%.^' .'^»" %>/ "^'* "H./ -' / -o,--.-.'-/ V^-/ ^%.'^^'/ .-S^'' V Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/americansinpanam01scot i THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA B^ ..J' WILLIAM R. SCOTT ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK THE STATLER PUBLISHING COMPANY SOI FIFTH AVENUE 1913 /-/'• 6 / Copyright, 191 2, by WILLIAM R. SCOTT /^ THE TROW PRESS NEW YORK 4 /. 3 vi-^' ©C(.A328189 L\ TO MY MOTHER CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. — The Land Divided — The World United i II. — The Life Cost of the Canal . . 9 III. — The Spanish in Panama . . . . 21 IV. — ^The Panama Railroad .... 30 V. — ^The French in Panama .... 39 VI. — ^The Americans in Panama ... 46 VII. — ^The Roosevelt Impetus . . . 52 VIII. — ^Taking the Canal Zone ... 58 IX. — The Geography of Panama ... 76 X. — Getting Under Way 86 XL— The Canal Under Wallace ... 92 XII. — The Canal Under Stevens . . .108 XIII. — ^The Canal Under Goethals . . .125 XIV. — ^LocKS AND Dams 157 XV. — The Culebra Cut 172 XVL— Labor 185 XVII. — Commissary — Quarters — Subsistence . 200 XVIII. — Civil Administration 211 XIX. — ^The Society of the Chagres . . 218 XX.— The Trade Outlook . . . .226 XXL— Settling Our Account With Colombia 238 XXIL — ^The Monroe Doctrine .... 249 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Chagres River Frontispiece ^ FACING PAGE Col. W. C. Gorgas ii '^ President Roosevelt 55'^ Map of Isthmus of Panama 76"^ John F. Wallace gy President Taft . loii- John F. Stevens 115=" Col. Geo. W. Goethals 131-^ Assistant and Division Engineers . . . .147*^ Profile Map of the Canal 157"^ Entrance to a Lock 159*^ Interior of a Lock . 165*^ The Culebra Cut 173- Deepest Part of the Cut 181 »^ Old and New Machinery . . . . . .1911^ Quarters for American Employees .... 205*^ Governors of the Canal Zone . . . . . 215;^ Gatun Lake 223 '^ Map of Trade Routes 22^ *^ Cover Design .... Employee's Check Number ^ FOREWORD VERACITY to the facts concerning the Panama Canal requires that a writer not merely view the object which he describes, but that he actually become a part of the mechanism that is giving it form. He may thus practically illuminate observation with experience, and so vivify the object in his own thought, that his attempt to present it to others will be a close approximation of the truth. In the five months the author spent in Panama, he was for slightly more than three months an employee of the Isthmian Canal Commission, living the routine life of a canal employee. He discovered that, had he followed the usual method of coming into the Canal Zone on one steamer, taking notes, and leav- ing on the next steamer, he would have missed many fundamental facts, which absolutely must be known if a really trustworthy account of the greatest task of the age is desired. The Panama Canal is not the monument of any one individual American, nor of any select few individual Americans. In generations to come, the canal, like the skyscrapers of our cities, will be viewed as a manifestation of the building genius of the American people, just as the Pyramids of Egypt are not re- xi FOREWORD membered so much as the work of a given Rameses as a manifestation of the big building instinct of the entire race. This book is unjust to the generality of Ameri- cans who have helped to make the canal a success. Some day the government will authorize a history of the canal that will give the proper prominence to the rank and file as well as to the subordinate officials. But the treatment here undertaken, through the neces- sity for condensation, touches only the men who have affected the canal in the broadest way. The average American layman desires an authori- tative history of the project, but he particularly de- sires a nontechnical review, and decidedly one which distinguishes events from mere incidents, so that he may not be burdened with a mass of details which make it difficult for the essential facts to be kept in mind and at the tongue's end for immediate and in- telligent conversation. Those who prefer a more exhaustive treatment must look to the formidable annual reports of the Isthmian Canal Commission, to the files of the Canal Record, the speeches of Col. Goethals, and to a bibli- ography that already is extensive and is growing at a lusty rate. Central America and the islands of the Caribbean Sea afford a rich field for historical writing of the xii Map of the Isthmus of Panama. FOREWORD most intensely interesting character, but one volume cannot adequately cover so much ground. The scope of this book is limited to the Isthmus of Panama, covering a period of four hundred and ten years. Only so much of the history of the Isthmus under the Spanish, and during the construction of the Pan- ama Railroad and the French attempt to dig a canal, is given as was necessary to lend a perspective to the work of the Americans. W. R. S. Paducah, Kentucky, October, jgi2. XHl THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA CHAPTER I THE LAND DIVIDED — THE WORLD UNITED AMERICANS, your dream of an interoceanic ^ canal is near to realization ! Where the Spanish scoffed and the French failed, the Americans have triumphed. South America, like Africa, soon will become an island, and the heroic searchings after a passage to the Spice Islands, by- Columbus, will reach fruition in 191 3, by the hands of a nation, not of the world which he knew, but of that very new world which he discovered! The Panama Canal has its broadest significance in the prodigious transformations it will make in the world's geography. It is a literal fulfillment of the Scriptural promise to man that he should have domin- ion over all the earth. There is poetic justice in the snatching of this vast enterprise from the parental hands of Europe by the lusty offspring of the Western Hemisphere. We thereby vindicate our slogan of America for Ameri- cans, because we have demonstrated our sufficiency in the face of the largest demand upon man's engineer- ing acumen. If it should have been said in 1904 that in nine years we would have removed more than 200,000,000 I THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA cubic yards of earth and rock, laid 5,000,000 cubic yards of concrete, made dams and fills of more than 50,000,000 cubic yards, relocated the Panama Rail- road, spent less than $300,000,000, and put the first ship through from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Europe would have smiled at our youthful temerity! Yet, in 19 1 3, we will have done precisely that. To-day there is no reason for revising the state- ment by Theodore Shonts that : " The physical con- struction of the Panama Canal is, all things consid- ered, the greatest task of modern times. It is in the highest degree exceptional in magnitude, complexity, and cost." The American-Panama Canal has risen phoenix- like out of the ruins of the French enterprise. For four centuries events have been shaping at Panama to make our final attempt successful. When we be- gan, crude as the conditions were, the sting of the Isthmus, except its diseases, had been drawn. There was a beaten road from ocean to ocean, on every hand were landmarks to warn our footsteps from perilous paths, the lives that had been lost, the money that had been spent, all served to make our task achiev- able. We justly may be proud of our deeds, but we should not forget. It may be asserted that the exigencies of world convenience justified the manner by which we ac- quired the Canal Zone; but in declining thus far to make reparation to Colombia we are violating the essential ethics of Americanism. Certainly the Amer- ican people cannot afford to dedicate their crowning LAND DIVIDED achievement in this age with one single nation enter- taining a sense of wrong because of it! The canal entered upon its last phase with the an- nouncement by Chief Engineer Goethals that the first ship would go through in September, 191 3. Thence- forward a definite goal was seen, and, despite the slides in the mountain cut, or any other obstacles, that program will be kept. Not a sign of slackness, but rather stimulated activities have followed the bring- ing of the end of the task in sight. In 19 12 all rec- ords for excavation and concrete work were smashed ! During the first two years and a half the canal was in its first phase. It was the period of pioneering, preparation, and adjustment. Two Chief Engineers were tried, from the ranks of civil life, accomplishing the main preliminaries to canal construction before their departure. Both were men of unquestioned in- tegrity and of impressive ability, but neither was the one of destiny to complete the task. The second phase of the canal was from the be- ginning of 1907 to the spring of 191 2. During these six years the heart of the task was accomplished. President Roosevelt had found the man who was to take the organization built up by the men from the ranks of private industry and hurl it against the natural obstacles that stood in the way of success. Col. Goethals was to take the blue-prints, and a head full of theories, and work them out into the locks, dams, and cuts in concrete mold to-day. The third and last phase, as noted, began in 191 2 when the Chief Engineer set a date for the substan- 3 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA tial completion of the canal. 'It is distinguished by the gradual dispersion of the army of workers, by the reverse process of the first two years, and by the creation of a permanent operating force with the de- tail finishing work that attends every large project. The East has furnished the canal with its Chief Engineers — Wallace from Massachusetts, Stevens from Maine, Goethals from New York. But every State in the Union has furnished the rank and file, as well as every nation in the world. Standing out distinctly from the construction phase of the enterprise is the figure of Col. Gorgas, the Chief Sanitary Officer, now, as in the critical days of 1905, quiet, alert, confident. The last days of the canal find a perfect mechanism of his creation record- ing his ideas with dispatch and precision, receiving the plaudits of this and secure in the admiration of succeeding generations. With the long ascent behind, standing upon the crest of the work of construction, looking down- grade at the early completion of the canal, one fact is emphasized in the minds of all laymen and engi- neers who view the project with open eyes. It is this. A sea-level canal, if not an impossibility, would have been an indefinite number of years in building and would have cost an indefinitely greater number of millions. The precipitation of more than 20,000,000 cubic yards of extraneous material into the Culebra cut, by slides, rivets that fact in the minds of all observers. The locks may grow too small, the Gatun dam may 4 LAND DIVIDED break, a caving in of the foundations of the colossal structures may occur, and other convulsions of nature may disable the canal, but nothing can rob the Amer- icans of a wonderful achievement, nor will the work have been without glory and justification, no matter what the future holds. We still could rejoice in the sheer courage, persistence, and indomitable ability that have wrought the work in Panama. Just as the Civil War developed Grant, and the Spanish-American War Dewey and Schley, so has the Panama Canal developed Goethals. He justly is celebrated in the periodical and daily press and in books as a splendid embodiment of Americanism — the ideal combination of ability and integrity. It is true, of course, that the completion of the canal substantially fourteen months before the esti- mated date, January i, 191 5, and the saving of $20,- 000,000 in the estimated cost, may mean simply that both items were overestimated in 1908 by Col. Goeth- als; but the tremendous increase in necessary exca- vation, due to slides and changes in plans, more than offsets this consideration and forces the acknowledg- ment that the savings in time and money represent the increased efficiency his own preeminent abilities have been able to produce. A perspective view of the whole enterprise shows that Theodore Roosevelt, by his individual actions, on at least three occasions, vitally affected the canal and its successful consummation. When he cut the Gor- dian knot of diplomacy and took the Canal Zone, he made the first long stride toward interoceanic com- 5 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA munication. When he threw his weight into the scale for a lock type canal, he decided the most critical question that ever arose in the career of the enter- prise. The third time his judgment prevented a great mistake was when the project definitely was taken from the possibility of private construction and placed in the hands exclusively of government supervision. There were lesser decisions of great moment, not- ably the order for widening the locks and the Culebra cut, and his whole connection with the project was such as to rank as the most brilliant phase of his administrations. Before ten years have passed the American people will realize that the canal would have been cheap at twice the cost. The estimated cost, $375,000,000, is an impressive figure, but this age is moving fast. As great as the enterprise is, it is not probable that, in the item of cost at least, it will long remain the record achievement. But it is probable that when the record is broken, it will be the Americans who break it. To July I, 191 2, the canal had cost, fifteen months before its completion, $260,000,000. This was divided as follows: Canal Zone, $10,000,000; French purchase, $40,000,000; engineering and construction, $152,- 000,000; general expenditures, $36,000,000; sanita- tion, $15,000,000; civil administration, $5,500,000; fortifications, $1,000,000. The canal was half done as to excavation and cost in 1 9 10. The toll in human lives, approximately 6,000 by 1 91 4, for a period of nine and three quarter years, is impressive only for its cheapness. It is estimated 6 LAND DIVIDED that the building of the Panama Railroad, in 1850-55, cost that number of lives, and for the Americans to build the world's greatest enterprise in ten years at so low a life cost constitutes for the tropics a pro- foundly admirable achievement. Whether the gov- ernment has been economical in the physical construc- tion of the canal may be questioned, but it has been positively parsimonious in the expenditure of human life on the project. It would be fitting for the first ship to pass through the canal on September 25, 191 3, or just four hun- dred years to the day from the discovery of the Pa- cific by Balboa. Thousands of Americans may de- sire to go through the canal on their way to San Francisco's Exposition, a really delightful cruise from New York of eighteen days, but if they do, it will be in foreign ships, because we have no vessels that could handle the traffic. It will be a vivid object les- son of our pitiful lack of a merchant marine. Less than 100,000 Americans will have seen the canal in course of construction out of a population of 90,000,000. President Roosevelt truly said that a trip to see this great project in the building was more profitable than a trip to Europe. But at the San Francisco Exposition some compensation will be found for a failure to see the canal by an exhibit of every kind of machinery used by the French and the Americans in the thirty-five years of construction, or from 1880 to 191 5. When the government finally sold off the old French machinery that had littered the Canal Zone for three decades the best specimen 7 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA of each kind of apparatus was reserved for this graphic exhibit. Panama now becomes the farthest outpost of Americanism in Latin America. The peoples of that continent have profited immeasurably by the prac- tical demonstrations in sanitation, civil government, and engineering construction. They have learned, and so has the rest of the world, that the tropics are not necessarily deadly, that order can be maintained, not only among a homogeneous population, but among the heterogeneous races that have thronged the Isthmus, and they have seen that no natural obstacle is insuperable before the intelligence of man. The canal should be a means of cementing these lessons, of disabusing mutual prejudices between the Amer- icans to the North and the Americans to the South. The American conquest of Latin America should be more through uplifting ideals than through bald com- mercialism leading to discord and unbrotherly rela- tions. CHAPTER II THE LIFE COST MEASURED in money, the Panama Canal was to cost $375,000,000. This is impressive, but there is another item of cost more important, namely, " The Life Cost," or the cost, in human lives, of dig- ging the canal. Contemplating the record of the Isthmus for un- health fulness, it could not but be anticipated, in 1904, when the Americans took charge, that this cost would be heavy. That it should be surprisingly low consti- tutes a more significant achievement than any saving in the money or time cost of the project. On July I, 1912, the Americans had been eight years in the actual work of building the canal. In that period of eight years there were: Deaths from disease 4,146 Deaths from violence 995 Total deaths 5,141 Another full year before the passage of the first ship, and eighteen months before the practical and continuous operation of the completed canal, will bring that total of deaths, estimating on the average of previous years and not considering unprecedented 9 Deaths Rate per 1,000 82 13.26 427 25.86 1,105 4173 1,131 28.74 571 13.01 502 10.64 558 10.88 539 11.02 226 10.60 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA increases, to less than 6,000 by January i, 191 4. The Sanitary Department makes the following report for the eight-year period ending July i, 1912: Year No. of Employees 1904 6,213 1905 16,512 1906 26,547 1907 39,238 1908 43.891 1909 47.167 I9IO 50,802 191 1 48,876 1912 (July) . . . 48,000 The foregoing figures not only cover those actually at work on the canal, but as well include those who, while not regularly employed, are the wards of the Commission when idle. From 1907 onward health has been normal on the Isthmus, within the Canal Zone, with a death rate, among the Americans, fre- quently lower than in large centers of population in the United States. President Roosevelt selected Col. William Craw- ford Gorgas to clean up the Isthmus because of his record in sanitary work in Cuba and elsewhere. Chief Engineer Wallace doubted his capacity, and so did Secretary of War Taft, but, by 1906, the latter was ready to acknowledge his mistake. Col. Gorgas is a Southern man, a native of Alabama, and so natu- rally quiet and reserved in demeanor and deportment 10 Copyright hy Harris <& Ewing. Col. W. C. Gorgas. LIFE COST that men accustomed to measure a man by bluster and self-assertiveness make the mistake of assuming that he is not strong. His manner and methods sug- gest Gen. Robert E. Lee. There were two prime needs, as Col. Gorgas viewed the Isthmus in 1904, in any campaign for im- proved health conditions. One was to make the Isth- mus clean and the other was to kill the mosquitoes which he considered a means of propagating disease. Practically everything done by the health department has been along these main lines of theory. The United States profited by the mistakes of the French to the extent of reserving, in the treaty with the Republic of Panama, the exclusive right to con- trol the sanitation of Panama and Colon. So, in 1904, the engineers immediately went to work on a sewer, waterworks, and street-paving plan that would make of these two characteristically filthy Central American cities, clean, decent, sanitary places of abode. The native population dumped all garbage, and mat- ter usually consigned to sewers, into the streets. These streets were mud holes which, with the admix- ture of refuse, made a condition inconceivably dirty and naturally unhealthful. The Americans made a reservoir in the mountains a dozen miles away for the water supply of Panama, dug sewers and forced the native houses to connect with them, and then paved the streets with brick. A system of garbage collection was organized, and the city was cleared of all rubbish. To-day the tourist sees some evidence II THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA of slovenly living, but conditions generally are sur- prisingly smart. The second part of the program — killing the mos- quitoes — was accomplished principally by the use of crude oil. Every stagnant pool of water, and most of the running streams — except rivers — were treated with oil, and the rank grass and tropical growth was kept cut by hundreds of scythemen. As a further war measure all houses were screened, the amount spent on this item alone amounting to a sum between $750,- 000 and $1,000,000. Having cleaned up within, rigid quarantine regula- tions were made to keep out persons who might be brought in a diseased condition from other ports. Vaccination of every person who enters the Canal Zone is compulsory, unless a good scar can be shown. In 1905 a ship load of natives from Martinique, im- ported to work on the canal, refused to land because they thought vaccination was a plan to brand them so they could never return to their home. They were forced out at the point of the bayonet and vaccinated. It was before these plans had been matured that the first and only epidemic of yellow fever occurred in the Canal Zone. In April, 1905, an employee in the Administration building in Panama became sick with the fever, and from then on to September the Canal Zone was in the throes of a fear that was featured by the wholesale departure of employees. The news- papers gave the epidemic wide and oftentimes errone- ous publicity, with the consequence that the govern- ment had to pay for the fear of the Isthmus thus 12 LIFE COST created, in greatly increased salaries and gratuities, to secure American employees. By October, 1905, Col. Gorgas had mastered the epidemic, and, although isolated cases have occurred since, yellow fever was permanently banished as the bugbear of Panama. From July i, 1904, to Novem- ber I, 1905, 44 employees succumbed to this disease. While the epidemic raged, from April to September, 1905, there were -^y deaths among employees, mainly among Americans, with whom the epidemic started. There was a siege with smallpox and the plague, but they, too, were eradicated in so far as epidemics are concerned, and malaria, pneumonia, and tubercu- losis remain as the most frequent attributed causes of death. Quinine has been bought by the ton for the Canal Zone dispensaries and hospitals. In 1908 each employee averaged about an ounce of quinine, and they were advised to take three grains daily. The French had left hospital buildings in Colon and on the side of Ancon hill, just outside of Pan- ama. The Americans renovated these and added to them until the present vast facilities came into form. They sometimes have more than 1,200 patients. A large asylum for the insane also is maintained. Hos- pital cars are attached to the passenger trains to bring in patients to the Ancon and Colon hospitals each day. In every town or settlement there is a dispensary with a physician in charge and a sanitary officer to inspect conditions of living. There are about 24 employees out of every thousand constantly sick. For the Canal Zone, Panama and Colon, in 1905 13 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA the death rate was 49.94 per 1,000. In 191 1 it was 21.46, or cut down more than one half. In 1906 the death rate among the Americans from disease was 5.36, and in 191 1 it was 2.82. In 1908 and 1910 there were more Americans killed in accidents or died from violence than died from disease. lit necessarily follows, from an engineering task of this magnitude, where vast quantities of explosives are handled, where there is a considerable railroad mileage and other hazardous features of construction, that the death rate from violence or accidents would be large. Every month since the American occupation began in May, 1904, there has been an average of 10 em- ployees killed or have died from external causes. The total to July I, 1 912, was 995, and by the time the canal is completed, barring unusual catastrophes, the deaths from this cause will be around 1,100. Under the head of violence are included deaths by drowning, suicide, dynamite explosions, railroad accidents, poi- sonings, homicides, electric shocks, burns, lightning, and accidental traumatism of various kinds. Scores of deaths have resulted from the practice of the native employees in using the railroad tracks as public highways. There have been bad collisions and wrecks with fatalities, and dynamite has claimed about one tenth of the victims of external violence. In the handling of 25,259 tons of dynamite, or 50,- 517,650 pounds, to July 1,1912, the following princi- pal accidents have occurred: December 12, 1908, at Bas Obispo, premature ex- 14 LIFE COST plosion of twenty- two tons in the Culebra cut, 26 killed and 40 injured. October 10, 1908, at Mindi, 7 killed and 10 in- jured, premature explosion. Dredging in Pacific en- trance. October 8, 1908, at Empire, in the Culebra cut, 5 killed and 8 injured, premature explosion. August 30, 1 910, at Ancon quarry, 4 killed. July 19, 191 1, at Ancon quarry, 4 killed, 2 in- jured. January 10, 1909, at Paraiso, 2 killed, 10 injured. July 25, 1909, on Panama Railroad, 4 killed, 9 injured. May 22, 1908, in Chagres division, 2 killed, prema- ture explosion of twenty-six tons, caused by light- ning. Forty deaths from dynamite explosions are noted for the year 1908, the largest number for any one year of canal construction, and this does not take into account several individual fatalities. Chief En- gineer Goethals issued stringent regulations to govern the handling of the dynamite, but it was in such com- mon use that the employees naturally became careless. An instance is afforded by two employees who knocked an iron pipe against a railroad track to dis- lodge some dynamite. They were angels in less than two seconds after the first blow. The worst acci- dent, at Bas Obispo, has not been explained. Most of the accidents have occurred since the work- ing force has been in excess of 20,000 men. When the number killed outside the line of duty is sub- 15 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA tracted from the total deaths by violence, it will be found that the actual building of the canal has been attended by a normal percentage of such fatalities — certainly no larger than in any private construc- tion of the same character or approximating the same magnitude. The largest number of deaths by violence among employees in one year was in 1909, when 178 were killed, and this was equaled again in 191 1. The following table shows the number of American em- ployees, the total death rate, and the relation of deaths from disease to deaths by violence from 1906 to 191 1, inclusive: Year No. of Death Rate _ By Violence Empl'y's Per 1,000 1906 3,264 8.14 5.36 1907 5.000 8.14 5.36 1908 5,126 8.19 370 4.49 1909 5.300 5.56 3.23 2.33 1910 5,573 5.35 2.43 2.92 1911 6,163 5.14 2.S2 2.32 Col. Gorgas found, in the early years of canal work, that the Americans and Europeans were three times as healthy as the natives of the tropics, who, as Chief Engineer Stevens noted in 1905, " are sup- posed to be immune from everything, but who, as a matter of fact, are subject to almost everything." This somewhat upsets the theory that northern races cannot live readily in tropical climates. Several of the annual reports of the Sanitary De- partment have noted the remarkably few diseases 16 LIFE COST peculiar to men, such as alcoholism, etc. Mr. Tracy Robinson, in his book of personal reminiscences, " Fifty Years at Panama," speaks authoritatively on the use of liquor in the tropics as follows : ** Many foreigners have fallen victims to fear rather than fever; while many others have wrought their own destruction by drink, which is the greatest curse of man- kind in all lands, but more especially in hot countries. It has killed, directly and indi- rectly, more than the entire list of diseases put together; for it induces by its derange- ment of the vital forces, every ill to which flesh is heir. Candor compels me to state that I have tried both abstinence and moder- ate indulgence; and when it is said that strong drink is necessary in the tropics to tone the system up, or for any good purpose under heaven, I say emphatically, it is not so! It is absolutely best to let it entirely alone. My fifty years' experience gives me authority to write as I do." Allowance must be made, in considering the favor- able health showing on the Isthmus, to the fact that the employees in one sense are picked men. They must be in sound condition when employed and usually in the prime of life. Another thing that has kept the death rate down among the Americans has been the practice of returning to the United States many patients who apparently had not long to live. 17 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA Thus their deaths were not a charge against the Canal Zone. It cannot be assumed that all the deaths from dis- ease in the Canal Zone were from causes that origi- nated there. The diseases peculiar to the tropics have not claimed as many victims among the Americans as the diseases peculiar to the northern climates. But there has been a steady improvement, as may be noted in a fall in the death rate among the Americans, from 8.14 per 1,000 in 1907 to 5.14 per 1,000 in 191 1. An incident in the sanitary government of the Isth- mus was an Executive Order by President Taft, ef- fective on December 12, 191 1, which prohibited the practice of any system of therapeutics or healing that the Sanitary Department, the allopathic school, should rule against. The President, upon its possible appli- cation to create a monopoly of healing in the Canal Zone being pointed out to him, revoked the order on January i, 1912. Employees are not permitted to remain in their homes or quarters when sick, but must go to the Colon or Ancon hospital, unless the district physi- cian expressly rules otherwise. The hospital grounds at Ancon are beautiful, and convalescent patients are sent to Taboga Island, ten miles out in Panama Bay, for final treatment. A dairy with 125 cows supplies fresh milk to the Ancon hospital. At first Col. Gorgas was not a member of the Isth- mian Canal Commission. But the extraordinary abil- ity he displayed resulted in the separation of the Sani- tary Department from the jurisdiction of the Gov- 18 LIFE COST ernor of the Canal Zone, and on February 28, 1907, Col. Gorgas was made a member of the Commission, with the Department of Sanitation having equal dig- nity with other grand divisions of the work. He is the only official of the highest rank who has been with the canal project from its earliest days to the present. The cost of the sanitary conquest of the Isthmus, to July I, 191 2, was the somewhat impressive total of $15,000,000. Here, as in the pay and treatment of employees, the government has sought results without regard to the expense. For the remaining days of the canal the cost of sanitation will be approximately $2,500,000, or $17,500,000 in all by January i, 191 4, which amount is nearly $3,000,000 less than the cost estimated for the department in 1908. The first grand lesson from the life cost of the Panama Canal is that the tropics no longer offer in- superable obstacles to the health of northern races. For all South and Central America the work of the Americans in Panama teaches the imperative neces- sity of a literal belief in the old adage : " Cleanliness is next to Godliness." At every single point where disease has dominated the situation, it has been found that filth abounded. Guayaquil, in Ecuador, some- times is quarantined half the year, and it is a signifi- cant fact that this has been one of the dirtiest ports in South America. Any people who are willing to live indecently will pay the penalty in a high death rate. When the ordinary cleanliness to which the Ameri- can, or the European, is accustomed is observed in the tropics, and if intoxicants are not permitted to 19 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA dominate the individual life, there will not be the slightest difficulty in living near the Equator. The ultimate crowding of North America will force pop- ulation into Central and South America, and among the world benefits of the Panama Canal none is more flattering to the Americans than just this lesson that he who will live decently may live healthfully. 