The Panama Canal

But all of the surmises and theories came short of the truth until Reed, Carroll, Lazear, and Agrimonte (Lazear at the cost of his life and Carroll at the cost of a nearly fatal attack of yellow fever) took up the work of proving that there was only one way in which yellow fever could be transmitted; namely, by the bite of the mosquito. Sleeping with patients who had yellow fever, wearing the clothes of those who had died from it, eating from utensils from which yellow fever victims had eaten—in short, putting to the most rigid test every other possible method of infection, they proved by every negative test that yellow fever could not be produced in any way other than by the bite of a mosquito.

The next step was to give affirmative proof that yellow fever was caused by the bite of the female "stegomyia"—she of the striped stockings and the shrill song. This meant that someone had to have enough love for humanity to risk his life by inviting one of the worst forms of death to which human flesh is heir. Those doctors knew that they could not as brave men ask others to undergo the risks that they themselves might not accept, so in a little council chamber in Havana the three Americans—Reed, Carroll, and Lazear—entered into a compact that they themselves would permit infected mosquitoes to bite them. Reed was called home, but Carroll and Lazear stood with the keen and cold eyes of scientists and saw the mosquitoes inject the fateful poison into their blood. Later, after Lazear had died and Carroll had stood in the jaws of death, soldiers of the American army in Cuba volunteered in the interest of humanity to undergo these same risks. And it was thus, at this price, that the world came to know how yellow fever is caused, and that the United States was to be able to build the Panama Canal.

After the guilt of the female "stegomyia" mosquito was firmly established the next problem was to find a method of combating her work. Dr. Reed and his associates thought that it might be done through a process of immunization, using the mosquito to bite patients with very mild cases, and after the necessary period of incubation, to transmit the disease to those who were to be rendered immune. It was soon found, however, that there was no method of transmitting a mild infection, and the next problem was to combat the work of the mosquito by isolation of yellow fever patients, and by the extermination of the mosquitoes themselves.

In Havana at this time there was another army surgeon who was destined to write his name high upon the pages of medical achievement. He was Dr. William C. Gorgas. Under the patronage of Gen. Leonard Wood, himself a physician and alive to the lessons of the yellow fever commission's investigations, Major Gorgas undertook to apply the doctrine of yellow fever prevention promulgated by the commission, and his efforts were attended with brilliant success. The result was that Havana, in particular, and Cuba, in general, were freed from this great terror of the Tropics. When President Roosevelt came to provide for the building of the Panama Canal one of his earlier acts was to appoint Dr. Gorgas the chief sanitary officer of the Canal Zone.

At first there was difficulty in establishing practical sanitation in Panama. The chief sanitary officer was then a subordinate of the commission, and, along with all of the other men who were trying to do things on the Isthmus, he found himself hindered by unsatisfactory conditions both as to supplies and as to force; consequently, his work was no more satisfactory to himself than it was to the commission or to the American people. Under these conditions an epidemic of yellow fever broke out in Panama in 1905, and it was not long before the yellow fever mosquito had seemingly established an alibi and had secured a reopening of her case before the jury of public sentiment. People, to emphasize their disbelief in the mosquito theory of the transmission of the disease, tore the screens from their doors and windows, and otherwise proclaimed their contempt for the doctors and their doctrines. This matter went so far that the Isthmian Canal Commission proposed not only a change in method but a change in personnel as well.

At this juncture Charles E. Magoon became governor of the Canal Zone, and he declared that Dr. Gorgas should have adequate financial and moral support. He was determined that the panic which the yellow fever outbreak had engendered should be halted—and a panic it was, for men rushed madly to Colon and defied the efforts of the commission, and of the captains and crews of the Panama Railroad steamships, to prevent them from returning to the States without other transportation arrangements than a determination to get aboard and stay there until the Statue of Liberty had been passed in New York Harbor. So great was this panic that Chief Engineer Stevens declared that there were three diseases at Panama: Yellow fever, malaria, and cold feet: and that the greatest of these was cold feet. The newspapers of the United States at that time quoted the poetry of such writers as Gilbert, who said:

It did not matter that in four months there were only 47 deaths on the Isthmus from yellow fever as compared with 108 from malaria in the same period—men do not stop to study mortality tables and to compare the relative fatalities of diseases when yellow fever stares them in the face.

But after all, the yellow fever panic of 1905 served a good purpose, for if the mosquito thereby secured a reopening of its case, it stirred the United States Government to give to the sanitary officers of the Canal Zone the powers they needed, and the means required to prove finally and forever in the court of last resort, the guilt of the mosquito, and to establish for once and all the method of combating its stealthy work.

The whole world recognizes the remarkable results in sanitary work that have been achieved at Panama. While it must be remembered that the population of the Canal Zone is made up largely of able-bodied men, and that, therefore, the death rate naturally would be lower than under like conditions with a normal population of infancy and old age, the fact remains that sanitary science has converted the Zone from a mosquito paradise of swamp and jungle into a region where mosquitoes have all but disappeared, and where men are as free from danger of epidemic diseases as in the United States itself.

The sanitary statistics of the Canal Zone, and of the cities of Panama and Colon, were based for several years upon an erroneous assumption of population. The Department of Sanitation estimated the population of the Canal Zone by deducting the recorded emigrants from the recorded immigrants and assumed that the difference represented a permanent addition to the Zone's population. Under this method of estimating population a serious error crept in, since hundreds of people came into Panama from the Panaman outports and were recorded as arrivals, but who, departing in small sailing vessels and launches at night after the port officers had gone home, were not recorded as having departed. In this way the sanitary department estimates of population in the Canal Zone reached a total of 93,000 in 1912. The census taken that year showed only 62,000 population in the Zone. This served to make the death rate given out by the Department of Sanitation 50 per cent lower than was justified by actual population conditions.

