would be as difficult to build a ship
railway across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec as to build a harbor at the
Atlantic entrance of the Nicaraguan Canal. His confidence in his project
was such that he proposed to build a short section of the road to prove its
practicability before asking the United States to commit itself to the project.
Commodore T. D. Wilson, at that time Chief Constructor of the United
States Navy, declared in a letter to Captain Eads that he did not believe the
strains upon a ship hauled across the Isthmus, as Eads proposed, would be
greater than those to which ocean steamers are constantly exposed. Gen. P.
T. G. Beauregard, of Confederate Army fame, declared that a loaded ship
would incur less danger in being transported on a smooth and well-built
railway than it would encounter in bad weather on the ocean.
A prominent English firm offered to undertake the building and completion
of the necessary works for placing ships with their cargo on the railway
tracks of the trans-Isthmian line, declaring that they had no hesitation in
guaranteeing the lifting of a fully loaded ship of 8,000 or 10,000 tons on a
railway car to the level of the railroad in 30 minutes, if the distance to be
lifted was not over 50 feet. The death of Captain Eads ended this
picturesque project.

A proposition once was made to build a canal across the Isthmus of
Tehauntepec. This would have required 30 locks on each side of the
Isthmus of 25 feet each, and these locks alone would have cost, on the basis
of the locks at Panama, perhaps as much as the whole Panama Canal.
One of the narrowest parts of the Isthmus is that lying between the present
Panama Canal route and the South American border. Three routes were
proposed in this section, known as the Atrato River route, the Caledonia
route, and the San Blas route. It was found that a canal built along any one
of these routes would require a tunnel. The estimated cost of building a
tunnel 35 feet deep, 100 feet wide at the bottom, and 117 feet on the
waterline, with a height of 115 feet from the water surface, the entire tunnel
being lined with concrete 5 feet thick, would approximate $22,500,000 a
mile. The cost of building a canal along one of these routes would have
been greater than that of building either the Nicaragua Canal or the Panama
Canal.
The question of an Isthmian Canal will probably be forever set at rest at no
distant date. In an effort to forestall for all time any competition in the canal
business across the American Isthmus, negotiations are now under way
whereby the United States seeks to acquire the exclusive rights for a canal
through Nicaragua, just as it now possesses exclusive rights for a canal
through the Republic of Panama. The conclusion of the work at Panama
will end the efforts of four centuries to open up a shipway from the Atlantic
to the Pacific across the American Isthmus.

CHAPTER XVII
THE FRENCH FAILURE

One writes of "the French failure" at Panama with a consciousness that no
other word but failure will describe the financial and administrative
catastrophe that humbled France on the Isthmus, but at the same time with
the knowledge that failure is no fit word to apply to the engineering
accomplishments of the French era.
The French fiasco ruined thousands of thrifty French families who invested
their all in the shares of the canal company because they had faith in de
Lesseps, faith in France, and faith in the ability of the canal to pay
handsome returns whatever might be its cost. The failure itself was due
primarily to the fact that de Lesseps was not an engineer, but a promoter.
The stock sales, the bond lottery, the pomp and circumstance of high
finance, were more to him than exact surveys or frank discussion of actual
engineering problems.
From the first, de Lesseps ignored the engineers. The Panama proposition
was undertaken in spite of their advice, and at every turn he hampered them
by impossible demands, and by making grave decisions with a debonair
turn of the hand.
The next factor in the failure was corruption. Extravagance such as never
was known wasted the sous and francs that came from the thrifty homes of
that beautiful France. Corruption, graft, waste—there was never such a
carnival of bad business.
And then the French had to fight the diseases of the tropic jungles without
being armed with that knowledge that gave the Americans the victory over
yellow fever and malaria. It was hardly to be expected that the French ever
would discover the necessity of substituting the Y. M. C. A. and the soda
fountain for the dance hall and the vintner's shop, if the canal were to be
completed.

But the engineers did their work well, as far as they were permitted to go. It
may have cost too much—but it was well done. The failure of the French
Panama Canal project was due, therefore, to moral as much as to material
reasons.
Long years after the French had retired defeated from the field, one could
behold a thousand mute but eloquent reminders of their failure to duplicate
their triumph at Suez. From one side of the Isthmus to the other stretched an
almost unbroken train of gloomy specters of the disappointed hopes of the
French people.
Here a half-mile string of engines and cars; there a long row of steam
cranes; at this place a mass of nondescript machinery; and at that place a
big dredge left high and dry on the banks of the mighty Chagres at its flood
stage, all spoke to the visitor of the French defeat. Exposed to the ravages
of 20 tropical summers, decay ran riot, and but for the scenes of life and
industry being enacted by the Americans, one might have felt himself
stalking amid the tombs of thousands of dead hopes.
Almost as much money was raised by the French for their failure as was
appropriated by the Americans for their success. From the gilded palace and
from the peasant's humble cottage came the stream of gold with which it
was hoped to lay low the barrier that divided the Atlantic and the Pacific. At
first the French estimated that in seven or eight years they could dig a 29-
foot sea-level canal for $114,000,000. After eight years they calculated that
it would cost $351,000,000 to make it a 15-foot lock canal and require 20
years to build it.
Never was money spent so recklessly. For a time it flowed in faster than it
could be paid out—even by the Panama Canal Company. When the
company started it asked for $60,000,000. Double that amount was offered.
The seeming inexhaustibility of the funds led to unparalleled extravagance;
of the some $260,000,000 raised only a little more than a third was spent in
actual engineering work. Someone has said that a third of the money was
spent on the canal, a third was wasted, and a third was stolen.
The director general at the expense of the stockholders built himself a house
costing $100,000. His summer home at La Boca cost $150,000. It came to
be known as "Dingler's Folly," for Dingler lost his wife and children of

yellow fever and never was able to live in his sumptuous summer home. He
drew $50,000 a year salary, and $50 a day for each day he traveled a mile
over the line in his splendid $42,000 Pullman. The hospitals at Ancon and
Colon cost $7,000,000, and the office buildings over $5,000,000. Where a
$50,000 building was needed, a $100,000 building was erected, and the
canal stockholders were charged $200,000 for it.
Supplies were bought almost wholly without reference to actual needs. Ten
thousand snow shovels were brought to the Isthmus where no snow ever
has fallen. Some 15,000 torchlights were carried there to be used in the
great celebration upon the completion of the canal. Steam-boats, dredges,
launches, and whatnot were brought to the Isthmus, knocked down, and
taken into the interior to await the opening of the waterway. The stationery
bill of the canal company with one firm alone amounted to $180,000 a year.
When the Americans took possession they found among other things a ton
of rusty and useless pen points, not one of which had ever been used.
Two years' service entitled employees to five months' leave of absence and
traveling expenses both ways. There was no adequate system of accounting
and any employee could have his requisition for household articles honored
almost as often as he liked. In a multitude of cases this laxity was taken
advantage of and quite a business was carried on secretly in buying and
selling furniture belonging to the company. One official built a bath house
costing $40,000. A son of de Lesseps became a silent partner of nearly
every large contractor on the Isthmus, getting a large "rake-off" from every
contract let.
Near the summit of the Great Divide the Americans who took possession in
1904 found a small iron steamer. It is said to have been the purpose of the
canal promoters to put this little steamer on a small pond in Culebra Cut,
and by the aid of a skillful photographer to get a picture showing navigation
across the Isthmus. This steamer was hauled by the Americans to Panama,
where during the years of the American construction work it did service in
carrying the sick to the sanitarium at Taboga.
The different uses to which this steamer was put during the French and
American régimes illustrates the different aims of the Americans and the
French in connection with the Panama Canal. There was little concern about

the health of the canal workers under the French, in spite of great liberality
in the construction of hospitals. The construction work was let out to
contractors, who were charged a dollar a day by the French Company for
maintaining the sick members of their force in the hospital. Of course, the
contractors were not over anxious to put their employees into the hospitals.
The result was that the death rate at Panama reached almost unprecedented
proportions.

THE MAN OF BRAWN

FERDINAND DE LESSEPS
PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA
AN OLD FRENCH EXCAVATOR NEAR TABERNILLA
This was aided to a very large degree by the manner of living obtaining
there at that time. In 1887 Lieutenant Rogers, of the United States Navy,
inspected the canal work and reported that the laborers were paid every
Saturday, that they spent Sunday in drinking and Monday in recuperating,
returning to work on Tuesday. A prominent English writer declared after a
visit to Panama that in all the world there was not, perhaps, concentrated in
any single spot so much swindling and villainy, so much vile disease, and
such a hideous mass of moral and physical abominations.
Add to these things the fact that no one then knew of the responsibility of
the stegomyia mosquito for the existence of yellow fever, nor that the
anopheles mosquito was the disseminator of malaria, and it is little wonder
that the French failed. The hospitals, instead of aiding in the elimination of
yellow fever, became its greatest allies. The bedposts were set in cups of
water, and here the yellow-fever mosquitoes could breed uninterruptedly
and carry infection to every patient. Wards were shut up tight at night to
keep out the "terrible miasma," and the nurses went to their own quarters.

When morning came there were among those thus left alone always some
ready for the tomb.
The history of the French attempt to construct the Panama Canal begins, in
reality, with the Suez Canal. In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps, a Frenchman
connected with the diplomatic service, saw an opportunity to revive the
plans for a Suez Canal that had been urged by Napoleon in 1798. His friend,
Said Pasha, had just succeeded to the khediviate of Egypt, and his proposals
were warmly received. The building of the canal, which presented no
serious engineering problems, was begun in 1859 and completed 10 years
later. There was a sordid side to its story, too; but as the losses were borne
chiefly by the Egyptians, Europe ignored them and looked only to the great
success of the canal itself.
As a result, de Lesseps became a national hero in France, and when it
became known that he contemplated piercing another isthmus, the whole
country rose to his support. In 1875, six years after the Suez Canal had been
opened, and as soon as France had recovered her breath from the shock of
the war with Prussia, a company was organized by de Lesseps to procure a
concession for the building of a Panama Canal.
Already the world, as well as France, had come to regard de Lesseps as an
engineer, rather than as a promoter of stock companies, and in this lay the
germ of the disaster that was to overtake the whole scheme.
In 1876, Lucien Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse, a lieutenant of engineers in the
French Army, was sent to Panama to determine the most feasible route and
to conclude negotiations for the construction of a canal there. He made a
perfunctory survey, commencing at Panama and extending only two-thirds
of the way to the Atlantic coast; nevertheless, he calculated the cost in detail
and claimed that his estimates might be depended upon to come within 10
per cent of the actual figures. However weak in engineering he may have
been, he was strong in international negotiations, returning to France with a
concession which gave him the right to form a company to build the canal,
and which gave to that company all the rights it needed, subject only to the
prior rights of the Panama Railroad Company under its concession. The
concession was to run for 99 years, beginning from the date when the
collection of tolls on transit and navigation should begin. The promoters

were allowed 2 years to form the company and 12 years to build the canal.
The Government of Colombia was entitled to a share in the gross income of
the canal after the seventy-fifth year from its opening. Four-fifths of this
was to be paid to the National Government and one-fifth to the State of
Panama. The canal company was to guarantee that these annual payments
should on no account be less than $250,000.
When Wyse returned to Paris he got de Lesseps to head the project. The
hero of Suez summoned an international commission of individuals and
engineers, known as the International Scientific Congress, which met in
Paris, May 15, 1879. There were 135 delegates in attendance, most of
whom were Frenchmen, although nearly every European nation was
represented. The United States had 11 representatives at this congress. After
two weeks' conference the decision was reached that a sea-level canal
should be constructed from Colon to Panama. Only 42 of the 135 men who
met were engineers, and it has been stated that those who knew most about
the subject found their opinions least in demand. M. de Lesseps dominated
the conference. Several members who were radically opposed to its
conclusions, rather than declare their difference from the opinions of a man
of such great distinction and high reputation as de Lesseps enjoyed at that
time, absented themselves when the final vote was taken.
After it was determined to build a sea-level canal, the canal concession
owned by Wyse and his associates was transferred to the Compagnie
Universelle du Canal Interoceanique (The Universal Interoceanic Canal
Company) of which de Lesseps was given control. The canal company was
capitalized at $60,000,000. The preliminary budget of expenses amounted
to $9,000,000, of which $2,000,000 went to Wyse and his associates for the
concession. The organizers were entitled to certain cash payments and 15
per cent of the net profits.
The canal company soon found it necessary to acquire a controlling interest
in the Panama Railroad. That corporation insisted on charging regular rates
on all canal business. In addition, it possessed such prior rights as made the
Wyse concession worthless except there be agreement on all matters
between the railroad company and the canal company. The result was that
the canal company bought the railroad, and its rights, for the sum of about
$18,000,000.

The first visit of de Lesseps to the Isthmus was made in the early weeks of
1880. He arrived on the 30th day of December, 1879, and was met by a
delegation appointed by the Government, and one nominated by the State
Assembly. There was the usual reception, with its attendant champagne and
conviviality, and a fine display of fire-works at night. The next day, with a
chart before him, de Lesseps promptly decided where the breakwater to
protect the mouth of the canal from the "northers" sweeping into Limon
Bay should be located. He declared that in the construction of the canal
there were only two great difficulties—the Chagres River and Culebra Cut.
The first he proposed to overcome by sending its waters to the Pacific
Ocean by another route—a project which it has since been estimated would
have cost almost as much as building the canal. The second difficulty he
thought would disappear with the use of explosives of sufficient force to
remove vast quantities of material with each discharge. There was a great
hurrah, and an international celebration during de Lesseps' stay. The flags of
all nations were prominently displayed, with the single exception of that of
the United States.
Count de Lesseps was over 70 years old when he first visited the Isthmus,
though he was still active and vigorous. Mr. Tracy Robinson described him
as "a small man, French in detail, with winning manners and a magnetic
presence. He would conclude almost every statement with, 'The Canal will
be made,' just as a famous Roman always exclaimed, 'Delende est
Carthago.' He was accompanied to the Isthmus by his wife and three of his
seven children. Being a fine horseman, he delighted in mounting the wildest
steeds that Panama could furnish. Riding over the rough country in which
the canal was being located all day long, he would dance all night like a boy
and be ready for the next day's work 'as fresh as a daisy.'"
On New Year's Day, 1880, de Lesseps formally inaugurated the work of
building the canal. A large party of ladies and gentlemen visited the mouth
of the Rio Grande where the first shovelful of sod was to be turned. An
address was made by Count de Lesseps, and a benediction upon the
enterprise was bestowed by the Bishop of Panama. Champagne flowed like
water, and it is said that the speechmaking continued so long that the party
did not have time to go ashore to turn the sod, so it was brought on board
and Miss Fernanda de Lesseps there made the initial stroke in the digging of
the big waterway.

Some days later the work at Culebra Cut was inaugurated. Tracy Robinson
thus described the scene: "The blessing had been pronounced by the Bishop
of Panama and the champagne, duly iced, was waiting to quell the swelter
of the tropical sun as soon as the explosion went off. There the crowd stood
breathless, ears stopped, eyes blinking, half in terror lest this artificial
earthquake might involve general destruction. But there was no explosion!
It would not go! Then a humorous sense of relief stole upon the crowd.
With one accord everybody exclaimed, 'Good Gracious!' and hurried away
for fear that after all the dynamite should see fit to explode. That was Fiasco
No. 1."
After de Lesseps left the Isthmus he toured the United States where he was
everywhere welcomed although he did not find a market in this country for
his stock.
The scientific congress estimated the cost of building the canal, whose
construction de Lesseps had inaugurated, at $214,000,000. M. de Lesseps
himself later arbitrarily cut this estimate to $131,000,000, and announced
that he believed that vessels would be able to go from ocean to ocean after
the expenditure of $120,000,000. He declared that if the committee had
decided to build a lock canal, he would have put on his hat and gone home,
since he believed it would be much more expensive to build a lock canal
with twin chambers than to build a sea-level waterway. There were those
who declared that six years was the utmost limit that would be required for
building the big ditch. Others asserted with confidence that it could be done
in four years.
During the first three years the company devoted its time to getting ready
for the real work. By 1885 the profligate use of the money subscribed by
the French people brought the funds of the canal company to a very low
ebb. M. de Lesseps asked for permission to establish a lottery, by which he
hoped to provide additional funds for carrying on the work. The French
Government held up the matter and finally sent an eminent engineer to
investigate. This engineer, Armand Rosseau, reported that the completion of
a sea-level canal was not possible with the means in sight, and
recommended a lock canal, plans for which he submitted. The summit level
of this canal was to be 160 feet, reached by a series of seven or eight locks.
After this plan was adopted, to which de Lesseps reluctantly consented,

lottery bonds of a face value of $160,000,000 were issued which were to
bear 4 per cent interest. But the people failed to subscribe.
At the outset of the work de Lesseps established a bulletin for the
dissemination of information concerning the canal; during the entire period
of his connection with the project this bulletin was filled with the most
exaggerated reports, and the most reckless mis-statements in favor of a
successful prosecution of the work. By 1888 the confidence of the French
people in de Lesseps waned. Unable to raise more money, and now
popularly dubbed the "Great Undertaker," he found himself in such straits
that he saw the French Government take over the wrecked organization by
appointing a receiver with the power to dispose of its assets. This proved a
terrible blow to the people on the Isthmus. Untold hardships befell the small
army of laborers and clerks. The Government of Jamaica repatriated over
6,000 negroes. The Chilean Government granted 40,000 free passages to
Chile, open to all classes except negroes and Chinese, and for several
months every mail steamer south took away from 600 to 800 stranded
people from the canal region. Where good times and the utmost plenty had
prevailed for years, the Isthmus was now face to face with a period of want
and privation, its glory departed and its hope almost gone.
The receiver of the Panama Canal Company assisted in the organization of
another company known as the New Panama Canal Company. With a
working capital of $13,000,000, it excavated more than 12,000,000 cubic
yards of material. In 1890 it found itself in danger of losing everything by
reason of the expiration of its concession. The services of Lieutenant Wyse
were again brought into play, and he secured a 10-year extension of the
concession. In 1893 another concession was granted, with the provision that
work should be begun on a permanent basis by October 31, 1894, and that
the canal should be completed by October 31, 1904. Toward the end of the
nineties, it was manifest that the concession would expire before the work
could be finished, so, in April, 1900, another extension was arranged, which
stipulated that the canal should be completed by October 31, 1910. The
New Panama Canal Company, as a matter of fact, had no other aim in view
than to keep the concession alive in the hope that it could be sold to the
United States.

With all of their profligacy, however, the French left to their American
successors a valuable heritage. What they did was done with the utmost
thoroughness. The machinery which they bequeathed to the Americans was
of immense value. There was enough of this to cover a 500-acre farm 3 feet
deep, with enough more to build a 6-foot fence around it all. The French
equipment was of the best. Dredges and locomotives that stood in the jungle
for 20 years were rebuilt by the Americans at less than 10 per cent of their
first cost, and did service during the entire period of construction.
Although the New Panama Canal Company at one time asked $150,000,000
for its assets, it finally accepted $40,000,000. An appraisement made by
American engineers a few years ago showed that the actual worth of the
property acquired, aside from the franchise itself, amounted to about
$42,000,000.
Count de Lesseps lived to a great age. His last years were saddened and
embittered by the volumes of denunciation that were written and spoken
against him. Certain it is that no man ever went further than he to maintain
confidence in a project that was destined to fail, and yet his partisans
declared that his sin was the sin of overenthusiasm and not of dishonest
purpose. Under the torrents of abuse that fell upon his head his mind
weakened, and, fortunately, in his last days he realized little of the
immeasurable injustice his misplaced zeal and overenthusiasm had wrought
against the people of France.

