Panama and the Canal in Picture and Prose

by Willis J. Abbot

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.

FLOATING ISLANDS IN GATUN LOCK ENTRANCE
These islands, formed of aquatic plants with entwined roots and a little soil, must be towed away by tugs and sent over the spillway lest they block navigation.

The Canal Zone was, of course, a rural community harboring about 65,000 people scattered along a railroad 47 miles long. Yet in the story of its government there is much that is instructive to the rulers of our American cities. Every head of the Department of Sanitation in an American city would profit by a study of Col. Gorgas’s methods in dealing with the problems of dirt, sewage, and infection. Indeed many of the ideas he developed are already being adapted to the needs of North American municipalities. It is becoming quite evident that the scientific method of controlling insect pests by destroying their breeding places is the only efficient one. The larvacide man in the waste places, or the covered garbage can, and screened stable are not as melodramatic as newspaper shrieks of “Swat the Fly”, but they accomplish more in the end.

The management of the Panama Railroad by and for the government affords an object lesson that will be cited when we come to open Alaska. Though over-capitalized in the time of its private ownership and operation the railroad under the direction of Col. Goethals has paid a substantial profit. Though rushed with the work incident to the Canal construction it has successfully dealt with its commercial business, and has offered in many ways a true example of successful railway management.

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.

THE FIRST BOAT THROUGH. I.
The commission tug Gatun, with members of the commission aboard, is approaching the lower Gatun lock from the Atlantic end of the Canal. The two pairs of gates are opening for her admission.

But to my mind more important than any other outcome of the Canal work, is its complete demonstration of the ability of the United States to do its own work for its own people, efficiently, successfully and honestly. That is an exhibit that will not down. The expenditure of fully $375,000,000 with no perceptible taint of graft is a victory in itself. There are exceedingly few of our great railroad corporations that can show as clean a record, and the fact somewhat depreciates the hostility of some of their heads to the extension into their domain of the activities of the government. In urging this point no one can be blind to the fact that the Zone was governed and the Canal work directed by an autocrat. But the autocrat was directly subject to Congress and had to come to that body annually for his supplies of money. It was dug by the army, but no one now doubts that the navy could have done as well, and few will question that, with the Panama experience as a guide, a mixed commission of civilians and military and naval officers could efficiently direct any public work the nation might undertake.

THE FLAG IN TWO OCEANS.
The Oregon steamed 10,000 miles in 1898 to carry the flag from the Pacific to the theater of war in the Atlantic. Ten hours of steaming through 50 miles of canal will henceforth make our fleet available in either ocean.