TOURISTS IN THE CULEBRA CUT
The same clear foresight that led the Commission to encourage the establishment of women’s clubs caused the installation of the Y. M. C. A. on the Isthmus, where it has become perhaps the dominating social force. With a host of young bachelors employed far away from home there was need of social meeting places other than the saloons of Panama and Colon. Many schemes were suggested before it was determined to turn over the whole organization of social clubs to the governing body of the Y. M. C. A. There were at the period of the greatest activity on the Zone seven Y. M. C. A. clubs located at Cristobal, Gatun, Porto Bello, Gorgona, Empire, Culebra and Corozal. The buildings are spacious, and, as shown by the illustrations, of pleasing architectural style. On the first floor are a lobby, reading-room and library, pool and billiard room, bowling alley, a business-like bar which serves only soft drinks, a quick lunch counter, and in some cases a barber shop and baths. On the second floor is always a large assembly-room used for entertainments and dances. This matter of dancing was at first embarrassing to the Y. M. C. A., for at home this organization does not encourage the dreamy mazes of the waltz, and I am quite sure frowns disapprovingly on the swaying tango and terrible turkey trot. But conditions on the Isthmus were different and though the organization does not itself give dances, it permits the use of its halls by other clubs which do. The halls also are used for moving picture shows, concerts and lectures. The Superintendent of Club Houses, Mr. A. B. Dickson, acts as a sort of impressario, but the task of filling dates with desirable attractions is rather a complicated one 2000 miles away from the lyceum bureaus of New York.
The service of the Y. M. C. A. is not gratuitous. Members pay an annual fee of $10 each. This, however, does not wholly meet the cost of maintenance and the deficit is taken care of by the Commission, which built the club houses at the outset. That the service of the organization is useful is shown by the fact that Col. Goethals has recommended the erection of a concrete club house to cost $52,500 in the permanent town of Balboa.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood
LOBBY IN TIVOLI HOTEL
Social intercourse on the Zone is further impeded by the fact that the few thousand “gold” employees are scattered over a strip of territory 43 miles long traversed by a railroad which runs but three passenger trains daily in each direction. Dances are held on alternate Saturday nights at the Tivoli and Washington Hotels and guests cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific or vice-versa to attend them, but on these nights a special train takes the merrymakers home. If, however, a lady living at Culebra desires to have guests from Cristobal to dinner, she must keep them all night, while a popular bachelor with half a dozen dinner or party calls to make needs about three uninterrupted days to cover his list.
Church work, too, has been fostered by the Commission. Twenty-six of the churches are owned by it, and all but two are on land it owns. In 1912 there were forty churches on the Zone—seven Roman Catholic, thirteen Episcopal, seven Baptist, two Wesleyan and eight undenominational. Fifteen chaplains are maintained by the government, apportioned among the denominations in proportion to their numbers. Much good work is done by the churches, but one scarcely feels that the church spirit is as strong as it would be among the same group of people in the States. The changed order of life, due to the need of deferring to tropical conditions, has something to do with this. The stroll home from church at midday is not so pleasant a Sunday function under a glaring tropical sun. Moreover no one town can support churches of every denomination, the railroad is at least impartial in that it does not encourage one to go down the line to church any more than to a dance or the theater.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood