CHAPTER VIIITHE FORMATIVE PERIOD

Photo by CritchlowTHE VEGETABLE MARTYRSThe trees in the district flooded by Gatun Lake are being slowly drowned and will finally disappear

Photo by Critchlow

THE VEGETABLE MARTYRSThe trees in the district flooded by Gatun Lake are being slowly drowned and will finally disappear

The waters of the lake cover 164 square miles and are at points eighty-five feet deep. In the main this vast expanse of water, one of the largest of artificial reservoirs, containing about 183 billion cubic feet of water, is supplied by the Chagres River, though several smaller streams add to its volume. Before the dam was built two or three score yards measured the Chagres at its widest point. Now the waters are backed up into the interior far beyond the borders of the Canal Zone, along the course of every little waterway that flowed into the Chagres, and busy launches may ply above the sites of buried Indian towns. The towns themselves will not be submerged, for the cane and palm-thatched huts will float away on the rising tide. Indeed from the ships little sign of native life will appear, unless it be Indians in cayucas making their way to market. For the announced policy of the government is to depopulate the Zone. All the Indian rights to the soil have been purchased and the inhabitants remorselessly ordered to move out beyond the five-mile strip on either side of the canal. This is unfortunate as it will rob the trip of what might havebeen a scenic feature, for the Indians love to build their villages near the water, which is in fact their principal highway, and but for this prohibition would probably rebuild as near the sites of their obliterated towns as the waters would permit.

In passing through the lake the canal describes eight angles, and the attentive traveler will find interest in watching the range lights by which the ship is guided when navigating the channel by day or by night—for there need be no cessation of passage because of darkness. These range lights are lighthouses of reënforced concrete so placed in pairs that one towers above the other at a distance back of the lower one of several hundred feet. The pilot keeping these two in line will know he is keeping to the center of his channel until the appearance of two others on either port or starboard bow warns him that the time has come to turn. The towers are of graceful design, and to come upon one springing sixty feet or more into the air from a dense jungle clustering about its very base is to have a new experience in the picturesque. They will need no resident light keepers, for most are on a general electric light circuit. Some of the more inaccessible however are stocked with compressed acetylene which will burn over six months without recharging. The whole canal indeed from its beginning miles out in the Atlantic to its end under the blue Pacific will be lighted with buoys, beacons, lighthouses and light posts along the locks until its course is almost as easily followed as a “great white way.”

Sportsmen believe that this great artificial lake will in time become a notable breeding place for fish and game. Many of our migratory northern birds, including several varieties of ducks, now hibernate at the Isthmus, and this broad expanse of placid water, with its innumerable inlets penetrating a land densely covered with vegetation, should become for them a favorite shelter. The population will be sparse, and mainly as much as five miles away from the line of the canal through which the great steamers will ceaselessly pass.

NATIVE STREET AT TABOGA

During the period of its construction that portion of the canal which will lie below the surface of Gatun Lake was plentifully sprinkled with native villages, and held two or three considerable construction towns. Of the latter Gorgona was the largest, which toward the end of canal construction attained a population of about 4000. In the earlier history of the Isthmus Gorgona was a noted stopping place for those crossing the neck, but it seems to have been famed chiefly for the badness of its accommodations.Otis says of it, “The town of Gorgona was noted in the earlier days of the river travel as the place where the wet and jaded traveler was accustomed to worry out the night on a rawhide, exposed to the insects and the rain, and in the morning, if he was fortunate regale himself on jerked beef and plantains.”

The French established railroad shops here which the Americans greatly enlarged. As a result this town and the neighboring village of Matachin became considerable centers of industry and Gorgona was one of the pleasantest places of residence on “the line.” Its Y. M. C. A. clubhouse was one of the largest and best equipped on the whole Zone, and the town was well supplied with churches and schools. By the end of 1913 all this will be changed. The shop will have been moved to the great new port of Balboa; such of the houses and official buildings as could economically be torn down and reërected will have been thus disposed of. Much of the two towns will be covered by the lake, but on the higher portions of the site will stand for some years deserted ruins which the all-conquering jungle will finally take for its own. The railroad which once served its active people will have been moved away to the other side of the canal and Gorgona will have returned to the primitive wilderness whence Pizarro and the gold hunters awakened it. Near its site is the hill miscalled Balboa’s and from the steamships’ decks the wooden cross that stands on its summit may be clearly seen.

