OAK ST. HDSP The Panama Canal: SOME IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS. & BY FRANK TRUMBULL, Chairman of the Board of Directors, The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company, Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company. ■vvw^ ' \ ■ a. F* The Panama Canal: SOME IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS. November 27— December 17 , 1912 . Memorandum by Frank Trumbull. We left New York on United Fruit Company Steamer Santa Marta ’ at noon, Wednesday, November 27, 1912. Arrived Kingston, Jamaica, 8:00 A. M„ Monday, December 2nd. Left Kingston 4:00 P. M„ Monday, December 2nd. Arrived Colon 11:00 A. M., Wednesday, December 4th. Left Coion on United Fruit Company Steamer “ Carillo ” 3:30 P. M., Tuesday, December 10, 1912. Arrived^Kingston, Jamaica, 3:00 P. M„ Thursday, December Left Kingston 4:00 P. M„ Thursday, December 12th Arrived New York 2:30 P. M„ Tuesday, December 17th. Wintry weather first two days ont of New York ; then balmy ; then warm ; then quite warm. Temperature on the Isthmus ranges from about seventy- two to ninety-five degrees, and occasionally goes to par. At Panama you are only nine degrees from the equator. You can’t see the equator, even on a clear day, but your lassitude corresponds with the alleged latitude and the evident humidity. The Pacific end of the canal is further east than O the Atlantic end, and the whole thing is about due south of C Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and Charleston, South Carolina >" The temperature is pretty uniform throughout the year • y you know every morning that you are going to have a on warm day ’ and the 7 sa 7 that it gets monotonous. If you are not used to the climate the first thing you do when you get up in the morning is to sit down and rest. March or April would probably be just as good a time to visit the Isthmus as December, and better o than November. Their Baptist weather usually tapers off about the middle of December. The rainfall on the Pacific side is from sixty to seventy-five inches per annum ; on the Atlantic side from one hundred ten to one hundred fifty inches. It seems to rain with less preparation than in any other place I have been — quite in contrast with Egypt, where the rainfall averages only one inch per annum. If you go any time within the next three or four months you will have plenty of company. Fifty passenger steamers are booked to arrive at Colon during January, February and March. Personally, I am glad that we made the trip in December instead of getting into the crowd they will have later. We crossed the continent — forty-seven miles by rail — in two and one-half hours in a very comfortable train — the briefest transcon- tinental trip we have ever made. The Tivoli Hotel, at Ancon adjoining Panama, is owned by the Government, is very good, and if you get a well located room you will have a de- lightful breeze at night. The steamers we traveled on are very comfortable (each five thousand tons) and during the ex- cursion season good boats are run by the Hamburg-American, North German Lloyd, and White Star Lines. All these steamers call at various points of interest in that part of the world and may be used as hotels while in port. They allow usually one and one-half or two days at the Isthmus and you can see the canal itself in that time. The “ rubberneck ” trains are excellent ; they take you around in a comfortable way and the lecturer tells you just the things you want to know. We were six days on the Isthmus and therefore saw everything in a leisurely way and very satisfactorily because of hospitalities extended to us for which we are very grateful. The things that interested me most w r ere the human, not the physical, features of the work and I am glad on that account that we had six days instead of only two in the Canal Zone. I leave to others a description of the number of cubic yards of excavation, the number of barrels of cement, the bust measure of the locks 3 and the canal, and all those corpulent and really imposing facts. You can see steam shovels at home ; there are simply a hun- dred of them there, masticating perfectly good landscapes, and some of the landscapes, particularly near Panama, are charming. The bay of Panama is not so lovely as the bay of Naples, but quite beautiful enough, studded, as it is, with seductive looking islands. The services of our civilians (railroad men, by the way), who initiated our work, are very cordially commended on the Isthmus. After getting the work started the transfer of it to the Army was no doubt a good move, because it has given sta- bility to the whole affair ; the organization and discipline are splendid. This illustrates the value of appointments for life in the Army and Navy, and of military standards of con- duct, instead of the scattering of energy through the tempor- izing and terrorizing methods connected with governmental work at home in nation, state, county and city. The physical work is a much simpler problem than it was for General Dodge to build the Union Pacific Railroad in 1867-1869, or for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to get from New Jersey to Long Island under the Hudson River, the East River and New York City, and to build its splendid terminals in New York ; and less difficult