20 CHAPTER III THE SPANISH IN PANAMA HISTORIANS have noted that certain members of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms have played a vital part in the discovery and colonization of the Americas. Columbus, the master spirit of his age, had the noble, imaginative conception of the earth's rotundity which he wished to demonstrate to mankind, but his immediate impulse was to find the shortest passage to the East Indies, where the spices so much prized on the dining tables of Europe could be obtained and brought back more expeditiously than by the long trip around the Cape of Good Hope. To the North, more than a hundred years later, tobacco was the main product that held the English colonists to Virginia in the face of hostile savages and exile from home. Smoking spread over Europe like an epidemic, making the rewards from the culti- vation of the weed immediate and profitable from the start. The members of the mineral kingdom which held the venturesome mariners to their new found lands, despite every discouragement, human and natural, were gold and silver. No sooner had these precious metals crossed the European vision than their first love, spices, faded completely out of the imagination. 21 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA Thenceforth, the Spaniards and the Portuguese ran- sacked an isthmus, a continent, and the islands of the sea with frenzied and appalling barbarities and with splendid success. Thus spices, tobacco, gold, and silver have been the unheroic causes of epochal movements in the human family. Columbus kept his vision above the sordid greed for gold to the last. On the fourth at- tempt he made to find a passage to the East Indies he cruised along the Isthmian coast from September, 1502, to January, 1503, entering and naming the har- bor of Porto Bello on November 2, 1502, and visiting Nombre de Dios on November 9th, in what is now the Republic of Panama. Columbus, however, was not the discoverer of Pan- ama, as a Spaniard, named Rodrigo de Bastides, had preceded him to this coast, in 1501, so that the period of the Spanish in Panama dates from that year. Ba- stides visited Nombre de Dios, where eight years later the first Spanish settlement on the Isthmus was planted, in 1509, as a base for the search for gold. Vasco Nunez de Balboa had been with Bastides on his trip of exploration and he became the head of the new colony at Panama. It had been desig- nated " The Castle of Gold " by the King of Spain because of the plentiful quantities of that metal found among the natives. For a few years the mountains with their dense jungle growth stood as a barrier to explorations farther inland, but the stories of the marvelous wealth of the inhabitants on the other side, told to Balboa by the Indians, so excited his 22 SPANISH cupidity that, in 15 13, he gathered a band of 190 men and started across. When they approached the summit of a mountain which, the 'Indian guide said, would afford a view of the new sea, Balboa ordered his men to halt while he alone took the first view. There, in the heart of the Isthmian jungle, four hundred years ago, with what must have been a feeling of awe even to his hardened nature, Balboa discovered the Pacific, on September 25, 15 13. Calling his men to him, they had a religious ceremony, claiming all they surveyed as the dominions of His Majesty, the King of Spain. Four days later, after traversing the distance to this sea from the mountain, he waded out into the water and reaffirmed his sovereign's title. Gold he found in abundance, and pearls of fabu- lous size and value. After five months' absence, he returned to Nombre de Dios by a more direct course, and spread the news which was to turn Central and South America into a slaughter house, through the mad traffic that debauched Spain, made pirates of England's navigators, and reduced the original popu- lation to wretched slavery. Balboa found that he had been succeeded as Gov- ernor at Nombre de Dios by a soldier named Pedra- rias. Between them a hatred sprang up which, in 1 517, resulted in the untimely and unjust execution of Balboa on trumped up charges. Prior to this, Bal- boa had made other trips to the Pacific, carrying across with incredible labor the parts of ships which were rebuilt in the Pacific. In 191 1 the Americans 23 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA found a cannon of immense weight about halfway across, which evidently had been abandoned by Bal- boa, and an anchor of great size also has been found. Pedrarias, in 1515, had sent exploring parties to the Pacific side to select a site for a settlement on that coast. The San Francisco Exposition, therefore, in 191 5, will be exactly four hundred years after this event. It was not until 15 19 that the settlement was started, and the founding of the city of Panama dates historically from that year. With the founding of a town on the Pacific side began the interoceanic traffic which ever since has emphasized the need of easier and swifter communi- cation between the Atlantic and Pacific. The site of the city was about twelve miles from the present city of Panama, and a few miles inland. At a huge ex- pense of labor and life a paved road was constructed from Nombre de Dios to Panama, portions of which may be seen in the Canal Zone to-day. Another route across the Isthmus followed the Chagres River as far as it was navigable to a point near the Ameri- can town of Gorgona, from there the trip being across the mountains to Panama. It may be noted that Panama was founded a full one hundred years before the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Nombre de Dios was a town ninety- eight years before the first English settlement in North America, at Jamestown, in 1607. Saint Augustine, Florida, the oldest town in North America, was not founded until forty-six years after Panama. Indeed, Panama is the oldest part of continental America. 24 SPANISH Francisco Pizarro, a pupil of the Balboa school, heard tales about an indescribably rich country south of Panama. He organized an expedition, which left Panama in 1532, and effected the conquest of Peru, which Prescott has immortalized in Hterature. His- tory does not afford a more daring, a more barbarous, and scarcely a more richly rewarded conquest, nor does Europe or Mexico present a more interesting prehistoric civilization than the land of the Incas. After nearly a century at Nombre de Dios, the Spanish, in the year 1584, found Porto Bello a health- ier site for a settlement, and moved bag and baggage to that incomparable port. In leaving Nombre de Dios, it is worth recording that Sir Francis Drake, the great Englishman who had " singed the King of Spain's beard," who had plundered the Spanish Main from boyhood, and had circumnavigated the globe, claiming California for his Queen, died on board ship and was buried at sea off Nombre de Dios in 1596. Porto Bello at once became the depot of Spanish treasure, accumulated from Peru or other South and Central American countries, and brought across the Isthmus from Panama with incredible hardship. From this port the Spanish galleons ran the gauntlet of English pirates to Spain. Drake had been one of the most intrepid of this crew. Henry Morgan, a century later, was another. The English allowed the Spanish to perform all the arduous labor and fighting involved in acquiring the gold and silver, then hov- ered around the West Indies and took it from them, or died in the attempt. 25 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA In 1668, Henry Morgan collected a motley crew of sea vagabonds with the object of capturing Porto Bello. The operations of the English buccaneers usu- ally were plain piracy, but they justified themselves in their own minds by the quarrelsome state of the relations between England and Spain, and a still deeper motive was the implacable warfare between Protestant and Catholic. Morgan, as unprincipled a soldier as ever fought, was knighted for his piracies in Panama. Porto Bello was captured after a fight not sur- passed in history for inhumanities. The treasure they found here whetted their lust for gold, with the re- sult that, three years later, a still bolder enterprise, that of traversing the Isthmus and taking Panama, was planned. In 1671 Morgan started up the Cha- gres River with 1,600 men, and, after abandoning that stream, they struck out overland to Panama. Nine days were consumed in the journey with hard- ships from hunger and the labor of penetrating the jungle, the like of which have not been exceeded by soldiers anywhere. When they did get in sight of Panama they were so weak that a more resolute foe easily could have annihilated the army of invasion. The Spanish and natives kept within their fortifications and their first offensive move was to attempt to stampede two thou- sand bulls upon Morgan's men, who promptly quit fighting to slaughter enough of the animals to satisfy their hunger. Thus what might have been a formidable 26 SPANISH defensive act, if successfully managed, was turned to vital advantage by the enemy. A desperate defense was unavailing. The city was captured, but found to be barren of treasure, as the Spanish had loaded a ship with their gold and silver before the attack began, and the ship could not be found. It was an unwise move, because the infuriated pirates proceeded to torture the people, and to mur- der hundreds, finally burning Panama to the ground. To-day tourists go out to see a tower and other ruins of the famous old city of Panama. Panama was rebuilt on a short promontory in the Pacific, and although captured again by the pirates in 1680 has remained on the new site to this time. Many vicissitudes attended the career of the Span- iards for the following century and a half, the chief ruffle on their calm being an effort by William Pater- son, a wealthy Englishman, to found a colony of Scotchmen in the Darien region on the Atlantic coast, east of Porto Bello. The first colony of 1,200 came in 1698 and perished from disease or fighting, and a second company of 1,300 followed the same course, being expelled or killed by the Spanish, so that not more than thirty ever returned to Scotland. It was a lamentable failure of English colonizing south of the American colonies, and was not followed by other experiments in Panama. During all the stirring years in Panama the Span- ish had swarmed over Mexico, Central America, and South America. Yet, early in the nineteenth century the great colonial empire began crumbling away. 27 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA Province after province revolted from Spain. The explanation is that the Spanish never looked on Amer- ica as anything other than a place to extract gold and silver. This attitude enabled them to secure the most wealth in the shortest time, but the methods employed, and the treatment of the natives, laid the foundation in unstable elements. In North America regular agricultural and commercial pursuits caused English civilization to take deep root, but, in justice to Spain, it at least is true that she maintained her authority over her colonies as long as England did over hers. Panama, in 1821, caught the spirit of revolt, and accomplished her freedom from Spain in a bloodless revolution. It then joined the Confederation of New Granada, the Colombia of to-day, under Simon Boli- var, South America's great soldier and statesman. Here ended the career of the Spanish in Panama. Easily the most impressive fact in all the Western Hemisphere is the achievement of the Spanish in dis- possessing a whole continent of its original tongues and substituting therefor their own language. With the exception of some Portuguese colonies, the lan- guage of the Castiles is the language from the Rio Grande to Patagonia. The customs also are Spanish and so is the religion. The explanation of this truly remarkable fact is that the Spaniard absolutely re- fused to adapt himself to the native tongues, cus- toms, or religion, forcing them to conform to his. But the chief credit for this achievement belongs to the missionaries of the Catholic Church, men no less 28 SPANISH daring than the conquerors with whom they went hand in hand, planting missions and churches in the jungle. These indomitable priests taught the native children to speak Spanish, and in the course of cen- turies it became the continental language. What will be the future of English in Latin Amer- ica ? It is not a wild prophecy to assert that in another generation Spanish will be decadent and English everywhere ascendent. Already the higher social and business circles are acquiring English. In every cen- ter of population it is making rapid headway, though it must be many years before the mass of the peo- ple make it their own. The South American youth is not dreaming of Europe, but of the giant young republic to the North. He wants to see its skyscrap- ers, its dazzling luxury in every phase of life. Its politics fascinates and amazes him. It seems a land literally rolling in wealth, the land of opportunity and the land where he may learn the arts with which to make a career in his own country. The Americans are as loath to adapt themselves to Spanish customs and dialects as the Spaniards were to the original. Every year Americans find it less difficult to get about anywhere in Latin America. English ultimately will triumph from Alaska to Magellan Straits, and the canal will speed the day. 29 CHAPTER IV THE PANAMA RAILROAD KENTUCKY'S great statesman, Henry Clay, as Secretary of State in 1825 and as Senator in 1835, was interested farsightedly in plans for speed- ier communication at the Isthmus between the two oceans. The independence of Panama from Spain by a bloodless revolution in 1821 had placed the Isth- mus in a new position for other European govern- ments, or the United States, to negotiate terms for concessions. The American people were jealous of foreign activities, but not aggressively active them- selves in concrete efforts toward a canal. De Witt Clinton, prominently connected with the Erie Canal, headed a company that sought government aid in its plans for a canal in Central America, but though Clay encouraged the idea nothing definite re- sulted. The year following, or in 1826, Simon Boli- var, South America's great soldier and statesman, invited the United States, among other American re- publics, to an international conference in Panama with the object of forming a union for the promotion and defense of all American interests. While nothing significant came of this congress, it is noteworthy as the first attempt to form what is now the Pan-American Union, or the Bureau of American Republics, at Washington. It assembled on 30 RAILROAD June 22, 1826, but the United States representatives did not arrive in time to participate. Panama had become a part of the confederation of New Granada after independence from Spain, and thenceforth hved the regular Hfe of a turbulent prov- ince of what to-day is known as Colombia. All the commerce between the coasts drifted across the Isth- mus at that point. Little effort had been made to improve the passage, so that swifter and easier com- munication was the dream of every seaman or trav- eler. Clay introduced a resolution in the Senate in 1835 authorizing President Jackson to appoint a commis- sioner to investigate the feasibility of a rail or water route at the Isthmus. Charles Biddle undertook the mission and secured a concession at Bogota, the capi- tal of New Grenada, but he died before making a re- port. President Van Buren interested himself in the project, but little came of American plans for the next ten years. The ever alert French, in 1847, after securing a concession to build a railroad, allowed it to lapse. It is significant that this French failure was followed, as in the case of trying to dig a canal, by a successful at- tempt by the Americans. Three Americans, William H. Aspinwall, John L. Stephens and Henry Chauncey, of New York, taking advantage of the opening made by the French failure, obtained a concession from the Bogota government in 1849 for building a railroad across the Isthmus at Panama, with the important provision that no canal 31 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA could be constructed there without the company's con- sent. Their concession was for a period of forty-nine years after the completion of the railroad, but Colom- bia reserved the right, twenty years after its comple- tion, to purchase the road for $5,000,000. The unprecedented prosperity of the road immediately upon the beginning of its operation made this latter pro- vision a bad stroke, as in 1875 Colombia could take it over at the fixed valuation. The company began to seek an extension of the life of the concession, with Colombia, unfortunately for it, holding the whip hand. Negotiations were concluded in 1867 whereby a ninety-nine year concession was obtained, but the terms were very hard. A cash bonus of $1,000,000 had to be paid to Colombia, with an annual payment of $250,000 and the company agreed to extend the railroad out into the Pacific Ocean to some islands where deep water would enable large ships to dock. Luckily for the American promoters, the discovery of gold in California in 1849 came just as they were seeking to float their company. The Isthmian route to California at once became heavily traveled and the eyes of the whole world, particularly of the United States, were again fastened upon Panama. Our government in 1846 had concluded a treaty with Colombia which provided for the joint construc- tion of a canal in Panama, and the stimulated interest in the Isthmian route in 1849 made this appear a fortuitous treaty, because it excluded any European power from that territory. A controversy arose be- 32 RAILROAD tween the United States and England over the Nica- raguan canal route, culminating in a treaty between the two governments known as the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850. This treaty provided substantially the same as the Colombian treaty of 1846, that in the event of the construction of any canal in Central Amer- ica, Great Britain and the United States guaranteed its neutrality and use on equal terms to all the world. The addition of the territories of Oregon and Cali- fornia to the United States still further emphasized the need of quick communication between the Atlantic and Pacific. The Panama Railroad, therefore, took hold upon the popular imagination. Aspinwall and his associates pushed the construc- tion of the road under James L. Baldwin, an Amer- ican civil engineer of uncommon ability. Labor of a desirable kind was not obtainable. Many nation- alities were tried, with a tragic failure on the part of the Chinese, who seemed unable to face the terrors of the jungle. Hundreds committed suicide, and dis- ease and accidents claimed other hundreds. The life cost of the Panama Railroad in the Hyq years it was building has been estimated at 6,000 persons. The route selected started at an island near the coast on the Atlantic side, the site of the city of Colon, crossed the hills into the valley of the Chagres River and followed that valley to the continental divide, over which it passed with a maximum elevation of 263 feet above sea-level, and thence down to Panama on the Pacific side. Treacherous swamps, almost impene- trable jungles, and formidable streams and mountains 33 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA necessitated incredibly hard labor and continuous work from 1850 to January 28, 1855, when the first train reached Panama from Colon. The line was forty- seven miles long, built of Belgian rails and on a gauge of five feet. The standard gauge in the United States is four feet nine and a half inches, so that all locomotives and cars used on the Panama railroad have to be specially built with wheels set farther apart. When it comes to disposing of surplus equipment after the canal is fin- ished, the government will have to allow for the cost of modifying the rolling stock from the five-foot to the standard gauge. It is estimated that the axles on locomotives may be shortened at an average cost of $750 a locomotive, and for cars, from %2y to $31 each. California gold-seekers used the railroad as far rs it was built during the years immediately following 1850 and made the rest of the trip across the Isthmus by muleback. There were no buccaneers waiting to relieve them, as they had the Spaniards, of their treas- ure, but bandits and outlaws haunted the route with almost equal success. Thus the railroad had an in- come from the start, and ten years after completion it was known as the best-paying property in the world. The total cost had been $7,407,553, or about $158,- 000 a mile. Dividends were paid every year from 1853 to 1892, and from 1901 to 1903, when it became United States property. The largest year's earnings was in 1868 when 44 percentum was paid, or $4,337,- 668.48 in both dividends and undivided profits. Total 34 RAILROAD earnings from 1855 to 1898 were $94,958,890-3^ J operating expenses, $57,036,234.46; leaving for sur- plus and dividends, $37,922,655. Rather eloquent figures as to the Isthmian freight and passenger traffic ! The great prosperity of the railroad suffered a serious set-back with the completion of the California overland railroad in 1869. Thenceforward the valu- able bullion shipments avoided Panama as well as pas- senger and freight business. The company's business shows a steady decline from that year, and some wooden-headed management contributed to the mo- mentum. Still it was a valuable property, and to the French a very expensive property, as they found in 1 88 1, when they had to buy the railroad in order to obtain a concession to build a canal. Colombia turned to the French, after negotiating fruitlessly with the United States over a canal con- cession, and the company headed by M. de Lesseps was granted a right of way provided the railroad would suspend the provision in its concession giving it the say-so as to water communication. Freight rates were boosted on all French company shipments until in desperation they bought the road for $18,094,- 000, in 1 88 1, paying considerably more than it was worth, or $250 a share for sixty-eight seventieths of the capital stock. The French neglected the commercial possibilities even more than the American owners had, though dividends were earned during the life of the first com- pany. When the United States bought the interests of the French company, in 1904, the Panama Railroad 35 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA was one of the properties transferred. It was sadly run down, but under the Americans it was made over into a modernly equipped and operated system, though subordinated as a commercial proposition to the con- struction of the canal. Chief Engineer Wallace sug- gested that it be double-tracked, or four-tracked, and up-to-date ocean terminals for handling a great freight business be built, with the idea of supplying cheap and swift transit pending the completion of the canal, but this view was abandoned by succeeding engineers, until in 19 12 the Secretary of War cut down the amount of commercial business the road should handle so that canal shipments might have uninterrupted right of way. Doubtless mahogany, ebony and other rare hard woods have not been used in cutting ties for other railroads, but the Americans have dug up ties of those woods that had been in the ground sixty years and still were in good condition. The quaint hollowed out Belgian rails had to be replaced with heavy American types. Such rolling stock as was used by the Ameri- cans was for light hauling. Passenger rates dropped from $25 a one-way ticket in 1855 to $2.40 under the Americans to-day. The trip from Colon to Panama is two hours and a half and the coaches are painted yellow because that color best stands the Isthmian climate. In the fiscal year ended June 30, 191 1, the Panama Railroad under American control earned $2,398,177.88 from freight and $686,991 from passenger business. The number 36 RAILROAD of passengers carried during the year was 2,999,500, and in 191 2 a larger traffic was recorded. The plans for the canal as adopted by the Americans in 1906 played havoc with the right of way of the railroad, so in June, 1907, the work of relocating it back among the hills out of reach of Gatun Lake was begun. After five years' work, or as long as it re- quired to build the original Hne