Photo by Underwood & UnderwoodGAMBOA BRIDGE WITH CHAGRES AT FLOODFor contrasting picture showing the river in dry season, seepage 192

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

GAMBOA BRIDGE WITH CHAGRES AT FLOODFor contrasting picture showing the river in dry season, seepage 192

Soon after passing Gorgona and Matachin the high bridge by which the railroad crosses the Chagres at Gamboa, with its seven stone piers will be visible over the starboard side. This point is of some interest as being the spot at which the water was kept out of the long trench at Culebra. A dyke, partly artificial, here obstructed the canal cut and carried the railroad across to Las Cascadas, Empire, Culebra and other considerable towns all abandoned, together with that branch of the road, upon the completion of the canal.

THE Y. M. C. A. CLUB HOUSE AT GATUN

Now the ship passes into the most spectacular part of the voyage—the Culebra Cut. During the process of construction this stretch of the work vied with the great dam at Gatun for the distinction of being the most interesting and picturesque part ofthe work. Something of the spectacular effect then presented will be lost when the ships begin to pass. The sense of the magnitude of the work will not so greatly impress the traveler standing on the deck of a ship, floating on the surface of the canal which is here 45 feet deep, as it would were he standing at the bottom of the cut. He will lose about 75 feet of the actual height, as commanded by the earlier traveler who looked up at the towering height of Contractors Hill from the very floor of the colossal excavation. He will lose, too, much of the almost barbaric coloring of the newly opened cut where bright red vied with chrome yellow in startling the eye, and almost every shade of the chromatic scale had its representative in the freshly uncovered strata of earth.

Photo by Underwood & UnderwoodWORKING IN CULEBRA CUTThe picture is taken at a comparatively quiet time, only two dirt trains being visible

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

WORKING IN CULEBRA CUTThe picture is taken at a comparatively quiet time, only two dirt trains being visible

The tropical foliage grows swiftly, and long before the new waterway will have become an accustomed path to the ships of all nations the sloping banks will be thickly covered with vegetation. It is indeed the purpose of the Commission to encourage the growth of such vegetation by planting, in the belief that the roots will tie the soil together and lessen the danger of slides and washouts. The hills that here tower aloft on either side of the canal form part of the great continental divide that, all the way from Alaska to the Straits of Magellan divides the Pacific from the Atlantic watershed. This is its lowest point. Gold Hill, its greatest eminence, rises 495 feet above the bottom of the canal, which in turn is 40 feet above sea level. The story of the gigantic task of cutting through this ridge, of the new problems which arose in almost every week’s work, and of the ways in which they were met and overcome will necessitate a chapter to itself. Those who float swiftly along in well-appointed steamships through the almost straight channel 300 feet wide at the bottom, between towering hills, will find the sensation the more memorable if they will study somewhat the figures showing the proportions of the work, the full fruition of which they are enjoying.

Photo by Underwood & UnderwoodMIRAFLORES LOCK IN MARCH, 1913This lock is in two stories with a total lift of 562⁄3feet; the Pacific tides rise in the canal to the lower lock

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

MIRAFLORES LOCK IN MARCH, 1913This lock is in two stories with a total lift of 562⁄3feet; the Pacific tides rise in the canal to the lower lock

At Pedro Miguel a single lock lets the ship down to another little lake hardly two miles across to Miraflores where two more locks drop it down to tide water. From Miraflores the traveler can see the great bulk of Ancon Hill looming up seven milesaway, denoting the proximity of the city of Panama which lies huddled under its Pacific front. Practically one great rock is Ancon Hill, and its landward face is badly scarred by the enormous quarry which the Commission has worked to furnish stone for construction work. At its base is the new port of Balboa which is destined to be in time a great distributing point for the Pacific coast of both North and South America. For the vessels coming through the canal from the Atlantic must, from Balboa, turn north or south or proceed direct across the Pacific to those Asiatic markets of which the old-time mariners so fondly dreamed. Fleets of smaller coastwise vessels will gather here to take cargoes for the ports of Central America, or for Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and other Pacific states of South America. The Canal Commission is building great docks for the accommodation of both throughand local shipping; storage docks and pockets for coal and tanks for oil. The coaling plant will have a capacity of about 100,000 tons, of which about one-half will be submerged. One dry dock will take a ship 1000 feet long and 105 feet wide—the width of the dock itself being 110 feet. There will be also a smaller dock. One pier, of the most modern design, equipped with unloading cranes and 2200 feet long is already complete, and the plans for additional piers are prepared. The estimated cost of the terminals at Balboa is $15,000,000.

