“Say”, he began ingratiatingly, “you don’t really need to be in that house October first, do you? Would a few days more or less make any difference to you”?
“Not a bit”.
“Well, then”, cheering up, “won’t you just tell the Colonel a little delay won’t bother you”?
“Not I! I want to stay on this Isthmus. If you want to try to get the Colonel’s orders changed you do it. But none of that for me”.
And the day before the time fixed the house was turned over complete.
It is fair to say however that peremptory as is Col. Goethals in his orders, and implacable in his insistence on literal obedience, he yields to the orders of those who rank him precisely what he exacts from those whom he commands. The following dialogue from a hearing before the House Committee on Appropriations will illustrate my point. The subject matter was the new Washington Hotel at Colon.
“The Chairman: Did you ever inquire into the right of the Panama Railroad Company, under the laws of the State of New York, to go into the hotel business?
“Col. Goethals: No sir; I got an order from the President of the United States to build that hotel and I built it”.
Photo by Underwood & Underwood