in 1850- 185 5, the new line was opened to traffic in 19 12. The full line, how- ever, was used only for freight trains, as the Canal Zone towns mostly are on the old line, along the Cule- bra cut. This twentieth century Panama Railroad has cost $9,000,000, as compared with the cost of the nine- teenth century road, $7,000,000, an increase of $2,000,- 000 after a lapse of sixty years. On the face of things the performance in 1850- 185 5 seems more creditable than in 1907-1912, because then a pathless jungle had to be conquered when the Isthmus was a death trap; whereas now the Americans had a force of workers organized, they had the equipment on the ground with which to do the work and the entire resources of the canal organization as to quarters, subsistence, and medical attention were within easy reach. Not con- sidering the cost, the relocated line is a beautiful piece of engineering work. The dream of a Pan-American Railroad has been entertained ever since steam locomotion came into use. When several gaps are filled in, there will be railroad communication through Mexico, Guatemala, and Nica- ragua to Costa Rica, which adjoins Panama. The 37 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA Republic of Panama has been planning an interior railroad system that would be part of an all-rail route from the United States to the canal. Before many years it is likely that a bridge will span the canal in a railroad system that reaches from Canada through Panama to the mainland of South America, thence down the West Coast to Valparaiso. In connection with the railroad, the government has operated a steamship line to New York, from Colon, the fleet at present consisting of six ships, the Ancon, Cristobal, Panama, Colon, Advance, and Allianca. These ships have transported the larger part of canal supplies from the Atlantic seaboard. Canal employees get passenger rates of $20 or $30 for one-way trips when taking vacations, and other steamship lines grant smaller reductions. The regular rate from New York is $75. It is the only line to Panama that flies our flag. 38 CHAPTER V THE FRENCH IN PANAMA OPINIONS as to the advisability of an Isthmian canal ran all the way from the attitude of Philip II, of Spain, that it would be impious to tamper with natural land configurations as arranged by Provi- dence, to the bold determination of the French to do at Panama what they had done at Suez. Ferdinand de Lesseps and his Panama career vindi- cate strikingly the truth of the adage that nothing succeeds like success. The French Panama Canal Company was floated on the strength of his achieve- ment in cutting a sea-level passage from the Mediter- ranean to the Red Sea, thus making an island of Africa. When he turned his attention to Panama as a new field for glory, the French people enthusiastically ap- plauded his audacity and, what is more significant and substantial, invested, first and last, $265,000,000 in the enterprise. American capital entered practically not at all into the French project, and not a great deal of outside European capital, the French middle and peasant classes being the principal shareholders. There had been talk and paper negotiations aplenty before M. de Lesseps became active. In 1838 a French syndicate sought to interest their government in the enterprise but the plan fell through, and the failure 39 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA later of the French companies to build the canal can- not be censured as a failure of the French government, which never financed it as a national enterprise as has been done in the successful American attempt. President Simon Bolivar, of New Grenada, or Colombia, in 1827, had ordered a study made of the Isthmus to ascertain facts about a route for a canal or railroad. Any concession that might be granted must come from his government. The various Ameri- can nibbles at the idea have been noted, and as a way of stirring us up to real action, Colombia paid as- siduous court to France. Gen. Stephen Turr, a native of Hungary, in 1876 obtained a concession, in as- sociation with Lieut. Lucien N. B. Wyse, who figured prominently in all the later French operations. Count de Lesseps was interested by Wyse who, in 1878, re- vived the concession on the following terms : Its life was for ninety-nine years after the completion of the canal, allowing two years to organize the company and twelve years in which to dig the canal. Colombia was to receive $250,000 annually after the seventy-sixth year of the life of the concession and it expressly was stipulated that though the French company might sell to other private companies, it could not sell out to any government, a provision which played a vital part in the transactions leading up to the American control in 1904. The French were theatrical in their plans for launch- ing the enterprise. A world congress of engineers was invited to assemble in Paris in May, 1879, to de- cide upon the type and cost of the canal. M. de 40 FRENCH Lesseps presided and guided the decision to a sea- level type, the same as at Suez. There were eleven Americans in the assembly but this was the extent of American interest. It was at this congress that the first suggestion of a dam at Gatun for a lock-type canal was made by Godin de Lepinay, a French en- gineer. The sea-level advocates advanced the plan of digging a great tunnel for ten miles through the Cor- dilleras and so divert the Chagres River into the Pa- cific Ocean away from the canal, as that river was use- less in a sea-level type. Under the stimulus of these proceedings, the new company's stock was over-subscribed by the admiring countrymen of the great de Lesseps, the first issue be- ing for $60,000,000. M. de Lesseps then made a spectacular trip to Panama, arriving at Colon on De- cember 30, 1879. The Panamans and foreign colony received him with wild acclaim as the forerunner of a golden stream of money about to enrich their coun- try, and as the first concrete step toward realizing the dream of four centuries. The first blast of an explosive in the construction of an Isthmian canal was set off by one of the young daughters of M. de Lesseps at Culebra on January 10, 1880. After several weeks of banqueting. Count de Lesseps left for the United States to stir the imagina- tion of the Americans over the enterprise. About the only result was to attract the attention of some con- tractors to the work, notably in the case of the Slaven brothers who, previous to their Panama adventure, had seen no experience in construction work, but who 41 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA did the most creditable work on the project, dredging thirteen miles, making fortunes for themselves and leaving machines which the Americans repaired and used from 1904 onward. As estimated by M. de Lesseps, the sea-level canal was to cost $131,600,000, although the Paris congress had gone higher in its figures. He was, of course, sadly mistaken in this estimate and the French ulti- mately spent twice that amount before throwing up the sponge. Conditions totally were different from those at Suez. There the sandy dunes rose no higher than forty feet above sea-level at any point and ex- cavation work comparatively was easy. In Panama a mountainous configuration with solid rock a short depth beneath the surface had to be faced, with tor- rential streams to be controlled and diverted. Operations went ahead rapidly from 1880 onward, the method being to let contracts for the different phases of the work. The canal started near Colon, in Limon Bay, and was to follow the valley of the Cha- gres River for about thirty miles, thence through the continental divide to the Pacific, three miles west of Panama, about where the present canal begins. By 1885, however, extravagance and graft had emptied the company's treasury. The contractors, as a rule, did little and exacted much. It became ap- parent, too, that a sea-level type presented stagger- ing difficulties. M. de Lesseps gave his consent to a change in plans to a lock type, as had been recom- mended by the engineer Lepinay, but the dam was to be at Bohio, instead of at Gatun. Bohio is seven- 42 FRENCH teen miles from the Caribbean, while Gatun is only- seven miles distant from that sea. All the theatrical methods conceivable were em- ployed to float a new bond issue for $160,000,000, but the public had grown dubious over the success of the enterprise. The amount was raised, however, and was poured into the project with more millions until 1889 when, after $234,795,017 had been in- vested, the company became bankrupt. Of this vast amount, $157,224,689 had been invested on the Isth- mus, the remainder having gone to organization ex- penses, for promotion, and overhead expenses gen- erally. For engineering and construction, $89,434,- 225 had been spent; for machinery and materials, $29,722,856; for buildings, hospitals, etc., $15,397,- 282. Various needs and graft absorbed the rest. The French treated their white employees with ex- travagant generosity. Living accommodations were on a scale of open-handed liberality. Little was done, beyond building hospitals, to conquer the bad health conditions of the Isthmus, and, while the French left patterns for much of the later American activities, the sanitary control of the jungle distinctively is an American triumph. The death rate among French employees on the canal was from two to three times as high as under the Americans. Older natives in Panama still speak of the period of French operations as the " temps de luxe." M. de Lesseps was charged with fraudulent manipulation of the company's affairs, but escaped punishment for his alleged wrongs. There was graft everywhere, and 43 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA when the Americans invoiced the property left by the French they found stores of articles that had been bought in quantities absurdly beyond the needs of the enterprise. The purchase of the Panama Railroad, while at a high figure, was the only investment by the French that approximated sound judgment. In 1890, an extension of ten years to the time for completing the canal was granted by Colombia, and subsequently extensions were permitted that advanced the Hfe of the concession until October 31, 191 o. A new Panama Canal Company was organized in 1894 with a capital of $13,000,000, and while it spent this amount and more, it never attained the momentum of the first company. The maximum force under the first company was 25,000 men and under the second regime 3,000. The total excavation by the French in Panama was 78,000,000 yards, of which the first company took out 65,000,000 yards. Between Gold Hill and Con- tractors Hill, where the surface at the center line of the canal was 312 feet above sea-level, the French dug down 161 feet, this being the deepest cut they made. It is here that the work they did was useful to the American plans for a canal, but out of all their work only 29,908,000 yards were excavated from the present American route. For years before the Ameri- cans came the French did just enough work to keep their concession alive. Summing up, the efforts of the French in Panama were a lamentable failure, but it probably is true that a private company of any nation would have met the 44 FRENCH same fate. The riot of graft that attended the French effort is its chief blot, just as the honest construction of the canal by the American government is its chief honor. Indisputably, the French efforts made the American effort easier. Much that they did stood as landmarks to guide our way. Much that they failed to do emphasized the work cut out for us before suc- cess could be attained. The mechanical equipment we took over from the French, the houses and hospitals, and especially the engineering records, were invaluable from the start of American operations and much still is in use. In 191 2 there were 112 French locomotives, seven ladder dredges, hundreds of dump cars, machine-shop equip- ment, and other materials in profusion actively em- ployed in canal construction. An effort was made by the French company in 1898 to interest the United States government in the en- terprise, provided permission could be secured from Colombia, but this failed, and the plan of 1903, for turning the property over to the United States, was its successor. To-day, as one views the abandoned French equip- ment, overgrown by the luxuriant tropical vegetation, he is reminded of the retreat from Moscow. The quaint locomotives and machinery lying desolate and rusting away suggest the batteries that Napoleon left in the Russian snows. Indeed, there was much of the same exquisite French dash about the two enterprises that ended so disastrously. 45 CHAPTER VI THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA FOREIGN activities in Panama were watched, officially and unofficially, by the Americans with profound interest, and with a desire that the construc- tion of a canal should be the work of the United States. The thought of communication between the oceans being in European hands was distasteful to our statesmen. The Monroe doctrine seemed broad enough to shut out foreign governments, but not private corporations of such governments, from acquiring the territory through which to dig the canal. However noisily the Monroe doctrine might be flaunted by the orators of the United States, our international position in 1850 did not give it anything like the weight that has attached to it ever since the Spanish-American War woke Europe to our strength. In 1852, when the Panama Railroad was being built, a captain of a company in the Fourth Regiment of Infantry, Ulysses S. Grant, crossed the Isthmus at Panama, on his way to the new California post. There were 1,800 men in the command, which arrived at Colon on July i6th of that year. They used the new railroad as far as it had been constructed, twenty or thirty miles, and the remainder of the trip was by the traditional mule-back system. An epidemic 46 AMERICANS of cholera broke out, costing the lives of 80 men, and the general hardships of the transit deeply im- pressed Captain Grant with the need of a better passage. Several American exploring parties had been on the Isthmus, and, in 1854, Lieut. Arthur Strain, with twenty-seven companions, attempted to penetrate the jungle. They got lost, and after ninety days of liv- ing death he and two or three of the men reached Panama. Every fact that was secured about the geography of Panama by any nation cost human life. President Lincoln, in 1863, when he was freeing the negro slaves, cast his eyes upon the Chiriqui prov- ince of Panama as a suitable place for colonizing the negroes of the South after the Civil War, but his untimely death prevented the opportunity to work out this idea. The Senate, in 1866, asked Secretary of the Navy Welles to supply it with information as to the feasi- bility of a canal through the Darien region of Pan- ama. Admiral Charles H. Davis a year later re- ported adversely to this route which, although the narrowest place on the Isthmus, had a mountain barrier with an elevation of 700 feet to make a sea- level canal an impossible undertaking. That Captain Grant, who had crossed the Isthmus in 1852, became President in 1869, ^^^ the very same year he directed Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut to nego- tiate a treaty with Colombia for a Panama canal. He knew from experience how advantageous it would 47 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA be to his country. Such a treaty was signed at Bogota on January 26, 1870, but the United States Senate did not ratify it and the Senate of Colombia mu- tilated it. Somehow the two governments did not get along well in those days. President Grant then sent Admiral Ammen to Nica- ragua to investigate that route, more in a pique at Colombia than from a belief in its availability. Co- lombia returned the feeling by turning to the French and giving Lieut. Wyse a concession. At the instance of President Grant the Panama route again was sur- veyed by Commanders E. P. Lull and T. O. Selfridge, at the Chagres River and in the Darien region, in 1875, but from this time onward the French had the center of the stage. Their spread-eagle operations followed by a col- lapse in 1889, reorganization in 1894, and half-hearted efforts until 1898 served rather to make the world and the Americans think that a canal was a white elephant proposition. The Spanish-American War, however, suddenly brought the American people to a realization of the vital necessity, from a military view- point alone, of an interoceanic canal. Day by day as the battleship Oregon steamed around Cape Horn this lesson was impressed upon the people. A 10,000-mile journey could have been saved by a Panama canal. The war over, and peace allow- ing the country and the government to consider other things. President McKinley reorganized the Isthmian Canal Commission which he had appointed in 1897 with the following personnel: 48 AMERICANS Admiral John G. Walker, Chairman, Samuel Pasco, George S. Morison, LiEUT.-CoL. Oswald H. Ernst, U. S. A., Col. p. C. Hains, U. S. A., Lewis M. Haupt, Alfred Noble, William H. Burr, Prof. Emory R. Johnson. This commission was appointed in March, 1899, with instructions to investigate all Central American routes. The French canal company by this time was in a situation where it was seeking a soft place to fall. Hope of financing the project by private capi- tal absolutely was dead in France. Only by a sale to other capitalists or to some government, Colombia being willing, could the shareholders hope to get any- thing out of their stupendous investment. And it was not so many years distant before their conces- sion would expire and their property revert to Co- lombia. William Nelson Cromwell, a New York lawyer, was the counsel for the canal company and the Panama Railroad Company. He was, by all odds, the brain- iest man connected with the French enterprise, and the task of guiding the company to a solution of its troubles devolved upon him. Naturally he was elated with the revival of interest in a canal on the part of the United States, and he was indefatigable, in many accomplished ways, in bringing the Panama 49 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA route to the notice of the Commission. P. Bunau- Varilla, a Frenchman, also was active in interesting Senator Mark Hanna, and other official and private Americans, in the French project. The Walker Commission unofficially asked the French company what their property might be bought for, and when quoted a price of $101,141,500, prompt- ly decided that Nicaragua looked better. The report made on November 16, 1901, by the Commission frankly stated that the Panama route was preferable, but the price asked by the French company was pro- hibitive. The Commission dropped the remark that $40,000,000 was about what the French holdings were worth to the United States. The astute Mr. Cromwell probably was not greatly disturbed by this report, but the shareholders thought $40,000,000 looked like a windfall to a bankrupt con- cern, even if it had invested $265,000,000. A sixth loaf decidedly was better than none at all. They made it be known that $40,000,000 would strike a trade. It has not been admitted, but the first valu- ation by Mr. Cromwell and associates doubtless was a " feeler " which would make the price ultimately agreed upon look like a bargain for the United States. At any rate they fell off their perch in a hurry, and when they had agreed to the Commission's valu- ation, the report to the President promptly was re- vised in favor of the Panama route. Admiral Walker probably played his own little game in first recom- mending Nicaragua to send a chill down the French 50 AMERICANS company's spine. On the outside one cannot tell how much theatrical play both sides indulged, but it is not a bad guess to believe that there was four-flushing all around. ?^ CHAPTER VII THE ROOSEVELT IMPETUS THEODORE ROOSEVELT, upon assuming the office of President, promised to carry out the policies of President McKinley, and, so far as the canal policy is concerned, he succeeded so eminently that a deliberate judgment, formed from a perspective view of the whole undertaking, warrants the asser- tion that his energy, decision, and sound judgment made an interoceanic canal possible in this generation. The moment his dynamic personality got behind the idea it received an impetus, and he bucked the line of obstacles that arose in the path of the project until he retired in 1909, when the enterprise was advanced beyond the possibility of failure. It was to President Roosevelt that the Walker Com- mission reported in November, 1901. His first mes- sage to Congress urged immediate action, and, after a good deal of wrangling over the Hepburn act in favor of Nicaragua, the Spooner act was passed on June 28, 1902. The Nicaraguan route never has de- served the attention it received, for the natural drift of commerce and travel had gone unerringly for four centuries to Panama, like a flow seeking the course of least resistance. But the advocates of the Nica- raguan route created such opposition as to call forth from the President the exertion of the strongest 52 ROOSEVELT pressure to compel the selection of the Panama route. The Spooner act, written by Senator John C. Spooner, of Wisconsin, provided for an Isthmian Canal Commission of seven members, and authorized the Panama route, if the French property could be bought for $40,000,000, and a right of way could be obtained from Colombia. In the event such con- ditions could not be met, it authorized the Nicaraguan route, and seemed to lean toward a lock-type canal. An immediate appropriation of $10,000,000 was made available for preliminary expenses. President Roosevelt now had the authority he de- sired for going ahead with the project. Secretary of State John Hay and the Minister from Colombia, Jose V. Concha, immediately began corresponding over the granting of a strip of territory in Panama for the prosecution of the enterprise, with William Nelson Cromwell in the forefront of all the negotiations. The sale of the French property hinged upon securing the consent of Colombia. A study of Mr. Cromwell and the important part he played throughout the whole career of the canal project leads to the conclusion that he did nothing more blameworthy than President Roosevelt did, while justice requires the admission that he gratuitously aided the government in a number of important par- ticulars. Minister Concha, with Mr. Cromwell's aid, drew up a treaty which was presented as a memorandum to Secretary Hay on April 18, 1902. This treaty, as 53 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA well as the Herran treaty that succeeded it, had a number of impossible provisions, viewed in the light of our canal experience. It authorized the French company to sell its property to the United States and authorized the United States to build, operate, and protect the canal, the concession to run for one hun- dred years, and be renewable at the discretion of the United States. A commission, jointly appointed by the United States and Colombia, was to govern the Canal Zone and supervise its sanitation, Colombia, however, remaining sovereign over the territory. One article bound the United States to a declaration that it had no ideas of territorial expansion in Central America; the United States was to build waterworks and sewers and pave streets in Panama and Colon; the United States guaranteed the sovereignty of Co- lombia and all its territory against all the world; Colombia retained the function of policing the Canal Zone, but in the event of its failure to do so, the United States could intervene until peace was re- stored, then withdraw. The canal was to be finished fourteen years after the adoption of the treaty with a possible extension of twelve years, everything to re- vert to Colombia if the canal was not begun within five years and completed within twenty-five years. Colombia renounced the $250,000 annually paid by the Panama Railroad, but was to receive $7,000,000 in cash. There were provisions granting the right to use any rivers and lands necessary for the canal, and admitting canal supplies free of duty, giving free 54 CUnedinst photo, Washington, D. C. President Roosevelt in 1503. ROOSEVELT passage to Colombian warships, and insuring the neu- trahty of the canal. Colombia sent a new Minister, Thomas Herran, in 1903, who negotiated a treaty along the same lines, except that Colombia was to receive $10,000,000 in- stead of $7,000,000 for the Canal Zone. Had the treaty been adopted, it is a safe conclusion to draw that interminable and exasperating friction would have developed between the two countries, for even under our one-sided treaty with the Republic of Pan- ama, in 1904, there was a quarrel over sovereignty and other questions. The provision giving Colombia the police affairs was impossible. Only an extended visit to the 'Isthmus can give an adequate idea of how essential it has been to the United States to have abso- lutely a free hand in the Canal Zone. President Jose M. Marroquin, of Colombia, in this year, 1902, asked the United States to maintain unin- terrupted passage over the Panama Railroad, during a serious revolution in the province, and promised in return to give the United States a treaty for a Canal Zone. As a result of American intervention and good offices, peace was patched up between the insurgents and Colombia on November 21, 1902. We had per- formed our part of the agreement, and now looked to Colombia to perform its part. President Marroquin was in good faith, but fac- tional fighting in the Congress of Colombia, with his enemies in the ascendency, showed the chances of a treaty to be dubious. The American Minister deliv- ered a warning to the government of Colombia, on 55 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA June 13, 1903, that it would be expected to live up to its solemn promise of 1902. The influences be- hind the opposition to the treaty in the Colombian Senate have not been definitely classified, but it is more than a supposition that certain American finan- cial interests, which opposed any canal, took a hand to the extent of intimating that a country so " rotten rich " as the United States could pay more than $10,- 000,000 for a Canal Zone. But there is another factor that is more illuminat- ing. The concession of the French company would expire in 19 10,* and by waiting seven years Colombia could get the $40,000,000 the United States was will- ing to pay for its property. There was one bar to this in the concession of the Panama Railroad which had many years to run, and which gave the railroad the right to decide whether a canal could be built across the Isthmus. Still, indisputably, the position of Colombia would have been strengthened immeas- urably by the lapsing of the French canal concession, and the people of the United States have only to ask themselves what they would do if they had a prop- erty which in seven years would be worth $40,000,- 000 more than it was to-day. There is not a doubt that popular sentiment would say, as one faction said in Colombia, wait for the enhancement before selling. On August 12, 1903, the Senate of Colombia killed the treaty after the House had passed it. President * Acknowledgment for this and other facts is made to the Canal Zone Pilot, edited by W. C. Haskins. 