NAOS, PERICO AND FLAMENCO ISLANDS TO BE FORTIFIED

The Suez Canal created no town such as Balboa is likely to be, for conditions with it were wholly different. Port Said at the Mediterranean end and Aden at the Red Sea terminus are coaling stations, nothing more. Geographical considerations however are likely to give to both Balboa and Cristobal—particularly the former—prime importance as points of transshipment.

BEGINNING OF NEW BALBOA DOCKS

The machine shops long in Gorgona and Matachin have been removed to Balboa, and though since the completion of the canal the number of their employes has been greatly decreased, the work of repairing and outfitting vessels may be expected to maintain a large population of mechanics. The administration offices now at Culebra will also be moved to Balboa, which in fact is likely to become the chief town of the Canal Zone. Here is to be an employes’ club house, built of concrete blocks at a cost of $52,000. Like the other club houses established during the construction period it will be under the direct administration of the Y. M. C. A. The town of Balboa, and the club house will be in no small degree the fruit of the earnest endeavor of Col. Goethals to build there a town that shall be a credit to the nation, and a place of comfort for those who inhabit it. His estimate presented to Congress of the cost and character of the houses to be furnished to officers of various grades and certain public buildings may be interesting here. The material is all to be concrete blocks:

THE OLD PACIFIC MAIL DOCKS AT BALBOA

When Col. Goethals was presenting his estimates to Congress in 1913 the members of the Committee on Appropriations looked somewhat askance on the club-house feature of his requests, and this colloquy occurred:

“The Chairman: ‘A $52,000 club house?’“Col. Goethals: ‘Yes, sir. We need a good club house, because we should give them some amusement, and keep them out of Panama. I believe in the club-house principle.’“The Chairman: ‘That is all right, but you must contemplate a very elaborate house?’“Col. Goethals: ‘Yes, sir. I want to make a town there that will be a credit to the United States government.’”

“The Chairman: ‘A $52,000 club house?’

“Col. Goethals: ‘Yes, sir. We need a good club house, because we should give them some amusement, and keep them out of Panama. I believe in the club-house principle.’

“The Chairman: ‘That is all right, but you must contemplate a very elaborate house?’

“Col. Goethals: ‘Yes, sir. I want to make a town there that will be a credit to the United States government.’”

Looking out to sea from the prow of a ship entering the Pacific Ocean you will notice three conicalislands rising abruptly from the waves, to a height of three or four hundred feet. To be more precise the one nearest the shore ceased to be an island when the busy dirt trains of the Canal Commission dumped into the sea some millions of cubic yards of material taken from the Culebra Cut, forming at once a great area of artificial land which may in ensuing centuries have its value, and a breakwater which intercepts a local current that for a time gave the canal builders much trouble by filling the channel with silt. The three islands, Naos, Flamenco, and Perico are utilized by the United States as sites for powerful forts. The policy of the War Department necessarily prevents any description here of the forts planned or their armament. Every government jealously guards from the merely curious a view of its defensive works, and the intruder with a camera, however harmless and inoffensive he may be, is severely dealt with as though he had profaned the Holy of Holies. Despite these drastic precautions against the harmless tourist it is a recognized fact that every government has in its files plans and descriptions of the forts of any power with which it is at all likely to become involved in war.

Photo by Underwood & UnderwoodTHE PACIFIC GATEWAYThe gun points to canal entrance; high hills in the background are beyond the canal

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

THE PACIFIC GATEWAYThe gun points to canal entrance; high hills in the background are beyond the canal

It may be said, however, without entering into prohibited details, that by the fortifications on the islands, and on the hills adjacent to the canal entrance, as well as by a permanent system of submarine mines the Pacific entrance to the canal is made as nearly impregnable as the art of war permits. The locks at Miraflores are seven miles inland and the effective range of naval guns is fourteen miles, so that but for the fortifications and a fleet of our own to hold the hostile fleet well out to sea the very keystone of the canal structure would be menaced. Our government in building its new terminal city at Balboa had before it a very striking illustration of the way in which nations covet just such towns. Russia on completing her trans-Siberian railroad built at Port Arthur a terminal even grander and more costly than our new outpost on the Pacific. But the Japanese flag now waves over Port Arthur—and incidentally the fortifications of that famous terminal were also considered impregnable. Perhaps the impregnable fort like the unsinkable ship is yet to be found.

