CHAPTER VIII
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD

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:

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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 the others. 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 later chapter; 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.

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THE TWO COLONELS
W. 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. There being 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 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 level vs. 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.

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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.

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IN WALLACE’S TIME
Sanitation 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. WRIGHT

THE WASHING PLACE AT TABOGA
Taboga, 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 isolation hospitals. 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 BRIGADE
When 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. Or perhaps 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 PAVING
Before paving it was of the sort shown on page 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 the Commissary 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.

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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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A BACK STREET IN COLON
This street is as clean and well paved as any in the United States

On all these estimates the most illuminating comment is furnished by the Official Handbook of the Panama Canal for 1913 showing total expenditures to November 1, 1912, of $270,625,624 exclusive of fortification expenditures. The Congressional appropriations to the same date, all of which were probably utilized by midsummer of 1913, were $322,551,448.76.

The action of his Advisory Board put President Roosevelt for the moment in an embarrassing position. A swinging majority declared for a sea-level canal, and even when the influence of Engineer Stevens, who was not a member of the Board, was exerted for the lock type it left the advocates of that form of canal still in the minority. To ask a body of eminent scientists to advise one and then have them advise against one’s own convictions creates a perplexing situation. But Roosevelt was not one to allow considerations of this sort to weigh much with him when he had determined a matter in his own mind. Accordingly he threw his influence for the lock type, sent a resounding message to Congress and had the satisfaction of seeing his views approved by that body June 29, 1906. It had been two years and two months since the Americans came to Panama, and though at last the form of canal was determined upon there are not lacking today men of high scientific and political standing who hold that an error was made, and that ultimately the great locks will be abandoned and the canal bed brought down to tide water.

STEAM SHOVEL AT WORK

The Americans on the Isthmus now got fairly into their stride. Determination of the type of canal at once determined the need for the Gatun Dam, spillway and locks. It necessitated the shifting of the roadbed of the Panama railroad as the original bed would be covered by the new lake. The development of the commissary system which supplied every thing needful for the daily life of the employee, the establishment of quarters, the creation of a public school system, were all well under way. Then arose a new issue which split the second Commission and again threatened to turn things topsy-turvy.

THE BALBOA ROAD
The trolley line shown will extend from Balboa, through Panama and Ancon to the ruins of Old Panama

Chairman Shonts, himself a builder of long experience and well accustomed to dealing with contractors, was firmly of the opinion that the canal could best be built by letting contracts to private bidders for the work. In this he was opposed by most of his associates, and particularly by Mr. Stevens who had been working hard and efficiently to build up an organization that would be capable of building the canal without the interposition of private contractors looking for personal profit. The employees on the Zone, naturally enough, were with Stevens to a man, and time has shown that he and they were right. There is something about working for the nation that stirs a man’s loyalty as mere private employment never can. But in this instance Mr. Shonts was in Washington, convenient to the ear of the President while Mr. Stevens was on the Zone. Accordingly the President approved of the Chairman’s plan, and directed the Secretary of War, Mr. Taft, to advertise for bids. Mr. Stevens was discontented and showed it. That his judgment would be justified in the end he could not know. That it had been set aside for the moment he was keenly aware, and that he was being harassed by Congress and by innumerable rules such as no veteran railroad builder had ever been subjected to did not add to his comfort.

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A DRILL BARGE AT WORK
The sea and tidal waters are underlaid with coral rock necessitating much submarine blasting

His complaints to the Secretary of War were many, and not of a sort to contribute to that official’s peace of mind. When the bids came in from the would-be contractors they were all rejected on the ground that they did not conform to the specifications, but the real reason was that the President at heart did not believe in that method of doing the work, and was sure that the country agreed with him. This should have allayed Mr. Stevens’ rising discontent. It certainly offended Chairman Shonts, who stood for the contract system, and when the bids were rejected and that system set aside promptly resigned. The President thereupon consolidated the offices of Chairman of the Commission and Chief Engineer in one, Mr. Stevens being appointed that one. Given thus practically unlimited power Mr. Stevens might have been expected to be profoundly contented with the situation. Instead he too resigned on the first of April, 1907.

Photo by S. H. Elliott

PACIFIC ENTRANCE TO THE CANAL

About his resignation as about that of Mr. Wallace there has always been a certain amount of mystery. He himself made no explanation of his act, though his friends conjectured that he was not wholly in harmony with the President’s plan to abolish the civilian commission altogether, and fill its posts by appointments from the Army and Navy. On the Isthmus there is a story that he did not intend to resign at all. Albert Edwards, who heard the story early, tells it thus:

“One of the canal employees, who was on very friendly terms with Stevens, came into his office and found him in the best of spirits. When the business in hand was completed he said jovially:

“‘Read this. I’ve just been easing my mind to T. R. It’s a hot one—isn’t it?’ And he handed over the carbon copy of his letter. His visitor read it with great seriousness.

“‘Mr. Stevens’, he said, ‘that is the same as a resignation’.

“And Stevens laughed.

“‘Why, I’ve said that kind of thing to the Colonel a dozen times. He knows I don’t mean to quit this job’.

“But about three hours after the letter reached Washington Mr. Stevens received a cablegram: ‘Your resignation accepted’”.

At any rate the Stevens resignation called forth no such explosive retort as had been directed against the unhappy Wallace, and he showed no later signs of irritation, but came to the defense of his successor in a letter strongly approving the construction of certain locks and dams which were for the moment the targets of general public criticism.

Two weeks before Stevens resigned the other members of the Commission, excepting Col. Gorgas, in response to a hint from the President had sent in their resignations. Mr. Roosevelt had determined that henceforward the work should be done by army and navy officers, trained to go where the work was to be done and to stay there until recalled; men who had entered the service of the nation for life and were not looking about constantly to “better their conditions”. He had determined further that the government should be the sole contractor, the only employer, the exclusive paymaster, landlord and purveyor of all that was needful on the Zone. In short he had planned for the Canal Zone a form of administration which came to be called socialistic and gave cold chills to those who stand in dread of that doctrine. To carry out these purposes he appointed on April 1, 1907, the following commission:

A majority of this commission was in office at the time of publication of this book, and gave evidences of sticking to the job until its completion. Senator Blackburn resigned in 1910 and was succeeded by Hon. Maurice H. Thatcher, also of Kentucky; and Mr. Smith retired in favor of Lieut. Col. Hodges in 1908. In June, 1913, Commissioner Thatcher resigned and was succeeded by Richard L. Metcalfe of Nebraska. With the creation of this commission began the forceful and conclusive administration of Col. Goethals, the man who finished the canal.