56 ROOSEVELT Marroquin had exerted himself to the utmost to save the treaty, doubtless sensing the quality of the man in the White House, but to no avail, and another way out for the canal project v^as already taking form. 57 CHAPTER VIII TAKING THE CANAL ZONE ANYONE who expected Theodore Roosevelt to , wait patiently and untie the Gordian knot of diplomacy that held the canal project in abeyance sim- ply did not know the temperament of the Chief Ex- ecutive. His inherited administration was more than half gone. If he desired to make a real showing before the opening of the battle for the Presidency in 1904, decisive action was necessary. The course of Colom- bia indicated clearly to him, and to the people of Panama, that nothing could be expected in the imme- diate future in the way of a satisfactory treaty, and the enemies of the canal in that country seemed to be firmly intrenched in the Congress. Just when the idea of a revolution as a means of obtaining what diplomacy had failed to obtain, origi- nated, and who originated it, are not matters of clear record, but, in the spring of 1903, threats freely were made in Panama that if Colombia did not grant a treaty to the United States, providing for a canal, the province of Panama would consider that its interests had not been conserved by Colombia, and might pro- ceed to act for itself. Panama's relations with the parent government at Bogota, from 1821, the year of independence from 58 REVOLUTION Spain, to 1903, the year of independence from Co- lombia, had been characterized by intermittent revo- lutions which never had attained a decisive and final result. There had been fifty-three revolutions in fifty-seven years, the most sanguinary occurring in the years 1827, 1840, i860, 1900, and 1902. But any advan- tages so gained by Panama had been lost by volun- tary or involuntary resumption of subordinate rela- tions to Colombia, with the net result going to prove that Panama, unassisted, never could hope to achieve independence from the mother country. The United States, on many occasions, had inter- vened in these quarrels between Panama and Colom- bia, frequently on the invitation of Colombia, and always to maintain the neutrality of the Panama Rail- road, as well as to preserve general American prop- erty interests. An American warship was a familiar sight in Colon or Panama harbors. These interventions were based on our treaty with Colombia, ratified in 1846. As noted before, this treaty provided for the joint sovereignty of Colom- bia and the United States over any canal that might be built in Panama, and further guaranteed the neu- trality of the Panama Railroad. By this treaty, and the Clayton-Bulwer treaty with England, over any canal that might be built in Nicaragua, the United States hoped to keep foreign governments out of Central America so far as an interoceanic canal was concerned. Colombia, in 1902, appealed to the United States 59 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA under its treaty, to maintain the neutrality of the Pan- ama Railroad, during the most important revolution that Panama ever had attempted, and the military intervention by the United States in that year largely enabled Colombia to crush the revolution. It is important to note that, prior to 1903, the United States had maintained the attitude consistently that any action it took in Panama was in fulfillment of this treaty of 1846, and leaned toward the gov- ernment of Colombia as a sovereign power engaged in suppressing the fitful insurrections on the part of Panama. By maintaining the neutrality of the railroad, through the use of Marines, the United States kept the line open, and so enabled Colombia to get its troops across the Isthmus to strike down the revolu- tionists. Had not the United States thus assisted Colombia, it is doubtful if she could have retained sovereignty over Panama without the exertion of con- siderably stronger forces than were employed. Colombia had promised, in consideration of the in- tervention of 1902, a treaty to the United States for a right of way for a canal in Panama. Weeks before this treaty was killed, on August 12, 1903, a few lead- ing business and professional men in Panama saw the drift, and so did the French Panama Canal Company and the Panama Railroad Company. The Panamans wanted the prosperity that would come from the money the United States would invest in Panama, and the two companies wanted to sell out before their concessions should expire, and at a price, $40,000,000, 60 REVOLUTION which the United States had agreed upon, and which was the highest offer they had any hope of receiving. Simultaneously with the killing of the treaty by the Colombian Senate, a revolutionary Junta of wealthy Panamans and resident Americans were in New York and Washington broaching their plan of a revolution and separation from Colombia as a way for the United States to get a Canal Zone. They au- thorized one of their number, Mr. J. Gabriel Duque, owner of the Panama Lottery, and a daily newspaper, to visit Secretary of State John Hay to ascertain the part the United States would play in the scheme. The plan proposed was that Panama should pro- claim its independence from Colombia on a given date, to be followed by the recognition of its independence by the United States, and the signing of a treaty with the new republic which would give our government the desired right of way for a canal. Then the United States could buy the French canal interests and the Panama Railroad according to the Spooner act. Mr. Duque was convinced by his conference with Secretary Hay that the United States was in a mood to try any plan that promised an early solution of the problem of securing a Canal Zone. Secretary Hay, of course, committed nothing to paper, and talked in a negative rather than a positive manner about the part the United States would play in a revolution, but he did suggest that September 22d, the date originally set for the revolution, was perhaps a trifle premature ; that they might do better to wait a few weeks. Sep- tember 226. was the day the Congress of Colombia 61 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA had intended to adjourn, and therefore the last day that this body might reverse its action and ratify the treaty. The Colombian Congress actually did not ad- journ until October 30th, and the date of the revolu- tion was accordingly advanced to November 4, 1903. The Junta went back to Panama to make their preparations. Minister Herran, representing Colom- bia at Washington, immediately notified his govern- ment of this conference, and its import, and urged that the garrison at Panama be strengthened. Presi- dent Marroquin, of Colombia, did not follow this advice, doubtless hoping for a change of sentiment in his country that would ratify the treaty. He instead showed his friendliness to Panama by appointing as its Governor, Don Domingo de Obaldia, a known friend of the treaty and of the province. This and other actions by President Marroquin seemed to create favorable conditions for the success of the revolution. About four hundred Colombian soldiers, under Gen. Huertas, constituted the garrison of Panama. This commander was won over to the cause of the revolu- tionary Junta, thus giving them a clear field for their prospective operations, provided Colombia did not send fresh troops. Colombia could send reenforce- ments, either from Cartagena, on the Atlantic side, or from Buenaventura, on the Pacific side. But Sep- tember and nearly all of October passed without any such action. In the latter part of October, two gunboats of Colombia, in the harbor of Panama, on the Pacific side, asked the Panama Railroad to supply them with 62 REVOLUTION coal so that they might go to Buenaventura for troops to add to the Panama garrison. J. R. Shaler, super- intendent of the railroad, was acting with the Junta as the representative of the French interests in the revolutionary scheme. At the Junta's suggestion, he refused to supply the coal, although the railroad had followed such a practice from time immemorial. He evaded the request by saying that the coal was in Colon, on the Atlantic side. This action, therefore, headed off the arrival of troops from the Pacific port of Colombia. All that remained to be done, to create perfect con- ditions for carrying out the secession, was to prevent the arrival of Colombian troops from the Atlantic side. This, it may be acknowledged, was the most vital task of the whole plan, and it devolved upon the United States. The understanding the Junta had with our State Department was that the United States would maintain the neutrality of the Panama Railroad, con- struing neutrality, in this instance, to mean that Colom- bian troops could not pass over the line. Such a construction of the treaty of 1846 was un- precedented before 1903. The United States had un- dertaken, in effect, to prevent the passage of Colombian troops over a railroad which it had chartered and the concession of which expressly provided for the pas- sage of Colombia's troops over the line at any time. It justified this unusual action on the argument that it was thereby maintaining the neutrality of the rail- road as provided by the treaty. Our State Department was kept advised of the 63 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA movement of Colombian troops, so that when two ships left Cartagena, on October 30th, for Colon, the gun- boat Nashville simultaneously received orders to pro- ceed to Colon, arriving there on November 2d. The Colombian troops, numbering about five hundred men, arrived on November 3d. Everyone recognized that the crucial moment of the revolutionary scheme had arrived.. Commander John Hubbard, of the Nashville, had orders to keep the Panama Railroad open, not allow- ing either Colombian or revolutionary troops to be transported over it. This was termed maintaining the neutrality of the railroad. It should be noted, however, that when this order was issued to the Nash- ville, no revolution had started, and, outside of a few Panaman capitalists, the people of Panama knew noth- ing about it except in the way of rumor. The Junta had appointed a committee to " let the people know of the impending event," but as the people were not nec- essary to the success of the plan, so long as the United States did its part, they were not specially considered or consulted by the Junta. Hence, the order to prevent the passage of revolutionary troops not only was pre- mature, showing the thorough knowledge the United States had of the revolutionary plan, but it was like- wise superfluous. Still, we hardly could have kept a straight face over the order if the nonexistent revolu- tionists had not been included. Generals Tovar and Amaya, of the Colombian troops, left them in Colon while they went across ahead to take command of the Panama garrison. The ar- 64 REVOLUTION rival of the reen for cements was a day earlier than the date set for the revolution, which was November 4th, so the Junta had to advance its plans a day. It hastily was decided to pull off the event on November 3d. As a first step in this decision, the two generals were arrested, as also was Governor Obaldia. The Panama garrison under Gen. Huertas had been fixed weeks before, so no danger lay in that quarter. An ordinary street mob of a city followed the lead of the Junta in these actions. One of the Colombian gun- boats in the harbor of Panama fired two shots over the city, one of which by chance struck a nonbelliger- ent Chinaman, who had the honor of being the only victim of the revolution. The land fort replied and the gunboat precipitately retired, leaving Panama in the hands of the triumphant Junta. All was lovely if the United States should perform its part at Colon. The news of these proceedings in Panama did not reach Colon until the next morning, November 4th. Col. Torres, who had been left in command of the Colombian troops there, immediately demanded a train by 2 o'clock that afternoon, a refusal to grant which, he declared, would be followed by the death of every American in the city. Mr. Shaler, the railroad super- intendent, following the instructions of the Junta, and the wishes of our State Department and the French interests, refused the transportation, and notified Com- mander Hubbard, of the Nashville, of his decision. There only were 192 men all told on the Nashville, while the Colombian troops numbered 500, not count- 6s THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA ing the assistance they would get from the native popu- lation, if the day seemed to be going against the Amer- icans. The employees of the railroad, with 42 men from the Nashville, fortified themselves in a stone rail- road shed, while the women and children were placed on steamers in the harbor for safety. The Nashville drew up close to assist with its guns in the defense. It was a tense situation where the slightest overt act on either side would have precipitated a great loss of life. The Colombians outnumbered the marines ten to one, but when 2 o'clock came, they had thought better of their threat, and asked for a parley. It was agreed that both sides should withdraw from Colon while the Colombians sent an officer to Panama for a conference with the imprisoned generals. A special train was provided for the emissary. The next day, on November 5th, the Dixie arrived with 400 additional marines. It became apparent to the Colombians that the full power of the United States was back of the railroad company's refusal to transport them to Panama, and so they agreed to take ship again for Colombia. On the 6th, the day following their departure, the Atlanta arrived, bringing the number of marines up to 1,000. The Navy Department also sent ships to the city of Panama on the Pacific side, but there was nothing for them to do there. Fresh orders from Washington to the marines were to the effect that Colombia would not be allowed to settle the " revolution " by force. That lone China- man had been buried, so that it would have taken a microscope to find the revolution. But the orders 66 REVOLUTION plainly enough showed where the United States stood in regard to the secessionary movement, and since by force was the only way Colombia could settle the revolution, the orders in substance meant that it was the United States, and not Panama, that Colombia would have to fight to regain sovereignty over her richest province. The Colombian troops on November 4th might have wiped out the American defense in Colon, swept over to Panama and crushed the Junta and street mob there, and so summarily preserved sovereignty over the ter- ritory. And had it done all this, it would have been squarely within its rights as a sovereign nation. But they knew that such a triumph would be transient. They realized it would bring down upon Colombia the whole devastating force of the mighty United States, which the Spanish-American War so recently had shown was something truly to be feared. Hence, their withdrawal was prudent, though humiliating. It is superfluous, of course, to remark that the United States could not have played such a role with any nation capable of defending itself. Commander Hubbard had no illusions about the vital part the United States played in making the revo- lution a success. He stated, in the following para- graph of his cablegram to the Navy Department on November 5th, that the critical time was when the marines stood between the Colombian troops and pas- sage to the seat of insurrection at Panama. Said he : " I am positive that the determined attitude of our men, their coolness and evident intention of standing 67 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA their ground, had a most salutary and decisive effect on the immediate situation and was the initial step in the ultimate abandoning of Colon by these troops and their return to Cartagena the following day." On November 6th, two days after the " revolution," the United States recognized the independence of the Republic of Panama. This was two days before the news of the secession reached Bogota, the capital of Colombia. There was a popular demonstration against the United States in that city, but no attempts against American life or property. The faction which had favored the treaty recognized that the United States had grown tired of diplomatic dilly-dallying. The faction antagonistic to the treaty realized that the United States had stolen second base in the canal game. The Colombian government offered an immediate treaty if the United States would permit it to recover Panama, but President Roosevelt spurned the over- tures. Within twelve days after recognizing the indepen- dence of the new republic, the United States had se- cured a treaty which ceded to it a Canal Zone. P. Bunau-Varilla, of the French Canal Company, was made the Minister of the de facto Panama government, to negotiate this treaty with Secretary Hay. Thus the United States was assured of getting all that it had been promised by the Junta. The first article of the treaty signed on November i8th, at Washington, stated that " The United States guarantees and will maintain the independence of the Republic of Panama." Colombia thereby was notified that Panama, the his- 68 REVOLUTION toric transit route of the new world, was lost to her sovereignty. Extreme haste in signing the treaty before there was a regular legislative body at Panama had been necessary because President Roosevelt wished to get the whole affair safely accomplished before our Con- gress should open on December 7th. The Republic of Panama ratified the treaty on December 2d, but the American Senate, miffed a little that the Executive should take such important — and to many question- able — action without its knowledge or consent, debated for several months, then finally ratified the treaty on February 23, 1904. The American people have in this whole transaction an illuminating example of the power a President has to commit the United States to a radical policy during a recess of Congress. President Roosevelt always had leaned strongly to- ward the Panama route for a canal. The setting up of a republic there had the effect of complying with the Spooner act, which made the selection of the Panama route depend upon securing a right of way at this point. He made the point to Congress in his mes- sage on December 7th, that as the new treaty pro- vided this right of way, it became imperative that Panama be chosen, and thus the revolution was used as a club to force the selection of Panama over Nica- ragua. The advocates of the Nicaragua route already had been urging that as Colombia refused a right of way at Panama, the United States was compelled to turn to Nicaragua. President Roosevelt did not believe Nica- 69 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA ragua was the proper place for a canal, and his judg- ment on this point, in the light of later years as well as from all logical considerations of trade and topog- raphy, was eminently sound. His consent for the United States to go the length it did in securing the Panama route was prompted by his desire to prevent the nation from selecting a less advantageous route. It has been charged that the President favored Pana- ma so that the American financiers, led by Mr. Crom- well, who were interested in selling the French prop- erty to the government, could get the $40,000,000 the sale involved. This charge is not justified either by the character of President Roosevelt or by the natural advantages of the two routes. It is doubtful if the President gave any thought to the owners of the French interests, and it is certain that such ownership was not a factor in determining him in favor of Panama. The French interests, of course, had staked all on the success of the revolution. Had it failed, Colombia would have forfeited their concessions forthwith, and Minister Herran had notified them to that effect. It is clear that Mr. Cromwell and associates were dead certain that the United States never intended that the revolution should fail. Their grasp on the situation is shown by the naming of M. Bunau-Varilla to nego- tiate the treaty with the United States for Panama. With $40,000,000 hanging in the balance, the French interests were prepared to be generous in drawing a treaty. It is to be doubted if a more one-sided treaty ever was drawn. Secretary Hay, 70 REVOLUTION with the willing consent of the Junta, gave the United States all the latitude we would have had, if, instead of taking a Canal Zone, we had taken the whole republic. Panama got all that had been prom- ised to Colombia, including a cash payment of $io,- 000,000, and beginning in 191 3, an annual payment of $250,000. The United States is to pay for any additional lands in the republic that may be needed for the canal and we may use any rivers or lakes in the republic necessary to the canal, two provisions broad enough to permit the conversion of the whole republic to the position of an adjunct to the canal. The cities of Colon and Panama were made subject to American sanitary measures, and if Panama cannot preserve order, the United States, in its discretion, may intro- duce troops for that purpose, a right which substan- tially robs the republic of sovereignty. The United States guarantees the neutrality of the canal but re- served the right to fortify it. Nobody in the Canal Zone makes any pretense that the United States was disinterested in its part in the revolution. Most of the canal employees wonder why the President did not take the whole republic. Many confidently expect the United States to abolish the government there sooner or later, because it is clear that the republic cannot stand clear of American sup- port. On three occasions already the Americans have prevented the disruption of the republic. In 1904, Gen. Huertas, who had assisted the Junta, became dissatisfied with his rewards, and started to overturn the administration by force. The marines had to dis- 71 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA arm his small army. In 1908 the United States had to interfere to insure a fair election, and in 1912 this writer saw the presidential campaign reach a point where the marines and infantry had to be placed at the Panama polls to prevent rioting and fraud. It was obvious that if the United States had not been present in armed force the usual Central American method of changing administrations by a revolution would have been employed. How long will the United States be patient with such conditions ? President Roosevelt did not appear in the revolu- tion preliminaries because his part later on required the " Oh, this is so sudden " tone, in recognizing the independence of the new republic. He devoted him- self assiduously to proving that the United States had done a righteous thing in that act and had closed his message with the high profession of friendly zeal to the effect that " he would not for one moment discuss the possibility of the United States committing an •act of such baseness as to abandon the new Republic of Panama." But eight years later, in San Francisco, he threw off the mask thus assumed and declared: " I took Panama and left Congress to debate the mat- ter afterward." Did President Roosevelt know that his government deliberately aided and abetted a province of a sover- eign power, with which the United States had a solemn treaty, to secede and set up an independent govern- ment, so that the United States might get territory it otherwise could not obtain? 72 REVOLUTION Dear reader, you might just as sanely ask a Panaman if he thinks it will be wet in the next rainy season ! Was there anything, big or little, going on in Theo- dore Roosevelt's administration with which he was not fairly familiar ? Secretary Hay had given the im- pression to the revolutionary Junta that if they would go through the trifling act of raising a flag, the United States would do the rest. When Secretaries of State begin assisting revolutions in foreign countries with- out the knowledge and consent of the President, it will be under a far less dominating Executive than Theo- dore Roosevelt! With the ratification of the treaty, the decks at last were cleared for the long-dreamed-of project of build- ing a canal. The people of the United States frankly were glad that such progress had been made, but they were inclined to believe that it would not be well to nose too deep into the method of acquiring the terri- tory. They knew that the payment of $10,000,000 for the Canal Zone paid somebody for the right of way, though whether the rightful owner was a question the administration was very glad to let remain dormant. The Saturday Evening Post, speaking editorially in the spring of 19 12, doubtless expressed the attitude of many Americans when it said : " It seems to be the part of statesmanship in this dilemma to talk loudly about the benefits we confer upon the world's commerce by dig- ging the canal and to regard our acquisition of the canal a closed incident." 73 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA Yet, the American people never have solved any is- sue in which a moral question was involved, by thus seeking to obscure it. The true facts about the acquisi- tion of the Canal Zone only came out by dribs, but events seem to conspire to bring the whole transaction to light. On June 26, 1912, Mr. J. Gabriel Duque, who had been a leader in the revolution, got into a controversy with Mr. Ricardo Arias, also a member of the 1903 Junta, and over his own signature in his paper, The Star and Herald, published at Panama, made the following admission : " Mr. Arias should know that I have friends in Washington, seeing that as far back as 1903 when we worked together for Panama's inde- pendence, we were in confidential treatment with Secretary Hay." Mr. Tracy Robinson, author of a book on Panama, was another leading figure in the revolution. He de- clines to give the history of the affair, although so com- petent to reveal its inward processes, but tells his readers that " The details would afford material for a wonder story." Since President Roosevelt has candidly confessed that he " took " Panama, there is no reason why the main actors in the play should not speak out and the immediate future is going to see the disclosure of much illuminating material about this " wonder story." The American people have had a vague idea of what did happen at Panama, but there is no longer any ex- cuse for a pretense of virtuous conduct on the part of 74 REVOLUTION the United States, except on the point of giving the world something essential to its convenience. It is hypocritical to profess that we made adequate com- pensation when we paid Panama for the Canal Zone. We must applaud President Roosevelt for taking the Canal Zone, but the failure to make reparation to Colombia is a conspicuous piece of self-deception and moral obliquity. We raised the Maine, however, and we will yet make amends to Colombia. 