CHAPTER IX
COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE
The visitor to the Canal Zone about 1913 could hardly spend a day in that bustling community without becoming aware of some mighty potentate not at all mysterious, but omnipresent and seemingly omniscient, to whom all matters at issue were referred, to whom nothing was secret, whose word was law and without whose countenance the mere presence of a visitor on the Zone was impossible. The phrases most in use were “see the Colonel,” “ask the Colonel” and “the Colonel says”. If there had been a well-conducted newspaper on the Zone these phrases would have been cast in slugs in its composing room for repeated and ready use. No President of the United States, not even Lincoln in war times, exerted the authority he daily employed in the zenith of his power. The aggrieved wife appealed to his offices for the correction of her marital woes, and the corporation with a $600,000 steam crane to sell talked over its characteristics with the Colonel.
He could turn from a vexed question of adjusting the work of the steam shovels to a new slide in the Culebra Cut, to compose the differences of rival dancing clubs over dates at the Tivoli Hotel ball-room. On all controverted questions there was but one court of last resort. As an Isthmian poetaster put it:
“See Colonel Goethals, tell Colonel Goethals,
It’s the only right and proper thing to do.
Just write a letter, or even better
Arrange a little Sunday interview”.
Engineer Stevens in a speech made at the moment of his retirement before a local club of workers said:
“You don’t need me any longer. All you have to do now is to dig a ditch. What you want is a statesman”.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood