When a man like Mr. Stearns, of national and international reputation as a waterworks engineer, who for many years has been in charge of the extensive construction work of the Massachusetts Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board, and who probably has as large a practical and theoretical knowledge of earth-dam construction as any living authority, declares himself to be strongly in favor of the lock project and believes in the entire safety of the dams required in connection therewith, I hold that such a judgment may be relied upon and that it should govern in national affairs as it would govern in private affairs if the canal construction were a business enterprise and involved the risk of private capital. When we find a man like Mr. Harrod, who for many years has been in charge of levee construction in Louisiana, thoroughly familiar with the theory and practice of river and flood control, express himself in favor of the lock project and in opposition to the sea-level canal, I hold that we may with entire confidence accept his judgment as a governing principle in arriving at a final decision respecting the type of the canal to be finally fixed by the Congress.
And, going back to the minority report of the Board of Consulting Engineers, we find that Mr. Joseph Ripley, the general superintendent at present in charge of the "Soo" Canal, and Mr. Isham Randolph, chief engineer of the sanitary district of Chicago, and thoroughly familiar with canal construction and management, both American engineers of much experience and high standing, pronounce themselves in favor of a lock canal. When confronted by these facts, I for one would rely upon American engineers, American conviction and American experience, and accept the lock-canal proposition.
In this matter, as in all other practical problems, we may safely take the business point of view, and calculate without bias or prejudice the respective advantages and disadvantages; and the more thorough the method of reasoning and logic applied to the canal problem the more emphatic and incontrovertible the conclusion that the Congress should decide in favor of a plan which will give us a navigable waterway across the Isthmus within a measurable distance of time and with a reasonable expenditure of money, as opposed to a visionary theory of an ideal canal which may ultimately be constructed, possibly for the exclusive benefit of future generations, but at an enormous waste of money, time, and opportunity. I do not think we want to repeat at this late stage of the canal problem the fatal error of De Lesseps, who, when he had the opportunity in 1879 to make a choice of a practical waterway, being influenced by his great success at Suez, upon the most fragmentary evidence and in the absence of definite knowledge of actual conditions, decided beforehand in favor of a sea-level canal. It was largely his bias and prejudice which proved fatal to the enterprise and to himself.
I may recall that the so-called "international congress of 1879" was a mere subterfuge; that the opinions of eminent engineers, including all the Americans, were opposed to a sea-level project and in favor of a lock canal, but De Lesseps had made his plans, he had arrived at his decision, and in his own words, at a meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers held in January, 1880, said, "I would have put my hat on and walked out if any other plan than a sea-level canal project had been adopted."
The situation to-day is very similar to the critical state of the canal question in 1902. What was then a question of choice of route is to-day a question of choice of plan. What was then a geographical conflict is to-day a conflict of engineering opinions. It has been made clear by the reference to the report of the Board of Consulting Engineers and by the testimony of the engineers before the Senate committee that the opinion of eminent experts is so widely at variance that there is little, if any, hope of an ultimate reconciliation. It is a choice of one plan or the other—of a sea-level or a lock canal. In respect to either plan a mass of testimony and data exists, which has been brought forward to sustain one view or the other. In respect to either plan there are advantages and disadvantages. The majority of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals have reported favorably a bill providing for the construction of a canal at sea level. From this majority opinion the minority of the committee emphatically and unequivocally dissent, and in their report they express themselves in favor of the lock canal.
The minority report calls attention to the changed conditions and requirements, which now demand a canal of much larger dimensions than originally proposed. Even as late as 1901 the depth of the canal prism was to be only 35 feet, against 40 to 45 feet in the project of only five years later. The bottom width has been increased from 150 to 200 feet and over. The length of the locks has been changed from 740 to 900 feet, and the width from 84 to 90 feet. These facts must be kept in mind, for they bear upon the questions of time and cost, and a sea-level or lock canal, as proposed to-day, is in all respects a very much larger affair, demanding very superior facilities for traffic, than any previous canal project ever suggested or proposed. This change in plans was made necessary by the Spooner act, which provides for a canal of such dimensions that the largest ship now building, or likely to be built within a reasonable period of time, can be accommodated.
Now, the estimated saving in money alone by adopting the lock plan—that is, on the original investment, to say nothing of accumulating interest charges—would be at least $100,000,000. Granting all that is said in favor of a sea-level canal, it is not apparent by any evidence produced that such a canal would prove a material advantage over a lock canal. All its assumed advantages are entirely offset by the vastly greater cost and longer period of time necessary for construction, and I am confident that they would not be considered for a moment if the canal were built as a commercial enterprise. I do not think that they should hold good where the canal is the work of the nation, because a vast sum of money otherwise needed will be eventually sunk if the sea-level project is adopted, and entirely upon the theory that if certain conditions should arise then it would be better to have a sea-level than a lock canal. We have never before proceeded in national undertakings upon such an assumption; we have never before, as far as I know, deliberately disregarded every principle of economy in money and time; we have never before in national projects attempted to conform to merely theoretical ideas, but we have always adhered to practical, hard common-sense notions of what is best under the circumstances.
The majority of the committee attack the proposition that the proposed lock canal will have "locks with dimensions far exceeding any that have ever been made." If this principle were adopted in every other line of human effort all advancement would come to an end—even the canal enterprise itself—for, as it stands to-day, it far exceeds in magnitude any corresponding effort ever made by this or any other nation. They say that the proposed flight of three locks at Gatun would be objectionable and unsafe, but we have the evidence of American engineers of the highest standing, whose reputations are at stake, who are absolutely confident that these locks can be constructed and operated with entire safety. The committee say that "the entry through and exit from these contiguous locks is attended with very great danger to the lock gates and to the ships as well"; but if mere inherent danger of possible accidents were an objection there would be no great steamships, no great battleships, no great bridges and tunnels, no great undertakings of any kind.
The committee point out that accidents have occurred in the "Soo" Canal and in the Manchester Ship Canal; but the conditions, in the first place, were decidedly different, and, in the second place, they proved of no serious consequence as a hindrance to traffic and did no material injury to the canal. The "Soo" Canal has been in operation as a lock canal for some fifty years; it has been enlarged from time to time, and to-day accommodates a larger traffic than passes through all other ship canals of the world combined. It is a sufficient answer to the objections to say that this experience should have a determining influence in arriving at a conclusion, for the inherent problems of lock-canal construction are as well understood by American engineers as any other problems or questions in engineering science. The proposed deep waterway with a 30-foot channel from Chicago to tide-water, which has been surveyed by direction of Congress, proposes an expenditure of $303,000,000, and several locks with a lift of 40 feet or more. The enlargement of the Erie Canal by the State of New York, at an expenditure of $101,000,000, involves engineering problems, including lock construction, not essentially different from those inherent in the lock-canal project at Panama; and if these problems can be solved by our engineers at home, it stands to reason that we may rely upon their judgment that they can be solved at Panama.
The majority of the Senate committee object to the proposed dam at Gatun, and say that—