CHAPTER XVIII
CHOOSING THE PANAMA ROUTE

Proud as Americans now are of the success of their venture at Panama, in
the beginning there was by no means a general agreement that the United
States would succeed where France had failed. Indeed, the French disaster
had much influence in strengthening the position of those who favored
building the American canal through Nicaragua.
Prior to the year 1900 little thought was given by the American people to
any project for building an Isthmian Canal anywhere else than through
Nicaragua. It is true that in 1897 the New Panama Canal Company became
active in its efforts to induce the United States to adopt the Panama route,
but these activities made little impression upon public sentiment before the
outbreak of the Spanish American War. During that war interest in the
question of an Isthmian Canal waned in America, and immediately after it
the sympathy which France had given to Spain made it advisable for the
Canal Company to postpone its propaganda.
In his annual message to Congress in December, 1898, President McKinley
recommended the building of the Nicaragua Canal. Two days later Senator
John T. Morgan, of Alabama, made a vigorous speech in the Senate, in
which he charged that the transcontinental railroads of the United States
were making efforts to defeat the canal project. This charge was made
repeatedly thereafter, and it was asserted that the railroads espoused the
cause of the Panama Canal upon the ground of choosing the lesser of two
evils, judged from their standpoint. Prior to 1900 both Republican and
Democratic parties had repeatedly favored the construction of the
Nicaragua Canal in their national platforms, and both branches of Congress
had voted for the canal at different times.
In the early part of 1899 the Senate passed a bill authorizing the
construction of a Nicaraguan Canal. The House refused to act on the bill,
and, at the instance of Senator Morgan, the Senate attached a rider to the

rivers and harbors bill, appropriating $10,000,000 to begin the building of
the canal. This passed the Senate by a vote of 54 to 3. The amendment was
defeated in the House and the matter went to conference. If the House
conferees stood pat in their opposition to the Senate amendment, the whole
rivers and harbors bill would be defeated unless the Senate conferees
yielded. The House conferees remained unshaken in their opposition to the
Nicaragua Canal provision, and were willing to wreck the whole rivers and
harbors bill rather than to authorize the beginning of operations in the
construction of the Nicaragua Canal under the plan framed by the Senate.
According to Philippe Bunau-Varilla, the real secret of the defeat of the
Nicaragua Canal project at this juncture lay in a dispute between the House
and Senate as to the manner of building the canal. The Senate wanted to do
it by the reorganization of the Maritime Canal Company, with the majority
of its board of directors appointed by the President, using that corporation
as the agent of the Government for constructing and operating the canal.
Representative William P. Hepburn, of Iowa, at that time Chairman of the
Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, contended that such a plan
proposed that the United States should masquerade as a corporation, instead
of doing the work in its own proper person, as it was in every sense capable
of doing. He asked for what purpose the Government should thus convert
itself into a corporation, making of itself an artificial person and taking a
position of equality with a citizen? He further pointed out that as a
corporation the Government might be sued in its own courts, and fined for
contempt by its own judicial servants.
A compromise was adopted in the form of an appropriation of $1,000,000
to defray the expenses of an investigation into all of the various routes for
an Isthmian Canal. This investigation was to have reference particularly to
the relative merits of the Nicaragua and Panama routes, together with an
estimate of the cost of constructing each. The investigators were to ascertain
what rights, privileges, and franchises were held, and what work had been
done in the construction of the proposed canals. They were also to ascertain
the cost of acquiring the interests of any organizations holding franchises on
these routes. The President was directed to employ engineers of the United
States Army and engineers from civil life, together with such other persons
as were necessary to carry out the purposes of the investigation. A few
months later he appointed the first Isthmian Canal Commission, consisting

of Rear Admiral John G. Walker, Senator Samuel Pasco, Alfred Noble,
George S. Morison, Peter C. Hains, William H. Burr, O. H. Ernst, Louis M.
Haupt, and Emory R. Johnson.
Thus it came about that the House and Senate, divided only upon the issue
of the proper method of building the Nicaragua Canal, reopened the whole
question, and gave to the Panama Canal advocates a chance to make a fight
in favor of that route. The advocates of the Nicaragua Canal were not
satisfied, however, to await the discoveries of the commission Congress had
created. On May 2, 1900, before the commission made its report, the House
voted 234 to 36 in favor of the Nicaragua route. The bill went to the Senate,
where it was favorably reported by the Committee on Interoceanic Canals.
Senator Morgan made a formal motion for the immediate consideration of
the measure, but it was lost by a vote of 28 to 21. He then had the 2nd day
of December following fixed as the date for again taking up the matter. His
committee made a report roundly scoring the representatives of the New
Panama Canal Company for their activities in favor of the Panama route.
In December, 1900, Secretary Hay signed protocols with the ministers of
Nicaragua and Costa Rica, by which those Governments undertook to
negotiate treaties as soon as the President of the United States should be
authorized by Congress to acquire the Nicaragua route. In the following
February, Senator Morgan offered an amendment to the sundry civil
appropriation bill authorizing the President to go ahead with the
construction of the canal. When Theodore Roosevelt became President in
September, 1901, he recommended the building of the Nicaragua Canal in
his official statement of policy.
In the meantime the Isthmian Canal Commission had been repeatedly
attempting to get the New Panama Canal Company to state for what sum it
would sell its holdings to the United States. The figures finally presented
placed a value of $109,000,000 upon the property. After this, the Isthmian
Canal Commission unanimously recommended the adoption of the
Nicaragua route. Congress again took up the matter, upon a bill introduced
by Representative Hepburn, making an appropriation of $180,000,000 for
the construction of the canal. This measure was favorably reported by the
House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, and also secured
the approval of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals.

A few days later a formal convention was signed in Nicaragua by the
minister of foreign affairs and the American minister, looking to the
construction of the canal through Nicaraguan territory. A week later the
Senate ratified the Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain. On January 7
the House of Representatives again took up the matter and, in spite of the
fact that the New Panama Canal Company had decided to accept
$40,000,000 for its property, this offer was rejected by the House of
Representatives, which passed the bill authorizing the construction of the
Nicaragua Canal by the overwhelming vote of 309 to 2.
After the rejection of the offer of the New Panama Canal Company by the
House, President Roosevelt again called the members of the Isthmian Canal
Commission together, and asked them to make a supplementary report in
view of the offer in question. On a motion of Commissioner Morison the
commission decided that, in consideration of the change of conditions
brought about by the offer of the company to sell its property for
$40,000,000, the Panama route was preferable. It has been stated that
Professor Haupt, Senator Pasco, and two other members of the commission
were reluctant to abandon the Nicaragua project; that President Roosevelt
had made it quite clear to Admiral Walker that he expected the commission
to accept the Panama Canal Company's offer; that Commissioners Noble
and Pasco had given in, but that Professor Haupt stood out; and that he was
induced to sign the report only after Admiral Walker had called him out of
the committee room and pleaded with him to do so, stating that the
President demanded a unanimous report. Professor Haupt afterwards
publicly admitted the truth of this story in a signed article in a magazine.
About this time the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals appointed a
subcommittee of six members to study and report on the legal questions
involved in the transfer of the New Panama Canal Company's title, and a
majority reported that the company's title was defective and that it had no
power to transfer. It was finally decided that the Senate Committee on
Interoceanic Canals should make no report until all of the members of the
Isthmian Canal Commission had appeared before it and testified. This delay
permitted negotiations between the United States, the New Panama Canal
Company, and the Republic of Colombia looking to a settlement of the
question of title.

The New Panama Canal Company was now thoroughly in earnest in its
desire to dispose of its holdings to the United States, but the Republic of
Colombia, desiring to drive a good bargain, held aloof. The hope of the
situation as far as the Panama route was concerned, lay in Senator Marcus
A. Hanna, of Ohio, who had come to espouse the Panama route. He
declared he would not recommend the acceptance of the proposals of the
New Panama Canal Company unless a satisfactory treaty could be obtained,
and unless the shareholders of the company would ratify the action of the
board of directors in making the offer. A meeting of the shareholders was
called in February, 1902, at which the Republic of Colombia, holding a
million dollars' worth of stock in the company, was represented by a
Government delegate. He served formal notice on the company that it was
forbidden, on pain of forfeiture of its concession, to sell its rights to the
United States before that action was approved by the Colombian
Government, there being a clause in the concession providing that in the
event of such a sale to any foreign Government all rights, titles, and
property should revert to Colombia.
When the Colombian Government took up the matter it showed a
disposition to grasp the lion's share. Its minister was instructed to exact no
less than $20,000,000 from the New Panama Canal Company for
Colombia's permission to transfer its concessions. This demand was based
on the following reasons: First, because Colombia's consent was essential;
second, because Colombia would lose its expectation of acquiring the
Panama Railroad at the expiration of its concession—a road that was then
valued at $18,000,000; third, because under the proposed contract with the
United States, Colombia was to renounce its share in the prospective
earnings of the canal, which might amount to a million dollars a year.
Another proposition was drawn by the Colombian minister, proposing to
lease a zone across the Isthmus of the United States for a period of 200
years at an annual rental of $600,000. At another time the Colombian
minister declared that, inasmuch as the New Panama Canal Company had
taken advantage of the straitened circumstances of the Colombian
Government to obtain a six-year extension of its concession, which was
really what the canal company was about to sell for $40,000,000, he
thought Colombia ought to require the New Panama Canal Company to pay

$3,000,000 of the $40,000,000, for what the company gained by the
extension of its concession.
On January 30, 1902, Senator John C. Spooner, of Wisconsin, introduced a
bill in the Senate, authorizing the President of the United States to build an
Isthmian Canal at Panama, if the necessary rights could be obtained. If
those rights could not be obtained the President was required to build the
canal on the Nicaraguan route. The Spooner bill provided the machinery for
the construction of the canal, created the Isthmian Canal Commission, and
authorized the expenditures necessary for undertaking the project. Some six
weeks later the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals rejected the
Spooner bill and presented a favorable report on the Hepburn bill, which
authorized the Nicaragua Canal.
The final struggle in the Senate lasted from June 4 to June 19, 1902.
Senators Morgan and Harris led the fight for the Hepburn bill, while
Senators Hanna and Spooner championed the Spooner measure. The fight
resulted in the passage of the Spooner bill by a vote of 32 to 24. The
disagreeing votes of the two Houses were then sent to conference, and the
House finally receded from its position in favor of the Nicaragua route, and
the Spooner bill became a law. The situation as it now stood was that the
Panama route was chosen on the conditions that the title of the company be
proved and that a satisfactory treaty with Colombia be negotiated; with the
alternative of the adoption of the Nicaragua route in default of one or the
other of these conditions.
Whatever may have been his motives—in the light of events which have
followed it would seem unjust to question them—Senator Hanna was
undoubtedly responsible for the revolution in Congress and in public
sentiment which resulted in the selection of the Panama route. M. Bunau-
Varilla declares that he met Myron T. Herrick in Paris, converted him, and
through him met Senator Hanna, whom he also convinced. In Crowley's
"Life and Work of Marcus Alonzo Hanna," it is declared that a series of
interviews between M. Bunau-Varilla and Senator Hanna had much to do
with Mr. Hanna's decision to make a fight in behalf of Panama. It was
claimed by William Nelson Cromwell, in his suit for fees against the New
Panama Canal Company, that he was responsible for converting Senator
Hanna to the Panama project, and it was asserted, also, that he furnished the

data from which Senator Hanna made his speech which converted the
Senate, and the House, and the country, and led to the adoption of the
Panama route.
At this juncture Providence seemed to lend support to the Panama route, for
one of the many volcanoes in Nicaragua became active and did
considerable damage. Occurrences since then have borne out the wisdom of
avoiding the Nicaragua route. A few years ago the city of Cartago, only
about a hundred miles distant from the site of the works that would have
been installed to control the waters of Lake Nicaragua, was entirely
destroyed by an earthquake.
With the Spooner bill enacted into law, the next proposition which
confronted the United States Government was that of reaching an
understanding with Colombia, which would permit the building of the canal
at Panama. That country was reminded on every hand and in divers ways
that unless an acceptable treaty were forthcoming the President of the
United States would be forced to adopt the Nicaragua route. But,
notwithstanding these reminders, Colombia still moved slowly in the
matter. After being repeatedly urged to come to terms, and after one
Colombian minister to the United States had been recalled and another
resigned, the Hay-Herran treaty finally was negotiated.
Before Colombia reached the stage, however, where it would agree to enter
into negotiations with the United States, it had been reminded by its
minister in Washington that it was dangerous not to enter into an agreement.
He had declared that if Colombia should refuse to hear the American
proposal that a new treaty be entered into, the United States would, in
retaliation, denounce the treaty of 1846, and thereafter view with
complacency any events which might take place in Panama inimical to
Colombia's interests. He had reported further that the United States would,
at the first interruption of the railroad service, occupy at once Colombia's
territory on the Isthmus and embrace whatever tendency there might be
toward separation, in the hope of bringing about the independence of
Panama. This, he had concluded, would be a catastrophe of far greater
consequence to Colombia than any damage the Republic might suffer by
the ratification of a treaty with the United States permitting the building of
the canal.

His views in the matter were strengthened by a suggestion of Senator
Shelby M. Cullom, of Illinois, that if Colombia should continue to refuse to
allow the United States to build the canal, which the United States claimed
was its right to do under the treaty of 1846, the American Government
might invoke a sort of universal right of eminent domain, take the Isthmian
territory, and pay Colombia its value in accordance with an appraisement by
experts.
About this time President Roosevelt wrote a letter to his friend, Dr. Albert
D. Shaw, of the Review of Reviews, in which he said that he had been
appealed to for aid and encouragement to a revolution at Panama, but that
as much as he would like to see such a revolution, he could not lend any
encouragement to it. The Republic of Colombia was repeatedly reminded
by Secretary Hay that if it did not act promptly the President would take up
negotiations with Nicaragua and proceed to construct the canal there. Under
these conditions Colombia finally agreed to negotiate the Hay-Herran
treaty, which was afterwards rejected by the Colombian Congress.
It has been asserted that President Roosevelt took the view all along that
under the treaty of 1846, Colombia had no right to prevent the United States
from building the canal, and that, in spite of the provision of the Spooner
Act requiring him to proceed with the construction of the Nicaragua Canal
in the event of the failure of negotiations at Panama, he was determined to
exhaust every possible effort before giving up the Panama route.

CHAPTER XIX
CONTROVERSY WITH COLOMBIA

Seldom in the history of international relations has a controversy afforded
more grounds for honest difference of opinion than the issue between the
United States and Colombia, growing out of the revolution and formation of
the new Republic of Panama. The most careful and unprejudiced study still
may leave room for doubt as to the real merits of the case.
In 1903, after the United States had decided to build an Isthmian Canal,
preferably at Panama, but if that route were not available at Nicaragua, a
treaty was entered into at Washington between the Governments of the
United States and Colombia. This Hay-Herran treaty, as it was known, in
simple terms provided that the United States would pay Colombia
$10,000,000 in cash, and $250,000 a year after the completion of the canal,
if the Republic of Colombia would agree to permit the New Panama Canal
Company to sell its concession and property to the United States. This
treaty, according to President Roosevelt, was entered into under
negotiations initiated by the Republic of Colombia. The treaty was ratified
by the United States Senate, and was then sent to Colombia for its
ratification.
At the time the treaty was pending in the Colombian Congress, the
President of the Republic was a man who had been elected Vice President,
but who had kidnapped the President with a troop of cavalry and shut him
up in an insanitary dungeon where he soon died. The Vice President thus
became the head of the Government. Anyone who knows conditions in such
countries as Colombia, understands that a President has no use for a
Congress except to have it register his own will. The President of Colombia
at first advocated the negotiation of the treaty, but he repudiated it after it
had been signed, and then declared that if the Colombian minister to
Washington were to return to Colombia he would be hanged for signing it.
The result of this change of front was that the treaty was rejected by the
Colombian Congress. All sorts of stories were put abroad in Colombia to

arouse opposition to it. One was that the United States would make
$180,000,000 out of the canal deal the minute the treaty was ratified by
Colombia. It was claimed by the Colombian Government that the
constitutional prohibition of the cession of territory to a foreign state would
have to be changed by amending the Constitution before the Congress could
legally ratify the treaty.

S. B. WILLIAMSON
THE LOWER GATES, MIRAFLORES LOCKS

H. O. COLE
MIDDLE GATES, MIRAFLORES
LOCKS
How little the President of Colombia respected the laws of his country is
shown by a dispatch received by the Government at Washington after the
secession of Panama, in which it was promised that if the United States
would assist Colombia in putting down the Panama revolution, the next
Colombian Congress would ratify the rejected treaty. Or, failing that, the
President would declare martial law, by virtue of vested constitutional
authority when public order is disturbed, and ratify the canal treaty by

presidential decree. If the Washington Government did not like such a
proposal, the President of Colombia would call an extra session of Congress
and immediately ratify the treaty.
The real cause of the failure of the Hay-Herran treaty is not difficult to
discover. The concession of the New Panama Canal Company under one of
its renewals expired October 31, 1893. It was then extended for a year, and,
in 1894, was extended again for a period of 10 years. Still another extension
was granted, which carried the date of expiration to October 31, 1910. This
last extension was granted by the President without the consent of the
Colombian Congress. In 1903, when the Hay-Herran treaty was pending,
the validity of this last extension was denied, and the assertion made that on
October 31, 1901, all of the rights and property of the New Panama Canal
Company would revert to the Colombian Government.
The United States had agreed to pay to the New Panama Canal Company
$40,000,000 for its concession and property. According to Representative
Henry T. Rainey, of Illinois, who for years led the attack in the United
States Congress on the acts of President Roosevelt in connection with the
Panaman revolution, the purpose of Colombia in defeating the treaty was to
wait until the expiration of the concession, when all of the property of the
canal company would revert to Colombia, and it could then sell it to the
United States and get the $40,000,000, or any other amount it could
persuade the United States to pay.
Of course, the New Panama Canal Company did not look upon such an
arrangement with any degree of complacency. It felt that it was a deliberate
scheme upon the part of the Colombian Government to mulct it out of its
property and its rights. As a result it was naturally ready to lend aid and
encouragement to any movement which would circumvent this purpose of
Colombia. It found conditions in Panama just what it might have wished.
The people of Panama felt that they had the same sort of grievance against
Colombia that the people of the American colonies felt they had against
England in 1776. The governors of the province were, with few exceptions,
sent there from Bogota, and were entirely out of sympathy with the people
of Panama. The taxes collected at Panama were carried to Bogota, as a rule,
and the voice that the people of the Isthmus had in the Government of

Colombia was negligible. Furthermore, they felt that they were entitled to
their sovereignty.
After the countries of tropical America had thrown off the yoke of Spain,
Panama found itself too small to stand alone, and accepted an invitation
from Bogota to put itself under the Government there with the
understanding that it was to retain its sovereignty. It soon found that this
agreement was not respected at Bogota. Almost immediately there were
attempted revolts and, in 1840, the Isthmus again won complete
independence. The Confederation of New Granada promised that the people
of the Isthmus should have better treatment, and it was set forth in the
constitution of New Granada that Panama was a sovereign state, and that it
had full right to withdraw and set up an independent government at any
time. In 1885 a new constitution was proclaimed by Colombia, which had
succeeded New Granada, and this constitution deprived Panama of all its
rights as a sovereign state, and made it a province under the control of the
Federal Government at Bogota. Upon these grounds Panama claimed that
she was a sovereign state temporarily under the duress of a superior
government. After the defeat of the Hay-Herran treaty the inhabitants of
Panama knew that if the treaty failed and no other steps were taken, the
Nicaraguan route would be followed and Panama would become almost a
forgotten region instead of a land of great opportunity.
The consequence was that the Panamans lent willing ears to the suggestion
of the representatives of the New Panama Canal Company that they should
undertake a revolution to be financed by the canal company. Two
representatives of the New Panama Canal Company working along
independent lines were trying to bring about the revolution. One of these
was Philippe Bunau-Varilla, formerly chief engineer of the Old Panama
Canal Company, but who had become estranged from the New Panama
Canal Company. The other was William Nelson Cromwell, for years
general counsel of the Panama Railroad Company, and who, in his suit
against the New Panama Canal Company for an $800,000 fee, claimed to
have engineered and directed the revolution. M. Bunau-Varilla had some
stock in the canal company and a great deal of pride in seeing realized the
undertaking to which he had committed the best years of his life.

