The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal

by John Henry Goldfrap

“Hi!” came the cry of the boss negro again.

The bottom of the dipper opened. There was a roar of falling rock and earth and a flat car was filled. Then the process was repeated till the hillock that was to be removed melted away like a plate of ice cream before a healthy boy.

Thus, amid shouting, seeming confusion, the clanging and crash of metal, the scream of steam whistles, shouted orders and the noise of steam and the fog of smoke, the work went on,—the mighty job that Uncle Sam, contractor, is putting through for the benefit of the civilized world.

Mr. Mainwaring told the boys that there is keen rivalry among the steam-shovel men. Prizes are given every month for the record amount of dirt that flies. Each shovel is pushed to the limit of its capacity. In an eight-hour day one of the steam shovels excavated and loaded on flat cars 3,500 cubic yards. This means about 160 carloads for the day, or a carload every three minutes.

The boys noticed, too, that the negroes, Italians and Spaniards toiled away at their tasks without appearing to take much interest in their work beyond keeping just hard enough at it to avoid getting into trouble. But on the faces of the “gold-men,” as the engineers and American officials are termed, was the stern determination of men animated by a great purpose. Off duty, the gold-men, so called because they are paid in American gold and not in Panama coinage, are a joking, jolly lot of men, who like to play tennis and baseball, and indulge in all sorts of sports. But on duty, clad in khaki and gaiters, with great sun helmets to keep off the baleful rays of the tropical sun, they are like changed men.

The expression the boys noticed on their faces as they hurried about with blue prints or levels and theodolites was set and stern. They seemed to be, in a way, instruments of a great destiny. Each bore himself as if he knew that the work in hand required the best that was in him.

“It seems to me,” said Mr. Mainwaring, “that these great steam shovels and their crews, the activity and all the purposeful bustle and hustle down here, represent more fully than anything that I have ever seen the determined, fearless American spirit that has overridden what appeared to be impossibilities, and is carrying the Canal through to a triumphant completion. It’s a great thing for a boy to be able to say that he has seen such a work, and it will be a still greater thing if he takes to heart the lessons to be learned here on every hand.”

Here he looked at Tubby who, not paying any attention to this “preachifying,” as he mentally termed it, was drinking the milk out of a cocoanut. The fat boy had become very fond of the cocoanut, which can be bought on the Isthmus for little or nothing. He had slung several around his waist and at intervals, amidst the dust and turmoil of the work on the great dam, he refreshed himself by a copious draught of their cool contents.

At the boys’ feet, as they stood on the lofty concrete battlement, lay the cut for the Gatun locks, which will raise and lower vessels eighty-five feet. There are no such locks anywhere in the world. While the boys watched, a steady stream of concrete was being poured into giant moulds for the locks, and rows of arc-light poles, like gaunt trees, showed that under the glare of electric lights the work was pushed forward even at night. Not a minute of time was wasted all through that vast system. They soon had become aware of that.

While the boys stood there an erect, military-looking man came up to Mr. Mainwaring, who greeted him with every appearance of respect. The newcomer was tall, bore an air of authority, and was dressed in a white military uniform.