“Those go into the spaces among the cracked stone,” was the unruffled reply. The smile that went around the room was felt rather than heard, but the pompous politician had no further questions.
This master of men, who was never known to yield his ground when he had once taken a stand, was always a man of few words. He preferred to let acts and facts do the talking.
“You know, Colonel Goethals,” said a prominent statesman on one occasion, “a great many people think we are never going to carry this job through to the finish. What would you say when diplomats of the leading powers come at you with questions and declare it will never be done?”
“I wouldn’t say anything,” was the reply.
On another occasion the boss of the job said: “Some day in September, 1913, I expect to go to Colon and take the Panama Railroad steamer and put her through the canal. If we get all the way across, I’ll give it out to the newspapers—if we don’t, I’ll keep quiet about it.”
It was said of old that if one had faith enough he could move mountains. We cannot doubt that the Man of Panama carried through his great work because he had faith—not a passive faith that hoped and waited, but an active faithfulness that worked in full confidence that destiny worked with him. And this faith and loyalty was a living power that enkindled like faithfulness in those who worked with him.
The Man of Panama is General Goethals now, but when any admirer would imply that his generalship—his administration and human engineering—was the chief factor in the success of the great work, he invariably replies that he was but one man of many working shoulder to shoulder in a common cause. The simple greatness of the “prophet-engineer” and leader of men was shown in the words with which he accepted the medal of the National Geographic Society:
“The canal has been the work of many, and it has been the pride of Americans who have visited the isthmus to find the spirit which has