than to build the subways in New York City. In computing the value of what we got for the forty million dollars we paid to the French, our Government jots down the stock of the old and inadequate Panama Rail- road at nine million dollars, which is nearly two hundred thousand dollars a mile, and we are spending about two hundred thousand dollars a mile more to relocate and rebuild most of it. The average capitalization of United States railroads is about sixty thousand dollars a mile. The gross earnings of the Panama Railroad are about ninety-two thousand dollars a mile per annum — as against eleven thou- sand dollars a mile average in the United States. The first 4 class passenger rate is five cents a mile and its average rate per ton mile four cents — as against an average of three-fourths of one cent per ton mile in the United States; and when the railroad was threatened with congestion the company simply notified prospective patrons that they would not take any additional business ! The railroads of the United States are spending more every year for improvements, additions and new equipment to take care of expanding business than the whole expenditure in ten years on the Isthmus. Two railroad companies alone have invested in terminals in New York City and vicinity in the last few years one-half as much as the entire cost of the canal, ^he City of Ne w York is spending for a new water supply about half the amount of the canal cost, and you can see this immense work in a very agreeable motor trip from New York City. Please understand that I do not at all disparage the canal work. It is superb. To say anything less would be not only ungracious but unfair. It is well to have enthu- siasm ; but it is also well to have perspective, and it is fruitless to travel unless you compare this and that and assemble conclusions, and so I could not forget that our railroads at home also represent the achievements of our own countrymen, who have always hanging over them the burden of sustaining their credit — a spectre unbeard of in the Canal Zone. But there is a halo around the canal because the nation as a whole is digging it, and a pilgrimage there is not only worth while but patriotic. The chairman of the Con- gressional committee said, in opening tin hearing at Ancon, Canal Zone, on December 18, 1911 : “ The people seem to be impressed with the opinion that we are about to realize the hope of the ages in the consummation, under Providence, through the instrumentality of American brain and energy, of the greatest achievement of all time — the join- ing of the tw r o oceans through the Isthmus of Panama — for the benefit, primarily, of our Army and Navy, and, second- 5 arily, for tbe benefit of the commerce of the world.” The canal will doubtless increase the efficiency of the Navy — some say its efficiency will be doubled — and yet we are building more battleships instead of more railroads. So far as the “ commerce of the world ” is concerned, it seems evident that European commerce with the Orient will continue to go through the Suez Canal, because on that route it passes the front doors of nine hundred millions of people, and not until the ships reach Japan and the east coast of Australia do they arrive at the line which is equidistant via Suez or via Panama from Liverpool. The commerce in the part of the globe which lies between Panama, on the one hand, and Japan and Australia, on the other, is almost nil , for it is nearly all ocean. The trade routes of commerce to and from the west coast of South America will, of course, be changed, largely to the advantage of Europe, and doubtless there will be some shifting of trade centers in the United States. It is expected that the first boat will be put through the canal about September, 1913, and that they will be ready for general business about a year later. I think that the effect on commerce of the United States, at least for the first few years, has been very much overestimated by people all over the country. The tonnage per annum which Governmeut representatives estimate will go through the canal for the first few years is far less than that which goes through the Soo Canal connecting Lake Superior with Lake Huron ; it is not even as much as that now being hauled by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. The canal will cost about three hundred seventy-five million dollars and the result of that expenditure is placed without money and with- out price at the disposal of our coastwise commerce — to compete with the railroads. Outside of any question of violating the integrity of our pledge to other countries (concerning which Great Britain has already filed a pro- test), tbe ordinary railroad mind is, perhaps, too dense to 6 perceive why after giving United States boats a monopoly of the coastwise commerce as against outsiders, and quarantining the canal against all railroad-owned boats, we should also pay a rebate to the owners of the coastwise commerce lines. By rebate, I mean the remission of tolls. The practical effect of this “ special privilege ” is, of course, to increase the burden on other commerce, or to increase the deficit from year to year in the interest account and maintenance and operating cost of the canal — a deficit which must be made up out of the public purse by