The Panama Canal

by Frederic J. Haskin

It is also agreed by the Panama Government that no dues of any kind ever shall be collected by it from vessels passing through or using the canal, or from vessels belonging to the United States Government. All employees of the canal are exempted from taxation, whether living inside or outside the Zone. The Republic grants to the United States the use of all its rivers, streams, lakes, and other bodies of water for purposes of navigation, water supply, and other needs of the canal. It also agrees to sell or lease to the United States any of its lands on either coast for use for naval bases or coaling stations.

The Republic of Panama further agrees that the United States shall have the right to import commodities for the use of the Canal Commission and its employees, free of charge, and that it shall have the right to bring laborers of any nationality into the Canal Zone.

In return for all of these concessions the United States gives to the Republic of Panama many valuable considerations. Most vital of all, it guarantees the independence of the Republic. This means that the Republic of Panama is today practically the possessor of an army and a navy as large as the United States can put into the field and upon the seas. The only aggressor that Panama need fear is her benefactor.

The second consideration involved the payment of $10,000,000 cash to the Republic, and a perpetual annual payment of a quarter of a million dollars beginning with the year 1913. The ten-million-dollar cash payment gave the impoverished new-born government a chance to get on its feet, and from this time forward the Panaman Government can look to the United States for the major portion of its necessary revenues.

Under the terms of the treaty the United States undertakes to give free passage to any warships belonging to the Republic of Panama when going through the canal, and also agrees that the canal shall be neutral. It also agrees to provide free transportation over the Panama Railroad for persons in the service of the Government of Panama, and for the munitions of war of the Republic. It also allows the Republic of Panama to transmit over its telegraph and telephone lines its message at rates not higher than those charged United States officials for their private messages.

Another stipulation of the treaty provides that it shall not invalidate the titles and rights of private landholders and owners of private property, nor of the right of way over public roads of the Zone unless they conflict with the rights of the United States, when the latter shall be regarded as superior. No part of the work of building or operating the canal, however, at any time may be impeded by any claims, whether public or private. A commission is provided, whose duty it shall be to pass upon the claims of those whose land or properties are taken from them for the purpose of the construction or operation of the canal.

In carrying out the terms of the treaty the first step taken by the Americans was to "clean up" the cities of Panama and Colon. Remarkable changes were wrought by the establishment of water and sewerage systems, and by street improvements. For several years preceding the acquisition of the Canal Zone, and the sanitization of the cities of Panama and Colon, the late W. L. Buchanan was the United States minister to Colombia. He was transferred to another South American capital and afterwards came back to the United States by way of Panama. Former Senator J. C. S. Blackburn was then governor of the Canal Zone or, more strictly speaking, the head of the Department of Civil Administration. As he and Minister Buchanan drove through the streets of Panama and surveyed the changes that had taken place, Mr. Buchanan declared to Governor Blackburn that if an angel from heaven had appeared to him and said that such a transformation in the city of Panama could be made in so few years he scarcely could have believed it.

When he was there the main streets of the city were nothing but unbroken chains of mud puddles in which, during the wet season, carriages sank almost to the axles. When he returned he found those same streets well paved with vitrified brick, measuring up to the best standards of American street work. Where formerly peddlers hawked water from disease-scattering springs, there were hydrants throughout the town and wholesome water on tap in almost every house. Where there had been absolutely no attempt to solve the problems of sewage disposal, where the masses of people lived amid indescribable filth, absolutely oblivious to its stenches and its dangers, now there was a sewerage system fully up to the best standard of American municipal engineering.

When one considers that the Republic of Panama is made up largely of the cities of Panama and Colon, with a large area of almost wholly undeveloped territory, it will be seen that this service was rendered to practically all the people of the Republic.

The relations which have existed between the Republic of Panama and the United States have not always proved wholly satisfactory to the Panamans. Like all other tropical Americans, the Panamans profess great admiration for a republican form of government, but the party in power seldom has relished the idea of a full and free accounting of its stewardship at the polls. When the time came for the first national election, the party in power sought to insure its return by the use of tropical-American methods; that is, by a wholesale intimidation of the opposition supporters. When the registration books were opened the administration was unwilling to register the supporters of the opposition. The government forces always were relied upon to back up the registrars. This situation was resented by the opposition and the indications were that the usual civil war, the tropical American substitute for an election, was about to follow.