75 CHAPTER IX THE GEOGRAPHY OF PANAMA NATURE quietly, but imperatively, asked the en- gineers who favored a sea-level canal at Pan- ama : Why will you insist upon the prodigious disar- rangement of natural advantages that lie here awaiting the utilization of a lock type? The geography of the Isthmus is adapted peculiarly to the lock type of canal. Aside from the obstacle to a sea-level canal that existed in the continental divide, the Chagres River followed a course which, at the same time, would have been a baffling problem in a sea-level plan, but the most beneficent arrange- ment for a lock-type canal. The territory comprised in the scope of this book is the same as that within the boundaries of the Re- public of Panama. In area, it is about 32,000 square miles, slightly smaller than the State of Indiana. On the Atlantic side it is 379 miles long, and on the Pa- cific side, 674 miles by the coast line. The popula- tion, native and foreign, is around 400,000 to-day, though considerably less in the days of exploration and conquest. Our treaty with the Republic of Panama ceded us a strip of territory ten miles wide, from deep water in the Atlantic to deep water in the Pacific. This territory, officially designated the Canal Zone, is de- 76 GEOGRAPHY termined by a line drawn five miles from each side of the center line of the route of the canal. Thus, the Canal Zone is not bounded by straight lines from ocean to ocean, but curves as the channel of the canal curves. The area of the Canal Zone is 448 square miles, of which 73 square miles are privately owned, but may be bought in the discretion of the United States. While within the limits of the Canal Zone, the cities of Panama and Colon, at the terminals, re- main under the sovereignty of the Republic of Pan- ama. Some confusion is caused by the fact that the Isth- mus of Panama runs nearly East and West, instead of North and South, as might be imagined, at the point where the canal traverses it. Panama city is almost due south of Buffalo, and is southeast of Colon, the Atlantic terminal. The canal route, therefore, runs in a southeastern direction from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and, to the astonishment of the tourist, the sun rises in the Pacific and sets in the Atlantic. We are not building our canal at the narrowest point on the Isthmus. This point is found at the Gulf of San Bias, 60 miles east of Colon, where the Isthmus is only 30 miles wide, whereas, at Panama, it is 47 miles wide. Because the mountain barrier at San Bias has an elevation of 700 feet above sea-level, no serious thought of a canal there ever was enter- tained long. The absence of rivers makes the sea- level type the only kind of canal that could have been attempted at San Bias, involving a staggering task of excavation. Besides, it was in the complete grasp 71 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA of the jungle, while at Panama there was a beaten path, from ocean to ocean, four centuries old. The Chagres River (pronounced Shag-gress) originates in the San Bias Mountains, and drains a basin of 1,320 square miles. After running parallel with the coast line, nearly midway between the oceans, it turns sharply at right angles and empties into the Caribbean Sea, a few miles west of Colon. The point where the Chagres makes this turn is within the Canal Zone, and about 30 miles from the Carib- bean, running through the Canal Zone for that dis- tance. From the Caribbean Sea to Bohio, about sev- enteen miles, the bed of the river is only slightly above sea-level, and from Bohio to about the entrance of the Culebra cut, it rises to 48 feet above sea-level. Engineers were divided on the utility of this natural geographical situation. Those who favored the lock- type canal believed that the Chagres River could be dammed up so as to form the longest part of the canal, and thus save a vast amount of excavation that would be required in a sea-level type. While not denying the saving in excavation in a lock type, the engineers who favored a sea-level canal believed that the fixed limitations of the lock type made it inadvisable, when the expansion in the size of ships was considered. Their plan was to divert the Chagres and tributary rivers, of which there are 26 in the Canal Zone, by digging new channels for them, and so get them out of the way of the canal. The French, in 1880, had started out on that the- ory. They thought of digging a great tunnel through 78 GEOGRAPHY the mountains to divert the Chagres River into the Pacific Ocean. This tunnel would have been lo miles long and, needless to say, a rather visionary under- taking. Five years after they began operations they abandoned the sea-level plan and adopted the lock-type canal. But their dam across the Chagres River was to be at Bohio, seventeen miles inland from the Carib- bean, while the American engineers advised a dam at Gatun, only seven miles inland. At Gatun, the natural formation of the mountains permitted the Chagres River to escape into the Carib- bean Sea through a gap less than two miles wide. The lock-type advocates said this gap could be filled in and so create a basin to be filled by the stagnated water of the Chagres River. The idea was to build a dam high enough to back the accumulated river water toward the Pacific for a distance of 32 miles, and at an average depth, in the canal channel, of 45 feet throughout. Another dam would prevent the lake so formed from spilling down the Pacific slope. Thus, all but 15 miles of the canal would be made by an inland, artificial lake, 164 square miles in extent. But even in a lock type there would have to be an impressive amount of excavation. Not only would the sea-level channels approaching this lake on either side of the Isthmus have to be dredged, but the moun- tain barrier, running lengthwise with the Isthmus, would have to be pierced with a channel so as to per- mit the waters of the Gatun lake to reach the point on the Pacific side where the locks would afford the descent to the ocean. As the surface of the lake was 79 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA proposed to be 85 feet above sea-level, the bottom of the channel through the mountains would have to be 45 feet lower than the surface elevation, or at 40 feet above sea-level. The area to be excavated in this lake channel, 32 miles long, was from Gatun to Obispo, following the Chagres River in general, and requiring only about 12,000,000 cubic yards to be removed, in 23 miles. Then the mountains began, 45 feet above sea-level, and reached their highest point, in the center line of the canal, at Gold Hill, 312 feet above sea-level, thence sloping toward the Pacific, to the proposed lock site at Pedro Miguel, a distance of 9 miles. The average depth of the cut would be 120 feet throughout the 9 miles, and the deepest point of excavation at Gold Hill would require going down 2'j2 feet. The Culebra cut, as this channel through the moun- tains was called, was to be 200 feet wide. In 1880, the French had begun work there, and they removed 18,646,000 cubic yards that were useful to the Amer- icans. Their machinery was used the first year of our occupation. At Gatun, on the Atlantic side of the proposed lake, there would be locks to lift ships to the lake, and at Pedro Miguel and La Boca, on the Pacific side the locks would lower the ships to sea-level again. The Cocoli and other rivers could be used to form a second small lake between the Pedro Miguel and La Boca locks. The total excavation for the sea-level channels and the Culebra cut was estimated around 100,000,000 cubic yards. 80 GEOGRAPHY Opposed to these considerations in favor of a lock type were the arguments advanced in behalf of a sea- level canal. The popular mind could see ships steam- ing or sailing uninterruptedly from ocean to ocean through a dugout channel that would not grow too small for the largest ships that time might develop, and the engineers who advised such a canal asserted that the difference in time and cost of building the two types was not materially in favor of the lock type. Time has developed that such a belief was widely erroneous. The Americans came to the Canal Zone in 1904 with the question of the kind of canal to be built un- settled. They were to be there more than two years before the violently discussed issue was to be settled. It was like starting in to build a house without any definite plan in mind. Meanwhile, however, it was recognized that there was a vast amount of pioneer and preparatory work to be accomplished that would absorb the activities of the organization pending the solution of this problem. What kind of a country, as to temperature, rain- fall, vegetable and animal life, and healthfulness, had we secured ? As to the first characteristic, Panama is only 9 degrees from the Equator. But it is far from being as hot as that proximity might suggest. Throughout the year the temperature averages about 85 degrees. The highest recorded temperature in the Canal Zone is only 97 degrees. At night the atmos- phere falls sharply until, usually, light covering is required on beds, and the hot, sweltering nights of 81 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA American cities in the summer are unknown. Palm Beach, Florida, in the winter, is not a more desirable resort than Panama. The northern mind, too, considerably has overesti- mated the effects of the rainy season at Panama. During January, February, March, and April there is practically no rainfall. By the ist of May light showers occur daily, or every few days, and through June, with an occasional gusher. From then, on to December, the rains become more frequent and heav- ier, and have a way of coming up about the same time every day, sometimes in the afternoons, some- times in the mornings. Between showers the sun is radiant. Construction operations have to be sus- pended during the violent downpours, and the canal employees call any rain that occurs in the noon hours, or after work, " a government rain." On the Atlantic side the rainfall averages between 130 and 140 inches annually; on the Pacific side from 60 to 70 inches. At times it rains so furiously that it appears to be one continuous sheet of water fall- ing. For one hour the record fall is 5.86 inches; for one day, at Porto Bello, 10.06 inches; in three min- utes 2.46 inches fell at the same place; and at Pan- ama on May 12, 191 2, 6 inches fell in two hours. The years 1906 and 1909 were the wettest since the American occupation and 19 12 the dry est. This heavy precipitation makes the rivers of Pan- ama torrential streams. The Chagres River has risen 25 feet in twenty-four hours. During every rainy season the records left by the French and kept by the 82 GEOGRAPHY Americans since their occupation show that this river discharges enough water to fill the proposed Gatun Lake one and a half times. It is not expected that any lack of water for the lock-type canal ever will be ex- perienced. Except for the beaten paths and cleared spaces con- stantly maintained the jungle is king in Panama. One season's growth will cover an abandoned clearing with the luxuriant tropical vegetation. When the Amer- icans entered the Canal Zone, most of the French machinery and even whole towns were covered by the jungle. There are the usual tropical fruits, bananas, cocoa- nuts, alligator pears, papayas, mangoes, and other less well-known varieties. The vegetation includes the royal poinciana, palm, and other stately trees. The rare orchid is at home on the Isthmus, about seventy- five varieties being found, a dozen of which are of the most beautiful kinds. A dry season of four months does not parch the growth, but the rainy sea- son gives it the most brilliant green coloring. None of the big animal life of Africa is found any- where in South America, and Panama has even less dangerous species than the mainland. The tarantula, coral snake, tiger cats, deer, and other larger, though not so dangerous, animals are found, and alligators abound in the rivers and bays, as well as sharks. The insect life is wonderfully varied, the birds are in in- finite variety and most beautiful, while wild flowers of dazzling colors are in profusion. The Canal Zone, 83 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA where occupied in the canal operations, long since was freed of dangerous animal life. Distinct, but inconsequential, earthquake shocks have been felt in Panama for centuries. The San Francisco earthquake, in 1906, was not recorded on the Canal Zone seismograph. In the seventeenth cen- tury a violent shock occurred, but none in the eight- eenth and nineteenth centuries, nor has any been re- corded in the twentieth century, although in Costa Rica, the republic adjoining Panama, a severe shock, in 1910, caused considerable loss of life and property. So far as past performance can indicate, the canal should not suffer from earthquakes. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans are on the same level, but the tide on the Pacific side has a maximum lift of 21 feet, while on the Atlantic side the maxi- mum lift is only 2^ feet. Allowance for this varia- tion was made by providing a deeper channel for the canal on the Pacific side, so that the passage of ships will not be affected by the tides. The shape of the Bay of Panama causes the high tide on the Pacific side. As there is not a favorable geographical arrange- ment at either end of the canal, in the way of har- bors, the defects have been supplied by breakwaters. At the Atlantic entrance a breakwater more than two miles long runs from Toro Point to shield ships lying in the entrance from the violent Northers that occa- sionally sweep the coast. Another breakwater a half mile long, running out from the Colon waterfront, will protect shipping in that harbor from storms on 84 GEOGRAPHY the east. At the Pacific entrance storms are not dan- gerous, but the currents deposited silt in the channel in such quantities as to make a breakwater advisable, and this one runs from the mainland to Naos Island, three miles out in the bay, and connects with the forti- fications. It was built from material excavated in the Culebra cut, whereas the Atlantic breakwaters were built largely of rock quarried at Porto Bello. Panama and Colon are cities of great interest to the tourist. The former has about 50,000 population and the latter 20,000. Panama is the capital of the republic, has a handsome national theater and insti- tute, a street car system is in course of construction, and a number of old cathedrals are interesting sights. The canal employees travel for half fare on the rail- road and are often in evidence in the quaint little victoria carriages that handle the street traffic, at ten cents a ride, in the two cities. Mardi Gras comes in February in the city of Pan- ama, and is a vivid exhibition of the Spanish tem- perament at play. For four days the natives abandon themselves to the festivities and business reaches a standstill. A queen is elected by popular vote and re- ceives the homage of all the Panaman officials, as well as the higher American dignitaries. The parade of floats and carriages is a dazzling presentation of the Spanish fancy expressed in dress and decorations. 8s CHAPTER X GETTING UNDER WAY ^^ TTTHAT this nation will insist upon is that V V results be achieved," wrote President Roosevelt in his order creating the first Isthmian Canal Commission that he appointed, on March 8, 1904; and that remained the keynote of his attitude toward the canal. The country was thoroughly con- vinced of the inefficiency of any government-built en- terprise, • so, after complying with the Spooner act in naming a representative from the navy and the army, on the Commission, he announced its full personnel as follows : Admiral John G. Walker, U. S. N., Chairman, Maj.-Gen. George W. Davis, U. S. A., William Barclay Parsons, William H. Burr, Benjamin M. Harrod, Carl Ewald Grunsky, Frank J. Hecker. This Commission held its first meeting in Washing- ton on March 22d, when preparations were made for a visit to the Isthmus, which they reached on April 5th. After three weeks of investigations they decided that such engineering records as the French left must be supplemented by fresh explorations and surveys; 86 UNDER WAY that the sanitation of the Canal Zone, and the cities of Colon and Panama, was of the first importance; and that a period of preparation generally must pre- cede effective construction operations. Surgeon-Col. W. C. Gorgas accompanied the Commission on this trip and made the preliminary plans for cleaning up the Isthmus which, when worked out, were to make him famous. The Commission returned to the United States on April 29th. At a meeting between representatives of the United States and the French Canal Company, in Paris, on April 1 6th, the sale of the company's property, for $40,000,000 was signed, and was ratified by the share- holders in the company on April 23d. This ended the labors of Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, except that he tried, unsuccessfully, to get an additional payment for the work done on the canal, from the time the $40,000,000 was agreed upon as a price, in 1902, until the Americans formally took over the property, in 1904. President Roosevelt was subjected to wide criticism for this deal, but of all his actions in connection with the canal it was one of the wisest. Without regard to who got the money it indisputably is true, to any- one who has visited the canal, that the United States got a dollar in value for every dollar it paid the French company. As late as 191 1 Col. Goethals ap- pointed a committee headed by J. B. Bishop, secretary of the Commission, to invoice the French purchase, and they reported the value of French excavation useful to the American plan of canal, the mechanical 87 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA equipment, buildings, and engineering records, to be $42,799,826, or nearly $3,000,000 more than was paid. At the same time it was a good sale for the French company because the United States was the only prospective buyer. The item of largest value to the United States, as estimated in the report, was the excavation of 29,908,- 000 cubic yards, valued at $25,389,240. This mainly was in the Culebra cut. Next in importance was the Panama Railroad and subsidiary trackage in the Canal Zone, and the remainder was for quarters, hospitals, storehouses, machine shops, canal equipment, item- ized in part as follows: Three 2,000-ton steamers of the Panama Railroad Steamship Line; 30,000 acres of land comprising practically all the real estate in the city of Colon and a valuable part of the city of Panama; 625,000 acres of land with the canal concession; 2,265 buildings of all descriptions; 212 Belgian locomotives; 34 Ameri- can locomotives; barges, yawls, launches, dredges, cranes, drills, dump cars, and vast quantities of steel rails, machinery parts, pumps, steam winches, and other equipment in profusion. Much of the mechanical equipment and whole vil- lages of houses used by the French employees were covered with a dense growth of jungle after years of idleness, but the machinery had been oiled and painted carefully before abandonment, and so was preserved in good condition when the Americans came. Had not the French buildings been available and capable of being speedily repaired for use, the early Ameri- 88 UNDER WAY can employees would have suffered more hardships than they did. Of these buildings, the Americans re- paired and used 1,536, their value being estimated at $1,879,203.80. Construction work was carried on the first year of American occupation largely with old French equip- ment. The closing days of the canal find a consid- erable amount of it still in use. A great deal of light work by locomotives was done by the Belgian engines that the heavy American types could not handle eco- nomically. That part of the equipment which could not be utilized was used as ballast on the Panama Steamship liners to the extent of 27,000 tons, and sold as scrap on the New York market, and in 191 1 the Chicago House Wrecking Company bid in the remainder for the lump sum of $215,000. In the sale, the United States received 68,888 shares of the capital stock of the Panama Railroad Company, and later bought from individuals 1,112 shares for $157,118.24, giving the government complete control; and while the railroad has been operated separately from the Commission, it has been officered by mem- bers of the Commission or its employees, and in all points made subordinate to canal construction. The value of the French engineering records and surveys, and especially of the records kept of the flow of the Chagres River, is incalculable because they could not be duplicated. It was on French records that the estimate of the amount of water to expect from the Isthmian rivers for use in the Gatun Lake was based. 89 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA Congress, on April 28, 1904, appropriated the $10,000,000 which had been promised in the treaty to the Republic of Panama for the Canal Zone. This, with the consummation of the sale by the French company, cleared the title to the Canal Zone, and at 7.30 o'clock in the morning of May 4th, Lieut. Mark Brooke, of the United States Army, formally took over the property and the territory in the name of his government. The day following. President Roosevelt announced the appointment of John F. Wallace, general manager of the Illinois Central Railroad, as Chief Engineer of the Panama Canal, effective on June ist. He had acknowledged the national disbelief in governmental efficiency by going into private industrial life for a canal builder. Mr. Wallace's salary was to be $25,- 000 annually, and the country recognized the selection as a good one. Upon their return to the United States, the Com- mission began organizing surveying and engineering parties for pioneer work in the Canal Zone. The first ship to arrive with such a party was on May 1 7th, the party having at its head Ma j. -Gen. Davis, of the Com- mission, and including Col. W. C. Gorgas, chief sani- tary officer, and George R. Shanton, who personally was selected by President Roosevelt to head the police of the Canal Zone. Ma j. -Gen. Davis was in charge pending the arrival of Mr. Wallace, who reached Colon on June 24th. The President designated Maj.-Gen. Davis as Gover- nor of the Canal Zone, on June 8th, and for the first 90 UNDER WAY two months he had his residence on Culebra Hill, then in Panama. Operations were continued just as the French left them, until Mr. Wallace's arrival definitely marked the beginning of real construction. 91 CHAPTER XI THE CANAL UNDER WALLACE ANXIETY to dig dirt, the usual American desire to get things done right off, was the dominat- ing idea in 1904. So, while Mr. Wallace kept up the surveying which would aid in determining the center line of the canal, as well as the choice of a type, he also pushed excavation operations in the Culebra cut, rehabilitating old French excavators and increasing the working force. He had found 746 men at work with hand tools in the Culebra cut. His first inspection convinced him that the French machinery should be abandoned as fast as modern American equipment could be secured, and he expressed the opinion that two years would be re- quired for preparations. At that time the main track and sidings of the Panama Railroad totaled 78.82 miles, while the trackage left by the French in the cut and elsewhere was 176.2 miles. The immediate substitution of heavy American rails for the Belgian type, and the double-tracking of the main line, were among Mr. Wallace's first decisions. Rolling stock and locomotives were ancient in design, and in a bad state of repair, but he rescued from the jungle and overhauled 58 locomotives and 980 dump cars. It required stout hearts not to quail before the Isth- mus of 1904. Not only the traditional unhealth fulness, 92 CUnedinst photo, Washington, D. C. John F. Wallace. WALLACE but the wretched condition of the railroad, after fifty years of noncompetition, the long distance from the base of supplies, the miserable living accommodations in Colon and Panama, where there were no sewers, no water and unpaved streets, into which was thrown all refuse and garbage; and the vexatious red tape that surrounded all government enterprises, made a situa- tion that weaklings no sooner touched than they re- turned precipitately to the United States. But, however staggering the obstacles were, the American people had set themselves the task of suc- ceeding where the French had failed, to do it at any cost and in spite of all opposition, be that opposition in the form of disease, red tape, hardship or any other limitation. To take care of the increasing number of workers, that every ship was bringing to the Canal Zone, was the most pressing problem. The interest of the whole world had been stimulated by the rejuvenation of the canal project by the Americans, with the result that restless spirits everywhere began bending their steps toward Panama. Men of excellent character in the United States also came, attracted by the pay and the romantic nature of the undertaking. The houses left by the French were inhabited by natives or buried in the jungle growth. They neces- sarily were run down but could be made habitable once the carpenters and lumber to do the work were at hand. These, however, like everything else, were two thou- sand miles away with a spider web of red tape over them that paralyzed speedy movement. In his year 93 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA of service Mr. Wallace repaired 357 of these houses and built forty-eight new ones, still leaving the problem of housing employees unsolved. During that time more than 9,000 workers came to the Canal Zone, but the migration back to the United States, or adjacent islands and countries, was heavy. Col. Gorgas had urged the prompt sanitation of Colon and Panama, and early in the American occupa- tion the construction of sewers, waterworks, and paved streets was begun. The Americans advanced the money for these improvements on a plan of taxes that at the end of fifty years from their completion will re- pay the United States and turn them over to the re- spective cities. One of the dredges left by the Slaven brothers was found to be, after twenty years, in excellent condition and was put to work in Colon harbor. The twenty miles of track in the Culebra cut occasioned derail- ments and wrecks with exasperating frequency until relaid with heavier rails, and this mileage was in- creased by an addition of fifteen miles during the first year. Machine shops existed at Colon, Matachin, and Gorgona where, when the jungle had been cut away, facilities were found for repairing machinery and roll- ing stock. Mr. Wallace made his headquarters in Panama in a building that formerly had been occupied by the French Director-General. It is now the American Legation. The disbursing officer, sanitary officer, en- gineering parties, and clerical forces were centered in Panama, but a site for an American administrative 94 WALLACE town was selected at the foot of Ancon hill just out- side of Panama. French towns at Culebra, Empire, and Gorgona were rehabilitated and systems of sewers and waterworks begun. There were settlements at Matachin, Bas Obispo, and Colon. Accommodations were of the crudest description. Powder boxes served for Morris chairs, furniture was scanty and of ancient design, tropical insects made life a misery, servants were worse than indifferent, there were no baths, no running water in the houses, and that which was used sometimes was caught from roofs on which the buzzards roosted, the native foods had to be eaten, and ice was a luxury that only occasionally could be obtained from the railroad ice factory at Colon. Each ship that brought workers to the Canal Zone invariably carried the same or others back. Yet a per- centage stuck and accepted the undesirable conditions gracefully. A few had vision enough to see that our great government would rectify everything if only given time. Others realized that the canal never would be built if the workers expected soft conditions right at the start and they accepted their sacrifices of comfort as a national necessity. To add to the difficulties of the early days, maga- zine, newspaper, and other critics exploited the im- perfections of the employee's environment from a hypercritical standpoint, whereas the government was bending its energies to the utmost to bring conditions to par. Many of these critics were inspired by a preference for the Nicaraguan route, others simply 95 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA were anti-Roosevelt and lambasted anything he cham- pioned, while still others were the hirelings of spe- cial interests that opposed any canal. These critics reached the climax of absurdity when complaint was made that men living only nine degrees from the Equa- tor ought to have hot water baths. There was no let- up until the canal was so far advanced that it stood as a self-evident refutation of their dismal prophecies. Every defect they pointed out had been noted long ago by the officials and was remedied in time more handsomely than any private contractor would have matched. The Americans were not attempting a pink tea performance in Panama and the torrents of abuse that were heaped upon the administration constitute the most disgraceful feature of the entire project. Mr. Wallace came from a highly organized railroad system to an absolutely unorganized enterprise two thousand miles from the base of supplies. Govern- ment red tape to such a man was exasperating to the last degree. It was necessary for the government to advertise for bids, and this constituted the principal delay in securing orders, but barring that procedure, it has not been shown that a private contractor could have placed machinery and supplies on the ground with much greater celerity than the government. The over-riding idea was to make a showing. Presi- dent Roosevelt himself had set the pace for quick re- sults. Congressmen who were expected to vote for canal appropriations frequently could not be impressed that the project was worth while if the dirt was not flying. Mr. Wallace therefore concentrated energies 96 WALLACE on excavation work that more profitably could have been spent on preparations. He got out 741,644 yards in his year, a creditable showing with the equipment at hand. The first steam shovel was installed on No- vember II, 1904, and was No. loi, of the 70-ton class. It is still in use in the canal. On December 2, 1904, the second steam shovel was erected, No. 201, of the 95-ton class. By June, 1905, there were nine steam shovels at work, and the last French excavator was abandoned on June 16, 1905, the day Mr. Wallace left the Canal Zone as Chief Engineer. All engines, cars, steam shovels, and other large equipment had to be brought to the Isthmus " knocked down." The cost of putting together a locomotive of the large type was $820 and for erecting a steam shovel of the 95-ton class, the cost in the Canal Zone shops, is $770. This work, with the repair work and original steel and iron construction work, required boilermakers, mechanics, blacksmiths, and machine shop workers of all kinds. Recruiting offices were opened in the principal American cities