Heroes of To-Day

by Mary Rosetta Parkman

“Suppose we walk through the tunnel,” he remarks. “You know the dirt-trains have right of way in Panama. We should hesitate to delay one even for the President of the United States or the Czar of all the Russias.”

At the end of the tunnel a car that looks like a limousine turned switch-engine is waiting on a siding for the “boss of the job.” Painted light yellow, like the passenger-cars of the Panama Railroad, it is known among the men as the “Yellow Peril,” or the “Brain-wagon.” But if any one expects, as a matter of course, to see the colonel in the “Yellow Peril,” he is as likely as not doomed to disappointment. The chief engineer drops off, now to see men drilling holes for dynamite, now to watch the loading of the dirt-trains from the great steam-shovels.

As we see the solid rock and rocklike earth of Culebra we realize that without dynamite the canal would be impossible. Let us watch for a moment the tearing down of the “everlasting hill.” Deafening machine-drills pierce the rock or hard soil with holes from three to thirty or forty feet in depth. These holes, which have been carefully arranged so as to insure the greatest effect in an earth-quaking, rock-breaking way, are filled with dynamite and then connected with an electric wire so that the pressure of a button will set off the entire charge. A rumble and then a roar—the earth trembles—heaves—then great masses of rock, mud, and water are hurled high in the air. A fraction of Culebra larger than a six-or seven-story building is frequently torn down by one of these explosions and the rock broken into pieces that can be seized by the steam-shovels and loaded on the dump-cars.

It is interesting to see how, through an ingenious arrangement of the network of tracks, the loaded cars always go on the down grade and only empty trains have to crawl up an incline. Much of the rock taken from the cut is used to build the great Gatun Dam, that keeps the troublesome Chagres River from flooding the canal. The rest goes to the construction of breakwaters at the ends of the waterway or to the filling of swamps and valleys.

The “brain-wagon” is going along without the head. He is climbing blithely over the roughest sort of ground, now dodging onrushing dirt-trains, now running to shelter with the “powder-men” at the moment of blasting. A question here, a word there, and on he goes. It seems as if even the steam-shovels know that there is a masterhand at the helm and vie with one another to see which can take up the most earth at a bite. You would think any man would be completely played out after such constant jumping and climbing under the hot rays of a tropical sun, as the hours draw near to noon, but the colonel pulls up the long flight of steps that lead from the cut and remarks briskly, “Nothing like a little exercise every morning to keep your health in this climate!”

“There never was such a man for being on the job!” exclaimed one of his foremen, admiringly. “The only time the colonel isn’t working is from ten P.M. to five A.M., when he is asleep.”

No despotic monarch in his inherited kingdom ever had more absolute power than had the Man of Panama. The men from the chiefs of divisions down to the last Jamaican negro on the line realized that he was master of the business and that his orders sprang from a thorough understanding of conditions and a large grasp of the whole. He was a successful engineer, however, not only because he knew the forces of nature that they were working to conquer in Panama, but also the human nature he was working with. He knew that no chain is stronger than its weakest link, and that no matter how perfect his plans and how powerful his huge machines and engines, the success he strove for would depend first of all on the character and the coöperation of the workers.

“The real engineer must above all feel the vital importance of the human side of engineering work,” he declared. “The man who would move mountains and make the flow of rivers serve human ends must first be a master of human construction.”

He knew that if there were to be able and willing workers in Panama, they must be provided with the means of comfortable and contented living. It was not enough to defeat death in the form of plague and fever; it was necessary to make life worth while. For man could not live by work alone in a land of swamps and jungles. Houses with screened porches, with gardens, and all the comforts and conveniences to be found at home were provided for the five thousand American engineers, clerks, and foremen. Ships with cold-storage equipment brought food supplies from New York or New Orleans, and every morning a long train of refrigerator-cars steamed across the isthmus carrying fresh provisions to all the hotels, town commissaries, and camps.

“You needn’t pity us because we live in the Zone,” said Mrs. Smith. “We get just as good meat and green vegetables as you can in market and at wholesale prices. Our house is rent free, with furniture, linen, and silverware provided. We have electric lights and a telephone. We even have ice-cream soda and the movies!”