At Balboa the trip through the completed canal will be ended. It has covered a fraction over fifty miles, and has consumed, according to the speed of the ship and the “smartness” of her handling in locks, from seven to ten hours. He who was fortunate enough to make that voyage may well reflect on the weeks of time and the thousands of tons of coal necessary to carry his vessel from Colon to Balboa had the canal not existed.

Photo by Underwood & UnderwoodCOMPLETED CANAL AT COROZAL

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

COMPLETED CANAL AT COROZAL

From Balboa to the ancient and yet gay city of Panama runs a trolley line by which the passenger, whose ship remains in port for a few days, or even a few hours, may with but little cost of time or money visit one of the quaintest towns on the North American continent. If the climate, or the seemingly ineradicable sluggishness of the Panamanian do not intervene the two towns should grow into one, though their governments must remain distinct, as the Republic of Panama naturally clings to its capital city. But seemingly the prospect of a great new port at his doors, open to the commerce of all the world, where ships from Hamburg and Hong Kong, from London and Lima, from Copenhagen and from Melbourne may all meet in passing their world-wide ways, excites the Panamanian not a whit. He exists content with his town as it is, reaching out but little for the new trade which this busy mart next door to him should bring. No new hotels are rising within the line of the old walls; no new air of haste or enterprise enlivens the placid streets and plazas. Perhaps in time Balboa may be the big town, and Panama as much outworn as that other Panama which Morgan left a mere group of ruins. It were a pity should it be so, for no new town, built of neat cement blocks, with a Y. M. C. A. club house as its crowning point of gaiety, can ever have the charm which even the casual visitor finds in ragged, bright-colored, crowded, gay and perhaps naughty Panama.

Dropcap A

American control of the canal, as I have already pointed out, was taken over without any particular ceremony immediately after the payment to Panama of the $10,000,000 provided for in the treaty. Indeed so slight was the friction incident to the transfer of ownership from the French to the Americans that several hundred laborers employed on the Culebra Cut went on with their work serenely unconscious of any change in management. But though work was uninterrupted the organization of the directing force took time and thought. It took more than that. It demanded the testing out of men in high place and the rejection of the unfit; patient experimenting with methods and the abandonment of those that failed to produce results. There was a long period of this experimental work which sorely tried the patience of the American people before the canal-digging organization fell into its stride and moved on with a certain and resistless progress toward the goal.

In accordance with the Spooner act President Roosevelt on March 8, 1904, appointed the first Isthmian Canal Commission with the following personnel:

Photo by Underwood & UnderwoodTUNNEL FOR THE OBISPO DIVERSION CANAL

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

TUNNEL FOR THE OBISPO DIVERSION CANAL

In 1913 when the canal approached completion not one of these gentlemen was associated with it. Death had carried away Admiral Walker, but official mortality had ended the canal-digging careers of theothers. Indeed under the rule of President Roosevelt the tenure of office of Isthmian Commissioners was exceedingly slender and the whole commission as originally designed was finally abolished being replaced by one made up, with one exception, of officers of the army and navy. The first commission visited the Isthmus, stayed precisely 24 days, ordered some new surveys and returned to the United States. The most important fact about its visit was that it was accompanied to the scene of work by an army surgeon, one Dr. W. C. Gorgas, who had been engaged in cleaning up Havana. Major Gorgas, to give him his army title, was not at this time a member of the Commission but had been appointed Chief Sanitary Officer. I shall have much to say of his work in a laterchapter; as for that matter Fame will have much to say of him in later ages. Col. Goethals, who will share that pinnacle was not at this time associated with the canal work. Coincidently with the Commission’s visit the President appointed as chief engineer, John F. Wallace, at the moment general manager of the Illinois Central Railroad. His salary was fixed at $25,000 a year.

In telling the story of the digging of the Panama Canal we shall find throughout that the engineer outshines the Commission; the executive rather than the legislative is the ruling force. The story therefore groups itself into three chapters of very unequal length—namely the administrations as chief engineers of John F. Wallace, from June 1, 1904, to June 28, 1905; John F. Stevens, June 30, 1905, to April 1, 1907, and Col. George W. Goethals from April 1, 1907, to the time of publication of this book and doubtless for a very considerable period thereafter.