to engage them and sometimes conditions in the Canal Zone were pic- tured a little rosier than the facts warranted. As Secretary of War, William Howard Taft had the immediate direction of Panama canal affairs. Every time he touched the project he manifested the high order of ability that made him so admirably equipped for the presidency later on, although the average canal employee will not agree with this opinion, because the Secretary actually acted as if the Republic of Panama was a sovereign power, entitled to consideration and 97 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA concessions in its complaints against the Commission. The canal employees were coddled by President Roose- velt and, besides, have no surplus of brotherly feeling at all for the Panamans, so that Secretary Taft's con- siderate treatment of them to many appeared a par- tiality at the expense of the canal employees. Almost coincidental with the beginning of American operations, Panama began to feel how absolutely sover- eign it had made the Americans right in the heart of the republic. The Canal Zone was being managed with complete independence from the republic, as much so as the Republic of Costa Rica to the north. Gov. Davis had corresponded at length with the of- ficials of Panama, over the question of sovereignty, the jurisdiction of the courts, the issues of the tariff, postage, customs, and currency, until it was deemed advisable for Secretary Taft in person to visit the Isthmus to arrange a working agreement on these dif- ferences. Secretary Taft arrived on November 2y, 1904, and remained until December 7th. He was assisted, in the conferences that were held in Panama, by William Nelson Cromwell, whose intimate knowledge of all Panama affairs made him a valuable adviser. On the question of sovereignty, which seemed to be especially delicate to the Republic, the treaty was peculiar in that it did not cede the Canal Zone finally to the United States, but gave the Americans all the powers they would exercise " if they were sovereign." Panama contended that final sovereignty was vested in it, and Secretary Taft, being after the substance 98 WALLACE rather than the form, did not quibble over this dis- tinction without a difference, but later expressed the opinion that Panama sovereignty over the Canal Zone was a "barren ideality." Certainly it has proved so to be. The issue passed off in talk. An agreement was reached on the currency ques- tion whereby the United States would accept the money of Panama atone half the value of American currency, that is, the peso, worth intrinsically only forty cents, would be exchanged with United States money at fifty cents, although it was in size and face value the same as our dollar. The same system was in vogue in the Philippines. To meet the needs of the canal pay- master, the circulation of pesos was increased from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000. Out of this grew the custom in the Canal Zone of referring to United States cur- rency as *' gold " and to Panama currency as " silver," and in the stores articles are priced in both currencies. The physical advantage of a high-value currency is demonstrated on the Isthmus, because the weight and size of the Panama silver money makes it cumbersome. Stamps were selling in the Canal Zone for slightly less than in the post offices of the republic, with the result that the republic was losing revenue. Secretary Taft settled this just complaint by arranging for the Canal Zone to buy its stamps from the republic for sixty per centum of their value, the forty per centum remaining to be the profit of the Canal Zone offices. The stamps are surcharged " Canal Zone," which is the official geographical designation of the territory through which the canal runs. 99 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA On June 24, 1904, President Roosevelt had made the Dingley tariff applicable to the Canal Zone. This worked badly and Secretary Taft agreed to have the order revoked, so that the Canal Zone ever since has enjoyed the freest of free trade. All other issues were cleared up without the United States yielding any free- dom of action as to importing materials, executing justice, operating ship terminals and supplying canal employees with the necessaries of life through com- missaries and hotels. While Secretary Taft and Chief Engineer Wallace were working in their spheres, Gov. Davis was in- stituting the various departments of civil government which to-day are noted with admiration by the tourist. Chief of Police Shanton was engaged in ridding the Canal Zone of its bad men and bringing a population long without any restraint under the control of regula- tions that the Americans considered essential to orderly existence. So far as practicable, the laws to which the natives were accustomed, which had been handed down the centuries by the Spaniards, were adopted in taxing lands and other property, but the court procedure was American with the exception of the jury system. The judges acted as juries. From the first Mr. Wallace had kept close tab on the cost of excavating dirt in the Culebra cut. The type to be chosen being still an unknown factor, he was in some measure working in the dark, except that the material removed would be useful for any type, provided the dumps were selected so as not to later get in the way of any route chosen. In 191 2, the 100 Copyright hy Harris d Eicing. President Taft. WALLACE Americans had to remove a French dump near Cu- lebra to prevent its sHpping down into the cut. He finally announced a unit cost of 50 cents a cubic yard for either a sea-level or lock-type canal. Messrs. Parsons and Burr, the engineering com- mittee of the Commission, after a personal inspection of the Canal Zone, and taking Mr. Wallace's esti- mate, recommended a sea-level type of canal. It was to cost, exclusive of improvements in Colon and Pan- ama, and civil government in the Canal Zone, $230,- 500,000. Mr. Wallace had caused surveys to be made for a lock type of canal, and he estimated the cost of such a canal, with a summit level of 60 feet eleva- tion, to be $178,013,406; with a summit level at 30 feet elevation, the cost would be $194,213,406. All three estimates missed the real cost of the re- spective types widely. Mr. Wallace's estimate of 50 cents a yard for excavation was far too low. As a matter of record, the cost reached 82 cents under Chief Engineer Stevens, rose to 91 cents under Chief Engineer Goethals, and only once fell below the 50- cent estimate, in March, 191 1, when it fell to 47 cents a yard. The average for the period from 1904 to 191 1 was 88 cents. The mistake was made because solid rock underlay the surface, necessitating contin- uous blasting before it could be handled by the steam shovels, while the working day, which had been ten hours under Mr. Wallace, was cut to eight hours under Messrs. Stevens and Goethals, and wages rose sharply as well. Persistent and vigorous complaints from Mr. Wal- lOI THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA lace, about the hindrances of governmental methods of doing business, found a receptive ear in President Roosevelt. The Executive was just as eager to make the dirt fly as Mr. Wallace, and readily agreed that a Commission of seven members was an awkward and ill-working management for the peculiar condi- tions of the job at Panama. Accordingly drastic ac- tion was decreed. Secretary Taft, on March 29, 1905, asked the en- tire Commission to resign. His explanation exoner- ated the members of any blameworthy administration, but indicated that the Commission had been found an unwieldy body. Mr. Wallace was in Washington, and the President and Secretary Taft followed his suggestions almost to the letter, including the one that the Chief Engineer be made a member of the Com- mission. On April i, 1905, the second Isthmian Canal Com- mission to be appointed by President Roosevelt was announced. Heading it was a new figure in canal affairs, Theodore P. Shonts, who played a decisive part in the enterprise for the ensuing two years. The personnel of the new Commission was : 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, Benjamin M„ Harrod. , 102 WALLACE There was the same number of Commissioners, but the first three were named an Executive Committee which virtually should exercise the powers of the en- tire body. Thus power was taken from seven and concentrated in three members. Mr. Shonts was to be in charge of the Washington office and Messrs. Wallace and Magoon on the Isthmus. Again following Mr. Wallace's suggestion, the directory of the Panama Railroad was reorganized, the United States on April 15, 1905, for the first time electing the members. Mr. Shonts was made president and Mr. Wallace, vice-president and gen- eral manager. This would further concentrate con- trol in the Chief Engineer over a vital factor in canal construction. These changes and other matters kept Mr. Wallace in Washington from March 29th to May 24th, about two months. The employees in the Canal Zone natu- rally caught something of the spirit of unrest which attended the reorganization of the Commission, and, of course, the hostile press was playing up everything that could embarrass the administration and damn the project. Then the yellow- fever epidemic broke out in April, 1905, to add a terrible* phase to life on the Isthmus. Having secured every change he desired, Mr. Wal- lace left Washington with expressions of cordial ap- preciation to the President and his Secretary. He arrived at Colon on June 2d, and the White House believed that a crisis in the career of the project had 103 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA been passed successfully. They looked forward to smooth sailing with every confidence. Their surprise and chagrin, therefore, was immeas- urable when Mr. Wallace cabled Secretary Taft, on June 8th, asking that he be recalled to Washington for a conference. He intimated that the conference might result in his resignation as Chief Engineer. After a disheartened interview with the President, Secretary Taft cabled him to return. At the same time he cabled Gov. Magoon for a confidential view of Mr. Wallace's conduct. Gov. Magoon expressed the opinion that Mr. Wallace was quitting for a bet- ter salary, the yellow- fever epidemic was raging, the wife of Mr. Wallace's secretary had died from the disease, and Mr. Wallace believed that he had had an attack of it. Without intimating that he was leaving for good, Mr. Wallace quietly packed up or sold off his house- hold furniture and sailed from Colon on June i6th. The employees scented some important movements and the subordinate officials felt restrained from de- cisive action, although Mr. Wallace left authority to that effect with the engineer next in rank to him. Gov. Magoon cabled that the working force, al- ready shaken by the yellow-fever epidemic, were fur- ther demoralized by the belief that the Chief Engi- neer was seeking a softer berth. Every ship that left Panama at that time was carrying capacity pas- senger lists, and only the limited number of vessels prevented a wholesale exodus. It was truly a time that tried men's souls. 104 WALLACE President Roosevelt and Secretary Taft then de- cided upon a drastic course toward Mr. Wallace, as a means of reviving the morale of the canal workers, and also of bringing the American people sharply to a realization that the canal project was in peril, through a display of weakness in the face of danger, that would make our experiment in Panama an inter- national disgrace. Secretary Taft, with William Nelson Cromwell, met Mr. Wallace at the Manhattan Hotel in New York on June 25th. Secretary Taft listened to his reason for resigning, which in the main was that he had under consideration a position that would carry with it a remuneration of approximately $65,000 a year. One of the peculiar conditions of the new em- ployment was that under no circumstances was he to return to the Isthmus, but that he would gladly re- main a member of the Commission resident in the United States. He made some side criticisms to the effect that Col. Gorgas was incapable of handling the yellow- fever epidemic, that government red tape was distracting, and conditions generally were such as to make the new employment look attractive. Secretary Taft did not conceal his disappointment in Mr. Wallace's course. He began by reviewing how the government had taken him from a position pay- ing $15,000 a year to make him Chief Engineer of the canal at $25,000 a year; how that the formidable obstacles to be met, the supreme necessity of a canal to the nation, made it a patriotic work for any Amer- 105 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA ican and an honor to be placed at the head of the greatest enterprise of the age. " For mere lucre," Mr. Taft continued, " you change your position overnight without thought of the embarrassing position in which you place your government by this action." Secretary Taft then reviewed how the Commission had just been reorganized to meet Mr. Wallace's wishes, and every change had been approved by the Chief Engineer. He closed by demanding the imme- diate resignation of Mr. Wallace. This came the next day, and was made public on June 28th, with Secretary Taft's hot rebuke, which, in the Canal Zone, had a most salutary effect. It put an entirely new complexion on their work to be told that the nation expected every man to do his duty, that they were not down there for the money they could make, nor were they expected to leave because of the hardships they would meet, but that the object of their exile was to give the nation something vital to its welfare. The desertions began to diminish at once, and the announcement on June 30th, that John F. Stevens, a Hill man, had been appointed Chief Engineer, fur- ther strengthened the morale of the canal organiza- tion. Theodore Roosevelt never appeared to better ad- vantage as a supremely able executive than during this crisis in the history of the canal. Before his enemies, and the canal's enemies, could shout their glee at the demoralization of the enterprise, he had closed the breach with the selection of another great Chief En- 106 WALLACE gineer. Even if the situation had been brought about by interests with sinister designs, it could not have been met with a more magnificent courage, and the canal project was strengthened by the ordeal. 107 CHAPTER XII THE CANAL UNDER STEVENS ANOTHER notable figure in the railroad world had been chosen Chief Engineer of the Pan- ama Canal. John F. Stevens in 1903 was general manager of the Great Northern Railroad Company, and of his selection as Chief Engineer, James J. Hill said that if the whole country had been ransacked no better man could be found. Mr. Stevens was about to start to the Philippine Islands to superintend the construction of government railroads, when drafted for the canal. It is not pos- sible to estimate the mischief that might have resulted if the selection of a successor to Mr. Wallace had been long delayed. His salary was to be $30,000 an- nually, or $5,000 more than that paid to Mr. Wallace. He was facing a situation in Panama that justified the figure. The long continued " knocking " of the canal proj- ect was having its effect. Not only were the men on the ground difficult to retain, but new ones would not come unless for exceptional considerations. The yellow-fever epidemic was still uncontrolled. An in- voice of the situation as left by Mr. Wallace showed that considerable pioneer work had been done, but the housing, feeding, and general preparations for the comfort of employees were unsolved problems. 108 STEVENS Mr. Stevens arrived at Colon on July 2^, 1905. As a railroad man his eye first was attracted by the con- gestion of freight on the wharves and the self-evident fact that the Panama Railroad was in a near state of collapse. Freight was piled up in the streets in pro- digious quantities and was moving over the railroad at a snail's pace. His first report hit off the situation in one sarcastic sentence: " About the only claim for good work heard made was that there had been no collisions for some time. A collision has its good points as well as its bad ones — it indicates there is something moving on the rail- road." As for the railroad tracks in the Culebra cut, he said they were " lines, which by the utmost stretch of the imagination could not be termed railroad tracks." Mr. Wallace had found the Panama Railroad, after half a century without competition, far behind the times in equipment, and practically no discipline or -efficiency existed among the employees. When Mr. Stevens took charge there was an improved situation, but the long absence in Washington of Chief Engineer Wallace, and his sudden departure, had caused the rail- road to begin a retrograde movement. For 31 miles the main line of the railroad had been retracked with American rails and the work of double- tracking it was just getting under way. The princi- pal shops were at Matachin, with a capacity of over- hauling five locomotives and 150 dump cars a month. The canal employees soon saw the caliber of man at their head by the way Mr. Stevens straightened out 109 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA the railroad tangle, for the freight began to move, lax methods were rooted out of the system, and the sem- blance of an efficient organization, operating along modern lines, appeared. The Commission visited the Isthmus in July and August and with Mr. Stevens reached the conclusion that construction work should be reduced to a mini- mum, even to turning away employees, and all ener- gies bent to building up a system of feeding and housing the men and their families. Preparatory work was given the right of way over construction, which accounts for the comparatively little excavation done under the Stevens regime. The general verdict was that the ground work done by Mr. Wallace was good, in spite of disorganized conditions, and that no insuperable obstacles stood in the way of building the canal. Delays in filling requisitions undoubtedly ac- counted for the lack of some of the equipment and supplies. Mr. Wallace had left the following organization worked out on paper, with the explanation that large salaries had not attracted competent heads of depart- ments, so that Mr. Stevens found many important positions unfilled: The Department of Engineering and Construction was divided into five divisions, running from the At- lantic to the Pacific and known as the Colon, Cha- gres, Gamboa, Culebra, and La Boca Divisions. Bureau of Personnel, Transportation and Quarters. Bureau of Supplies. no STEVENS Bureau of Waterworks, Sewers, and Roads. Bureau of Machinery and Equipment. Bureau of Architecture and Equipment. Bureau of Meteorology and Hydraulics. Bureau of Mapmaking and Printing. Bureau of Communication. There were 8,312 men in the department of engi- neering and construction, and other employees brought the total to 9,500, not including the Panama Rail- road. Municipal improvements in Colon and Panama, and certain Canal Zone towns, were well under way. Effective progress had been made in the work of surveying the canal route, in making borings for lock sites, and in other engineering preliminaries. As noted, 741,644 yards had been excavated and nine steam shovels were at work. The 357 renovated French buildings and 48 new structures housed the employees, except those who provided shelter for themselves in Colon and Panama. There were no commissary and hotels. On December i, 1905, the Commission made its an- nual report to the President, containing Mr. Stevens' first review of the canal. Both he and the Commis- sion pleaded for " a thorough business administra- tion, unhampered by any tendency to technicalities, into which our public works sometimes drift." Like Mr. Wallace, Mr. Stevens found government red tape galling. Civil service and the eight-hour day were just as obnoxious, the Commission urging that " it is a mistake to handicap the construction of the Panama III THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA Canal with any laws save those of police and sanita- tion." An Executive Order had made the Civil Service cover the Canal Zone on November 15, 1904, but both Mr. Wallace and Mr. Stevens protested so ear- nestly against the restrictions of this order that on January 12, 1906, President Roosevelt removed all employees, except clerks, from the scope of the act, thus allowing Mr. Stevens to employ anyone he saw fit on any terms he chose. The eight-hour day re- striction likewise was lifted, but agitation in the United States caused the President later to reimpose both limitations, with whatever increase in time and cost of constructing the canal they might involve. The Americans had been in Panama more than a year, and still the type of canal to be built was unde- cided. Mr. Wallace's service had terminated and a full year of Mr. Stevens' administration before the choice was made. In the meantime, Mr. Stevens rap- idly was rounding into shape an organization of workers, getting suitable quarters erected for the em- ployees who were coming in large numbers, organiz- ing the commissary and hotel systems, securing me- chanical equipment, and bringing the transportation facilities to a satisfactory standard. Gov. Magoon simultaneously was organizing a civil government along the lines blazed by Gov. Davis. Police, courts, schools, fire departments, post offices, recreation club- houses, churches, in short, duplicating on a scale suit- able to the Canal Zone the civilization of the United States. 112 STEVENS By June, 1906, the end of his first year as Chief Engineer, Mr. Stevens had made a remarkable show- ing in every phase of the work. There were 39 steam shovels at work as against 9 in 1905; the working force had increased to 23,901, of whom 3,264 were Americans. But, as showing how closely his efforts were concentrated on preparatory work, the total ex- cavation for the year was only 1,499,562 yards, the highest figures for one month being in March, 1906, when 239,178 yards were removed. Col. Gorgas and his sanitary department got on top of the yellow- fever epidemic in September, 1905, and in general so dominated the hitherto unheal thful Isthmus, that even the hostile press began to show a change in heart on this score, with the result that the immigration of workers largely increased. Recruit- ing agencies already had been opened in the West Indies, Europe, and the principal American cities. More than 12,000 men were imported in 1906 on con- tract with the Commission. The common labor was estimated by Mr. Stevens to be about 33 per cent as efficient as similar American labor. It was not until 1906 that the wives and families of the Americans be- gan coming to the Canal Zone in considerable num- bers, although there had been a heroic band of them throughout the trying days before the tropical terrors had been conquered. Early in his connection with the canal, Mr. Stevens discovered that practically all the material in the Cu- lebra cut would have to be blasted before it could be handled by the steam shovels. " The problem of Cu- 113 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA lebra cut," he wrote in the first annual report, " is one of transportation (including disposal) pure and simple." He had to be careful in selecting dumps so as to insure that they would not become an obstruc- tion to any type of canal or route that might be se- lected. " As the gift of prophecy is withheld from us in these latter days, all we can do now is to make such arrangements as may look proper as far ahead as we can see," he wrote in his report of 1905 on the unset- tled question of a sea-level or lock-type canal. The high wages and salaries for which the Canal Zone is noted originated under Mr. Stevens. So bad a name had been given the Isthmus in the past that extra inducements had to be made to attract workers, free quarters, pay from 30^ to 60^ higher than in the United States, and a rate of $20 from New York to Colon on steamers operated by the government, with other perquisites, being some of the advertised attrac- tions. Besides, in the latter part of Mr. Stevens' regime, the United States was enjoying unexampled prosperity, the palmy days before the panic of 1907. Mechanics and all kinds of workers could obtain em- ployment at home at high wages and would not come to Panama unless for the unusual inducements enumerated, and, in addition, vacations with full pay, sick leave on pay, and cheap food and other neces- saries. The Battle of the Levels Although the French had abandoned the idea of a sea-level canal in favor of a lock type, there still was 114 Clinedinst photo, Washington, D. C. John F. Stevens. STEVENS a good deal of life in the idea among the American people. For one thing, a sea-level canal was so much more easily grasped by the popular mind, and then all engineers concede that it is the ideal canal where it is practicable. In Panama, the division of opinion arose over this point of practicability. A sea-level canal aptly has been described as "a wide and deep passage navigable at all times, day or night, at all seasons and in all weathers, by all sorts and sizes of vessels." The lock type involves opera- tions not readily portrayed to the lay mind, but emi- nently simple when seen in practical use. Popular opinion, and the daily and periodical press, divided and fought bitterly from the time the Canal Zone was taken until it finally was decided by Congress, and even then the sea-level advocates kept up an anvil chorus against the lock type. The Walker Commission of 1901 had estimated the cost of a sea-level canal at $145,000,000. The Spooner act authorized $135,000,000 for any type that might be chosen, but leaned toward the lock type. The Commission of 1905 recommended a sea-level type to cost $230,500,000. Mr. Wallace later esti- mated the cost at sea-level at $300,000,000, exclusive of the $50,000,000 paid for the Canal Zone and French property. That these American estimates should come, in the main, under the amount actually spent by the French, who little more than scraped the surface, shows, for one thing, that the Americans believed there had been gross extravagance and inefficiency in the French oper- 115 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA ations, and for another thing, that the Americans had no adequate grasp upon the task they were undertak- ing. This same insufficiency of estimates continued until 1908, when Col. Goethals faced the situation frankly and announced the cost for a lock type to be $375,000,000, which was far ahead of the highest estimate for a sea-level canal. In 1909, Col. Goethals said a sea-level canal would cost $563,000,000 and take six years longer to build than a lock canal, which was before the slides in the Culebra cut became so formidable and a sea-level canal had been shown there- by to be all but impossible. It is probable that a sea- level canal would cost around a billion dollars, and take from ten to twenty years longer to build, if engi- neers should now decide it practicable. President Roosevelt took a characteristic step to end the dispute. On June 24, 1905, a few days be- fore the appointment of Mr. Stevens as Chief Engi- neer, he named the following International Board of Advisory Engineers to recommend a type of canal : Maj.-Gen. George W. Davis, U. S. A., Chairman, Capt. John C. Oakes, U. S. A., Corps of Engineers, Secretary, Brig.