Prowling about Panama

by George A. Miller

Now that the world has once more had to fight out the old battle of free institutions, it is worth while to remember that the oldest independent nation of the modern world is Panama; and that the first of the Spanish colonies to achieve freedom from the misgovernment of the old country was this same little nation on the Isthmus. Tired of the kind of supervision which she had been undergoing from Europe, in 1826 Panama revolted, set up political housekeeping for herself, until she was later merged with the free New Granada—the modern Colombia.

If political independence has anything to do with advancement, then Panama should be very advanced indeed, for she led all her neighbors in achieving national separateness. The independence movement that swept over the western world a century ago affected Panama profoundly, and the microbe of political freedom soon produced a well-developed case of revolution—and the revolution was a success. Four score years afterward Panama again established her independence without the shedding of a drop of blood. If a spirit of independence can make a people prosperous, then Panama and prosperity should mean the same thing.

Panama has some peculiar political advantages to-day. Where other nations maintain their political sovereignty and internal peace at the cost of huge sums of money and by means of armies and battleships, Panama is spared this enormous drain upon her resources and men and money, and finds her political independence guaranteed against all the nations of the earth. Likewise she is sure of internal peace and is the only really war-tight, revolution-proof country in Latin-America. By the treaty entered into between Panama and the United States, in return for the Canal Zone and other concessions, the United States guarantees the independence of Panama and agrees to step in at any time when it may be necessary and maintain order throughout the Isthmus. The Panamanians are not enthusiastic over this situation, and some of the politicos inwardly resent very bitterly an arrangement which makes impossible their chosen profession of agitators and revolutionary leaders.

There are people who tell us that the basis of national progress is economic and commercial. Given a land with all large resources, we shall perforce have a progressive people. Measured by this standard, Panama should lead all the rest. Her thirteen hundred miles of coast bound a narrow empire, but an empire of wonderful possibilities. Her inexhaustible soil, her frequent rivers, her rich jungles, her broad savanas, her high mountains and dense forests, her mines and climate and rainfall, and a world market right at her doors—all that nature could do to lay the foundations of material wealth seems to have been done here.

If so-called modern science and engineering skill can bring prosperity, then the Isthmus of Panama includes the site of the world's last achievement in engineering, sanitation, and organized efficiency. Health conditions on the Canal Zone are better than in many cities of the United States. General Gorgas said that there were three causes for which the Americans left Panama in the old days: yellow fever, malaria, and cold feet, and that of the three the last caused more desertions than the other two combined. It is worth noting that the first two mentioned have now vanished entirely, and it but remains to find a preventive for frigid pedal extremities to make the tropics a white man's land.

HAPPY KINDERGARTNERS, PANAMA

Panama and Colon to-day are clean and healthful. Even the tropical buzzard that hovers over every town and crossroad in this mid-America world has disappeared from these cities—starved to death. The American Board of Health looks after the garbage cans and backyards and drains, and woe be unto the unhappy mosquito that inadvertently wanders into this forbidden territory. The entire country is now free from yellow fever, and while there is some malaria in the lowlands during the wet season, health conditions are far better than might be supposed.

The question of climate raises visions of burning days and sleepless nights. To people who have never lived in the tropics any lurid tale is plausible. But these tales of torment do not come from dwellers in the tropics, but from overheated imaginations of writers of fiction who find the tropics a rich field, because most of their readers know nothing of the subject. There are more comfortable days in Panama, per year, than in New York. There is rarely a night when one cannot sleep in comfort. If there were nothing the matter but the climate, there would be no reason for shunning Panama.

By all the rules of the great game of getting rich, Panama ought to be both prosperous and progressive. Seemingly every chance has come her way.