Each of these officials encountered new problems, serious obstacles, heartbreaking delays and disappointments. Two broke down under the strain; doubtless the one who took up the work last profited by both the errors and the successes of his predecessors. It is but human nature to give the highest applause to him who is in at the death, to immortalize the soldier who plants the flag on the citadel, forgetting him who fell making a breach in the outer breastworks and thereby made possible the ultimate triumph.

Photo by Underwood & UnderwoodTHE TWO COLONELSW. C. Gorgas and George W. Goethals, whose combined work gave the canal to the world.

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

THE TWO COLONELSW. C. Gorgas and George W. Goethals, whose combined work gave the canal to the world.

Wallace at the very outset had to overcome one grim and unrelenting enemy which was largely subdued before his successors took up the work. Yellow fever and malaria ravaged the Isthmus, as they had done from time immemorial, and although Sanitary Officer Gorgas was there with knowledge of how to put that foe to rout the campaign was yet to be begun. They say that Wallace had a lurking dread that before he could finish the canal the canal would finish him, and indeed he had sound reasons for that fear. He found the headquarters of the chief engineer in the building on Avenida Centrale now occupied by the United States legation, but prior to his time tenanted by the French Director-General. The streets of the town were unpaved, ankle deep in foul mire in the rainy season, and covered with germ-laden dust when dry. Therebeing no sewers the townsfolk with airy indifference to public health emptied their slops from the second-story windows feeling they had made sufficient concession to the general welfare if they warned passersby before tilting the bucket. Yellow fever was always present in isolated cases, and by the time Wallace had been on the job a few months it became epidemic, and among the victims was the wife of his secretary.

A WALK AT ANCONIN THE HOSPITAL GROUNDS

A WALK AT ANCON

IN THE HOSPITAL GROUNDS

However, the new chief engineer tackled the job with energy. There was quite enough to enlist his best energies. It must be remembered that at this date the fundamental problem of a sea levelvs.a lock canal had not been determined—was not definitely settled indeed until 1906. Accordingly Engineer Wallace’s first work was getting ready to work. He found 746 men tickling the surface of Culebra Cut with hand tools; the old French houses, all there were for the new force had been seized upon by natives or overrun by the jungle; while the French had left great quantities of serviceable machinery it had been abandoned in the open and required careful overhauling before being fit for use; the railroad was inadequate in track mileage and in equipment. Above all the labor problem was yet to be successfully solved. In his one year’s service Wallace repaired 357 French houses and built 48 new ones, but the task of housing the employees was still far from completed. Men swarmed over the old French machinery, cutting away the jungle, dousing the metal with kerosene and cleaning off the rust. Floating dredges were set to work in the channel at the Atlantic end—which incidentally has been abandoned in the completed plans for the canal though it was used in preliminary construction. The railroad was reëquipped and extended and the foundation laid for the thoroughly up-to-date road it now is. Meanwhile the surveying parties were busy in the field collecting the data from which after a prolonged period of discussion, the vexed question of the type of canal, should be determined.

Two factors in the situation made Wallace’s job the hardest. The Commission made its headquarters in Washington, 2000 miles or a week’s journey away from the job, and the American people, eager for action, were making the air resound with cries of “make the dirt fly!” In a sense Wallace’s position was not unlike that of Gen. McClellan in the opening months of the Civil War when the slogan of the northern press was “On to Richmond,” and no thought was given to the obstacles in the path, or the wisdom of preparing fully for the campaign before it was begun. There are many who hold today that if Wallace had been deaf to those who wanted to see the dirt fly, had taken the men off the work of excavation until the type of canal had been determined and all necessary housing and sanitation work had been completed, the results attained would have been better, and the strain which broke down this really capable engineer would have been averted.

Photo by Underwood & UnderwoodFRENCH COTTAGES ON THE WATER FRONT, CRISTOBAL

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

FRENCH COTTAGES ON THE WATER FRONT, CRISTOBAL

Red tape immeasurable wound about the Chief Engineer and all his assistants. Requisitions had to go to the Commission for approval and the Commission clung to Washington tenaciously, as all federal commissions do wherever the work they are commissioned to perform may be situated. During the Civil War days a story was current of a Major being examined for promotion to a colonelcy.

“Now, Major,” asked an examiner, “we will consider, if you please, the case of a regiment just ordered into battle. What is the usual position of the colonel in such a case?”