-Gen. Henry L. Abbott, U. S. A., retired, Adolph Guerard, Inspector-General of Public Works, France, Edouard M. Quellenec, Consulting Engineer, Suez Canal, Henry Hunter, Engineer of Manchester Canal, England, 116 STEVENS Herr Eugene Tincauser, Engineer on Kiel Canal, Germany, J. W. Welcker, Engineer Dyke System, Holland, IsHAM Randolph, Chief Engineer, Chicago Drainage Canal, Frederick P. Stearns, Hydraulic Engineer, Boston, William H. Burr, Consulting Engineer, New York, Joseph Ripley, Chief -Engineer, Sault Ste. Marie Canal, Alfred Noble, Chief of Pennsylvania R. R. Im- provements, N. Y. C, William B. Parsons, Chief Engineer, Subway Sys- tem, New York. Out of this number, five were foreigners and the remainder Americans. The Board visited the Isth- mus in October, 1905, and reported to the President on January 10, 1906. The majority, composed of eight engineers, and comprising all of the foreigners, recommended a sea-level canal. Messrs. Davis, Burr, and Parsons were the three Americans who signed the majority report. The minority of five Americans recommended a lock- type canal with a lake at 85 feet above sea-level formed by a dam across the Chagres River at Gatun. They estimated the excavation at 103,795,000 cubic yards, and the cost, exclusive of sanitation and civil government, at $139,705,200. Nine years, or until 191 5, was the time estimated for completing the canal. There were to be three locks in flight at Gatun, each 95 by 900 feet usable dimen- sions, and on the Pacific side, one lock at Pedro 117 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA Miguel, and two at La Boca, at the entrance, the dis- tance between Pedro Miguel and La Boca, 8 miles, to be a second artificial lake. The Culebra cut was to be 200 feet wide for 5 miles and 300 feet wide for 4 miles. Chief Engineer Stevens and all but one member of the Commission concurred in the minority report. Secretary Taft's visits to the Isthmus had converted him to the lock type, and President Roosevelt con- sistently had favored it. The situation was one where the choice would be decided by the weight the President should throw to either report. To reject the majority report favoring a sea-level canal, and to advocate the minority report for a lock- type canal, was a responsibility of unusual magnitude for an Executive who professed to have no technical engineering knowledge. Yet President Roosevelt made the momentous decision without hesi- tation, sending a strong message recommending the minority report. It was, perhaps, the greatest crisis in the history of the project, and the American peo- ple have to thank his sound judgment in preventing a sea-level experiment that, undoubtedly, in the light of recent years, would have exhausted the patience and maybe the finances of the nation. Congress debated the issue until June 21st, when the Senate by the close vote of 36 to 31 decided for a lock type, and on June 28th, the House concurred, the bill becoming law on June 29, 1906. The sea- level advocates were beaten, but they watched opera- tions sullenly and flared up into hot criticism fre- 118 STEVENS quently, with dismal prophecies of the impending collapse of the lock canal. Of the three Chief Engineers who have directed the construction of the canal, Mr. Wallace alone fa- vored the sea-level plan. He uniformly opposed a dam at Gatun, expressing the opinion that there was not a foundation at that point for so heavy a struc- ture, nor did he believe from his investigations that the earth there would support the great locks contem- plated in the minority report. Any type of canal, he reasoned, which would require years to repair a break was inadvisable, and even a lock type should be con- vertible to a sea-level canal, if such action should appear desirable. Messrs. Stevens and Goethals were equally unwavering in their advocacy of a lock canal. Two years and two months had passed from the time the Americans came to Panama, in May, 1904, to July I, 1906, before this decision was made, and at last the Commission knew what plan of canal was to be followed. In September, 1906, Mr. Stevens started the excavations in the sites for the Gatun locks, the Pedro Miguel lock, and the Gatun Dam Spillway. Surveys were begun for relocating the Pan- ama Railroad which, for a considerable distance, would be swallowed up by the completed canal. The fifteen months' preparatory work was beginning to tell in the increased excavations in the Culebra cut as the organization was getting its stride. Commissaries, which sold everything the canal employee needed, were in operation in the principal towns, the hotels for the bachelors were well organized, quarters had 119 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA been erected until all were housed, though at times rather crowded, machinery, supplies, and equipment were on hand, or ordered, to the extent of 80 per cent of what would be needed to complete the canal, health conditions were admirable, and the whole situation was shaping for the real work of building the canal. President Roosevelt paid the Canal Zone a visit in November, 1906. It was a trip of exploration for him, and the way he ignored the formal plans for his entertainment delighted the employees. Subordinate officials were rather anxious that he should inspect just the things they had spick and span for him to in- spect, but from the time he landed at Colon, where he jumped on a horse instead of into a waiting car- riage and rode down the unpaved side streets, noting the mud and unfinished improvements, until he ate in the line hotels with the dirt-covered employees, inspected the kitchens and quarters, and had nosed in and out of every part of the canal, he led them a merry chase. The enthusiasm for the " daddy " of the project was boundless, and the shortcomings he noted resulted in better conditions of employment for the men. One evidence of the growing luxury of living con- ditions in the Canal Zone was the installation on Jan- uary I, 1907, of electric lights in the quarters of the married and bachelor employees at Empire and Cu- lebra. Other towns soon were furnished with elec- tricity. The first public school had been opened a year before this event, or on January 2, 1906. Gov. Magoon, on September 25, 1906, had been transferred 120 STEVENS to Cuba by the President, occasioning the first break in the Shonts Commission. The summer and fall of 1906 and the winter of 1907 saw another great con- troversy raging around the canal, which, like the bat- tle of the levels, was to be decided arbitrarily by President Roosevelt. The Contract Plan Chairman Shonts long had entertained the opinion that the canal should be constructed by private con- tractors. He pressed the plan so vigorously, and the popular opinion of the inefficiency of the government was so strong, that the President authorized Secretary Taft to ask for bids on October 9, 1906. By this time conditions had so improved in the Canal Zone that the employees viewed the assumption of control by contractors as likely to militate against their interests. Mr. Stevens was making admirable headway, both in the creation of an effective organi- zation and the physical equipment to do the actual work of construction. He had little enough patience with governmental methods, but on the point of secur- ing competent workers, which Mr. Shonts seemed to think the government could not do so speedily and well as a contractor, Mr. Stevens said in his report of 1905 : " The very liberal and wise policy which the Commission is carrying out in its care of its em- ployees and in its treatment of them in every way must, after patient and careful selection, result in a personnel entirely capable of producing good results." The plan Mr. Shonts advanced for turning the job 121 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA over to a private contractor, left in the hands of the government the last word on every vital question that might arise. Viewed to-day, the terms of the invitation for bids seem to have been drawn with so much rigidity as completely to have robbed any con- tractor of the very flexibility of action which appeared to be the main drawback of a government enterprise. The government was to decide upon the cost and plans and the contractor was to receive a percentage of that amount for his services. Civil government and sanitation were to remain in the hands of the gov- ernment. It is safe to assume that had the plan been adopted, it would have broken down in less than three months, because the contractor either would have settled to the mere foremanship of the job, with the government engineers the court of last resort on all issues, or he would have asserted an independence of judgment and action which the terms of the contract did not permit. Either result would have been disastrous to the canal project. Those who favored the contract plan had some con- siderations which were potent with them, but which they did not shout from the housetops. They knew that the terms of the contract on which bids were invited practically reduced the contractor to the posi- tion of superintendent, but by nominally placing the work in his hands they would get the private contrac- tor's freedom of action as to hours of work, standard of wages, fitness of employees, and cheapness of mar- kets for materials. In other words, so long as the 122 STEVENS government itself built the canal, the eight-hour day, civil-service regulations, and the whole web of official procedure that enveloped the undertaking, would be operative. The contract plan offered a neat way of sidestepping these cumbersome conditions of doing business. Mr. Wallace heartily favored the contract plan, ex- pressing his belief in " the utter impossibility of the United States Government carrying on a constructive enterprise in a common sense, businesslike manner." Whatever his attitude at first, toward the last Mr. Stevens opposed the contract plan, as he believed that the work he had done in the Canal Zone was efficient, and if a little relaxation in red tape was indulged, the canal could be built more advantageously by the Gov- ernment. Bids for constructing the canal by private contract were opened at Washington on January 12, 1907, and rejected on the ground that they failed to meet the requirements of the government. The Oliver-Bangs syndicate was nearest in its bid to the specifications. The real reason for rejecting the bids was that both the country and the administration had undergone a change of heart as to the wisdom of the contract plan. Another epoch in the life of the canal project was marked by the President's action in definitely commit- ting the enterprise to direct government supervision. Chairman Shonts resigned, effective March 4, 1907. An executive order then consolidated the offices of Chairman and Chief Engineer in Mr. Stevens. On March i6th the remainder of the Commission, except 123 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA Col. Gorgas, resigned, to be followed on April ist by the resignation of Chief Engineer Stevens. His res- ignation came like a sickening accident to the canal employees. " The Chief," as he was called familiarly, had established himself firmly in their minds and hearts as a thoroughly competent engineer and just administrator. No official explanation of the motive for his quitting had been made, but the general un- derstanding is that he opposed the assignment of gov- ernment engineers to the Commission as likely to create friction with civilian engineers and partly to a stiff communication he sent the President on the limitations of red tape and governmental methods gen- erally. His departure was featured by a remarkable demonstration at Colon, when he was presented with a gold watch, a diamond ring, and a silver service by the employees, who did not restrain their emotion at his loss. Mr. Stevens was not soured by the termination of his services as Chief Engineer. His faith in the ulti- mate success of the project has remained unshaken, and in the Engineering News of December 31, 1908, a year and three quarters after his resignation, he wrote that the public criticism of the locks and dams was erroneous, and advised that Col. Goethals be backed up in his admirable efforts. The greatest tribute to his work as Chief Engineer is found in the fact that the organization of employees was so thor- ough and the foundational work so well done that the enterprise was not harmed by a change in managing directors. 124 CHAPTER XIII THE CANAL UNDER GOETHALS PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT had at last found public sentiment educated to the point where the canal could be put exclusively in the hands of gov- ernment engineers, following the untimely resigna- tion of Mr. Wallace, the belief that private interests were seeking to grab the project, and the loss of Mr. Stevens. It had taken three years to reach this atti- tude. The personnel of the third Commission he ap- pointed, on April i, 1907, was as follows: LiEUT.-CoL. George W. Goethals, Chairman and Chief Engineer, Maj. D. D. Gaillard, U. S. A., Maj. William L. Sibert, U. S. A., Mr. H. H. Rousseau, U. S. N., Col. W. C. Gorgas, U. S. A., Medical Corps, Mr. J. C. S. Blackburn, Mr. Jackson Smith, Mr. Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Secretary. The President also took advantage of the reorgan- ization of the Commission to further consolidate power in the Chairman. Not only was Col. Goethals made Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, and Chief Engineer of the Panama Canal, but the executive power in the Canal Zone, formerly exer- 125 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA cised by the Governor, was vested in him, as well as the Presidency of the Panama Railroad Company, thus making every official and employee, and the mem- bers of the Commission, subordinate to him. In former years the Governor had exercised exten- sive and supreme powers within his sphere, ranking higher than the Chief Engineer. Where the Chair- man, Chief Engineer, and Governor had rival powers, friction was sure to develop, and did so develop. Under the new order the Governor was reduced to the title of Head of the Department of Civil Admin- istration, reporting to the Chairman, as did the Chief Sanitary Officer and Division Engineers. Thus the former concentration of the power of a Commission of seven members into an Executive Committee of three, was still further concentrated into one man and so gave Col. Goethals the absolute authority he ever since has exercised in the Canal Zone, acknowl- edging only the Secretary of War and the President as his superiors. Mr. Jackson Smithes appointment to the Commis- sion is the only instance of a civilian coming to the Canal Zone as an employee and attaining to the posi- tion of Commissioner. He had shown such remark- able ability as the head of the Bureau of Labor, Quar- ters, and Subsistence, in recruiting workers, housing them and supplying them with food, that his services were recognized by elevation to the Commission. Mr. Blackburn, of Kentucky, was the head of the Depart- ment of Civil Administration, and Mr. Bishop was to edit a weekly Canal Record, the official Commission 126 GOETHALS publication, the first issue of which appeared on Sep- tember 4, 1907, and every Wednesday since. Five of the new Commissioners and the Secretary have been on the job continuously from that day to this, the changes coming in the other two members on Sep- tember 14, 1908, when Mr. Smith resigned and was succeeded by Lieut.-Col. H. F. Hodges, and Mr. Blackburn being succeeded by Mr. Maurice H. Thatcher, on April 12, 1910. Col. Goethals appreciated the feeling the employees had over the prospect of army engineers for directors of the enterprise, and in his first speech in the Canal Zone dispelled the idea of militarism in the canal man- agement. He promised a fair hearing to every man with a grievance, the manner in which he carried out this promise being one of the distinctively great qual- ities he later revealed as an administrator. Few per- sons in the Canal Zone had heard of Col. Goethals before his appointment as Chief Engineer. He had vis- ited the Isthmus in 1905 to study it with a view of recommending plans for fortifications, but the em- ployees who had been with the job then scarcely were impressed by his presence. Yet, his previous experi- ence had qualified him ideally for the important work now in hand. He had been building locks and dams, had been Chief of Engineers in the Spanish- Amer- ican War, was a graduate of and had taught in West Point, and had seen other construction experience that made him at home in any kind of work the canal should require. Messrs. Stevens and Wallace lacked his knowledge of lock building, and they lacked the 127 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA military point of view which was to become essential in directing the fortification work, and the general policy of treating the Canal Zone as a military reser- vation, even though the project is neutral and open to the nations of the world. Looking back from this perspective of years it seems fortuitous that the canal has had the impress of both civilian and army engineers. When Mr. Stevens left, the enterprise was ready for just the treatment it has received under Col. Goethals, which is, that we are not investing $375,000,000 as a mere adjunct to commerce, but as a means of national de- fense vitally necessary. The military coloring Col. Goethals has given the canal will not im.pair its util- ity in the world's trade, yet it will keep it ready for the emergencies of war in a manner that the civilian view point hardly could have been expected to pro- duce. Contrast, for a moment, the situation as faced by Col. Goethals with that faced by Mr. Stevens in 1905. In 1907, fire was under the boiler and steam was up. When Mr. Stevens relinquished the throttle, the army of workers had begun to come close to the million mark in monthly excavations in the Culebra cut. There were 6;^ steam shovels at work on the canal; 100 French and 184 American locomotives, and 2,700 cars of all kinds were in use; the Panama Railroad had been double-tracked throughout, and the mileage in the Culebra cut and elsewhere brought up to 106- .78 miles; 18 Lidgerwood unloaders, 13 bank spread- ers, 33 unloading plows, 3 track shifters and 7 pile 128 GOETHALS drivers were in service ; the machine shops at Gorgona and Empire were equipped for any kind of repair work or original construction. There were approximately 30,000 employees, and the recruiting agencies in Europe, the West Indies, and the United States constantly were sending addi- tions. Quarters for employees, office buildings, and all other structures consisted of 2,009 buildings of American design, and 1,536 remodeled French build- ings. The commissary for supplying food, clothing, and general merchandise to employees was organized and had branches in seven Canal Zone towns. There were fifteen hotels in operation for bachelor employees and four recreation clubhouses had been constructed, beside church and lodge buildings. Twenty-four pub- lic schools afforded educational facilities to the Canal Zone children. The police system, the courts, post offices, and fire departments were thoroughly organ- ized. In short, the preparatory stage of the canal had passed and the constructive stage had begun. As compared with the total excavation required for the completed canal, in round numbers 221,000,000 yards, the record made by Mr. Stevens, in removing from the Culebra cut during the twenty-one months he was Chief Engineer, 5,073,098 yards, is not signifi- cant. The construction of the canal distinctly is the work of the Goethals administration ; still, the prepar- atory work had to be done because, as Col. Goethals himself states: " It was only after these various yet necessary ad- juncts had been provided and the forces for their 129 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA operation were organized that the principal work in hand — the building of the canal — could be pushed forward with any hope of success, and too much praise cannot be given those who conceived and es- tablished them in a working condition." Necessarily, all the basic work accomplished under Wallace and Stevens is lost sight of in view of the magnificent superstructure erected under Col. Goeth- als. The modern sightseer has nothing to remind him of the wretched conditions of the first two years, the battle with disease, the arduous labor of creating in the jungle a duplicate American civilization, the tantalizing struggle with government red tape before a stick of timber, a pound of iron, a shipment of food, or an efficient workman could be secured. The first vivid impression to-day upon the tourist viewing the colossal locks and the artificial canyon called the Culebra cut, the beautiful towns, and the whole paraphernalia of a well-ordered civil govern- ment is similar to that experienced upon the first sight of Niagara Falls, with this exception : The Pan- ama Canal is the work of man, and the responsibility for it may be fixed. An outburst of praise is the spontaneous result, and Col. Goethals, being the vis- ible head of the project, naturally bears the brunt of this admiration. Yet, excluding the construction work, all the collective activities, such as feeding and housing and providing for the needs of the army of employees, as well as the whole civil government, was the work of the Stevens and Wallace administrations. 130 Copyright lyy Harris & E icing. Col. George W- Goethals. GOETHALS Col. Goethals simply has enlarged the organizations they left. Perhaps the chief reason that Col. Goethals so gen- erally is accepted as the sole genius of the canal is found in the fact that he stuck to the job which two others had abandoned. Justice, however, is not wholly served by this consideration. A simile may be found in the task of breaking a broncho. The canal job threw both Wallace and Stevens and then Goeth- als stuck in the saddle. But the energy that the broncho spent to dismount the first two riders so weakened him that by the time the third was in the saddle he was conquerable. The third rider may have been no better than the two who were thrown, and their efforts undoubtedly paved the way for his suc- cess. Col. Goethals deserves the admiration that his serv- ice on the canal has evoked, but the generality of writers, looking at what exists to-day and heedless of the beginnings of the task, lose their perspective and commonly fall into the error of ignoring the very remarkable and wholly vital preparatory work under John F. Stevens. This writer believes that if Col. Goethals had been selected in 1904, there only w^ould have been one Chief Engineer of the canal, barring his death, so eminent are the abilities of the army engineer, but candor requires the statement that he assumed control at a time when conditions were soft as compared with the early stages of the project. President Roosevelt had selected in Messrs. Gail- lard, Sibert, Rousseau, and later, Hodges, engineers 131 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA of exceptional ability, who, with S. B. Williamson, picked by Col. Goethals, demonstrated capacities which in a large measure account for the splendid progress of the Goethals administration. Any one of them would have been available for the highest position in the organization. It would be erroneous to assume that Col. Goethals had nothing to do but sit back and watch the signals on the main line of canal construction, as indicated by his predecessors. The decks, indeed, had been cleared for action and the blue-prints nicely finished and tied with ribbon, but the real struggle was just begin- ning. He had the tools for the job placed in his hands, but their skillful use devolved entirely upon him. Besides, changes were made in the original plans and unanticipated problems arose, which made Col. Goethals' direction of the enterprise in the highest degree complex and exceptional. The first annual report of the Commission, to be written as of June 30th, the end of the government's fiscal year, was issued by Col. Goethals in 1907, three months after Mr. Stevens resigned. The President had asked Col. Goethals to report on the contract plan after an inspection of the canal, and this masterly argument against turning it over to private contractors is the report's most notable feature, aside from its unusual comprehensiveness. Incidentally, the argu- ment is a high tribute to the work of Mr. Stevens. Col. Goethals pointed out that the canal required special equipment which would be useless to a con- tractor after its completion, and therefore could be 132 GOETHALS bought just as cheaply by the government; that the government had had more experience in lock build- ing than any contractor, and had had sufficient ex- perience in dredging and excavating to insure econ- omy. When the profits a contractor would make were deducted, the government could equal his effi- ciency. He pointed to the Congressional Library at Washington as an example of work done satisfactor- ily by the government. No contractor had an organ- ization that could cover all phases of the canal, and the government already had as good an organization as any contractor could get. The French had tried the contract system, antagonizing labor thereby, and Italy already had served notice that its citizens could not work in the Canal Zone if the government abandoned the job. Finally, endless friction between government inspectors and the contractor would result, and on the side of civil government and sanitation the contractor could not possibly equal the efficiency of the govern- ment. Taking a survey of the conditions when he took charge. Col. Goethals found that 80 per cent of the plant for finishing the canal was on the ground or or- dered. The preliminary work for relocating the Pan- ama Railroad had been done, and actual construction of the new line was begun in June, 1907, shortly after his arrival. Excavations in the lock sites were un- completed, and it was two years later, in 1909, be- fore any concrete was laid. In April, the month he arrived, nearly 900,000 yards were removed from the Culebra cut, the best month's work to that date. By 133 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA December, 1907, the million mark for the Cut was passed and never has been lowered except for one month, May, 1908. Dredging in the Atlantic and Pacific entrances of the canal had gone ahead stead- ily, though not extensively, the amount removed in the Atlantic entrance being 1,732,712 yards, and in the Pacific entrance, 1,956,895 yards, from 1904 to April I, 1907. Less than 6,000,000 yards had been removed from the Culebra cut by both Wallace and Stevens. In August, four months after Col. Goethals ar- rived, the organization in the department of construc- tion and engineering had developed such a momentum that it was necessary to ask authority from the Presi- dent to exceed the regular appropriation by $8,000,- 000 for the fiscal year to end in June, 1908. This is additional evidence of the efficiency of the prepara- tory work under Mr. Stevens. The fall of 1907 and the month of October pre- sented a new problem in the canal construction which ever since has been one of the most formidable and uncertain factors in the project. A slide began at Cucaracha on the east side of the Cut near the town of Culebra and suddenly filled the Cut, closing it for transportation. In 1884, the French had noted this earth movement, and during Col. Goethals' first years on the canal it involved an area of forty-seven acres. Before dirt trains could move through the Cut, steam shovels had to work night and day for several weeks, and from that time onward the slides have been the bugbear of the organization, not because they were insuperable, but from the extra work they involved 134 GOETHALS and the possibility that they might delay the comple- tion of the project. In the closing days the slides are still the unknown factor. Right then it was realized that the canal involved more excavation than the minority of the Board of Advisory Engineers had estimated. Several impor- tant changes in the plans for the canal came within the first eighteen months of the Goethals adminis- tration to make the job far more stupendous than contemplated in the plans of 1906. Col. Goethals rec- ommended, and President Roosevelt approved on De- cember 20, 1907, a change in the location of two of the Pacific locks. The revised plans changed two locks from La Boca, on the Pacific coast, to Mira- flores, about seven miles inland, which not only would make them safe from bombardment, but was a more practicable engineering plan. A mile and a half far- ther inland were the Pedro Miguel locks, which would raise ships the final height to the great Gatun Lake, at its Pacific terminal, and between the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks was a small artificial lake. From Miraflores to the Pacific, a sea-level channel 500 feet wide was to be dug. Another change in the plans was approved by the President on recommendations by the Navy Board, on January 15, 1908. The locks were ordered en- larged from 95 by 900 feet to no by 1,000 feet, usable dimensions, to meet the anticipated increase in the size of commercial and war vessels. Col. Goethals did not think a width of no feet necessary, favoring 100 feet width, but his judgment in this 135 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA instance has proved to be wrong, as the latest Argen- tine battleship is 98 feet wide, leaving only 12 feet surplus in the width of the locks, at no