Coming to New York on another mission, he met Dr. Amador, who was one
of the Panamans desiring the independence of his country. According to the
testimony of M. Bunau-Varilla, which is borne out by documentary
evidence, he and Dr. Amador worked out the plan for the revolution. He
declares that the documents were drawn in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and as
far as they were written in Spanish, they were copied letter by letter by an
English stenographer who knew no Spanish, in order that there might be no
possibility of the secret leaking out. He declares that the whole project of
the revolution as it was carried out was conceived by him in cooperation
with Dr. Amador, and that William Nelson Cromwell, the other factor in the
situation, knew nothing about what was going on. He also asserts that
William Nelson Cromwell had promised to introduce Dr. Amador to
Secretary of State John Hay, but that later Dr. Herran, the representative of
Colombia, found out what was going on and wrote a letter of warning to
Mr. Cromwell as to the consequences which would come to the Panama
Railroad, of which Mr. Cromwell was the representative, if that
organization should give aid or comfort to the projected Panama revolution.
Thereupon, according to M. Bunau-Varilla, Mr. Cromwell turned his back
upon Dr. Amador, although it has been claimed by some that this was only a
ruse on the part of Mr. Cromwell to shield himself and his company from
responsibility. About this time M. Bunau-Varilla borrowed $100,000 in
France to finance the revolution, pending the recognition of the new
Republic by the United States. Other money was forthcoming later.
The revolution itself, which took place in November, 1903, was bloodless.
The world knows that President Roosevelt forbade the Colombian troops to
move across the Isthmus, while at the same time he would not allow the
revolutionists to make any move. A similar situation had arisen in a former
revolution in 1902. At that time the Colombian troops were disarmed, and
three days later insurgent troops were prevented by United States marines
from using the railroad and were actually compelled to leave a train which
they had seized and entered. The principle was enunciated and maintained
that no troops under arms should be transported on the railroad, no matter to
which party they belonged. That was because to permit such transportation
would be to make the railroad an adjunct to the side using it, and to subject
it to attack by the other party. In this way, if the Colombian troops used it,
the insurgents would have attacked, and the United States would either have

been forced to permit such an attack, which might suspend traffic on the
transit, or to prevent it with force, which would make this country an ally of
Colombia against the insurgents. On the other hand, if the insurgents were
permitted to use the railroad, Colombia would attack it, and in that case the
United States would have to help repel the attack and thus would become
the ally of the insurgents. It was, therefore, held that the only way to make
the road absolutely neutral was to allow neither party to use it.
This was the doctrine under which President Roosevelt proceeded in 1903.
Of course, the world knows that this was tantamount to preventing
Colombia from reconquering the Isthmus, if that were possible. It is
claimed by some that if President Roosevelt had allowed the insurgents to
use the railroad in 1902, Colombia would have been defeated in that
revolution.
At the time of the revolution it is said that the Colombian garrison which
espoused the cause of the Panamans was bribed to do so; that their
commander two days afterwards was paid $12,500 for his services, and that
he is to this day drawing a pension of $2,400 a year. It is also charged that
some of the troops who could not be bribed were sent into the interior to
repel an imaginary invasion from Nicaragua. It is asserted that when the
governor of the State of Panama telegraphed the Colombian Government
that Nicaragua was invading Panama, the Bogota authorities sent additional
troops to the Isthmus to help fight Nicaragua, and that this accounted for the
arrival of the gunboats from Cartagena on the eve of the revolution.
At the time of the coup d'etat, the United States was living under a treaty
made with Colombia in 1846, guaranteeing the sovereignty of that country
over the Isthmus in return for the recognition of the rights of the United
States, under the Monroe doctrine, in connection with the building of a
canal. Under this treaty it was mutually agreed that the United States should
keep the Isthmian transit free and open at all times. It was contended by
President Roosevelt that he was only carrying out this provision when he
refused to allow the revolutionists and the Federal troops to fight along the
line of the Panama Railroad, although this was almost the only ground on
the Isthmus on which military operations could be prosecuted. He admitted
the justice of the contention of the Colombian Government that the United
States undertook to guarantee the sovereignty of Colombia over the Isthmus

so far as any alien power was concerned, but denied that it was ever
intended that the United States should be called upon to guarantee it against
the people of the Isthmus themselves.
Once the revolution was started three courses were left open to the United
States: One was to force the Panamans back under Colombian rule; the
second was to let the two sides fight to a finish; the third was to recognize
the independence of the Republic of Panama and forbid Colombia to land
troops on the Isthmus. President Roosevelt took the last course. A breezy
Western congressman remarked in defense of that course: "When that jack
rabbit jumped I am glad we didn't have a bowlegged man for President!"
The result of the revolution, and the recognition of the independence of the
Republic of Panama, was that Colombia, which had tried to grasp
everything and to get possession of the assets of the New Panama Canal
Company, now found itself without anything.
Colombia ever since has contended that the United States was under a
solemn obligation to protect the Colombian sovereignty over the Isthmus—
an obligation that has been assumed in return for valuable considerations—
and that it had been despoiled of the Isthmus of Panama under the very
treaty that had guaranteed its permanent control of that Isthmus. It further
asserted that President Roosevelt had been a party to the revolution for the
purpose of circumventing the stand of the Republic of Colombia. It made a
long plea against the action of the United States and urged that in the event
the two countries could not come to any agreement, the pending questions
should be submitted to The Hague for adjudication. Secretary Hay at one
time proposed that a popular election should be held on the Isthmus to
determine whether the people there preferred allegiance to the Republic of
Panama or to the Republic of Colombia, but Colombia would not agree to
that. Secretary Hay rejected the plea of Colombia for arbitration, upon the
ground that the questions that Colombia proposed to submit affected the
honor of the United States and that these matters were not arbitrable.

EDWARD J. WILLIAMS
THE PAY CAR AT CULEBRA

UNCLE SAM'S LAUNDRY AT CRISTOBAL
After Elihu Root became Secretary of State, he declared that the real
gravamen of the Colombian complaint was the espousal of the cause of
Panama by the people of the United States. He said that no arbitration could

deal with the real rights and wrongs of the parties concerned, unless it were
to pass upon the question of whether the cause thus espoused was just—
whether the people of Panama were exercising their just rights in
maintaining their right of independence of Colombian rule. "We assert and
maintain the affirmative upon that question," he declared. "We assert that
the ancient State of Panama was independent in its origin, and by nature
and history a separate political community; that it was federated with the
other States of Colombia upon terms that preserved and continued its
sovereignty, and that it never surrendered that sovereignty and was
subjugated by force in 1885." Mr. Root further asserted that the United
States was not "willing to permit any arbitrator to determine the political
policy of the United States in following its sense of right and justice by
espousing the cause of the Government of Panama against the Government
of Colombia."
When Mr. Taft became President it was his desire to adjust our controversy
with Colombia. His Secretary of State, Philander C. Knox, just before
leaving office, declared that he had spared no efforts in seeking to restore
American-Colombian relations to a footing of complete friendly feeling, but
that these efforts had been rebuffed by the Colombian Government. He
declared that it was undeniable that Colombia had suffered by its failure to
reap a share of the benefits of the canal, and that the Government of the
United States was entirely willing to take this consideration into account,
and endeavor to accommodate the conflicting interests of the three parties
by making a just compensation in money. In pursuance of this idea three
treaties were negotiated: One between the United States and the Republic of
Columbia, one between the United States and the Republic of Panama, and
one between the governments of Columbia and Panama, all three being
interdependent, to stand or to fall together. These treaties were negotiated at
the instance of Columbia and were framed with every desire to
accommodate their terms to the just expectations of that country. They were
accepted by the Columbian Cabinet but were not acted upon by the
Columbian Congress.
In the Knox treaty negotiated with Columbia in 1910 that country proposed
to agree to a popular election upon the separation of Panama and to abide
by the result. The United States offered to sign an additional agreement to
pay to Columbia $10,000,000 for a permanent option for the construction of

an interoceanic canal through Columbian territory, and for the perpetual
lease of the Islands of St. Andrews and Old Providence, if Columbia would
ratify the treaties with the United States and Panama. This proposition was
refused. It was then proposed that in addition to the $10,000,000 the Unites
States would be willing to conclude with Columbia a convention submitting
to arbitration the question of the ownership of the reversionary rights in the
Panama Railroad—rights which the Columbian Government asserts that it
possesses. In addition to this the United States offered its good offices to
secure the settlement of the Panama-Columbian boundary dispute.
All of these propositions being rejected, the Republic of Colombia was
asked if it would be willing to accept $10,000,000 outright, in satisfaction
of its claims against the United States. This was also refused.
Acting upon his own authority, the American minister then inquired if
Colombia would accept $25,000,000, the good offices of the United States
in its boundary controversy with Panama, the arbitration of the question of
the reversionary rights in the Panama Railroad, and the gift of preferential
rights in the use of the canal—all these in satisfaction of its claims. The
Colombian Government replied that it would not do this and that it did not
care to negotiate any further with the Taft administration, preferring to deal
with the incoming Wilson administration.

CHAPTER XX
RELATIONS WITH PANAMA

When the people of the Isthmus of Panama revolted against the
Government of Colombia, they fully realized that almost their only hope of
maintaining an independent government was to secure the building of the
Panama Canal by the United States. Therefore, they were in a mood to
ratify a treaty which would meet every condition demanded by the
Government of the United States.
The treaty, negotiated and ratified in 1904, gave to the United States every
right it could have desired or which it could have possessed had it taken
over the whole Isthmus itself. It was negotiated by John Hay, Secretary of
State, representing the United States, and Philippe Bunau-Varilla,
representing the Government of Panama. As the latter was a stockholder in
the New French Canal Company, whose assets could be realized upon only
through the success of the treaty negotiations, it naturally followed that he
would put nothing in the way of the desires of the United States.
The treaty gave to the United States most unusual rights. For instance, in no
other country on earth does one nation possess ultimate jurisdiction over the
capital of another nation; yet this is what the United States possesses at
Panama. The first consideration of the treaty was the establishment of the
Canal Zone. This gave to the United States a territory 5 miles beyond the
center line of the canal on either side, and 3 miles beyond its deep water
ends, with the exception of the cities of Colon and Panama, to hold in
perpetuity with all rights, powers, and authority that the United States
would possess if it were sovereign, and to the entire exclusion of the
exercise of any sovereign rights, powers, or authority by the Republic of
Panama.
Further than this, it gave to the United States the same rights with respect to
any land, or land under water, outside of the Canal Zone necessary and

convenient for the canal itself, or any auxiliary canals or other works
required in its operations.
Further yet, the Republic granted in perpetuity a canal monopoly
throughout its entire territory, and also monopolies of railroad and other
means of communication between the two oceans.
Under the terms of the treaty the cities of Panama and Colon are required to
comply in perpetuity with all sanitary ordinances, whether curative or
preventive, which the United States may promulgate. The Republic of
Panama also agrees that if it can not enforce these ordinances, the United
States become vested with the power to enforce them. The same is true with
reference to the maintenance of order. The Republic of Panama agrees to
maintain order, but gives to the United States not only the right to step in
with American forces and restore it, but also to determine when such action
is necessary.
The treaty between the two countries further provides that the United States
has the right to acquire by condemnation any property it may need for canal
purposes in the cities of Panama and Colon. The Republic of Panama also
grants to the United States all rights it has or may acquire to the property of
the New Panama Canal Company and of the Panama Railroad, except such
lands as lie outside of the Canal Zone and the cities of Panama and Colon,
not needed for the purposes of building the canal. The Republic guarantees
to the United States every title as absolute and free from any present or
reversionary interest or claim. It will be seen from all this that the United
States did not overlook any opportunity to make sure that it had all of the
powers necessary to build a canal.
It is also agreed by the Panama Government that no dues of any kind ever
shall be collected by it from vessels passing through or using the canal, or
from vessels belonging to the United States Government. All employees of
the canal are exempted from taxation, whether living inside or outside the
Zone. The Republic grants to the United States the use of all its rivers,
streams, lakes, and other bodies of water for purposes of navigation, water
supply, and other needs of the canal. It also agrees to sell or lease to the
United States any of its lands on either coast for use for naval bases or
coaling stations.

The Republic of Panama further agrees that the United States shall have the
right to import commodities for the use of the Canal Commission and its
employees, free of charge, and that it shall have the right to bring laborers
of any nationality into the Canal Zone.
In return for all of these concessions the United States gives to the Republic
of Panama many valuable considerations. Most vital of all, it guarantees the
independence of the Republic. This means that the Republic of Panama is
today practically the possessor of an army and a navy as large as the United
States can put into the field and upon the seas. The only aggressor that
Panama need fear is her benefactor.
The second consideration involved the payment of $10,000,000 cash to the
Republic, and a perpetual annual payment of a quarter of a million dollars
beginning with the year 1913. The ten-million-dollar cash payment gave the
impoverished new-born government a chance to get on its feet, and from
this time forward the Panaman Government can look to the United States
for the major portion of its necessary revenues.
Under the terms of the treaty the United States undertakes to give free
passage to any warships belonging to the Republic of Panama when going
through the canal, and also agrees that the canal shall be neutral. It also
agrees to provide free transportation over the Panama Railroad for persons
in the service of the Government of Panama, and for the munitions of war
of the Republic. It also allows the Republic of Panama to transmit over its
telegraph and telephone lines its message at rates not higher than those
charged United States officials for their private messages.
Another stipulation of the treaty provides that it shall not invalidate the
titles and rights of private landholders and owners of private property, nor
of the right of way over public roads of the Zone unless they conflict with
the rights of the United States, when the latter shall be regarded as superior.
No part of the work of building or operating the canal, however, at any time
may be impeded by any claims, whether public or private. A commission is
provided, whose duty it shall be to pass upon the claims of those whose
land or properties are taken from them for the purpose of the construction or
operation of the canal.

In carrying out the terms of the treaty the first step taken by the Americans
was to "clean up" the cities of Panama and Colon. Remarkable changes
were wrought by the establishment of water and sewerage systems, and by
street improvements. For several years preceding the acquisition of the
Canal Zone, and the sanitization of the cities of Panama and Colon, the late
W. L. Buchanan was the United States minister to Colombia. He was
transferred to another South American capital and afterwards came back to
the United States by way of Panama. Former Senator J. C. S. Blackburn
was then governor of the Canal Zone or, more strictly speaking, the head of
the Department of Civil Administration. As he and Minister Buchanan
drove through the streets of Panama and surveyed the changes that had
taken place, Mr. Buchanan declared to Governor Blackburn that if an angel
from heaven had appeared to him and said that such a transformation in the
city of Panama could be made in so few years he scarcely could have
believed it.
When he was there the main streets of the city were nothing but unbroken
chains of mud puddles in which, during the wet season, carriages sank
almost to the axles. When he returned he found those same streets well
paved with vitrified brick, measuring up to the best standards of American
street work. Where formerly peddlers hawked water from disease-scattering
springs, there were hydrants throughout the town and wholesome water on
tap in almost every house. Where there had been absolutely no attempt to
solve the problems of sewage disposal, where the masses of people lived
amid indescribable filth, absolutely oblivious to its stenches and its dangers,
now there was a sewerage system fully up to the best standard of American
municipal engineering.
When one considers that the Republic of Panama is made up largely of the
cities of Panama and Colon, with a large area of almost wholly undeveloped
territory, it will be seen that this service was rendered to practically all the
people of the Republic.
The relations which have existed between the Republic of Panama and the
United States have not always proved wholly satisfactory to the Panamans.
Like all other tropical Americans, the Panamans profess great admiration
for a republican form of government, but the party in power seldom has
relished the idea of a full and free accounting of its stewardship at the polls.