“On Pennsylvania Avenue, about Willard’s Hotel,” responded the Major bravely and truthfully.

The officers who directed Wallace’s fighting force clung to Pennsylvania Avenue and its asphalt rather than abide with Avenidà Centrale and its mud. So too did succeeding commissions until Theodore Roosevelt, who had a personal penchant for being on the firing line, ordered that all members of the Commission should reside on the Isthmus. At that he had trouble enforcing the order except with the Army and Navy officers who made up five-sevenths of the Commission.

How great was the delay caused by red tape and absentee authorities cannot be estimated. When requisitions for supplies reached Washington the regulations required that bids be advertised for. I rather discredit the current story that when a young Panamanian arrived at Ancon Hospital and the mother proved unable to furnish him with food, the doctor in charge was officially notified that if he bought a nursing bottle without advertising thirty days for bids he must do so at his own expense. That story seems too strikingly illustrative of red-tape to be true. But it is true that after Col.Gorgas had worked out his plans for furnishing running water to Panama, and doing away with the cisterns and great jars in which the residents stored water and bred mosquitoes, it took nine months to get the iron pipes, ordinary ones at that, to Panama. Meanwhile street paving and sewerage were held up and when Wallace wired the Commission to hurry he was told to be less extravagant in his use of the cable.

PAY DAY FOR THE BLACK LABOR

No man suffered more from this sort of official delay and stupidity than did Col. Gorgas. If any man was fighting for life it was he—not for his own life but that of the thousands who were working, or yet to work on the canal. Yet when he called for wire netting to screen out the malarial mosquitos he was rebuked by the Commission as if he were asking it merely to contribute to the luxury of the employees. The amount of ingenuity expended by the Commission in suggesting ways in which wire netting might be saved would be admirable as indicative of a desire to guard the public purse, except for the fact that in saving netting they were wasting human lives. The same policy was pursued when appeals came in for additional equipment for the hospitals, for new machinery, for wider authority. Whenever anything was to be done on the canal line the first word from Washington was always criticism—the policy instantly applied was delay.

Allowing for the disadvantages under which he labored Mr. Wallace achieved great results in his year of service on the Isthmus. But his connection with the canal was ended in a way about which must ever hang some element of mystery. He complained bitterly, persistently and justly about the conditions in which he was compelled to work and found in President Roosevelt a sympathetic and a reasonable auditor. Indeed, moved by the Chief Engineer’s appeals, the President endeavored to secure from Congress authority to substitute a Commission of three for the unwieldy body of seven with which Wallace found it so hard to make headway. Failing in this the President characteristically enough did by indirection what Congress would not permit him to do directly. He demanded and received the resignations of all the original commissioners, and appointed a new board with the following members:

As in the case of the earlier commissioners none of these remained to see the work to a conclusion.

This commission, though similar in form, was vastly different in fact from its predecessor. The President in appointing it had directed that its first three members should constitute an executive committee, and that two of these, Gov. Magoon and Engineer Wallace, should reside continuously on the Zone. To further concentrate power in Mr. Wallace’s hands he was made Vice-President of the Panama Railroad. The President thus secured practically all he had asked of Congress, for the executive committee of three was as powerful as the smaller commission which Congress had refused him. In all this organization Mr. Wallace had been consulted at every step. He stayed for two months in Washington while the changes were in progress and expressed his entire approval of them. It was therefore with the utmost amazement that the President received from him, shortly after his return to the Isthmus, a cable requesting a new conference and hinting at his resignation.

Photo by Underwood & UnderwoodIN WALLACE’S TIMESanitation work in Panama City

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

IN WALLACE’S TIMESanitation work in Panama City

At the moment that cable message was sent Panama was shuddering in the grasp of the last yellow fever epidemic that has devastated that territory. Perhaps had Col. Gorgas secured his wire netting earlier, or Wallace’s appeals for water pipes met with prompter attention it might have been averted. But in that May and June of 1905 the fever ravaged the town and the work camps almost as it had in the days of the French. There had been, as already noted, some scattered cases of yellow fever in the Zone when the Americans took hold, but they were too few and too widely separated to cause any general panic. The sanitary authorities however noted with apprehension that they did not decrease, and that a very considerable proportion were fatal. It was about this time that the Commission was snubbing Col. Gorgas because of his insatiable demands for wire screening. In April there were seven cases among the employees in the Commission’s headquarters in Panama. Three died and among the 300 other men employed there panic spread rapidly. Nobody cared about jobs any longer. From all parts of the Zone white-faced men flocked to the steamship offices to secure passage home. Stories about the ravages of the disease among the French became current, and the men at work shuddered as they passed the little French cemeteries so plentifully scattered along the Zone.