feet. The Pennsylvania of our Navy will be 97 feet wide, leav- ing 13 feet, or 6J feet on each side of the ship in the locks. The Imperator, the latest giant of the Ham- burg-American fleet, is 96 feet wide and 900 feet long, so that it appears that the locks may become too nar- row before they become too short. The cost of the locks was increased $5,000,000 by the change in plans. A third vital change in the original plans came on October 23, 1908, when the President authorized the widening of the Culebra cut for five miles from 200 feet to 300 feet at the bottom. This would enable ships to pass going in opposite directions anywhere in the Cut, and increased the cost of this part of the canal by $14,000,000. Since these three important changes there have been no substantial changes in the canal plans, except the decrease in the proposed height of the huge Gatun dam. Additional excavation to the extent of 70,871,594 cubic yards was necessitated by the new plans over the estimate of 103,795,000 yards made in 1906, or a total of 174,666,594 yards for the completed canal. But slides that later devel- oped, and further changes in the plans since 1908 have added 47,000,000 yards to that total, bringing it up to 221,000,000 yards. Thus Col. Goethals has had to dig more than twice as much dirt as Mr. Stevens expected to take out, and is doing it in less time than was estimated for the original yardage ! The original canal of 103,795,000 yards was dug by the Americans 136 GOETHALS by April 6, 191 o, six years after work began, and two years and a half of that time had been spent in pre- paratory work. Basing his figures on the revised plans, Col. Goeth- als in 1908 issued the following estimate of the cost of the Panama Canal : Atlantic Division — 7 Miles Breakwater in Limon Bay $11,432,000 From Caribbean Sea, channel to Ga- tun Locks 17,736,000 Gatun Locks, three twin locks 25,824,000 Gatun Dam 13,572,000 $68,564,000 Central Division— 32 Miles Channel from Gatun Locks to Bas Obispo $7.977>ooo Culebra Cut, Nine Miles, Bas Obispo to Pedro Miguel Lock 80,481,000 $88,458,000 Pacific Division — 8 Miles Pedro Miguel Lock $12,693,000 Pedro Miguel Dam 251,000 Miraflores Locks 19,715,000 Miraflores Dam 2,156,000 Channel, Pedro Miguel to Pacific 13,170,000 $47,985,000 137 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA New Panama Railroad $8,164,000 Land Damages 500,000 General Items Municipal Improvements $12,114,000 Buildings 14,651,000 General Expenses, Salaries, Subsist- ence, etc 23,730,000 Loans to P. R. R 8,300,000 Contingencies 20,000,000 Lighthouses, Ships, Wharves 3,850,000 Double-tracking, Land and Stock Pur- chases 1,450,000 $84,095,000 Grand Total Cost of Construction.. $297,766,000 All Other Items Sanitation $20,053,000 Civil Administration • 7,382,000 Paid for French Property 40,000,000 Paid for Canal Zone 10,000,000 $77,435,000 Total Cost for Completed Canal. . . $375,201,000 Beginning July i, 1908, Col. Goethals initiated changes in the organization, which was to be the final one for the canal. The Department of Engineering and Construction was divided into three grand divi- 138 GOETHALS sions, to be known as the Atlantic, Central, and Pa- cific. The Atlantic division comprised that part of the canal which extended from deep water in the Caribbean Sea to, and including, the Gatun locks and dam, about seven miles of the canal. The Cen- tral division comprised the channel through the Cha- gres River valley from the Gatun Locks to Bas Obispo, where the Culebra cut began, and for nine miles through the continental divide to the Pedro Miguel Lock, about thirty- two miles of the canal. The Pacific division comprised the Pedro Miguel Lock and Dam, the short channel to the Miraflores Locks and Dam, and including those features, and the chan- nel to deep water in the Pacific, about eight miles of the canal. Of the forty-seven miles of the canal proper, the Central division had the greatest mileage, its construc- tion was to be the costliest and the material handled to be far in excess of either of the other two divisions. It is in the Central division that the main excavation of the canal has been made, as the mountain chain had to be pierced with a cut, the bottom of which would be only forty feet above sea-level, necessitating digging down from the highest point on the surface, a depth of 272 feet, between Gold and Contractor's hills. The French dug down 161 feet at this point, but not so wide as the American plans required so that considerably more than iii feet depth remained for the Americans to dig. From this highest point the mountains slope toward the Atlantic and Pacific with a consequent lessening of the depth of the excavations 139 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA to reach the proposed bottom of the canal. Practically all the material had to be blasted before removal. Since 1908 the organization has remained un- changed as to the heads of the divisions in the depart- ment of engineering and construction. As finally designed by Col. Goethals, the organization of the canal forces is as follows, with the incumbents as of July I, 1912: Engineering and Construction Col. Geo. W. Goethals, Chairman and Chief Engi- neer, Culebra. CoL. H. F. Hodges, Assistant Chief Engineer, in charge of Lock and Dam construction, Culebra. Civil Engineer H. H. Rousseau, Assistant to the Chief Engineer, in charge of mechanical equip- ment and supervision of expenditures and esti- mates, Culebra. LiEUT.-CoL. D. D. Gaillard, Engineer, Central Divi- sion, Empire. LiEUT.-CoL. William L. Sibert, Engineer, Atlantic Division, Gatun, S. B. Williamson, Engineer, Pacific Division, Coro- zal, A. L. Robinson, Superintendent, Mechanical Division, Gorgona. All Other Departments LiEUT.-CoL. Eugene T. Wilson, Subsistence Officer, Cristobal, CoL. C. A. Devol, Chief Quartermaster, Culebra, 140 GOETHALS Mr. Maurice H. Thatcher, Head of Civil Admin- istration, Ancon, H. A. GuDGER, Chief Justice, Ancon, Frank Feuille, Counsel and Chief Attorney, Ancon, CoL. W. C. GoRGAS, Chief Sanitary Officer, Ancon, Edward J. Williams, Disbursing Officer, Empire, H. A. A. Smith, Examiner of Accounts, Empire, Maj. F. C. Boggs, General Purchasing Officer, Wash- ington, D. C, J. A. Smith, Superintendent, Panama Railroad, Colon. The headquarters of the division engineers and the department heads are in the towns nearest to the scenes of their activities. Beneath the higher officials are a host of assistants who exercise important super- visory functions, and then come the 35,000 employees. How largely the Army and Navy have dominated the canal, since 1907, is shown by the foregoing or- ganization, in which nine out of seventeen heads of departments are from the government forces. But this does not show the extent of this domination, because the full organization of subordinate officials shows twenty-two additional Army and Navy men in important positions. The Pacific Division is the only one of the three grand divisions with a civilian engineer in charge, and there are no Army or Navy men in this division from top to bottom. The idea seems to have been to pit a civilian engineer against the Army men, who are in charge of the Atlantic and Central Divisions. The 141 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA Pacific Division, under Mr. Williamson, substantially demands the same engineering ability as the Atlantic Division under Lieut.-Col. Sibert, because each in- cludes lock and dam construction and channel dredg- ing. The cost-keeping accountant has shown where the civilian engineer has done his work more cheaply than the Army engineer, but the difference is ac- counted for in the physical obstacles that must be sur- mounted in the Atlantic Division, in obtaining sand and rock for the locks. None of the complaints at government red tape which bristled all through the annual reports of Messrs. Stevens and Wallace may be noted in Col. Goethals' reports. The Army men on the canal might exclaim, with Brer Rabbit, that they were born and bred in the briar patch of red tape, and were just in their element when dropped into the Big Ditch. Col. Goethals looked ahead in making up his annual esti- mates of appropriations needed for the year in ad- vance, and in making orders for equipment, materials and supplies, so that much of the vexation of the early years was avoided. Every head of a department must hand in an estimate of what will be needed to run him for the ensuing year and this plan keeps the canal ahead of its demands in all lines. The equanimity with which Col. Goethals has met every unexpected development in the construction work is a distinguishing feature of the man's mental processes. If he ever has for one moment entertained the shadow of a doubt of the success of the lock- type canal, he has not allowed his fears to be manifested. 142 GOETHALS The slides, the slip in the Gatun dam, the volcanic evidences in the Culebra cut, the cracks in the lock walls, earthquake disturbances, and a host of lesser troubles have not shaken his faith. One can hear em- ployees and subordinate officials voicing all kinds of dark forebodings, but never the Chief Engineer. The mammoth Gatun dam had been begun in 1906, and by 1908 was taking form under the constant dumping of rock and earth from the Culebra cut. On November 20, 1908, a toe of the great dam slipped, where the dam intersected the old French canal chan- nel, carrying about 200 feet of the structure away. The hostile press, and those who had consistently op- posed a dam at Gatun, immediately raised a storm of criticism against the stability of the proposed artificial mountain. The old wound, caused from the battle of the levels, was reopened and so violent was the out- burst that President Roosevelt took a characteristic step to quiet the issue. He asked President-elect Taft to go to the Isthmus, accompanied by Frederic P. Stearns, Arthur P. Davis, Henry A. Allen, James D. Schuyler, Isham Randolph, John R. Freeman and Allen Hazen, all eminent engi- neers, to make an investigation. The report made on February 16, 1909, completely vindicated the plan for a dam at Gatun with the statement that if any error had been made, it was on the side of precaution. They found the dam started along lines so excessively stable that they recommended that the height be cut from 135 feet above sea-level to 115 feet, which would still 143 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA leave the top of the dam thirty feet above the level of Gatun Lake. An absolutely free hand always has been given to critics of the canal. Having nothing to conceal, and with firm faith in the technical soundness of the plans adopted, the government has had nothing it wished to keep from the light. Whenever criticism of any feature became especially severe, President Roosevelt promptly answered it by a full and scientific investiga- tion with the inevitable result that the critics slunk into silence. Since President Taft has been in office the canal has been advanced to the point where the sceptical are cautious in criticism, and only some catastrophe of nature, in reasonable probability, can undo the achievement. The six years from January i, 1907, to January i, 1913, constitute the main construction period of the Panama Canal. Col. Goethals has been Chief Engi- neer all but three months of that time. Steadily, foot by foot, the walls of the locks crept up and the bottom of the Culebra cut went down. By October, 1908, the preparatory work, substantially accomplished by Mr. Stevens, passed its highest point, and all energies were centered on the work of construction. Quarters, municipal work, road-making, subsistence and com- missary were solved problems and the " No Help Wanted " sign was displayed, the labor problem, too, being substantially worked out. The chief business was to make the organization more efficient by antici- pating needs of equipment and supplies, and keeping the morale of the workers to a keen edge through ab- 144 GOETHALS solute justice. Col. Gorgas had the health problem in hand. Sixty-three steam shovels, in 1907, were increased to 100; the 284 locomotives were augmented to 315; cars of all kinds from 2,700 to 4,356; the mileage in the Canal Zone was increased from 185 to about 500 miles for the Panama Railroad and Commission tracks ; the number of unloaders, bank spreaders, track shifters and pile drivers was increased from a third to three times the number left by Mr. Stevens; twenty dredges were put in service, 560 drills for blasting, fifty-seven cranes, twelve tow boats, eleven clapets, seventy barges and lighters, fourteen launches, beside much other machinery and equipment not so note- worthy. The foregoing figures do not include the Panama Railroad equipment, which consists of seventy locomotives, 1,534 cars and coaches, and various other rolling stock common to a railroad. Practically all repairs and creative mechanical work was concentrated in the Gorgona and Empire shops, with capacities com- mensurate with the equipment. The Empire shop specialized on steam shovel repairs, but in July, 19 12, the bulk of its work was consolidated with Gorgona. The date when the equipment reached a maximum is fixed by Col. Goethals as July i, 1910. About 350,000 tons of coal and 500,000 barrels of oil have been used annually. Dredging had progressed in the Pacific entrance to a point where five miles of the canal could be opened to navigation, on February i, 1909. The Newport and San Hose, of the Pacific Mail Fleet, of American 145 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA register, were the first ships to go through. Consider- able excavating was done in both entrances by steam shovels, the water being held out by dikes. A striking instance of miscalculating the cost of one phase of canal construction is found in the esti- mate made by Prof. Burr, of the first Commission, which placed the cost of private lands that would be used in the Gatun Lake and elsewhere at $18,656,000. As a matter of fact something more than $300,000 has been spent in this way and $500,000 is the maxi- mum as estimated by Col. Goethals, in 1908. The area of the Gatun Lake crosses into the Republic of Pana- ma on the West side of the canal, and the private property so condemned as well as in the Canal Zone is valued by a joint commission of Panamans and Americans. Columbus had been honored by naming Colon and Cristobal for him at the Atlantic entrance of the canal, and an Executive order on April 30, 1909, honored the discoverer of the Pacific by changing the name of the Pacific terminal from La Boca to Balboa. It is at Balboa that the permanent machine shops, dry docks, yards, wharves, warehouses, and general equip- ment to cost $20,000,000 will be located. Col. Goeth- als' conception of making the canal adequate for all the needs of shipping has a military utility that is not sufficiently recognized. By making it possible for vessels to coal at the canal, secure fresh provisions, get repairs made and expeditiously handle cargoes, the United States makes it unnecessary for any foreign power to establish a coaling station and similar facili- 146 Photos, 1, Harris & Eiving, Washington, D. C. ; 2, if, 5, Clinedinst, Washington, D. C; 3, Pictorial News Assn. I. LiEUT.-CoL. H. F. Hodges. 2. H. H. Rousseau, U. S. N. 3. S. B. Williamson with President Taft. 4. Lieut.-Col. D. D. Gaillard. 5. LiEUT.-CoL. William L. Sibert. GOETHALS ties in this hemisphere, on the pretext of caring for its merchant marine. With ice plant, cold storage, bakery and other subsistence and commissary facili- ties already established, it will be easy for the govern- ment to institute the practices mentioned at Balboa coincidental with the opening of the canal. Col. Goeth- als has been working toward that end for years and the bill passed in the 1912 Congress approves his ideas. In 1909, Col. Goethals seems to have had the idea of making the Canal Zone habitable, for an extensive scheme of road-making was begun, and $75,000 was spent in a survey of the Canal Zone. The survey never was finished, and since then Col. Goethals changed his views, in favor of making the Canal Zone a military reservation, the part not in use to be left to the jungle and only canal employees allowed, with- out special permission, in the ten-mile limits. Critics in the United States displayed their ignorance by pro- testing that the land in the Canal Zone should be opened to settlement, like our western lands. The canal occupies 96 square miles of the 436 in the Canal Zone and "j^ square miles are privately owned. There is very little of what is left that Americans would occupy. It is in the main mountainous, and without a system of roads that would be prohibitive in cost, would not be accessible in the rainy season. Col. Goethals disposes of the idea of settlement in his usual terse way when he says : " The inducements offered by farm lands in the Canal Zone are not likely to at- tract Americans. Other occupants are not desirable." The Americans have made an investment at Panama 147 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA which should be guarded from every possible danger. In times of war everybody in the Canal Zone, of course, would be subjected to scrutiny and possibly to ejection. It will, therefore, save trouble and ex- pense to begin, right at the start, to treat it as a mili- tary reservation is treated in the United States. The expense of sanitation and civil government would be too great to make settlement profitable. Work on the fortifications was begun in 191 1, on Flamenco Island, three miles out in the bay at the Pacific entrance, and on Toro Point at the Atlantic entrance. The estimate for their cost, as fixed by the officers appointed to design them, is $12,475,328, and Congress, in March, 191 1, appropriated $3,000,000 of that amount. The latest and largest disappearing rifles will be installed after the concrete work is finished. The locks at the Pacific end are nearly ten miles from the fortifications, which insures them against bombard- ment by an enemy's ships, and the Atlantic locks are seven miles from the fortifications. Some form of defense from airships must be worked out. It would be just as logical to say that New York should remove its traffic policemen from Thirty-fourth Street and Broadway, as to argue that the United States should not fortify the canal. The policemen are there to aid traffic by enforcing the rules which make order possible, and fortifications are necessary at Panama to insure that no nation, whether fighting the United States or some other nation, shall disable a world transit route. Neutrality would be a myth without a strong police power at Panama. It is to 148 GOETHALS the interest of every nation that the canal be so policed and fortified that commerce could not be disrupted through the deliberate, or unintentional, actions of belligerent nations. Warships of all nations may pass through the canal, but if of nations engaged in war, they cannot linger at either end of the canal after or before passage. When the canal is completed, the beautiful towns along the route will be abandoned. Gorgona, Bas Obispo, Las Cascadas, Empire, Culebra, and Paraiso will be razed. A permanent camp for the Army will be located on the East side of the canal, across the Cut from the town of Culebra. Marines have been in the Canal Zone since 1904, and in 191 1 the Tenth Infantry was added to the permanent garrison, which will be further augmented by several regiments. The sol- diers will police the Canal Zone after construction work is finished. Balboa and Cristobal will be the principal cities, though at Gatun and Pedro Miguel forces to operate the locks will be housed. President Taft signed, on August 24, 1912, a bill for the permanent government and operation of the canal. Col. Goethals' ideas were followed almost to the letter in drawing this bill. The President is au- thorized, as soon as the canal is sufficiently near com- pletion, to abolish the present Commission and to appoint a Governor, for a term of four years, at a sal- ary of $10,000 per annum. In time of war, the Presi- dent may substitute an Army officer for this Governor. Salaries and wages are not to be more than twenty- five per cent greater than in the United States, and 149 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA many of the perquisites now enjoyed by the employees are to be eliminated. The Canal Zone will be open to only such persons as the Governor may admit ; Ameri- can coast-wise ships are exempted from paying tolls for passage; foreign-built ships owned by Americans may register under the American flag ; ships owned by railroads cannot pass through the canal ; the Interstate Commerce Commission is given power to determine questions of competition; and the present judiciary system is continued with right of appeal to the Fed- eral courts in the United States. In addition, the gov- ernment may sell ships supplies and coal and provide facilities for repairing vessels at the canal terminals. At the close of the fiscal year ended June 30, 191 2, Col. Goethals could look forward to one year more of the arduous labor and heavy responsibihty he has borne, before the big job would be in the clear. In- voicing conditions at that date, we find that the great Gatun dam was more than 90 per cent completed ; the concrete work in the locks and spillway was about 90 per cent completed ; the Culebra cut was approximately 90 per cent completed; the relocated Panama Rail- road was finished, and the work of establishing per- manent shipping facilities at Balboa and Cristobal was under way. Owing to fresh slides in the Culebra cut, and to changes in plans in the Pacific division, a new estimate of the total excavation for the completed canal and accessory plant became necessary at the beginning of the last complete fiscal year of canal construction — July I, 19 1 2, to June 30, 191 3. The revised estimate 150 GOETHALS then placed the excavation at 212,227,000 cubic yards, of which amount 175,901,052 cubic yards had been removed at the end of July, 19 12, leaving to be exca- vated for the completed canal, 36,325,948 cubic yards. The latest estimate, however, raises the total excava- tion to 221,000,000 yards. The canal organization cannot remove the uncompleted portion before the first ship is scheduled to pass through the canal, in Septem- ber, 1 91 3, but of the 47,000,000 yards left, more than 8,000,000 yards are to be excavated outside of the canal proper, or in the sites for the coaling station, dry docks and terminal at Balboa, so that the actual canal channel substantially will be finished before the passage of the first ship. The Atlantic division in July, 19 12, lacked 8,009,- 778 yards of completion; the Central division, includ- ing the Culebra cut, lacked 10,678,953 yards; and the Pacific division, 17,637,217 yards — a grand total for the whole canal of 36,325,948. The ancient trouble, slides, prevented the completion of the Culebra cut in 1912. During the early part of 19 12, the Gatun Lake was stationary at about 17 feet, but with the beginning of the rainy season in May it began to rise, and the plan was to hold the lake, by use of the spillway, at a head of water of 50 feet until the beginning of the rainy season in 19 13, when it will be allowed to raise to 80 feet, and this would back the water up, by Sep- tember, 1 91 3, to a depth through the Culebra cut to permit the passage of some kind of a ship. The ulti- mate level of the lake will be 85 feet. 151 THE AMERICANS IN PANADSA There have been many estimates of Col. Goethals in the magazines and newspapers and in books. They all pay tribute to him as an administrator without a superior. Some writers have been so impressed by the man that they rate him a larger fact than the canal itself. Yet it is possible to gauge the man without overshooting the mark in that fashion. Congress gave him a credit of $290,000,000 and allowed his estimates of annual expenditures. He has missed the worries of a private contractor who has to consider the financial ways and means of his operations, and besides, the dissatisfaction of employees have been stifled by an unparalleled standard of pay and by gratuities that make nearly every position in the Canal Zone in the nature of a sinecure. Contentedness has been bought by pouring millions of dollars into creat- ing not merely comfortable, but even luxurious con- ditions of living for the employees. No private enterprise could succeed for a moment on such a basis. On its economic side, the canal proves nothing because any competent organization could bring things to pass if only enough money is forthcoming, as has been the case under the govern- ment in Panama. An admirable job has been done in Panama, but it has not been economically done, in the usual understanding of that word. Nobody set out to do it economically. Every leak has been plastered with a dollar. At no point does the canal project affect a complete economic operation. Money is being spent but it is not being made. The work is being done without regard to its ever paying. 152 GOETHALS Socialists, therefore, should be cautious in holding up the canal as an example of their theories in suc- cessful practice. Industrial life, even under Socialism, would have to do what the canal project has not done and is not required to do, namely, justify itself as a business proposition. The canal ultimately may do this, but it will not be because it was designed and con- structed with that imperative end in view. Even the commissary and subsistence operations that usually evoke strong approval as evidences of governmental efficiency, possess no socialistic and slight communal aspects. The government has made them pay by arbitrarily exacting a profit under noncompetitive con- ditions. None of the forces of industrial life that tend to make for favorable or unfavorable economic con- ditions, can operate in a government job which se- cures its capital, not because of the intrinsic merit of the enterprise, but through the gratuitous function of taxation. If we turn to the purely technical side of the project, unquestionably the highest praise is due to the Army engineers. On its engineering side, the canal proves that the government does not have to go outside its own forces to find the highest order of ability. The American people never again will clamor for private initiative and execution of any enterprise they may want accomplished. Col. Goethals is indeed a great administrator. Even if the employees have had soft conditions of employ- ment, it is an achievement to impress 35,000 men with a faith both in your capacity as an engineer and your 153 THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA sense of justice. This writer knows of no higher tribute that can be paid to him than the statement that in five months in the Canal Zone he never heard any- one speak slurringly of the Chief Engineer. Col. Goethals has been no respecter of persons. In 1912, two officials drawing $300 a month salary each, were discharged as summarily as any common laborer would have been, for breaches of the rules. It has been his practice to give his Sunday mornings to hear- ing grievances from employees, and those without just grounds of complaint are sent about their business peremptorily, while those who have been wronged are given justice, no matter how high the official who is in error. The man's admirable poise is shown in the just way he has exercised the absolute power of a Czar, for when he sets his pen to paper a new law is made in the Canal Zone. Those who cannot square their conduct with his fiat, go out on the next steamer, whether an individual or a labor union en masse. As Admiral Schley said of the controversy over the battle of Santiago, " there is honor enough for us all," so with regard to the Panama Canal. Col. Goethals, as the star of the last six years, gets the curtain calls, but even if we assign Messrs. Stevens and Wallace to the roles of villains, they, too, did their parts well. And the whole company of Americans, composing the chorus or supernumeraries, have contributed vitally to the success of the play. After all, it is no one man, but the Spirit of Americanism, indomitable and triumphant, that we admire in Panama. Future gen- erations will see in Col. Goethals the outward head 154 GOETHALS of this national characteristic, but the final verdict of approval will be much broader and more just than that, even to the admission that all praise belongs to the Americans in Panama. iSS Q.«J o LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 003 248 424 4,