When the time came for the first national election, the party in power
sought to insure its return by the use of tropical-American methods; that is,
by a wholesale intimidation of the opposition supporters. When the
registration books were opened the administration was unwilling to register
the supporters of the opposition. The government forces always were relied
upon to back up the registrars. This situation was resented by the opposition
and the indications were that the usual civil war, the tropical American
substitute for an election, was about to follow.
At this juncture Governor Blackburn called the Panaman authorities
together and notified them that the United States did not care a continental
which side won the election, but that it was very deeply interested in
maintaining conditions of peace and amity on the Isthmus—conditions
which could not prevail except there be a fair election. He reminded them
of the right of the United States to maintain order in their two principal
cities, and of the blood and treasure the United States had invested in
Panama, all of which would be placed in jeopardy by any civil conflict. He
therefore declared it the intention of the United States to see that there was
a fair election.
Election commissioners were consequently appointed, and they saw to it
that the voters were fairly registered, allowed to vote, and to have their
votes counted. The result was that for the first time in Central American
history there was a fair election and for the first time a real change of
administration without a resort to arms. So successful was this plan that in
the election of 1912 both sides agreed again to call in the United States to
umpire their battle of the ballots, and once again the "outs" won over the
"ins."
The French Canal Company has some very unpleasant experiences with the
Republic of Colombia when it, as a private corporation, undertook to build
the canal. It was at the mercy of the Government and the Government
seldom showed mercy. For instance, a Colombian owned 30 acres of
swamp land which was needed for the construction of the canal. It was
worth $10 an acre; he demanded $10,000. The canal company took the
matter to the courts of the Republic and instituted condemnation
proceedings. Here the owner admitted that the land was not intrinsically
worth more than $10 an acre, but claimed that he had as much right to

demand $300,000 for the tract as if it were located in the very heart of
Paris; that in every case it was what the land could be used for that
determined its value. The court shared his view and nothing was left for the
canal company to do but to pay the $300,000.
Shortly after the Americans took charge, the Central and South American
Telegraph Company wanted to land the new "all American" cable on the
Canal Zone. They applied to the United States for permission which was
granted. The Panamans fought against it under every possible pretext, their
desire being to have their consent regarded as essential, so that they could
get a good fee for the concession, but the United States notified the
Republic of Panama that it had no interest whatever in requiring
compensation, and so the cable was laid.
While there has been substantial agreement between the two countries, it
has been difficult to prevent some conditions which are contrary to
American ideas of morality. For instance, while the Canal Commission was
strongly opposed to having a lottery on the Canal Zone, one is maintained
just across the line in the city of Panama. The Panama lottery and the
Bishop of Panama share the same house. One has to pass the lottery to see
the bishop and, mayhap, a half dozen old women ticket sellers will try to
intercept him before he reaches the church dignitary.
This lottery is a veritable gold mine to those who own it. Each ordinary
drawing brings in $10,000—$1 for each ticket issued. The grand prize takes
$3,000 of this, the next 9 prizes calling for a total of $900, the next 90 for a
total of $450 and the remaining prizes for $2,070. Thus, $6,420 in prizes is
paid out of the total of $10,000 received. Out of the remainder, 5 per cent
goes to the ticket sellers and 5 per cent to the Panaman Government. Once a
month the drawing is made for a grand prize of $7,500. Most of the money
which the lottery people make is contributed by workers on the canal. Only
64 per cent of the money received from the sale of tickets is won back by
the ticket buyer at each drawing. The net profits approximate a hundred
thousand dollars a year.
On the whole, however, the relations entered into between the two
Republics in 1904 have been such as to leave no serious ground for
complaint. They have permitted the satisfactory construction of the canal,

and they will permit its satisfactory operation. With the United States as the
ultimate judge of every question vital to American interests, little is left to
be desired. The fact is that the canal has been built with less friction and
fewer difficulties with the Republic of Panama than could reasonably have
been hoped for at the outset. This has been due principally to the fact that
the Americans responsible for the success of the work have approached the
Panaman situation with tact where tact was needed and with firmness where
firmness was essential.

CHAPTER XXI
THE CANAL ZONE GOVERNMENT

The Canal Zone is a strip of territory ten miles wide, its irregular lines
following the course of the canal, which is its axis. Over this zone the
United States, under its treaty with Panama, exercises jurisdiction "as if it
were sovereign." The American Government was unwilling to undertake the
great and expensive work of constructing the canal without having this
guaranty to protect it from possible harassment at the hands of the Panaman
authorities.
One of the first tasks that confronted the United States authorities when
they entered upon the work of building the canal was that of providing a
civil government for this territory named by law the Canal Zone. Postal
facilities had to be provided; a police system had to be established; customs
offices were required; fire protection was necessary; a court system was
needed; a school system was demanded; and, in short, a sort of territorial
government had to be put in operation before the work of building the canal
could go forward satisfactorily.
This government was established in 1904 under the direction of Major
General George W. Davis, the first governor of the Canal Zone. From time
to time it was extended and improved. More than half of this was
appropriated out of the Treasury of the United States, and the remainder
collected in the operations of the government. In addition to directing the
government of the Zone, the head of the department of civil administration
was the titular representative of the Canal Commission in all matters in
which the commission and the Republic of Panama had a mutual interest.
However, in practice, the Panaman Government looked directly to the
chairman and chief engineer on all important matters.
One of the earliest and most important subjects requiring their cooperation
was that of sanitation in the cities of Panama and Colon. The United States
agreed to advance money for building sewer and water systems, and for

street improvements, in the two principal cities of the Republic, on
condition that the Republic of Panama and the two cities would reimburse
the United States Treasury through the water rents. The street improvements
were to be paid for in 10 years, and the sewer and water systems in 50
years; in the meantime the United States was to be allowed 2 per cent
interest on the money advanced. This amortization of the Republic's debt
for these improvements has been going steadily forward.
In laying out the government of the Canal Zone it was thought wise to
adhere as closely to Spanish laws and customs as was expedient under the
new conditions. In view of this consideration the methods of taxation on the
Canal Zone were allowed to remain largely the same as under the old
Spanish laws of Colombia. Likewise the Spanish system of judicial
procedure was adhered to during the early years of the construction period.
It was not, indeed, until 1908 that the right of trial by jury was established
in the Canal Zone. At that time former Senator J. C. S. Blackburn, of
Kentucky, was at the head of the department of civil administration, and he
regarded it as repugnant to American ideas of justice to deny to Americans
on the Isthmus the right to be tried for felonious offenses by juries of their
peers. Upon his representations President Roosevelt issued an executive
order extending the right of trial by jury to the Canal Zone, and that order
was effective after 1908.
With the early opening of the canal it became advisable for Congress to
determine the future policy of the United States toward the Canal Zone, and
to lay out a system of government there which would meet the needs of the
future. It was determined that the Canal Zone should be used for the
operation of the canal, rather than for a habitation for such settlers as might
choose to go there. Hence the provision was made that the President of the
United States should have the right to determine how many settlements
there should be on the Canal Zone and how many people should be
permitted to live there.
It will be the policy of the United States to discourage general settlement
and to maintain only such towns as are necessary for the operation of the
big waterway, granting only revocable leases to any outsiders when it is
deemed advisable to allow them to occupy land within the Zone. There will
be only five settlements in the Zone, if present plans are carried out: One at

Cristobal, one at Gatun, one at Pedro Miguel, one at Corozal, and the
settlement at Ancon and Balboa at the Pacific terminus of the canal. The
total number of people who will reside in these settlements will probably
not exceed 10,000, a material reduction from the 62,000 living on the Zone
in 1912. Those who are still there, but who will not be needed in the
permanent organization, will be repatriated at the expense of the United
States Government. In 1912 there were approximately 31,000 British
subjects on the Zone, practically all of them negroes from the British West
Indian islands and British Guiana. The great majority of these will be
carried back to their homes, as will all of the 4,300 Spaniards who desire to
return. There were nearly 12,000 Americans on the Zone at that time, and
perhaps two-thirds of them will leave before 1915. There were nearly 8,000
Panamans on the Zone and most of them will go to the cities of Panama and
Colon, or upon the Government lands owned by the Panama Republic
outside of the Zone.
The work of clearing the Zone of its population was begun early in 1913. A
joint land commission was appointed to adjudicate the claims of those
Panamans who were living within the Zone on lands that were needed for
the operation of the canal. This commission consisted, under the treaty
existing between the two countries, of two Americans and two Panamans.
In their work they first took up the claims of the poorer classes who had
nothing but a thatched hut and a small patch of ground. The commission
visited the various parts of the Zone and fixed the value of such holdings.
The people were given free transportation over the Panama Railroad, and
usually were allowed from $50 to $100 for their homes. They preferred to
move in colonies, so the Republic of Panama laid out small towns away
from the Canal Zone for them. These natives, usually almost full-blooded
Indians, were treated as kindly and as considerately as conditions would
allow. They were willing to "fold their tents" like the Arabs, and leave their
homes behind as they went out to conquer new ones in the jungles where
the needs of a gigantic waterway could not encroach upon them.
The claims for lands which have to be taken from individuals by the United
States will aggregate a half million dollars. As the Panaman Government
allows homesteading on Government lands at a cost of about a dollar an
acre, and as there are tens of thousands of acres of better land outside of the

Canal Zone than inside, the policy of the United States in freeing this strip
from native population will not work any great injury to the people.
During the construction period the laws under which the people of the Zone
lived were made in three different ways. Of course, Congress as the
legislative assembly was always supreme. But under the laws passed by it,
the President of the United States was empowered to issue executive orders
covering points not touched by congressional legislation, and under his
instructions the Secretary of War could promulgate certain orders. In
addition to this, the Canal Commission had a right to serve as a sort of local
legislature. During the year 1912 sixteen executive orders pertaining to the
Canal Zone were signed by the President and the Secretary of War, while
five ordinances were promulgated by the Isthmian Canal Commission
during the same period.
The court system under the construction-period government consisted of
district courts, circuit courts, and a supreme court. There were five district
judges and three circuit judges; and the circuit judges sitting together
constituted the supreme court, from whose decisions there was no appeal.
Under the permanent law there will be a magistrate's court in each town,
which will have exclusive, original jurisdiction in all civil cases involving
not more than $300, and of all criminal cases where the punishment does
not exceed a fine of a hundred dollars or 30 days in jail, or both. Its
jurisdiction will include all violations of police regulations and ordinances,
and all actions involving possession or title to personal property or the
forcible entry and detainer of real estate. These magistrates and the
constables under them will serve for terms of four years. There will be a
district court which will sit at the two terminal towns with the usual court
officers. The circuit court of appeals of the fifth circuit of the United States
will be the court to which appeals from the district court will be carried.
The postal service of the Canal Zone is practically identical with that of the
United States. The revenues collected from the sale of stamps and postal
cards amounted to $87,550 in 1912. Nearly a quarter of a million money
orders were issued during that year, representing a total of approximately
$5,000,000. A postal savings bank system is also maintained, a counterpart
of the one in the United States.

All mail matter sent from the Canal Zone bears Panaman stamps
countermarked by the Canal Zone government. When the United States
established the postal system at Panama, American postage was used. The
Panamans were very much dissatisfied with such a procedure, however,
since it deprived them of a large share of their postal revenue. Their postal
rates to the United States were those of the universal postal union—5 cents
per ounce or fraction thereof on all first-class mail matter. The rate from the
Canal Zone Was only 2 cents. The result was that the citizens of Panama
and Colon would not patronize their own post offices, but carried their mail
across the line to the post offices at Ancon and Cristobal where they could
mail their letters at the 2-cent rate. The Panaman Government protested
against this, and it was agreed by the Americans that in the future all mail
matter should carry Panaman postage stamps. These are furnished to the
Canal Zone government at 40 per cent of their face value. In this way the
share of the Republic of Panama in the postal receipts of 1912 amounted to
nearly $33,000.
President Roosevelt selected one of his "rough riders," George R. Shanton,
to establish the police force on the Zone. This police force was selected
generally from men who had seen service in the United States Army and
had made good records there. In 1912 the force consisted of 117 first-class
white policemen, 116 colored policemen, 20 corporals, 8 sergeants, 7
lieutenants, and 2 inspectors, besides a chief of police and an assistant chief
of police. During that year 7,055 arrests were made, 70 per cent of which
resulted in convictions. Police stations were maintained at all settlements
along the line. A penitentiary was located at Culebra where approximately
140 convicts were confined. The penitentiary had to be removed owing to
slides at Culebra Cut, and the men were put to work on the roads of the
Canal Zone. They were kept in well-guarded stockades at night.
When Judge Henry A. Gudger was made a member of the judicial system of
the Canal Zone he believed that it would be the scene of unusual
lawlessness; he thought it would be a dumping ground for lawless people
from all parts of the world. He therefore believed in strong repressive
measures, and his earlier sentences were made heavy with that end in view.
He found later, however, that the opposite was true. Under the system of
quartering the canal help there was comparatively little mixing of the races.
The negroes lived to themselves, the Spaniards to themselves, and the

Americans to themselves; therefore, racial friction was largely overcome.
The lawless found the Canal Zone a desirable place to shun. Judge Gudger
soon discovered that severe measures were unnecessary, and in
recommending pardons frequently stated that he had imposed sentences
heavier than necessary to carry out the repressive policies he had in mind.
A well-organized, paid fire department was maintained from the beginning
and it was supplemented by volunteer companies in many places. In a
number of towns fire engines of the latest automobile type were installed.
Out of 300 fire alarms in 1912, nearly 200 were for fires in Government
property valued at one and three-quarters million dollars, while the total
loss was only $5,000.
The school system of the Canal Zone was laid out along the same lines that
characterized all other activities for the welfare of the people who were
engaged in building the canal. It was founded by Charles E. Magoon when
he was governor of the Zone, and in 1912 had 75 teachers and officials,
with an enrollment of 2,105, of whom nearly 1,200 were white. The
standard required of the teachers was maintained at a high point. Of the 48
white teachers employed in 1912, 13 held degrees from colleges and
universities, 19 held diplomas from standard normal schools, and 12 others
had enjoyed at least two years of normal teaching. The white children on
the Zone were given free transportation to and from the schools. Those who
had to go on the railroad to reach their schools were given free passes.
Those who attended the schools in their own neighborhood were gathered
up in wagons and transported to school.
The system of roads for the parts of the Canal Zone adjacent to the canal
itself was built mainly by convict labor at comparatively little cost. They
have been useful to the natives in getting their few products to market, and
during the years to come will be available as military roads for use in the
defense of the Zone. These roads are built according to the best American
standards and are almost the only real roads in the entire Republic. The
Panaman Government has extended one road from the Zone line to old
Panama, and for a few miles into the interior, but aside from this national
road activities have been few indeed.

The American road from Panama to the Zone boundary, leading toward old
Panama, over the savannahs, is the pleasure highway of the Republic. It is
practically the only road in the Republic where one drives for pleasure, and
here every automobile in Panama City is pressed into service during the late
afternoon and the evening. The elite of the capital city own summer homes
along this road. These homes are by no means as elaborate as the summer
homes along the Hudson, but the fact that they were seated amidst veritable
gardens of flowers gives them an air of beauty and restfulness attractive
even to the most blase traveler.
The water-supply system of the Canal Zone consists of a number of
reservoirs on the watersheds of the Isthmus where no human habitations are
allowed, and where trespassing is forbidden. The waters are examined for
bacteria and other properties once each month, and a report thereon is made
to the proper officials. Twice each month a physical examination of each
reservoir, and the land from which it receives its water, is made by
inspectors who report all conditions to the sanitary and other authorities. If
there is any sign of contamination, steps to overcome the trouble are taken
immediately.
Where the reservoirs fill up to the spillway the waste water is not allowed to
go over the top, but is drawn out from the bottom in order that the under
layers of water may be the ones wasted. Water drawn out for domestic
purposes is taken from the top wherever possible. The water has a
somewhat unpleasant taste to people newly arrived upon the Isthmus, and in
some cases serves to disturb the digestive tract, but to the people who
become accustomed to it the unpleasant flavor, due to the presence of
decayed vegetation, is forgotten, and the workers on the Canal Zone
frequently declare they miss the Panama water when they go back to the
States.
The permanent Government of the Canal Zone will be, in the main, merely
a miniature of the government during the construction period. The law
providing for the operation of the canal makes this Government entirely
subsidiary to the main purpose for which the canal was built. It provides
that when war is in prospect the President may appoint a military officer to
take charge of the Canal Zone, and to conduct its affairs as they might be
conducted were the Zone nothing more than a military reservation. The

Government will have its headquarters at the Pacific end of the canal where
Balboa, the principal permanent town on the Isthmus, will be located. This
little American city will be Government-built and Government-owned, and
it will be the smallest of all the world's capitals.

SMOKE FROM HEATED ROCKS IN CULEBRA CUT

TOM M. COOKE
THE POST OFFICE, ANCON

Under the new Government all old laws, not specifically repealed, or
contrary to the new ones, will be continued in force. All executive orders
issued by the President, and all orders and ordinances promulgated by the
Canal Commission, during the construction period, not inconsistent with the
act creating a permanent form of government, are made laws of the Canal
Zone to continue as such until specifically repealed by act of Congress.

CHAPTER XXII
CONGRESS AND THE CANAL

While the Congress of the United States ever has been charged with a lack
of appreciation of the needs of the executive branch of the Government,
spending money foolishly here and being niggardly with its appropriations
there, the history of the legislation under which the Panama Canal was
undertaken and completed shows that American lawmakers backed up the
canal diggers in every necessary way.
One may read in all the hearings that were conducted, both on the Isthmus
and in Washington, a desire on the part of the congressional committees
having to do with the canal matters, to promote the work, and to enable
those directly concerned in its execution to carry out their plans without
hindrance.
It is probable that no project ever carried to completion under the aegis of
the United States Government was studied more carefully by the legislators
than the Panama Canal. There was a standing invitation from the Isthmian
Canal Commission to members of the Senate and House of Representatives
to visit the Isthmus, collectively or individually, for the purpose of
acquainting themselves with the character of the work and its needs. This
invitation was accepted by a large percentage of the members of the House
and Senate who served during the construction period. When a member of
either branch of Congress visited the Isthmus and saw there the character of
the work being done, and the spirit of the men behind it, he never failed to
return an enthusiastic supporter of the work, ready by vote and voice to
contribute his share to the legislation needed.
When the final Isthmian Canal Commission came into power a policy of
absolute candor with Congress was adopted. When the annual estimates for
appropriations were submitted, they came to Congress with the
understanding that they represented exactly what was needed, no more and
no less. Instead of recommending from 10 to 25 per cent more than they

hoped to get, upon the assumption that Congress would scale down the
appropriations—a policy long followed in many of the bureaus of the
Government—the canal officials asked Congress to understand from the
beginning that the figures they submitted had been pared down to the bone.
The result was a happy one. Congress learned to depend upon the figures
and to make its appropriations accordingly; consequently, the work was
never handicapped by appropriations deficient in one branch and
overabundant in another.
Congress for several years made its appropriations for building the canal
under the assumption that it was to cost about $145,000,000, exclusive of
government, sanitation, purchase price, and payments to the Republic of
Panama. It was not until 1908 that a straightforward, definite effort was
made to fix the ultimate cost. Experience showed clearly that all hands had
hopelessly underestimated both the total amount of work to be done and the
unit cost of doing it.
After a year's experience of carrying forward the work at full swing, the
commission decided to face the situation frankly and attempt to ascertain
exactly what might be expected. This investigation disclosed the fact that
the estimates of the amount of work to be done were a little over 50 per cent
short. Under the experience of one year's work it was calculated that the
total cost of the canal would be $375,000,000, including sanitation,
government, and payments to the New Panama Canal Company and the
Republic of Panama, instead of $210,000,000, as these items would have
aggregated under the estimates made in 1906. This was about one and a half
times as much as the estimated cost of a sea-level canal. But, although
Congress had fixed the limit upon the basis of an aggregate cost of
$210,000,000, it cheerfully faced the restatement of the anticipated cost,
and finally set the limit at $375,000,000.
From that day forward the great effort at Panama was to live within this
limit, in spite of the extra work required. While Congress might have been
willing to increase this limit, in view of the fact that an additional
97,000,000 cubic yards of material had to be removed, it was not asked to
do so. The engineers desired above everything else to stay within their own
estimates, and they did the extra work with money saved by increasing the
efficiency of the force.

