GATUN SPILLWAY, KEY TO THE CANAL
I spent a day in the big cut in January, 1917, and noted the rapid crumble of the historic bank at this troubled point. The following night the channel filled up for a length of eight hundred feet and shipping was suspended. Then the dredgers went at it hammer and tongs, and in three days and nights they had cleared a channel through that enormous mass of material and on the fourth day ships were again passing in safety.
It was a fine illustration of the way dirt was made to fly in the old days.
Some otherwise intelligent people have utterly failed to comprehend the size of the task involved in the mere digging of the Canal. One high official advocated the cure of slides by digging back a mile on each side of the bank. Verily, he knew not what he said, and a member of Congress on visiting the Canal reported that he was still in favor of a sea-level route. Competent engineers assured him that to construct a sea-level canal from ocean to ocean would require at least fifty years of continuous labor. The wisdom of Theodore Roosevelt's ideas has been forever vindicated by experience. Some practical man has said that no man can know how great is the task of making the earth until he tries to move a little of it. The congressman needed a little pick-and-shovel experience.
Administrative problems are not especially acute on the Zone, but the completed task gives room for a world of appreciation of the general efficiency with which the whole work was carried out, and the smooth-running machinery of the executive to-day attests the thoroughness with which the departmental system was organized and initiated by the men whose names will always be associated with the work. The task of operating the Canal to-day would not be very great, nor would it require a very large army of employees, but without any preconceived plan various related industries to the number of six or seven have grown up about the Canal administration and operation, and the Canal Zone government to-day is doing a number of things never contemplated in the original plans. The routing of ships is directly connected with the coal supply, and a great coaling plant stands at Cristobal. A large cold storage plant makes possible the supplying of refrigerated goods to shipping countries. While the trans-shipping business at Colon is yet in its infancy, the docks there are already a very considerable factor in Canal activities. Sanitation and public health, of course, require a trained force of specialists. The Canal employees must eat, and the commissary hotel and restaurant are a very important branch of the service. The quartermaster looks after the housing problem, and where there are five thousand Americans, most of them living with families, the educational problem necessitates a department by itself. The Balboa Docks employ hundreds of men at high wages.
In connection with the food problem come the large farming operations conducted on the Canal Zone. An army of laborers is employed, and the proceeds of the plantations and poultry yards is sold through the commissary's stores.
From the beginning much attention has been paid to the social life and recreation needs of these exiles from home. A chain of government clubhouses runs across the Isthmus, one in each town, where reading rooms, games, gymnasiums, refreshment counters, discussion clubs, concerts, dances, cigar stores, and motion-picture programs are provided for young and old. During the dry season baseball is widely indulged in and plays an important part in the social and recreational life of the Zone.