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY F. E. WRIGHTTHE WASHING PLACE AT TABOGATaboga, site of the Commission sanitarium, is the most picturesque point readily accessible from Panama City. The laundry place is the gathering point for the women of the village.

THE WASHING PLACE AT TABOGATaboga, site of the Commission sanitarium, is the most picturesque point readily accessible from Panama City. The laundry place is the gathering point for the women of the village.

The sanitary forces wheeled out into the open and went into the fight. Every house in Panama and Colon was fumigated, against the bitter protests of many of the householders who would rather face yellow fever then the cleansing process, and who did not believe much in these scientific ideas of the “gringoes” anyway. An army of inspectors made house to house canvasses of the towns and removed, sometimes by force, all suspected victims to the isolationhospitals. The malignant mosquitoes, couriers of the infection, were pursued patiently by regiments of men who slew all that were detected and deluged the breeding places with larvacide. The war of science upon sickness soon began to tell. June showed the high-water mark of pestilence with sixty-two cases, and six deaths. From that point it declined until in December the last case was registered. Since then there has been no case of yellow fever originating on the Isthmus, and the few that have been brought there have been so segregated that no infection has resulted.

THE FUMIGATION BRIGADEWhen the members of this command finished with a district in Panama the mosquito was done for

It was, however, when the epidemic was at its height that Mr. Wallace returned from Washington to the Isthmus. Almost immediately he cabled asking to be recalled and the President, with a premonition of impending trouble, so directed. On reaching New York he met the then Secretary of War, afterwards President, William Howard Taft, to whom he expressed dissatisfaction with the situation and asked to be relieved at the earliest possible moment. Secretary Taft declined to consider his further association with the canal, for a moment, demanded that his resignation take effect at once and reproached him for abandoning the work in words that stung, and which when reiterated in a letter and published the next day put the retiring engineer in a most unenviable position. From this position he never extricated himself. Perhaps the fear of the fever, of which he thought he himself had a slight attack, shook his nerve. Perhaps, as the uncharitable thought and the Secretary flatly charged, a better position had offered itself just as he had become morally bound to finish the canal work. Orperhaps he concluded in the time he had for cool reflection on the voyage to Panama that the remedies offered for the red tape, divided authority and delay that had so handicapped him were inadequate. His communication to the press at the time was unconvincing. The fairest course to pursue in the matter is to accept Mr. Wallace’s own statement made to a congressional investigating committee nearly a year later, in answer to a question as to the cause of his resignation:

TYPICAL SCREENED HOUSES

“My reason was, that I was made jointly responsible with Mr. Shonts and Mr. Magoon for work on the canal, while Mr. Shonts had a verbal agreement with the President that he should have a free rein in the management of all matters. I felt Mr. Shonts was not as well qualified as I was either as a business man or an administrator, and he was not an engineer.... I thought it better to sacrifice my ambitions regarding this work, which was to be the crowning event of my life, than remain to be humiliated, forced to disobey orders, or create friction.”

A STREET AFTER PAVINGBefore paving it was of the sort shown onpage 39

The Wallace resignation was at the moment most unfortunate. There had for months been an almost concerted effort on the part of a large and influential section of the press, and of men having the public ear to decry the methods adopted at Panama, to criticize the men engaged in the work and to magnify the obstacles to be overcome. Perhaps this chorus of detraction was stimulated in part by advocates of the Nicaragua route hoping to reopen that controversy. Probably the transcontinental railroads, wanting no canal at all, had a great deal to do with it. At any rate it was loud and insistent and the men on the Isthmus were seriously affected by it. They knew by Mr. Wallace’s long absence that some trouble was brewing in Washington. His sudden departure again after his return from the capital and the rumor that he had determined to take a more profitable place added to the unrest. Probably the rather severe letter of dismissal with which Secretary Taft met the Chief Engineer’s letter of resignation, and the instantaneous appointment in his place of John F. Stevens, long associated with James J. Hill in railroad building, at a salary $5000 a year greater, was the best tonic for the tired feeling of those on the Isthmus. It indicated that the President thought those who had accepted positions of command on the Canal Zone had enlisted for the war, and that they could not desert in the face of the enemy without a proper rebuke. It showed furthermore that the loss of one man would not be permitted to demoralize the service, but that the cry familiar on the line of battle “Close up! Close up,men! Forward”! was to be the rallying cry in the attack on the hills of Panama.