The first law providing for the government of the Canal Zone was enacted
in 1904. It gave to the President and those appointed by him the right to
govern the Zone and imposed the duty "of maintaining and protecting its
inhabitants in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion."
In 1907 an effort was made to reduce wages on the canal. The sundry civil
bill of that year carried a provision that wages on the Isthmus for skilled
and unskilled labor should not exceed more than 25 per cent the average
wage paid in the United States for similar labor. This proposition was urged
by Representative James A. Tawney, of Minnesota, then chairman of the
Appropriations Committee of the House. When it came to a vote the wages
fixed under Chief Engineers Wallace and Stevens were upheld by a vote of
101 to 10. Congress took the ground that the canal could be built only by
the most liberal treatment of the people who were building it.
At another time a provision was inserted in the appropriation law
establishing the 8-hour day law for American workers on the canal. A fight
was made by the American Federation of Labor and other organizations to
make it apply to the common laborer as well as to the Americans, but this
was unsuccessful. The 8-hour provision did not work well, since the
foremen and superintendents were permitted to stop work after 8 hours,
while the laborers under them had to work an hour longer. This was later
rectified by providing that the 8-hour law should not affect foremen and
superintendents in charge of alien labor; and thus was overcome the
difficulty of having an army of common laborers at work an hour or so each
day without superintendence or direction.
In 1906 it was provided by a joint resolution of the Senate and House that
the purchase of material and equipment for use in the construction of the
canal should be restricted to articles of American production and
manufacture, except in cases where the President should deem prices
extortionate or unreasonable. This provision undoubtedly increased by
many millions of dollars the cost of the machinery with which the canal
work was executed. While some dredges and other equipment were
purchased in Europe, foreign purchases were the exception rather than the
rule. When bids were submitted there were times when European prices of
dredges were placed at less than $700,000, while American prices for the
same dredges would amount to more than $1,000,000. When there were

such marked difference in bids the awards were made to the European
manufacturers.
Although the construction of the canal was authorized by the Spooner Act
in 1902, it was not until 1906 that Congress expressed its views in
legislation on the question of the type of canal that should be built. It was
then that it declared the canal should be of the general lock type proposed
by the minority of the board of consulting engineers, which was a complete
approval of the plans urged by President Roosevelt. In order to make certain
this decision as to the type of canal, a provision was incorporated in the
appropriation bill of that year, setting forth that no part of the sums therein
appropriated should be used for the construction of a sea-level canal.
Congress was always willing to aid the engineers in meeting unforeseen
contingencies by giving them unusual liberties in the application of moneys
appropriated. It was provided that as much as 10 per cent of any
appropriation might be used for any of the other purposes for which money
was appropriated, thus allowing the necessary leeway to insure a systematic
progress of the work throughout all its features. This provision many times
came to the rescue of the chief engineer, when he found that more money
was needed at one point and less at another than had been estimated 16 or
18 months before.
While President Roosevelt was in the White House Congress gave him
abundant authority over all phases of the task at Panama. He was
empowered to do almost anything he thought expedient for hastening the
work. For instance, in 1907 when he considered building the canal by
contract, Congress provided that nothing in the Spooner Act should prevent
him from entering into such contract or contracts as he might deem
expedient for the construction of the canal. This practically gave him full
authority over the limit of cost and the methods of building. He was thus the
sole judge of the character of the contracts that he might make. No
President in the history of the country ever was vested with fuller
jurisdiction and control over a great matter than was President Roosevelt in
this case. That he did not enter into such contract was due mainly to the
reports made to him by Col. George W. Goethals, who had just been
appointed chief engineer.

In 1908 the Secretary of War was authorized to purchase for the Panama
Railroad Company two steamships of American registry of not less than
9,000 gross tons each, the cost of which should not exceed $1,550,000, for
the transportation of supplies, equipment, and material, and of officers and
employees of the Canal Commission. These ships, when no longer required
for that service were to be transferred to the Secretary of the Navy for use
as colliers or other auxiliary naval vessels. These ships carried the bulk of
the cement used in building of the great locks, and more than paid for
themselves in the saving of transportation charges which would have been
levied by private carriers. In the appropriation act of 1909 Congress decided
that the carrying of marine or fire insurance was bad policy for the
Government, and provided that no such insurance should be carried by the
Panama Railroad Company, but that it should be reimbursed for any loss it
might sustain from the appropriations made by Congress for the building of
the canal.

A NEGRO GIRL A MARTINIQUE WOMAN SAN BLAS CHIEF AN INDIAN GIRL
AN ITALIAN A TIMEKEEPER A SPANIARD A NEGRO BOY
A FEW OF THE MANY TYPES ON THE ISTHMUS

COL. HARRY F. HODGES
TESTING THE EMERGENCY DAM, GATUN LOCKS
There were a number of committees in Congress which dealt with canal
legislation. Principal among these were the Committees on Appropriations
of the two Houses, the Committee on Interoceanic Canals of the Senate, and
the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the House. The
Appropriations Committees dealt with the question of appropriations. The
House Appropriations Committee usually made a trip to the Isthmus before
each session of Congress. There it would hold hearings, questioning closely
every person connected with the work who had made estimates for its
benefit, its members seeing with their own eyes the projects for which each
individual appropriation was asked. The practice was, during these visits, to
go over a part of the work and then to hold sessions of the committee for
the purpose of asking questions about that phase of the undertaking. The
testimony was taken down by an official stenographer and printed for the
use of every Member of Congress. A few months later the chairman and
chief engineer would make a trip to Washington and furnish the committee
with such supplementary information as the intervening time might have
disclosed.

The Senate Committee did not visit the Isthmus as frequently, as it usually
found that the hearings held by the House Committee afforded it sufficient
information on which to predicate its action. All matters having to do with
organization traffic, or general laws for the Canal Zone, were handled by
the Committee on Interoceanic Canals of the Senate and the Committee on
Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the House. It was the latter committee,
under the chairmanship of Representative William C. Adamson, of Georgia,
which framed the permanent Canal Law, under which the Isthmian
waterway will be governed and operated. The big fight in Congress over the
type of canal was waged before the Senate Committee on Interoceanic
Canals. The records of this committee, together with the additional records
in the hands of Congress, constitute one of the most extensive accounts of a
great work anywhere to be found. The official literature of the Panama
Canal is almost as voluminous as the canal is big.
Although Congress usually left the details of canal construction to be
worked out by the Canal Commission and the President, from start to finish
it showed a determination so to deal with the big project that it could look
back over the work with the feeling that it had contributed its share to the
triumph of the undertaking.

CHAPTER XXIII
SEA-LEVEL CANAL IMPOSSIBLE

No one can dispute the wisdom of the United States in deciding to build a
lock canal. To have undertaken a sea-level canal would have involved this
Government in difficulties so great that even with all the wealth and
determination of America, failure would have ensued. It is, perhaps, putting
it too strongly to say that a sea-level canal is a physical impossibility, but it
is not too much to say that such a canal would take so much money and so
much time to build that the resources and patience of the American people
would be exhausted long before it could be made navigable.
The advocates of a sea-level canal declared that a channel could be dug
through Culebra Mountain with the excavation of 110,000,000 cubic yards.
As a matter of fact, Culebra Cut, with its bottom 85 feet above sea level,
required the excavation of almost that same amount.
Engineers who advocated a sea-level canal declared that the material in
Culebra Mountain was stable, and that only moderate slopes would be
necessary. As a matter of fact, the material in the mountain proved highly
unstable, and, except for a few short sections, slides and breaks were
encountered all during the construction period. The result was that
practically two Culebra Cuts were dug. The engineers, in beginning the
present canal, calculated that 53,000,000 cubic yards would be excavated in
Culebra; the amount actually removed was 105,000,000 cubic yards. Upon
this basis a sea-level Culebra Cut might have required the excavation of
230,000,000 cubic yards.
Calculating an average monthly excavation of a million cubic yards, the
task would have required 17 years to complete. In other words, if a sea-
level canal had been undertaken and had been physically possible, the
celebration of the opening of the waterway would have been set for 1925
instead of 1915.

Among all of the members of the majority of the board of consulting
engineers who favored a sea-level canal, only one, E. Quellenec, Consulting
Engineer of the Suez Canal, showed any appreciation of the difficulties
which were to be expected in Culebra Cut. He announced, in voting in favor
of a sea-level canal, that he could not do so without first reminding the
United States Government of the great difficulties that would lie before it in
Culebra Cut. Henry Hunter, Engineer of the Manchester Ship Canal,
declared that Culebra Cut presented no serious problems at all; that a sea-
level cut could be dug more quickly than the locks of the other type of canal
could be built. He further declared that it was as clearly demonstrable as
any engineering problem could be, that it would be possible to use 100
steam shovels in Culebra Cut. No one has accused the engineers on the
canal of lack of ability in maneuvering shovels, yet at no time were they
able to use more than 46.
If President Roosevelt had followed the recommendation of the majority of
the board of consulting engineers in favor of a sea-level canal, it seems
probable that the United States would have followed the French in retiring
defeated from the Isthmus, or else would have reconsidered its purpose to
build a sea-level canal and have undertaken a lock canal, as the French had
done.
But, even if it had been possible to build a sea-level canal at Panama, it
appears that such a canal would not have been as satisfactory as the present
one. While the canal the United States possesses at Panama to-day is a great
waterway 300 feet wide at its narrowest part, in which ships can pass at any
point, the sea-level canal projected would have been a narrow channel
winding in and out among the hills, too narrow for half its length for the
largest ships to pass. Currents, caused by the Chagres River, and by the
flow of other streams into the canal, would have made navigation somewhat
dangerous.
The principal ground upon which the majority members of the board of
consulting engineers voted in favor of a sea-level canal was that it was less
vulnerable. This contention, in the light of what has happened at Panama,
seems to carry no great weight. Such a canal would have required a
masonry dam 180 feet high across the Chagres at Gamboa, to regulate the
flow of that river into the canal. This dam, very narrow and very high,

would have been a much fairer mark than the great Gatun Dam for the
wielder of high explosives. Furthermore, while earth dams, like that at
Gatun, have weathered earthquake shocks of great severity, masonry dams,
like that proposed for Gamboa, have been tumbled to the earth by shocks of
much less power. The regulating works at Gatun will take care of a volume
of water approximately twice as great as the Chagres has ever brought
down. On the other hand, the proposed dam at Gamboa would have cared
for only one-third as great a discharge as the highest known flow of the
Chagres.
It was calculated that the lake made by the dam at Gamboa would always
be held at low stage between floods, but if two floods came in quick
succession this might have been impossible. Such a situation would have
made the Chagres River always a menace to the canal, instead of its most
essential and beneficent feature.
Those who objected to the lock type, on the ground that the locks could be
destroyed, seemed to forget that even the sea-level project demanded a set
of locks to regulate the tides of the Pacific. While, contrary to the usual
idea, there is no difference in the mean level of the Atlantic and the Pacific
Oceans, the difference in the tides at Panama is about 18 feet. This is due to
the shape of the Bay of Panama. As the tide sweeps over the Pacific and
into that bay, it meets a funnel-shaped shore line, which gradually contracts
as the tide travels landward. The result is that the tide rises higher and
higher until it reaches a maximum of 10 feet above average sea level. When
it flows out it reaches a point 10 feet below average sea level, thus giving a
tidal fluctuation of 20 feet. On the Atlantic side the tidal fluctuation is only
2 feet.
Under these conditions the canal could not be operated during many hours
of the 24 without the tidal locks, if at all, and it would be almost as great a
hindrance to have the tidal locks destroyed as to have the present locks
injured. Another perpetual menace in a canal with a bottom width of only
150 feet for half of its distance, would be the danger of a ship sinking and
blocking the channel. When the Cheatham sank in the Suez Canal it wholly
blocked the waterway for nine days, and partially blocked it for a month.

According to the Isthmian Canal Commission, the present canal affords
greater safety for ships and less danger of interruption to traffic by reason of
its wider and deeper channels; it provides for quicker passage across the
Isthmus for large ships and for heavy traffic; it is in much less danger of
being damaged, and of delays to ships because of the flood waters of the
Chagres; it can be enlarged more easily and much more cheaply than could
a sea-level canal. The lock canal has a minimum depth of 41 feet, and less
than 5 miles of it has a width as narrow as 300 feet. It can take care of
80,000,000 tons of shipping a year, and, by the expenditure of less than
$25,000,000 additional, can increase this capacity by at least a third. It can
pass at least 48 ships a day, doing all that a sea-level canal could do, and
many things that a sea-level canal could not do.
No one denies that if it were possible to have a great Isthmian waterway at
sea level as wide as the present lock canal, it would be the ideal
interoceanic waterway. But, as such a proposition is out of the question, the
American people have at least one thing for which to thank Theodore
Roosevelt—that at a critical time in the history of the canal project he
allowed himself to be converted from the advocacy of a sea-level canal to
the championship of a lock-level canal, in the face of a majority report of
one of the strongest boards of engineers ever assembled, and prevented a
situation at Panama that would have been humiliating to America, and
which probably would have ended for all time the efforts of centuries to let
ships through the American Isthmus.

CHAPTER XXIV
FORTIFICATIONS

When Congress decided that the Panama Canal should be regarded as a part
of the military defenses of the Nation, it became necessary to fortify it in
such a way as to make it practically impregnable to naval attack. It was,
therefore, decided that there should be ample coast defenses at the two ends
of the canal and that these defenses should be protected from land attack by
the quartering of a sufficient number of mobile troops to hold in check any
landing parties that might attack the works by an overland route.
In carrying out this plan Congress met every demand of the military
experts. When the plans for the fortifications were pending before the
Appropriations Committee of the House every military authority, from Gen.
Leonard Wood and Col. George W. Goethals down, who appeared before
the committee was asked if he considered the defenses recommended as
sufficient for the purposes intended, and each replied in the affirmative.
These defenses consist of large forts at each end of the canal, with field
works for some 6,000 mobile troops. The defenses on the Pacific side will
be somewhat stronger than those on the Atlantic side, probably for the
reason that better naval protection ordinarily could be afforded to the
Atlantic than to the Pacific entrance, on account of the proximity of the
Atlantic Waters of the canal to American shores.
At the forts on the Atlantic side four 12-inch guns, sixteen 12-inch mortars,
six 6-inch guns and four 47⁄10-inch howitzers will be mounted. The guns at
this end of the canal will be distributed between Toro Point on the west side
of the entrance channel and Margarita Island on the east side. There will be
two big 14-inch disappearing guns at each of these points. They will be so
placed as to sweep the horizon in the seaward direction, and at the same
time will be able to concentrate their fire on the enemy as he steams in
toward the channel entrance between the great breakwaters which cut off
Limon Bay from the ocean.

At the Pacific end all of the defenses will be on the east side of the channel.
They will consist of one 16-inch gun, six 14-inch guns, six 6-inch guns and
eight 47⁄10-inch howitzers. There are three small islands on the east side of
the Pacific entrance channel known as Naos, Perico, and Flamenco. They
rise precipitously out of the water and offer ideal sites for heavy defense. A
huge dump or breakwater has been built from the mainland at Balboa out to
Naos Island and this, in turn, has been connected with Perico and Flamenco
by large stone causeways. The great dump has made several hundred acres
of available land for quartering the eight companies of coast-defense troops
which will be stationed at the Pacific end of the canal. These islands are 3
miles from the mainland and their guns will completely bar the way to any
hostile ships which might seek to enter the canal.
On the other side of the channel, at a distance of about 12 miles, lies the
island of Taboga where the Canal Commission maintains the sanitarium for
its employees. It had been suggested by some that fortifications should be
planted there, but it was declared by the military authorities that the guns of
Naos, Perico, and Flamenco would completely command this island and
prevent a hostile nation from using it as a base of operations.
The range of the guns extends more than a mile beyond Taboga Island. The
big 16-inch gun which will be mounted on Perico Island is the largest ever
built. It was made at the Watervliet Arsenal. It carries a projectile weighing
more than a ton for a distance of 21 miles. At 17 miles it can toss its death-
dealing 2,400-pound shell at an enemy as accurately as a base-ball player
throws a ball to a team-mate 17 yards away. Its projectiles are filled with
powerful explosives, a single one of which in the vitals of any battleship
would be enough to place it out of commission. The big guns and the
mortars are intended primarily for defending the canal from attack by water.
The smaller guns and howitzers would come into play when an enemy
approached within a mile and would be used to repel his efforts to effect a
landing. Nearly all of these howitzers may be moved from place to place to
meet the needs of the field troops in case of land attack. Eight of them will
be permanently stationed at Gatun Locks. There will be other field works at
Gatun, Miraflores, and Pedro Miguel ready for occupancy at a moment's
notice by the field troops stationed on the Isthmus. These howitzers are so
located that 12 of them may be concentrated at any given point in case of
danger.

