The Panama Canal

by Frederic J. Haskin

With this knowledge in their possession the Americans were able to do what the French were not—to control the chief enemy of mankind in torrid climes. In the first years of the work the public, and Congress, reflecting its views, were not sufficiently convinced of the efficacy of the new scientific discoveries to afford the means for putting them into effect. The Isthmian Canal Commission refused to honor requisitions for wire screens, believing that they were demanded to add to the comfort and luxury of quarters on the Zone, rather than for protection against disease. But the outbreak of yellow fever in 1905 was the occasion for furnishing the Sanitary Department, under Col. W. C. Gorgas, with the necessary funds, and thus provided, he speedily and completely stamped out the epidemic. From that time on, no one questioned the part that sanitation played in the success of the project. The cities of Panama and Colon were cleaned up as never were tropical cities cleaned before. All the time, every day, men fought mosquitoes that the workers in the ditch might not be struck down at their labors.

The Americans, too, made mistakes. In the beginning they attempted to build the canal under the direction of a commission with headquarters in Washington. This commission, at long distance and by methods hopelessly involved in red tape, sought to direct the activities of the engineer in charge on the Isthmus. The public also was impatient with the long time required for preparation and insistently demanded that "the dirt begin to fly."

The work was begun in 1904. It proceeded so slowly that two years later the chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission asserted that it must be let out to a private contractor, this being, in his opinion, the only way possible to escape the toils of governmental red tape. The then chief engineer, the second man who had held that position while fretting under these methods, was opposed to the contract system. Bids were asked for, however, but all of them were rejected.

Fortunately, Congress from the beginning had left the President a practically free hand in directing the course of the project. Mr. Roosevelt reorganized the commission, made Col. George W. Goethals, an Army engineer, chairman of the commission and chief engineer of the canal. The constitution of the commission was so changed as to leave all the power in the hands of the chairman and to lay all of the responsibility upon his shoulders.

It was a master stroke of policy, and the event proved the choice of the man to be admirable in every way. From the day the Army engineers took charge there was never any more delay, never any halt in progress, and the only difficulties encountered were those of resistant Nature (such as the slides in Culebra Cut) and those of misinformed public opinion (such as the absurd criticism of the Gatun Dam).

The Americans, too, in the early stages of the work were hampered by reason of the fact that the final decision as to whether to build a sea-level canal or a lock canal was so long delayed by the conflicting views of the partisans of each type in Congress, in the executive branches of the Government, and among the engineers. This problem, too, was solved by Mr. Roosevelt. He boldly set aside the opinion of the majority of the engineers who had been called in consultation on the problem, and directed the construction of a lock canal. The wisdom of this decision has been so overwhelmingly demonstrated that the controversy that once raged so furiously now seems to have been but a tiny tempest in an insignificant teapot.

One other feature of the course of events under the American régime at Panama must be considered. Graft and corruption had ruined the French; the Americans were determined that whether they succeeded or not, there should be no scandal. This, indeed, in part explains why there was so much apparently useless circumlocution in the early stages of the project. Congress, the President, the engineers, all who were in responsible position, were determined that there should be no graft. There was none.

Not only were the Americans determined that the money voted for the canal should be honestly and economically expended, but they were determined, also, that the workers on the canal should be well paid and well cared for. To this end they paid not only higher wages than were current at home for the same work, but they effectively shielded the workers from the exactions and extortions of Latin and Oriental merchants by establishing a commissary through which the employees were furnished wholesome food at reasonable prices—prices lower, indeed, than those prevailing at home.

As a result of these things the spirit of the Americans on the Canal Zone, from the chairman and chief engineer down to the actual diggers, was that of a determination to lay the barrier low, and to complete the job well within the limit of time and at the lowest possible cost. In this spirit all Americans should rejoice, for it is the highest expression of the nearest approach we have made to the ideals upon which the Fathers founded our Republic.

It is impossible to leave out of the reckoning, in telling the story of the canal, the checkered history of the diplomatic engagements on the part of the United States, that have served both to help and to hinder the undertaking. What is now the Republic of Panama has been, for the greater part of the time since continental Latin America threw off the yoke of Spain, a part of that Republic having its capital at Bogota, now under the name of Colombia, sometimes under the name of New Granada, sometimes a part of a federation including Venezuela and Ecuador. The United States, by virtue of the Monroe doctrine, always asserted a vague and undefined interest in the local affairs of the Isthmus. This was translated into a concrete interest when, in 1846, a treaty was made, covering the construction of the railroad across the Isthmus, the United States engaging always to keep the transit free and open. Great Britain, by virtue of small territorial holdings in Central America and of larger claims there, also had a concrete interest, which was acknowledged by the United States, in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, under which a projected canal should be neutral under the guarantee of the Governments of the United States and Great Britain.