STOCKADE FOR PETTY CANAL ZONE OFFENDERS

Despite the unfortunate circumstances attending Mr. Wallace’s retirement, his work had been good, so far as it went. In office a little more than a year he had spent more than three months of the time in Washington or at sea. But he had made more than a beginning in systematizing the work, in repairing the railroad, in renovating the old machinery and actually making “the dirt fly”. Of that objectionable substance—on the line of the canal, if anywhere, they applaud the definition “dirt is matter out of place”—he had excavated 744,644 yards. Not much of a showing judged by the records of 1913, but excellent for the machinery available in 1905. The first steam shovel was installed during his régime and before he left nine were working. The surveys, under his direction, were of great advantage to his successor who never failed to acknowledge their merit.

HOSPITAL BUILDINGS, UNITED FRUIT CO.

Mr. Stevens, who reached the canal, adopted at the outset the wise determination to reduce construction work to the minimum and concentrate effort on completing arrangements for housing and feeding the army of workers which might be expected as soon as the interminable question of the sea level or lock canal could be finally determined. From his administration dates much of the good work done in the organization of theCommissary and Subsistence Department, and the development of the railroad. The inducement of free quarters added to high wages to attract workers also originated with him. At the same time Gov. Magoon was working over the details of civil administration, the schools, courts, police system and road building. The really fundamental work of canal building, the preparation of the ground for the edifice yet to be erected, made great forward strides at this period. But the actual record of excavation was but small.

Photo by Underwood & UnderwoodBEGINNING THE NEW DOCKS, CRISTOBAL

Photo by Underwood & Underwood

BEGINNING THE NEW DOCKS, CRISTOBAL

One reason for this was the hesitation over the type of canal to be adopted. It is obvious that several hundred thousand cubic yards of dirt dug out of a ditch have to be dumped somewhere. If deposited at one place the dump would be in the way of a sea-level canal while advantageous for the lock type. At another spot this condition would be reversed. Already the Americans had been compelled to move a second time a lot of spoil which the French had excavated, and which, under the American plans, was in danger of falling back into Culebra Cut. “As a gift of prophecy is withheld from us in these latter days,” wrote Stevens plaintively in reference to the vacillation concerning the plans, “all we can do now is to make such arrangements as may look proper as far ahead as we can see.”

President Roosevelt meanwhile was doing all he could to hasten determination of the problem. Just before the appointment of Mr. Stevens he appointed an International Board of Advisory Engineers, five being foreign and nine American, to examine into the subject and make recommendations. They had before them a multiplicity of estimates upon which to base their recommendations and it may be noted eight years after the event that not one of the estimates came within one hundred million dollars of the actual cost. From which it appears that when a nation undertakes a great public work it encounters the same financial disillusionments that come to the young homebuilder when he sets out to build him a house from architect’s plans guaranteed to keep the cost within a fixed amount.

Poor De Lesseps estimated the cost of a sea-level canal at $131,000,000, though it is fair to say for the French engineers whose work is so generally applauded by our own that their estimate was several million dollars higher. The famous International Congress had estimated the cost of a sea-level canal at $240,000,000. In fact the French spent $260,000,000 and excavated about 80,000,000 cubic yards of earth! Then came on our estimators. The Spooner act airily authorized $135,000,000 for a canal of any type, and is still in force though we have already spent twice that amount. The Walker Commission fixed the cost of a sea-level canal with a dam at Alhajuela and a tide lock at Miraflores at $240,000,000. The majority of President Roosevelt’s Board of Advisory Engineers reported in favor of a sea-level canal and estimated its cost at $250,000,000; the minority declared for a lock canal fixing its cost “in round numbers” at $140,000,000. Engineer Wallace put the cost of a sea-level canal at $300,000,000 exclusive of the $50,000,000 paid for the Canal Zone. Col. Goethals came in in 1908, with the advantage of some years of actual construction, and fixed the cost of the sea-level canal at $563,000,000 and the lock type at $375,000,000. He guesses best who guesses last, but it may be suggested in the vernacular of the streets that even Col. Goethals “had another guess coming”.

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