The big guns of the permanent forts are all mounted on disappearing
carriages so that they are exposed to fire only at the moment of discharge.
The 12-inch mortars will not only play their part in defending the canal
from water attack, but will be able to sweep the country on the Atlantic side
as far inland as the Gatun Locks and on the Pacific side as far inland as the
locks at Miraflores. They have a range of nearly 4 miles, and when loaded
with shrapnel will prove a most effective weapon against field troops
operating anywhere within the vicinity of the locks.
The land lying contiguous to the sea-level ends of the canal will be platted
off into squares exactly as a city is laid out. Should hostile troops come
upon this territory the men in the fire-control station would simply ascertain
the number of the block or blocks on which they were operating, and the
mortars would be so oriented as to throw their big projectiles thousands of
yards into the air to fall directly on those blocks. They would, therefore, be
practically as useful in land operations as in the water defense.
Every feature of the armament defending the entrance of the canal will
embody the latest improvements known to military science. The carriages
for the big guns have been specially designed, and were put through the
most thorough and exacting tests before their adoption. The fire-control
stations are said to be the last word in insuring the effective use of the guns.
Determining how a big gun shall be aimed so that its projectile will hit a
target 10 miles away is not an easy task. Of course, the gun can not be
pointed directly at the target, since this would cause the projectile to fall far
short of the enemy, and also the effect of the wind and the motion of the
enemy would carry it wide of its mark. To guess the range and to secure it
by experimentation would be to prevent any effective fire whatever.
Therefore, it is necessary first to determine the approximate range, the
motion of the enemy and the velocity of the wind.
There is an ingenious instrument known as the range finder, by which the
approximate distance of the target is determined. This instrument looks
something like a cross between an opera glass and a small telescope. The
operator puts his eyes to the opera glass part of the range finder and locates
the enemy just as one would with an ordinary pair of glasses. When he
locates the hostile ship he sees two images of it. There is an adjusting screw
which he turns until the two images blend together and become one. The

turning of this screw automatically adjusts a scale on the instrument, and
when the two images exactly coalesce the distance of the ship is registered
on the scale. The operators in the fire-control station make the necessary
calculations as to the effect of the wind, the motion of the enemy and other
elements entering into marksmanship, and telephone the results below to
the men who aim the gun.
It takes two men to aim each gun; one takes care of its up-and-down
movement, and the other of its right-and-left movement. When the man in
the fire-control station telephones that the enemy is so many miles away,
the man who has charge of the up-and-down movement of the gun so
adjusts his telescopic sight on a registering scale that when it is pointed
directly on the enemy the muzzle of the gun will be elevated high enough to
carry the projectile that distance. The man who has charge of the right-to-
left movement adjusts his sight so that when it is pointed directly at the
enemy the muzzle of the gun will be pointed far enough to the right or to
the left to land its projectile amidship on the enemy. Each man stands on a
platform and operates a little wheel on an endless screw. He turns this
wheel backward or forward just enough to keep his sight exactly on the
enemy.
After the gunners have received their instructions the first shot is fired. This
is called a "ranging" shot, and as the best range finder can not register the
distance to the exact yard it is necessary for the fire-control station to gauge
exactly how far short of, or how far over, the target the projectile has
carried. The up-and-down sight is adjusted in accordance therewith and
usually the second, or at most the third, shot gets the exact range. This
method of locating the enemy will be used on all the fortifications of the
canal.
It is unanimously agreed by military authorities that no naval force will risk
an open attack upon such fortifications, since almost inevitably it would
result in the disabling, if not the sinking, of a number of battleships and a
great crippling of the enemy's force that he could not afford to risk unless
he had first swept the seas of our own naval strength.
In order to make certain that no surprise attack could be successful, one of
the most complete searchlight equipments to be found in any fortress in the

world has been authorized for the canal fortifications. There will be 14
searchlights, with 60-inch reflectors, made so that they will send the
brightest of white lights out to sea and over the land as far as the range of
the guns may reach. These searchlights cost more than $20,000 each, and it
requires a year to construct the big mirror which is placed in each of them.
Electric plants at each fortress will generate electricity for the operation of
the guns and of the searchlights.
In anticipation of sudden need nearly $2,000,000 worth of reserve
ammunition will be kept on the Isthmus. There will be 70 rounds for the big
16-inch gun—enough to operate it constantly for two hours, providing for a
shot about every two minutes. The big 14-inch guns will carry a shell
weighing 1,400 pounds, propelled by a 365-pound charge of smokeless
powder which will drive it through the air at an initial speed of nearly half a
mile a second—enough momentum to carry it through at least 5 feet of
wrought iron. The charge of powder by which these guns will hurl their
projectiles on their death-dealing mission, generates a force which would
lift the great Masonic Temple of Chicago 2 feet in a single second.
Three regiments of infantry, 1 squadron of cavalry, 1 battalion of field
artillery, and 12 companies of coast-defense troops will be permanently
stationed on the Isthmus. The field troops, consisting of the infantry,
cavalry, and field artillery, will be stationed at Miraflores, where permanent
quarters will be provided together with the necessary drill grounds. These
quarters will cost in the neighborhood of $3,000,000. At this point they can
be maneuvered to advantage and moved to any part of the Canal Zone
needing defense. It was originally intended to place these troops at Culebra
on the east side of the channel, but this would necessitate their going a
distance of about 5 miles to get to a point where they could conveniently
cross with the artillery to the other side of the canal.
Quarters for eight companies of coast-defense troops are being established
on the Naos Island dumps. Quarters for two companies of these troops are
being provided at Toro Point, and for two other companies at Margarita
Island. These will afford sufficient strength at the Atlantic side to man the
guns temporarily, in case of hostilities, until any additional troops needed
can be brought up. All of the troops, both field and coast defense, will be
adequately housed and the permanent structures erected for them will be as

substantially built as those of any modern army post in continental United
States. There will be drill grounds large enough to maneuver the troops
stationed on the Isthmus. Roads affording access to all parts of the Canal
Zone have been built.
In addition to the provisions for the permanent forces on the Isthmus,
additional field works will be provided to accommodate the 20,000 troops
which might be brought to the Isthmus in case of war. These field works
will take the form of barricaded positions, entrenchments, and other
protective breastworks which will enable the troops to undergo a state of
siege. It has been estimated by the engineers that behind such works as have
been planned one defender can stand off six assailants, so that a body of
20,000 mobile troops under these conditions could hold the Isthmus against
a siege of 100,000 for a reasonable time. These field works will be
constructed principally around Gatun and Pedro Miguel. The buildings for
the permanent force stationed on the Isthmus will be constructed on the unit
system so that any necessary expansion can be made.
The question of fortifying the canal was one which engaged the serious
attention of Congress for a long time. There were two main viewpoints as to
what policy should be pursued. One contention was that the canal should be
made neutral, open to the ships of all nations, including the United States,
on equal terms even in case of war between the United States and any other
country. It was contended by those who took this view that to declare it
neutral would render it immune from any attack and guarantee its perpetuity
as a great commercial undertaking under the control of the United States.
They contended, furthermore, that the United States was bound, under the
terms of its treaty with Great Britain, to make the canal neutral and that to
fortify it would be to violate the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. They asserted that
the United States was under solemn obligations to recognize the principle of
neutrality as applied at Suez and offered the express terms of the Hay-
Pauncefote treaty in proof of their contention. This treaty provided that "the
United States adopts, as the basis of the neutralization of such a ship canal,
the following rules substantially embodied in the Convention of
Constantinople, signed the twenty-eighth of October, 1888, for the free
navigation of the Suez Canal; that is to say:

"First, the canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of
war, all nations observing these rules on terms of entire equality so that
there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or
subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, or otherwise.
Such conditions and charges of traffic shall be just and equitable.
"Second, the canal shall never be blockaded, nor shall any right of war be
exercised, nor any act of hostility be committed within it. The United
States, however, shall be at liberty to maintain such military police along
the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder.
"Third, vessels of war of a belligerent shall not revictual nor take any stores
in the canal except so far as may be strictly necessary; and the transit of
such vessels through the canal shall be effected with the least possible delay
in accordance with the regulations in force, and with only such
intermissions as may result from the necessities of the service."
It will be seen from this that the language of the treaty seems plainly to
imply that the United States had no right to fortify the canal. It is interesting
to note, however, that when the controversy over the tolls between the
United States and England arose, the English Government expressly
conceded the right of the United States to fortify the canal and to exercise
absolute rights of sovereignty so far as military considerations were
concerned. It would constitute an interesting chapter in diplomatic history if
someone would tell the real reason why the English Government waived its
rights of demanding a neutral canal under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
Those who advocated the fortification of the canal contended that the
United States had acquired practical sovereignty over the Canal Zone, and
that thereunder it had a perfect right to provide for the defense of the
territory. They asserted that the canal was undertaken because of the
military necessities of the United States, as demonstrated by the trip of the
Oregon from the Pacific to the Atlantic, during the Spanish-American War
and that to fail to fortify the canal would be to lose the military advantages
which its construction had given to the United States.
It was further contended that to allow the canal to be neutral would, in the
case of war between the United States and some foreign power, compel the
United States to keep its own warships out of the canal its own blood and

money had built, or else compel its permanent operating force at Panama to
commit a sort of legal treason by putting the enemy's ships through the big
waterway on the same terms with American ships.
This contention was answered by those who took the opposite view with the
statement that all treaties would be suspended in case of war and that
neutralization would cease between the United States and its enemies at
such a time.
The other side replied that if this were true, it would then be too late
properly to fortify the Isthmus, and that if the United States expected ever
to deny to any country the neutrality provisions of the Hay-Pauncefote
treaty, the fortifications should by all means be built in advance.
The long and earnest debate brought forth from some the prediction that
England would not acquiesce in such a construction of the treaty, and from
others the statement that under the terms of that instrument other nations
had a right to protest against the fortification of the canal. In the face of
these arguments, however, Congress determined by a substantial majority to
fortify the canal, and the whole world has acquiesced. England not only did
not protest, but in its toll controversy notes expressly declared that the
United States had the right to fortify the canal.

CHAPTER XXV
FIXING THE TOLLS

Long before the Panama Canal was finished shipping interests in every part
of the world began inquiring minutely as to probable rates of toll, stating
that it would be necessary for them to have this information before making
plans to meet the changed conditions. Some wanted to plan construction of
new ships, while others desired principally to readjust their transportation
lines in accordance with the new conditions.
With this in mind, President Taft in 1912 recommended to Congress the
passage of a law fixing the tolls and providing for the permanent operation
of the canal. Congress, acting upon this recommendation, passed what is
known as the Permanent Canal Law. In this law are stated the terms under
which the canal may be used by the shipping world. It authorizes the
President to prescribe, and from time to time to change, the tolls that shall
be levied by the Government of the United States for the use of the canal.
No tolls may be levied on vessels passing through the canal from one
United States port to another. Provision was also made that tolls might be
based upon gross or net registered tonnage, displacement tonnage, or
otherwise, and that they might be lower on vessels in ballast than upon
vessels carrying cargo. When based upon net registered tonnage, for ships
of commerce, the tolls can not exceed $1.25 per ton, nor be less, other than
for vessels of the United States and its citizens, than the estimated
proportional cost of the actual maintenance and operation of the canal. The
toll for each passenger was fixed at not more than $1.50.
Acting under the law authorizing him to fix the rates within the limitations
stated by the law itself, President Taft issued a proclamation fixing the toll
at $1.20 per net registered ton on all ships of commerce, other than those
carrying cargo from one United States port to another. The net registered
ton is the unit of measuring a ship's cargo-carrying capacity, used
throughout the world in general, and by British shipping in particular. It
consists of 100 cubic feet of space, so that when a ship is measured its net

registered tonnage is determined by the number of these units of space it
contains. A ton of cargo seldom fills a hundred cubic feet of space;
frequently it will not fill more than 40 cubic feet. The charge per ton of
actual freight under this toll of $1.20 per net registered ton ranges from 44
to 80 cents a long ton upon the freight carried, depending upon the class of
cargo. Such a toll adds from 2 to 4 cents per hundredweight to the freight
rate between two points through the canal. It might cost 5 cents to take a
barrel of flour from Colon to Panama, or vice versa.
While ships will be charged tolls on the basis of net registered tonnage, not
all ships carry freight upon that basis. In the majority of cases cargo is taken
on at "ship's option"—either by weight or space. Forty cubic feet is
estimated as the space occupied by an ordinary ton of freight, and ships
usually carry cargo at rates based on that amount of space for each ton. The
40 cubic feet method of determining the amount of cargo carried is adopted
by maritime interests because a long ton of wheat occupies about that
amount of space. From this it will be seen that for the purpose of collecting
tolls the United States allows 100 cubic feet of space for a ton, while the
ordinary shipping firm allows only 40 feet per ton. Thus it happens that a
shipowner charges the shipper for carrying 21⁄2 tons where the United States
charges the shipowner for carrying 1 ton.
Notwithstanding the fact that the shipowner collects for the carrying of 21⁄2
tons where he pays toll on 1 ton, he still has to pay what seems, in the
aggregate, a large sum of money each time his ship passes through the
canal. An ordinary 5,000-ton ship will be charged $6,000 for passing from
one ocean to the other. A ship like the Cleveland, the first around the world
tourist steamer advertised to pass through the canal, will have to pay
$14,000 for the 12-hour trip from Colon to Panama. A steamship like the
Lusitania will have to put up some $30,000 for a single passage. The
average ship will pay from $5,000 to $10,000 for its passage. This seems
like a high rate, even though it does amount to only 2 or 4 cents per
hundredweight of cargo, but when one takes into consideration the time
saved in passing through the canal, and the cost of maintaining a ship on the
high seas, the rate becomes a reasonable one.
The average ship costs about 10 cents per net registered ton per day for
keeping it in operation. Thus a 10,000-ton ship will save about a thousand

dollars for each day its voyage is shortened. If this voyage be shortened by
20 days, the shipowner makes a net saving of $8,000 when he selects the
Panama route over some other route. In fact, he may save even more than
this, for the other route might involve the giving of additional space for
bunker coal, which otherwise would be used for cargo. Convenient coaling
stations mean a minimum of space required for the operation of the ship and
a maximum of cargo-carrying capacity. In this way a merchant ship might
save several thousand dollars additional by choosing the Panama route over
the Strait of Magellan.
It is estimated that the tolls it will be necessary to collect to make the canal
self-supporting will be $15,500,000 a year, since that amount will be
required to meet the expense of operation and return 3 per cent interest on
the investment. The $15,500,000 is made up of $3,500,000 for operations,
$250,000 for sanitation and government and $11,250,000 for interest on the
$375,000,000 the canal cost. This takes no account of approximately
$10,000,000 which will be required for the support of the troops on the
Isthmus. Should this be considered, the total annual charges to be made
would approximate $25,000,000, but this, in the view of those who have
considered the matter, is not a proper charge against the cost of operation.

THE ANCON BASEBALL PARK

CALEB M. SAVILLE
GATUN SPILLWAY FROM ABOVE AND
BELOW
It has been stated that a proper system of finances would provide for the
repayment of the cost of constructing the canal in a hundred years. This
would mean an annual charge of $3,750,000, and would bring the total
annual outlay, exclusive of the cost of protection, up to $19,250,000. From
this viewpoint the canal will not be self-sustaining until the total traffic
approximates 17,000,000 tons a year, which it will reach about 1925.

It has been estimated by Prof. Emory R. Johnson, the Government expert on
canal traffic, that the total tonnage which will pass through the canal during
the first year of its operation will approximate 10,500,000 net registered
tons. Since the shipping of the United States is permitted to pass through
without paying tolls, the tonnage upon which toll will be collected will
yield a gross revenue of approximately $10,000,000. This will afford the
United States an income of a little less than 2 per cent on the money
invested, after paying the actual cost of operation. On this basis it probably
will be four or five years from the opening of the canal before the returns
will yield 3 per cent on the investment.
The ships of the world use approximately 75,000,000 tons of coal annually.
The opening of the Panama Canal will save several million tons a year and
the money thus saved will, in part, fall into the coffers of Uncle Sam. A
vessel en route from Chile to Europe can save nearly enough in the cost of
coal alone to pay the tolls that will be exacted at Panama.
When the United States came to frame its system of toll charges and
collections, it was found that there was a wide difference of opinion as to
the right of the United States Government to exempt coastwise shipping
from the payment of tolls. Under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great
Britain there was also a wide variance of opinion as to the question of
whether the United States, as a matter of national policy, ought to exempt
from the payment of tolls, ships trading between its own ports on the two
coasts. These questions were argued pro and con, and Congress finally
decided by a very close vote that the United States ought to allow ships
trading between its own ports to use the canal free of charge. No foreign
ships are permitted under any circumstances to engage in such traffic.
Those who advocated the exemption of ships trading exclusively between
United States ports from the payment of tolls, did so on the ground that it
would build up a wealthy American merchant marine which would be
invaluable to the United States in time of war, and also that it would tend to
reduce freight rates between Atlantic and Pacific points. They argued that
every cent added to the cost of transportation through the canal would be
reflected in freight rates between the East and the West.

Those who opposed the exemption of American coastwise shipping from
the payment of tolls, asserted that the coastwise shipowners already had a
monopoly on the handling of cargo between American ports, and that no
further encouragement was needed. They argued that it would make little or
no difference in rates whether tolls were charged or not, and that the only
people who would benefit would be the shipowners. They contended that
the United States ought to charge everybody alike and use the tolls collected
for the purpose of repaying the money it spent in building the canal. Some
of them also contended that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty bound the United
States to treat all shippers alike, and that the United States could not
discriminate in favor of the American coastwise traffic without
contravening the treaty with Great Britain. This view, however, did not
prevail, and the law, as enacted, exempted coastwise shipping.
England immediately protested against this exemption on the ground that it
was in contravention of the treaty between the two countries. The story of
how the United States came to be bound by a treaty with Great Britain in
the building of an Isthmian canal goes back for more than half a century.
The year 1850 found the North American continent, north of the Rio
Grande, in the possession of the United States, England, and Russia. The
United States had only recently finished its continental expansion, and each
of the two countries needed a canal to connect their east and west coasts.
England had long possessed a west coast in Canada, but the United States
had only recently come into possession of a Pacific seaboard. When it came
to consider the question of connecting its two coasts the United States
found that Great Britain was holding the position of advantage in the
Isthmian region. It held the Bahamas, Bermuda, Jamaica, the Barbados,
Trinidad, the Windward and Leeward Islands, British Guiana and British
Honduras; and held a protectorate over the "Mosquito Coast," now the east
coast of Nicaragua. That protectorate covered the eastern terminus of the
only ship canal then deemed possible.
Under these conditions the United States concluded that it was necessary
for the support of the Monroe doctrine that some sort of an understanding
should be reached between the two countries. England assented to such an
understanding only after Nicaragua and Costa Rica had given to the United
States its consent to the building of a canal across its territory. These treaties
with Nicaragua and Costa Rica were negotiated but never ratified, and were

used as a club to force Great Britain to make a treaty. The result was the
Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which provided that neither Government should
ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over an Isthmian
canal, and that neither Government should ever secure for itself any rights
or advantages not enjoyed by the other in such a canal. The proposed canal
was to be entirely neutral, and the treaty set forth that the two countries
agreed jointly to protect the entire Isthmian region from Tehauntepec to
South America, and that the canal always should be open to both countries
on equal terms. The canal under this treaty was intended to be entirely
neutral with reference to defense, with reference to tolls, and with reference
to such other nations as might join in maintaining neutrality.
When the United States decided to build the Panama Canal, it found the
Clayton-Bulwer treaty wholly unsuited to its aims and desires. It therefore
asked England to enter into a new convention; the Hay-Pauncefote treaty
was the result. This document declared that its purpose was to remove any
objections that might arise under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty to the
construction of an Isthmian canal under the auspices of the Government of
the United States without impairing the general principle of neutralization.
Under this treaty the Government of Great Britain made a protest against
the decision of the United States to exempt its coastwise traffic from the
payment of tolls, claiming such exemption to be a violation of the neutrality
agreement. This protest came in the form of two notes to the American
Government. The first was written as a warning to Congress that the British
Government would regard the exemption of American coastwise traffic
from the payment of tolls as a discrimination against British shipping, and a
violation of the neutrality agreement between the two countries. It admitted
that if the United States were to refund or to remit the tolls charged, it
would not be a violation of the letter of the treaty, and acknowledged that if
the exemption of coastwise American shipping from toll charges were so
regulated as to make it certain that only bona fide coastwise traffic, which is
reserved for American vessels, would be benefited by this agreement, then
Great Britain could have no objection. But it declared that England did not
believe that such regulation was possible.
After Congress, with this note in mind, had passed the canal toll law with
an exemption to ships carrying goods between the two coasts of the United

States, President Taft, in approving the measure, declared that the canal was
built wholly at the cost of the United States on territory ceded to it by a
nation that had the indisputable right to make the cession, and that,
therefore, it was nobody else's business how we managed it. He contended
that for many years American law had given to American ships the
exclusive right to handle cargo between American ports, and that, therefore,
England was not hurt at all when that shipping was exempted from toll
charges.
England responded, in a second note, that the clear obligation of the United
States under the treaty was to keep the canal open to the citizens and
subjects of the United States and Great Britain on equal terms, and to allow
the ships of all nations to use it on terms of entire equality. It also contended
that the United States is embraced in this term of "all nations"; that the
British Government would scarcely have entered into the Hay-Pauncefote
treaty if it had understood that England was to be denied the equal use of
the Panama Canal with America. The three direct objections urged by the
British against the American canal law were: That it gives the President the
right to discriminate against foreign shipping; that it exempts coastwise
traffic from paying tolls; and that it gives the Government-owned vessels of
the Republic of Panama the right to use the canal free. The answer of the
United States to the first of these objections was that the right of the
President to fix tolls in a way that would be discriminatory against British
shipping was a question that could be considered only when the President
should exercise such action.
The British Government expressed the fear that the United States, in
remitting tolls on coastwise business, would assess the entire charges of
maintenance of the canal upon the vessels of foreign trade and thus cause
them to bear an unequal burden. This, the second objection was answered
with the statement that, whereas the treaty gives the United States the right
to levy charges sufficient to meet the interest of the capital expended and
the cost of maintaining and operating the canal, the early years of its
operation will be at a loss and, therefore, at a lower rate than Great Britain
could ask under the treaty. The third objection was considered insignificant.
The British Government, after laying down its objections to the American
canal toll law, requested that the matter be submitted to The Hague tribunal

for adjudication. The American Government declared that this course would
not be just to the United States, since the majority of the court would be
composed of men, the interests of whose countries would be identical with
those of England in such a controversy. Before leaving office President Taft
proposed that the matter should be submitted to the Supreme Court of the
United States. The whole question was left in that situation when the
change from the Taft to the Wilson administration took place.
As to the merits of the controversy, there is no unanimity of opinion on
either side of the Atlantic. Some British authorities entirely justify the
American position, while some American authorities take the British
position. It is probable that the controversy will require years for settlement.
Before the canal was open for traffic there was much speculation as to what
rate policies the railroads would adopt to meet the situation caused by the
competition of the Panama Canal. If the same classes of goods are handled
through the canal as across the United States, there will be more than 3,000
different articles on the tariff books of steamship lines using the canal. In
his report on the effects of canal tolls on railroad rates, Prof. Emory R.
Johnson expressed the opinion that the payment of tolls by ships engaged in
coast trade would affect neither the rates of the regular steamship lines nor
the charges of the transcontinental railroads.