taxation. Part of the latter is paid by the railroads through the Federal income tax, and, indirectly, through the pro- tective tariff— and part by the people of states like Iowa, Kansas and Montana, far away from the seacoast, who would perhaps be glad to have more railroad employes. Query : why are railroads expected to be self-supporting and the canal not expected to be ? The interest and cost of mainten- ance and operation of this fifty-mile canal will at first amount to at least one dollar per ton of steamer contents. The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway furnishes the equivalent of a canal in the shape of a highway across the Allegheny Mountains, and carries the freight itself in its own vehicles an average distance of two hundred fifty-six miles, for $1.04 per ton. The Canal Zone area is about four hundred and forty-eight square miles, of which about twelve hundred acres (adjoining communities of people) are sanitated at a cost of about five hundred thousand dollars a year. The towns of Colon and Panama are cut out of the Canal Zone and are a part of the Republic of Panama, but our Government reserves the right to enter either of them for the purpose of sanitation or to pre- serve order. The town of Panama is very picturesque and foreign looking, particularly as it is cleaner than most of our American cities. This transformation of a fever-stricken Isthmus into a healthful and even salubrious place of resi- 4 7 dence is one of the great events of history. The previous discovery that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitos was a great boon to humanity. It is said that the maximum flight of the mosquito is three hundred yards when not blown by the wind, and you cannot help wondering why if mosquitos can be regulated in the Canal Zone they are not also regulated in New Jersey. The hospital buildings and grounds at Ancon are very attractive in appearance and beautifully located. When the French were doing their work on the Isthmus it was the custom to have nurses on duty only during the day. The patients who were the worst off were taken care of in some sort of fashion at night by the convalescents. The French counted on large losses of life from yellow fever just as they expected large human sacrifices when they went to war. Negro as well as white laborers are well taken care of in the hospitals, are tucked up in nice, clean sheets and attended by white nurses. The Subsistence Department is another fine piece of work for the welfare of the employes. It supplies them with food, clothing, etc., at low prices and does a business of about seven million dollars a year in a very business- like way. It buys wherever it gets most favorable terms, and without paying any duty. Query, again : If it is good to re- duce the cost of living in the Canal Zone, why not at home ? It is fair to say that preference is given to the United States, but about one-seventh of the purchases (in money value) are made in other countries. The negro laborers get only ninety cents a day and lodging, but are furnished three good meals a day for twenty-seven cents. Sirloin steaks from Chicago via New York are sold at retail at twenty cents a pound. There is almost no fresh food on the Isthmus, and so practically everybody uses cold storage poultry, cold storage eggs, evaporated milk, etc. But everything is of excellent quality and well supervised for the general welfare, including the big laundry, a fine bakery and a model cold storage plant. 8 One of the first effects in the United States of the completion of the canal will be to diminish the large purchases referred to above. I have come back from the canal impressed once more with the versatility of my countrymen. On the Isthmus we are patiently and unseltishlv caring for the welfare of thirty thousand negroes (mostly from Jamaica) and ten thousand other employes — we are doing everything well — while at home we are impatiently and selfishly doing so many things badly. Therefore I say when you go to Panama, take along your white duck suits and your sense of humor ; that is, a power to per- ceive our own political incongruities. And perhaps you will come home feeling both proud and humble. The canal work is a fine case of governmental ownership two thousand miles away from the politicians. The mosquitos have been banished — and equal suffrage with the predatory politician has not yet arrived. We hear a great deal in the United States about the “ rule of the people,” but when we want to do a really big thing in an efficient way we “ rule ” by putting it in charge of an autocrat like Col. Goethals — a benevolent autocrat, it is true, but, nevertheless, an autocrat and not subject to the initiative, the referendum or the recall. I think the chief lesson to be learned from a visit to the canal is that we, like other people, accomplish the best things by centralizing responsibility instead of by dispersing it. Every American should be thankful that our country has produced a Col. Goethals, a Col. Wilson, a Captain Wood — whom I met most agreeably — and a Col. Gorgas and others, whom I had the misfortune to miss. And we should be thankful that in this practical work those in charge have permanent tenure of office unaffected by the infectious breezes of popular miscon- ceptions. [ 9422 ]