AN ELECTRIC TOWING LOCOMOTIVE IN ACTION

BLOWING UP THE SECOND DIKE SOUTH OF MIRAFLORES
LOCKS

A provision of the canal toll law forbids any railroad to be directly or
indirectly interested in any ship passing through the canal, carrying freight
in competition with that railroad. This provision was inserted to prevent the
railroads from controlling the steamship lines using the canal, and through
that control fixing rates between the two coasts on such a basis as to prevent
effective competition with the railroads themselves. The result was that a
number of railroads had to dispose of their steamships engaged in coastwise
trade. This provision affects several Canadian railroads, and after it was
made the British Government served notice on the United States that it
intended to take up this question and consider whether or not the law in this
particular does not infringe upon British rights.
Nothing seems more certain than that, in the course of years, canal tolls will
be materially lowered from the $1.20 fixed by the President. It seems
inevitable that the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal will enter into a lively
battle for the great volume of trade between eastern Asiatic and Australasian
points and western European ports. On this dividing line between the two
great interoceanic highways there originates many millions of tons of
traffic, and this will be largely clear gain to the canal which gets it. The
considerations which will draw this trade one way or the other are the rates
of toll, the convenience of coaling stations, the price of coal, and the
certainty of the ability to secure proper ship stores. This spirit of
competition will probably serve to lower rates more rapidly than they
otherwise might be reduced. With some 10,000,000 tons of traffic on the
great divide between the two canals, ready to be sent forward by the route
which offers the best inducements, it is certain that good business policy
will call for some hustling on the part of both canals. As the business of the
Panama Canal expands, it can afford to reduce rates. With an ultimate
capacity of 80,000,000 tons a year, as the canal stands to-day, the rate of toll
could be cut down to 25 cents a ton when that capacity is reached, and still
afford the United States an income large enough to take care of the
operation and maintenance of the canal, and sanitation and government of
the Canal Zone, to meet the interest on the cost of building it, and to
amortize the entire debt in a hundred years.
It is certain that the United States made a good investment at Panama.
Assuming that the coastwise traffic is worth to the Government the amount
of the tolls it is exempted from paying, the canal becomes a self-supporting

institution from the day of its opening, leaving all the military and trade
advantages it affords the United States as clear profit.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE OPERATING FORCE

It will require a force of about 2,700 persons to operate the Panama Canal.
The major portion of this force will be engaged on the port works at the two
ends of the waterway. With a large mechanical plant at Balboa, with large
docks for the transhipment of cargo, and with other facilities required for
making the canal the best equipped waterway in the world for handling
marine business, more men will be needed for the conduct of the auxiliary
works than for actually putting ships through the locks.
The force required at the locks will be comparatively small. It will consist
of men in general charge of the lock operations, men in charge of the
towing operations, men who handle the various mechanism and operate the
several types of valves for the regulation of the water in the locks; and the
general labor force consisting of a few hundred operatives at each end of
the canal. A force will be required to operate the big hydro-electric station
at Gatun Spillway, where the electricity for the operation of the locks and
for the lighting of the canal will be generated. Another force will be
required at the auxiliary power plant at Miraflores which will be operated
by steam. Fewer than a thousand men will be required in putting ships
through the canal.
When the question of placing the canal on a permanent operating basis
arose one of the first considerations was the scale of salaries to be fixed.
Having in mind the fact that salaries paid during the construction period
(which were 50 per cent above the standard in the United States) were
based upon conditions existing in the early days of the American
occupation, it was decided that this was an unfair basis for the permanent
organization. The salaries for the construction period were made high
because they had to be. It was more a question of reducing men to risk their
lives than of fixing fair rates of compensation. The conclusion reached was
that there was no longer any reason why the Government should pay
salaries so much higher than obtained in the States, especially in view of the

fact that all positions under the permanent organization would carry with
them free quarters, free medical attendance, free fuel, free light, free
hospital service and the like. It was finally determined that it would be fair
to both the employee and the employer to establish as a basis of
compensation for services in the permanent organization a scale of salaries
not to exceed 25 per cent higher than obtained for similar positions in the
United States. This decision was made on the basis that it would be fair to
the employee and at the same time would allow the canal to be operated at a
cost which would impose no undue burden on shipping.
When Congress took up the matter in the enactment of the permanent canal
law, it reflected the recommendations of the chairman and chief engineer of
the Canal Commission in almost every particular. With reference to the
canal employees, that body provided that they should be appointed by the
President or by his authorities, and that they should be removable at his
pleasure; also, that their compensation should be fixed by him until such
time as Congress should regulate it by law.
The head of the permanent force on the Canal Zone will be known as the
Governor of the Panama Canal. He is to be appointed by the President with
the advice and consent of the Senate, for a four-year term, or until his
successor shall be appointed and qualified. He will receive a salary of
$10,000 a year, and will be the personal representative of the President on
the Isthmus. Indeed, the permanent organic act provides that the President
himself is authorized, after the disbanding of the Isthmian Canal
Commission—which is to take place whenever the President thinks the
work has approached a sufficient degree of completion to warrant it—to
complete, govern, and operate the Panama Canal, and to govern the Canal
Zone, if he desires to do it himself; or "cause it to be completed, governed,
and operated through a governor of the canal." Of course, the President will
prefer to "cause it to be completed, governed, and operated" through such a
governor. As a matter of fact, when the question of selecting a governor
comes before the President it may be expected that he will choose a man in
whom he has every confidence to carry out the organic law on the Canal
Zone, and to place the canal in operation. This man will be as much of an
autocrat on the Zone under the permanent organization as the chairman and
chief engineer was during the construction.

When President Roosevelt undertook to carry out the provisions of the
Spooner Act, and to have the canal dug by a board of seven commissioners,
each independent of the other, he soon found that it would not work. After
repeated trials he came to the conclusion that the control of affairs on the
Isthmus should be concentrated largely under the chairman and chief
engineer. He therefore issued an executive order requiring that all officials
on the Isthmus should report to the chairman and chief engineer, giving him
practically all control over the entire project. This brought both the Canal
Zone Government and the sanitary department under the supervision of the
chairman and chief engineer. The result was a coordination of the work and
a satisfactory organization for its prosecution.
When Congress came to make the permanent canal law it profited by the
unsatisfactory results that would have grown out of a rigid adherence to the
principles of the Spooner Act, and concentrated all authority under the
governor of the Canal Zone. There were those who thought the sanitary
department should not be under the control of the governor, and still others
who felt that the operation of the canal probably should be under one man
and the civil government under another. But these suggestions were not
followed, and the act as finally adopted makes the President practically a
czar of the Isthmus, and under him the governor need give account to no
one but the President.
It has been the ambition of the present chief engineer of the canal to see the
operating force fully installed and things moving along on a satisfactory
working basis before leaving the Isthmus. He thinks arrangements should
be made whereby acute changes of policy should be prevented. This he
would do by having a principal assistant who would succeed the governor
at the end of his four-year term. This would permit a continuous policy and
an unbroken line of action which, according to his view, would make for the
efficiency of the operating force. In speaking of this phase of the matter, he
stated that were a new man chosen at the end of the four-year term of his
predecessor—a man who had had no previous experience on the Isthmus—
there would always be a tendency to make radical changes.
He would have on the governor's staff a doctor from the Army to have
charge of the work of sanitation on the Canal Zone, who would report
directly to the governor. The quarantine officer, in his opinion, should be

under the Public Health Service of the United States. Under the plan as
adopted in the permanent canal law, any officer of the Army or of the Navy
chosen to fill a position in the canal operating force will be paid the same
salary as a civilian, with the exception that he would get only the difference
between his regular Army or Navy pay and the salary his position carried.
It is estimated that the expense of operating the canal will amount to about
$3,500,000 a year. This includes the cost of operating a number of dredges
which will have to be maintained in connection with the canal work. The
estimate was made upon the amount of business handled at the Sault Ste.
Marie Canal which has the largest traffic of any canal in the world.
There will be five departments for the operation of the canal outside of the
work of maintaining the civil government and sanitation. The operating
department will have charge of the operation of docks and wharves at the
terminals, pilotage, lockage, and the lighting of the canal. It is estimated
that it will cost $400,000 a year to maintain the terminals, $150,000 a year
to light the canal, and that it will require 60 pilots, at $1,800 each a year, to
take ships through. During the first years of operation it is believed that a
single shift can handle all the business that comes, but, as the years go by, it
may require two shifts and eventually three to keep the work going.
The engineering department will require about 500 men and will have
charge of all the construction and repair work pertaining to the canal
property, and of all excavation and dredging in the canal. It will cost
approximately a million dollars a year to maintain this department, of which
three-fourths will be required for the operation of the dredges and other
equipment for keeping the canal open.
The quartermaster's department will have charge of the construction, repair,
and maintenance of all buildings, roads, and municipal improvements in the
Zone settlements and of the receipt, care, and issue of all property and
material. This department will require nearly a thousand men and the total
expense will be in the neighborhood of $600,000.
The electrical and mechanical department will have charge of the
mechanical and electrical apparatus belonging to the canal, and of the
permanent works at its two ends.

The accounting department will require some 60 men with annual salaries
amounting to approximately a hundred thousand dollars. It is estimated that
the cost of materials for the operation of the canal will range around three-
fourths of a million dollars a year.
The force which will be maintained on the Isthmus, with their families, will
make a Canal Zone population of approximately 5,000. These, in addition
to the eight or nine thousand troops and marines which will be quartered
there, will bring the total population up to about thirteen or fourteen
thousand. Of these perhaps three-fourths will be along the southern 10-mile
section of the canal. But, in spite of the greater population at the Pacific
side, the Atlantic end will probably not lack for attraction. It is likely that
Gatun Lake will be stocked with a supply of fresh-water fish, and that
shooting preserves will be established adjacent to Gatun, to be conducted in
connection with the Washington Hotel at Colon. There is also some talk of
constructing golf links adjacent to Gatun, which will be open alike to the
employees of the canal and to the guests of the two big Government hotels
—the Washington and the Tivoli.
While a freight-carrying steamer will make its stay as short as possible, the
probabilities are that the passenger-carrying steamer will require at least 48
hours to make its calls at the two terminal cities and pass through the canal.
They will probably handle the major portion of the package cargo, leaving
the bulk cargo business entirely for freighters. When going through the
canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific they probably will have cargo bound
for a large number of Pacific ports on diverse routes. This would be
discharged at Balboa and there be put into other ships to be carried to its
destination. During the time the shipping and unshipping of cargo,
replenishing stores, taking on coal and like operations are being performed,
the traveler will be afforded opportunity to get acquainted with dry land
again, and to enjoy for a day or two a respite from his long sea journey.
The plan advocated on the Isthmus for perfecting the permanent
organization was as follows: The chairman and chief engineer would call
upon each of the departments to furnish a list with the ratings of the best
men. The man having the best record would be offered a position under the
permanent organization similar to the one held by him under the
construction organization. If he chose to accept this position under the wage

standard laid out he could do so; if he did not, the next man would be given
the opportunity, and so on down. In this way it was expected that the entire
force would be chosen because of records made in the service.

CHAPTER XXVII
HANDLING THE TRAFFIC

Four or five years before the earliest probable opening date, shipping
interests began to arrange their future schedules with respect to the Panama
Canal.
One can scarcely realize how rapidly the facilities of the canal will be
utilized. At the rate of expansion witnessed in the world's marine traffic
during the past two or three decades, 17,000,000 tons of shipping will be
handled through the canal in 1925, 27,000,000 tons in 1935, and 44,000,000
tons in 1945.
The maximum capacity of 80,000,000 tons assumes a passage of 48 vessels
a day through the canal, or one for every half hour of the twenty-four. Two
vessels a day of 4,000 tons each, at the present charge, will render the canal
self-supporting.
While the great Isthmian highway will be completed far enough ahead to be
ready to handle all traffic that offers long before the official opening date, it
will, on the other hand, never reach that stage where dredges will not be
needed. There are 22 rivers which wend their way from the watersheds of
the canal, and pour their loads of sand and silt into it. Of course, these rivers
are small—so small, indeed, that few of them would be dignified by being
called rivers in the United States. But when the heavens open and the floods
descend, as they do so frequently during the rainy season at Panama, these
usually quiet, lazy, little streams become almost as angry as the mighty
Chagres itself, and they rush down to the canal heavily freighted with sand
and silt. If the water in the great interoceanic channel is to be kept at its
appointed depth of 41 feet, dredging perforce must be continued from year
to year, summer and winter, spring and fall. And so it is that the dredges
will be met by every ship that steers its course from Cristobal to Balboa, or
from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Few ships large enough to tax the dimensional capacity of the locks ever
will go through the canal. Full 90 per cent of all the ships that sail the seas
could go through locks one-half the size of those at Panama. So far as
commercial shipping is concerned, a 15,000-ton vessel plying tropical
waters is considered large, and a 20,000-ton ship is an exception. According
to the best shipping authorities, the day when vessels of more than 25,000
tons will find it profitable to ply on the routes which lead through the
Panama Canal is so far in the future that they are not able to discern it. With
reference to the Navy, naval experts generally agree that the United States
will celebrate many a decade of passing years before a battleship too large
to use the present lock chambers is a possibility.
When a ship makes its maiden voyage through the canal, the measurements
to determine its net register will be taken by the shipping experts in the
employ of the United States. When this work is completed the master of the
ship will be required to pay the toll before he can take his vessel through the
canal. If he should fail to pay the toll the vessel itself would be put on the
block and sold at auction, if necessary, to reimburse the United States for its
passage. However, it is not to be expected that such contingencies as these
will arise. When once a ship has been measured, the formality will not have
to be gone through with on future visits. It is not expected that each ship
will be actually measured for every dimension as it comes to the canal on
its first trip, since its net register tonnage probably will have been
determined long before, and the canal officials will only check up the work
already done elsewhere to assure its accuracy.
Many ships will go to Panama which will not use the canal. For instance,
there will be those which will leave European ports, loaded in part with
cargo bound to Pacific points and in part with cargo for Atlantic points on
the South and Central American coast. Such ships will simply call at Colon,
discharge their cargo bound to Pacific points, and take on what additional
cargo they can get bound for points for which they are sailing on the
Atlantic side. In stopping at Colon they will probably replenish their
supplies from the commissary department of the canal.
What the freight department is to a railroad the cargo ship will be to the
Panama Canal—its greatest revenue producer. Such ships will do
comparatively little loading and unloading of cargo at either end of the

canal. The tramp steamer will figure largely in the traffic that passes from
ocean to ocean at Panama. With no schedule of sailing dates and with no
definite routes, the tramps constitute the flying squadron of the shipping
world, moving hither and thither seeking cargoes wherever they can find
them. A tramp steamer may load at Liverpool for San Francisco, reach that
point through the Panama Canal, and, after discharging its cargo, go on up
to Seattle and load for China. There it may discharge its cargo again and go
thence to India to pick up a load of grain for Liverpool, passing through the
Suez Canal. Its master always will turn its prow to the point where
profitable cargo awaits it, and this may carry it by Panama once or a dozen
times a year. The line steamers will have their regular sailing dates and will
pass through the canal at stated intervals.
The problem of providing coal for passing ships is one of the most
important with which the canal authorities will have to deal. The cheaper
that commodity can be sold to the ships, the more attractive the route will
be. For instance, a 10,000-ton ship which saves a dollar a ton on a thousand
tons of coal, saves the equivalent of the cost of operating the vessel for a
period of from 24 to 36 hours, and this, with the rates at Suez and Panama
on an equal basis, gives at least one day's advantage to the Panama route in
figuring on a voyage. Pocahontas steaming coal costs $2.70 per ton laid
down at Newport News. Under the carrying agreements with shipping
interests that obtained during the construction period, this coal was carried
to Panama for $1.395 a ton. It is estimated that the canal colliers, which
have been authorized by Congress, with a capacity of 12,000 tons of coal
and with a speed of 14 knots, can deliver to the Isthmus a half million tons
of coal a year. The saving which will be effected by having the coal carried
by Government colliers is a large one. A merchantman would get $368,000
for delivering 264,000 tons of coal, while the cost of delivery by collier for
the same amount would approximate $184,000. The average life of a collier
is 20 years. The saving effected in these 20 years by the Government
carrying its own coal would be large enough to pay back the million dollars
which the collier cost, and to yield an additional profit of $2,630,000 during
the life of the vessel.
The sale of coal at Suez, where an annual shipping traffic of some
21,000,000 tons is handled, amounts approximately to 1,000,000 tons.

Thus, it will require two colliers to handle the coal when the canal opens,
and two more 13 years later.
Not all the ships which use the canal will coal there. For instance, the Royal
Mail Steam Packet Company, which was so forehanded in its effort to get a
good share of the trans-Isthmian traffic that it acquired the Pacific Steam
Navigation Company long before the canal opened, is building a coaling
station at Kingston, Jamaica, where its ships will replenish their bunkers.
This coaling station will, of course, always be at the disposition of the
British Government in case of war, and of such British merchantmen that
choose to pass that way.
Some ships will not negotiate the canal under their own power. Many small
vessels steer so badly that their masters would be afraid to risk them going
through without aid. For instance, the skipper of the Cristobal, one of the
6,000-ton cement-carrying ships bought by the United States a few years
ago, declared, in discussing this phase of the matter, that he would be afraid
to trust his vessel going through the canal under its own power. To ships not
sufficiently responsive to their helms, Government tugs will be furnished.
Some skippers prefer to have their vessels towed by one powerful tug,
while others prefer several smaller ones. Several tugs are now building for
towing purposes, and they will also be used to tow vessels through the locks
in the early days of operation, pending the completion of all of the electric
towing locomotives.
Two floating cranes will be provided in the permanent equipment at a cost
of a quarter of a million dollars each. These cranes, with a lifting power of
250 tons, will be suitable for any wrecking operations in the canal and, also,
for lifting the gates in case of repairs being required.
The canal will probably be the death blow to the sailing ship of
international commerce. Not being able to negotiate the canal under their
own power, and because of the dead calms which prevail in the Gulf of
Panama, sailing ships will be stopped from using the Isthmian waterway.
When they attempt to journey around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good
Hope in competition with steam vessels which pass through the Panama
Canal, the operation will afford such little profit that in the course of a few

years they will have to surrender what little share of international commerce
they have succeeded in keeping.
The Panamans are inclined to think the United States drove a hard bargain
when the provision was inserted in the treaty that all supplies for the
building and operation of the canal, and for the demands of shipping using
it, when imported by the United States, should be free of duty. This
practically gives the United States a monopoly of the business of catering to
the needs of ships passing Panama. The present duty on imports is 15 per
cent, and the local merchant who would sell supplies to the passing ships
would be under the necessity of adding 15 per cent to his buying price
before he could compete with the United States Government on equal
terms. This advantage is made all the more marked by the reasons of the
fact that the United States often can make much money out of the operation
by selling at actual cost, the profit arising from the extra shipping which is
thereby attracted to the canal.
The United States will reimburse the owners of any vessels passing through
the locks of the canal, under the control of its operatives, for any injury
which may result to vessel, cargo, or passengers. Provision is made under
the permanent canal law that regulations shall be promulgated by the
President which will provide for the prompt adjustment, by agreement, and
immediate payment of claims. In case of disagreement, suit may be brought
in the district court of the Canal Zone against the governor of the Panama
Canal. The law says: "The hearing and disposition of such cases shall be
expedited and the judgment shall be immediately paid out of any moneys
appropriated or allotted for canal operation."
The character of misrepresentations made concerning the canal was
illustrated in a story published in the midsummer of 1913. This story
originated in London and declared that all of the big shipping interests were
afraid of the Panama Canal, and that Lloyds would insure vessels and cargo
only at much advanced rates. The article went on to state that the
representative of one of the biggest European lines had visited the Isthmus
and had returned with the announcement that his company could not afford
to trust its vessels in the canal.

As a matter of fact, with the United States Government standing responsible
for any damage sustained in the canal, no shipping interest could sensibly
regard it as extra hazardous to pass through it; rather, it would be less
hazardous than to negotiate the tortuous Strait of Magellan, where
thousands of wrecks tell of unseen dangers, or to round Cape Horn with its
fierce storms and its grave perils.
Much has been said about the probability of injury to the canal by persons
of evil intent, and the Panama Canal law imposes heavy penalties on
anyone attempting to inflict such an injury. The law provides that the
governor of the Canal Zone shall make rules and regulations, subject to the
approval of the President, touching the right of any person to remain upon
or pass over any part of the Canal Zone. "Any person violating these rules
or regulations shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction in the
district court of the Canal Zone, shall be fined not exceeding $500 or
imprisoned not exceeding a year, or both penalties in the discretion of the
court. Any person who, by any means or any way, injures or obstructs or
attempts to injure or obstruct any part of the Panama Canal, or the locks
thereof, or the approaches thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a felony and on
conviction shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $10,000 or by
imprisonment not to exceed 20 years, or by the infliction of both of these
penalties. If the act shall cause the death of any person within a year and a
day thereafter, the person so convicted shall be guilty of murder and shall
be punished accordingly." As a further precaution, individuals will not be
allowed to approach the locks with any sort of packages unless they are
properly vouched for.
The possibility of serious injury to the locks will be carefully guarded
against. They will be lighted at night by electric lamps of large candlepower
and the whole lock structure will be kept as light as day throughout the
night. Men will be always on sentry duty, and an adequate system of
intercommunication will enable the sentries to call out a guard large enough
to repulse any attack of any small surprising party.

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA

The Republic of Panama is one of the smallest countries in the world, its
territory being about equal to that of the State of Indiana. It has no national
debt, and has $7,000,000 invested in mortgages, on real estate in New York
City.
When it received $10,000,000 from the United States, in payment for the
rights under which the Panama Canal was built, it immediately invested
about 75 per cent of it, using the remainder for paying the expenses of the
revolution, and for setting the new government on its feet. It now receives
$250,000 a year from the United States as rental for the Canal Zone, and
this, with the $350,000 received as interest from its real estate mortgages in
New York, gives it an annual income of $600,000 outside of money raised
by the usual processes of taxation.
Under the treaty with the United States, Panama has its independence
guaranteed, and recognizes the right of the United States to maintain order
within its boundaries. This entirely does away with the necessity of
maintaining an army and navy. The result is that with no appropriations
required for military purposes, and with a $600,000 income from the Canal
Zone, it enjoys one of the lowest tax rates in the world.
Although the Republic of Panama has its Declaration of Independence and
its Glorious Fourth, the former was written by a foreigner, and the latter
occurs in November. There is some dispute as to who wrote the declaration
of independence, but the best information points either to Philippe Bunau-
Varilla, a Frenchman, or to William Nelson Cromwell, an American. These
two gentlemen differ upon this subject, each claiming that he was the
Thomas Jefferson of Panama.
When the $10,000,000 was paid to Panama by the United States, one of the
first things done was to build a university, locally known as the National
Institute. Some $800,000 was spent in the construction of the buildings,

which are located near the line of the Canal Zone. But it so happens that
Panama has few teachers qualified to hold university chairs, and fewer
students qualified to pursue university courses; and the result is that the
university is more a place of buildings than a seat of learning.
No other country in the world calls in another nation to superintend its
elections. When the first presidential election was held the United States
took the initiative and demanded the right to supervise the balloting. Before
the second election was held the President became ambitious to succeed
himself, although the constitution provided that he could not do so. He
thereupon decided to resign for a period of six months, in favor of one of
his partisans, thinking that this would allow him to live up to the letter of
the constitution even though he were violating its spirit in becoming a
candidate for reelection. This situation was brought to the attention of the
United States, and the President was politely but firmly informed that the
subterfuge would not be permitted. When the election approached each side
thought that the other was trying to win by fraud, and the United States was
asked to referee the political battle.
The City of Panama is famous for its wickedness. Men who have seen the
seamy side of life in all of the big cities of the world declare that Panama is
as bad as the worst of them. Until a few years ago bull-fighting was
permitted, but the bulls were so poor and the fighters were such butchers
that the Government finally outlawed this form of entertainment. Cock-
fighting persists, and numerous cock pits are popular resorts every Sunday.
Nowhere else can one witness a greater frenzy in betting than at one of
these cocking mains. The backers of the rival birds nod their heads and
place their bets so rapidly that it is more bewildering to the onlooker than
the bidding at an auctioneer's junk sale.
The prize ring has succeeded the bull ring in gratifying the Spaniard's thirst
for gore, and scarcely a Sunday passes that there is not a prize fight in
Panama. Few Americans who attend them come away without a feeling of
disgust over the poor fighting, the brutality, and the trickery resorted to.
While the Americans have done so much for public cleanliness in Panama
and Colon, the masses seem to know little more about sanitary living today
than before the Americans came. The stenches which greet the visitor in the

native quarters are no less odorous than those encountered in other cities of
tropical America. The bathtub is an unknown quantity among the masses.
Most of the natives who live in the cities are engaged in some line of small
trade. It may be that a shop has only a platter of sweetmeats and a few
bottles of soda on ice, and that another has only a bushel of different kinds
of tropical fruits, but out of the small sales large families manage in some
way to exist. The markets open early in the morning. There is no spirit of
rivalry among the market men, and they act usually as if they were
conferring a favor upon the buyer. At the markets many Indians are
encountered who bring their wares from the interior and offer them for sale.
These usually consist of pottery, net bags, charcoal and the like.
Life among the Panamans in the jungle is simple indeed. With his machete
the householder may provide a thatched roof for his mud-floored hut, and
he can raise enough beans, plantains and yams, and burn enough charcoal,
and catch enough fish to meet all of his needs. In the kitchen the principal
utensils are gourds and cocoanut shells. The most tempting morsel that the
Panaman can get is the iguana, a lizard as big as a cat, whose meat is said to
taste like spring chicken. It is about the ugliest creature in the animal world,
and yet it means more to the native Panaman than does possum meat to the
cotton-field darky of the South.
The unconscious cruelty of the average native is remarked by almost every
visitor. He is usually too lazy to be conscious of cruelty, for that would
require exertion. When he catches the iguana, for instance, he takes it alive
so that it may be fattened before being killed. Its short legs are twisted and
crossed above its back, and the sharp claw of one foot is thrust through the
fleshy part of the other, so as to hold them together without other fastening.
The tail, being useless for food, is chopped off with the machete, and thus
mutilated and unable to move, the lizard is kept captive until fat enough to
eat.
The fruits of Panama are neither so numerous nor so plentiful as those of
Nicaragua or Jamaica. The mamei is a curious pulpy fruit the size of a
peach, with a skin like chamois and with a smooth pit the size of a peach-
stone. The sapodilla is a plum-colored fruit with seeds in a gelatinous mass.
One is usually introduced to the sapodilla with the remark that, although the
seeds are eaten, they have never been known to cause appendicitis.

Cedar is preferred to mahogany in Panama. The Indians make their cayucas
out of mahogany logs, and it is not uncommon to see bridges 40 feet long
and 5 feet thick, made of mahogany logs which would be worth several
thousands of dollars in an American furniture factory.
Panama is famous for its tropical flowers. Many of them are beautiful, but
few are sweet smelling. Orchids abound, especially on the Atlantic side, and
while the waters of the Chagres were being impounded in Gatun Lake,
native boatmen would go out in their cayucas and gather orchids from the
trees. One of the most beautiful of the orchids of Panama is the Holy Ghost
orchid. It blooms biennially, and when its petals fold back they reveal a
likeness to a dove.
Some of the American Women on the Canal Zone became enthusiastic
collectors of tropical flowers. Among these were Mrs. David Du Bose
Gaillard and Mrs. Harry Harwood Rousseau. Both of these ladies spent
much time hunting orchids and other flowers for the verandas of their
houses and for their gardens. Mrs. Rousseau made trips into several of the
other countries of Central America in her quest for new orchids. The
collections made by these two ladies represent the finest on the whole
Isthmus of Panama.
The animal life of the Isthmus is not abundant, although some deer and a
few tapirs are to be found. Alligators abound in the Chagres River and other
streams of the Zone. Perhaps the most interesting form of animal life to be
found on the Isthmus is the leaf-cutting ant. This ant seems to be nature's
original fungus grower. As one walks around the American settlements, he
frequently comes upon a long path filled with ants, passing back and forth.
They resemble a sort of miniature yacht under full sail, except that the sails
are green instead of white. Upon closer examination it is found that what
seemed to be a sail is a triangular piece of leaf carried on the back of the
ant, with its edges to the wind so as to overcome air resistance. The ants do
not gather these leaves for food, but they store them in such a way that a
fungus grows upon them. They eat the fungus, and when the leaves are no
longer useful they are thrown out and new supplies brought in.
The native remedies used by the Panamans are many and interesting. For
stomach troubles, which are very rare, they eat papaya. The papaya is a sort

of fruit which might be a cross between a cantaloupe, a watermelon and a
pumpkin, except that it grows on trees. It has the rind of a green pumpkin,
the meat of a cantaloupe, and the seeds of a watermelon. It is probably
richer in vegetable pepsin than any other plant in existence—a pepsin which
neutralizes either alkaline or acid conditions in the stomach. It is said that a
tough steak, wrapped in the leaf of the papaya tree overnight, becomes
tender as the result of the digestive action of the pepsin in it.
The Indians and Panamans who live in the jungle use the wood of the
cacique, or "monkey cocoanut," to stop any flow of blood. In their materia
medica they have a large number of tropical plants which they use for their
ailments.
The way in which sanitary instruction may be made efficient is illustrated
among some of the people of Panama. Upon one occasion the Canal Record
carried a small diagram of how to make a sanitary drinking cup out of a
sheet of paper. After that there were many Panamans who, although in a
hundred ways indifferent to contagion, would no longer drink from
common drinking cups, but would make their own sanitary cups. Even the
Jamaican negroes employed around the offices of the commission in many
instances would not think of using the common drinking glass at the office
water-cooler.
Two tribes of Indians on the Isthmus have not mixed with the Caucasians or
the negroes. They are the Chucunoques and the San Blas Indians. The latter
tribe has never been known to allow a white man to remain in its territory
after sundown. Even the higher officials of the Panaman Government are
forced to respect this tradition when they treat with the San Blas chiefs.
Government land in Panama can be bought at the rate of $49.60 for 247
acres, with reductions for larger areas. The Government invites foreign
capital, declaring that the United States stands as a perpetual guarantee
against revolutions within and aggressions without.
The story of the early days in Panaman history is a strange admixture of
romance and cruelty. The Isthmus was discovered in 1500, and first settled
by an adventurer who had been the Royal Carver in the king's household at
Madrid. Balboa, carrying with him a small force of men and a lot of
bloodhounds, one of them a dog of mighty prowess, known as Lioncico, or

"Little Lion," which drew a captain's pay because of its fighting qualities,
crossed the Isthmus in 1513 and discovered the Pacific Ocean. After him
came a new governor of the Isthmus, who put Balboa to death.
The Spaniards were unspeakably cruel to the Indians. Even those who
received them kindly were tortured and roasted to death, because they did
not produce enough gold. One governor rode a mule, which was noted for
the frequency of its braying. The Indians were taught that the mule was
asking for gold, and in meeting these demands they not only had to give
what they possessed, but were forced to rob the graves of their ancestors as
well. Upon one occasion the Indians, having captured a number of
Spaniards, melted a lot of the yellow metal and poured it down their throats,
telling them to drink until their thirst for gold was quenched.
After the Spaniards had established themselves upon the Isthmus, the
English buccaneers, Drake and Morgan, fell upon their cities and despoiled
them. The ruins at Old Panama, which once was a city of 30,000
inhabitants, to-day tell the story of the effective work of Henry Morgan
when he raided it and captured its treasure.
While the Spanish conquerors, the French filibusters, and the English
buccaneers, who took their turns in pillaging Panama, were cruel beyond
imagination, they were always famous for their outward evidences of
religion and piety. The Spanish were always chanting hymns and honoring
the saints; the French would shoot down their own soldiers for irreverent
behavior during mass; the English pirate captains never failed to hold divine
services on Sunday, and often prohibited profanity and gambling.
Where once Spaniards tortured Indians and British buccaneers raided
Spaniards, where once revolution after revolution left a poor and desolate
country, to-day the gates of Panama are open to the world, and its trade is
invited again to pass that way. The people of the Isthmus believe that the
glory which departed when Morgan sacked Old Panama, forcing the Pacific
trade to seek the Strait of Magellan, will return with the opening of the
Panama Canal, and that their capital, whose walls cost so much that the
Spanish king thought he could see them from his chamber window in
Madrid, will retrieve its ancient glory.

CHAPTER XXIX
OTHER GREAT CANALS

While the Panama Canal seems destined to endure for all time as the
greatest artificial shipway in the world, there are other waterways, while
small in comparison, that are in themselves wonderful works of
engineering. In point of traffic the greatest canal in the world is the Sault
Ste. Marie Canal, popularly called the "Soo." In point of economy of
distance and world-affecting consequence the Suez Canal ranks with, or
next to, Panama.
The Suez Canal was built while the Civil War was raging in the United
States, and was opened for the passage of vessels on November 17, 1869. It
is about twice as long as the Panama Canal, the distance from Port Said, at
the Mediterranean terminus, to Suez at the Red Sea end, being
approximately 100 miles. When constructed its depth was 26 feet, 3 inches,
and its bottom width 72 feet. The maximum vessel draft permitted was 24
feet 7 inches. The canal was in operation for 11 years before vessels of this
draft presented themselves for passage.
During the first dozen years of its operation various curves were
straightened, the turning-out places where vessels passed one another were
enlarged, and their number increased to 13. This work of straightening
curves and widening the canal has continued from that time until the
present, and to-day vessels may pass one another through a large part of its
length. The policy increasing the general dimensions of the canal was begun
in 1887. By 1890 its depth had been increased to 291⁄2 feet, so that it could
accommodate ships having a draft of 26 feet 3 inches. The work of
deepening continued, and when the United States began to build the
Panama Canal this work was speeded up, so that by 1908 a depth of 323⁄4
feet was attained and vessels of 28 feet draft could be accommodated. In
1909 it was decided that it would be necessary to make the canal still
deeper, and a project, which will not be completed until 1915, was then
undertaken, calling for a depth of 36 feet 1 inch. By 1898 the width of the

canal had been increased from 72 feet to 981⁄2 feet. This is now being still
further increased to 1341⁄2 feet. Even when this project is completed in 1915,
the Panama Canal still can accommodate ships of 5 feet greater draft than
the Suez Canal.
The maximum draft of ships permitted to use the Suez Canal is demanded
in comparatively few instances. A recent report showed that 94 per cent of
the ships using the canal had a draft of less than 261⁄4 feet, and that only 1
per cent had a draft of 28 feet. The increase in the depth of the canal,
therefore, was made largely in anticipation of future shipping requirements.
When the canal was completed it required 49 hours for a ship to pass
through it. The growth in its dimensions, together with the increase in the
number and size of passing stations, the straightening of curves, and the
improvement of facilities, have brought down to 17 hours the average
length of time required for the transit. Ships not equipped with electric
searchlights are not permitted to pass through at night. The improvements
being made on the canal are being paid for mainly from the revenues
derived from tolls.
The Suez Canal was constructed, and has been enlarged and managed, by a
private corporation which has invested from the beginning of the
construction up to the present time about $127,000,000 of which
approximately two-thirds has been secured from the sale of securities, and
one-third from the earnings. The original capital of the Suez Canal
Company, issued in 1859, was 400,000 shares of $100 each. These shares
partake of the nature of both bonds and stock, for they are entitled to
interest of 5 per cent as well as to participation in the company's profits.
Provision is made for their redemption, but when redeemed they continue to
share in the profits and merely lose the interest-bearing feature. On
December 31, 1911, 378,231 of these shares were in circulation.
In 1875 the British Government, through Lord Beaconsfield, purchased the
176,602 shares held by the Khedive of Egypt, paying some $20,000,000 for
them. The British Government does not own a majority of the shares, and
the Suez Canal is controlled and operated by a French company. The annual
dividends have increased from 4.7 per cent to 33 per cent. The shares are
closely held and trading in them is light. The stock sells at a premium of