But one does not need to consider figures to realize what has been accomplished at Panama. Anyone who goes there and sees the remarkable evidence of the success of the efforts to conquer the disease of the tropical jungles, finds a lesson taught that is too impressive to need the confirmation of medical statistics.

The United States, after the yellow fever outbreak of 1905, never counted the cost when the health of the canal army was at stake. Not only was Uncle Sam successful in his efforts to make the Canal Zone and the terminal cities of Panama and Colon healthful places of abode, but no worker on the canal was denied the privilege of the best medical care. An average of $2,000,000 a year was expended in the prevention of sickness and the care of those who were sick. At Ancon and at Colon large hospitals were maintained where the white American and the West Indian negro had their respective wards. At Taboga a large sanitarium was maintained to assist the recuperation of those who had recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital. Besides this there were rest camps along the line for those not ill enough to be removed to the hospitals, and dispensaries where those who felt they were not in need of other medical attention could consult with the physicians and get the necessary medicines. All medical services to the employees of the Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad were free, and only nominal charges were made for members of their families. No passenger train crossed the Isthmus of Panama without carrying a hospital car for taking patients to or from the hospitals. No way station was without its waiting shed bearing the inscription: "For Hospital Patients Only." Each community had its dispensary, its doctor, and its sanitary inspector.

During the year 1912 there were 48,000 cases of sickness in the Canal Zone, of which 26,000 were white and 22,000 colored. During the same year 633,000 trips to the dispensaries were made by employees and nonemployees, divided almost evenly between white and colored. The average number of employees constantly sick in Ancon Hospital was 712; in Colon Hospital 209; and in Taboga Sanitarium 54. An average of 119 were in the sick camps all the time and 50 in the quarters. The average number of days' treatment per employee in the hospitals was a little over 14; in the sick camps a little under 3; and in quarters 2¹⁄₃. It cost $160,000 a year to feed the patients in the hospitals and $739,000 a year to operate the hospitals.

The work of sanitation proper cost some $400,000 a year. This includes many items. During one year about 16,000,000 square yards of brush were cut and burned; a million square yards of swamp were drained; 30,000,000 square yards of grass were cut; 250,000 feet of ditches were dug; and some 2,000,000 linear feet of old ditches were cleaned. During the same year nearly a million garbage cans and over 300,000 refuse cans were emptied. In addition to looking after the health of the Canal Zone itself, it was necessary to care for that of the cities of Panama and Colon. In the city of Panama 11,000 loads of sweepings and 25,000 loads of garbage were removed in one year; 3,000,000 gallons of water were sprinkled on the streets and as much more distributed to the poor of the city.

During one year the quarantine service, which keeps a strict lookout for yellow fever, bubonic plague, and other epidemic diseases, inspected over 100,000 passengers coming into the Zone. It required about 150,000 gallons of mosquito oil a year to keep down the mosquitoes. There are 50 known breeds of these insects on the Isthmus and perhaps some 20 species more which have not been identified. Of the 50 or more species of mosquitoes 11 belonged to the malaria-producing family—anopheles. Their cousins of the yellow-fever-producing family—the stegomyias—boast of only two species. What the other 40 or more kinds are doing besides annoying suffering humanity has not been determined. The mosquito is comparatively easy to exterminate. Its life habits are such that a terrific mortality may be produced among them during infancy. The average young mosquito, during its "wriggler" state of development, lives under the water and has to make about 8,000 trips to the surface for air before it can spread its wings and fly. If oil is poured upon the water it can get no air and death by asphyxiation follows. Two classes of larvaecide are used on the waters to exterminate the baby mosquitoes: One is an oil used to make a scum over the surface; the other a carbolic solution which poisons the water. At the head of every little rivulet and tiny, trickling stream one sees a barrel out of which comes an endless drip! drip! drip! These drops of oil or poison are carried down the stream and make inhospitable all of the mosquito nurseries of the marshes through which the waters flow. In addition to these barrels, men go about with tanks on their backs, spraying the marshy ground and the small, isolated pools of water with larvaecides.

This method of treatment has not exterminated all mosquitoes on the Isthmus, but it has so materially reduced their number that one may stay in the Zone for weeks without seeing a single one. This is a freedom, however, that must be paid for by vigilance of the most painstaking and unremitting sort. The moment the work is relaxed the mosquitoes again spread over the territory.

The United States Government will have to continue with the utmost care its work of sanitation and quarantine at Panama. If, after the canal is completed, an epidemic of bubonic plague or yellow fever should break out, it might very seriously interfere with the operation of the canal in several ways. To begin with, it would demoralize the operating force. Further than this, India and China are afraid of yellow fever because in both of these countries the stegomyia mosquito abounds. If the disease should obtain a foothold there it would be difficult to exterminate. Europe, also, might be expected to quarantine against Panama under such conditions. A 10,000-ton freighter carrying cargo through the canal would lose at least a thousand dollars for every day it was detained in quarantine by reason of having visited the canal.

A shrewd observer has said that the successful sanitation of the Isthmus of Panama is a triumph at once of medical science and of despotic government. Probably this does not overstate the case. The methods employed at Panama were arbitrary, and had to be. They probably could not be enforced at all in a democratic community in ordinary times. The people would rebel against the severity of the regulations and against the incidental invasion of their privacy. But strike any community, however free, with the fear of a swift and deadly disease and it will submit—as witness the shot-gun quarantines that used to demark the northern limits of the yellow fever zone in our own Southern States, or the despotism that governed New Orleans in the terror of 1905. At Panama this fear is ever present, so there is little danger that a responsible majority there ever would resist the sanitary work on the grounds of outraged democracy. It may be that a popular government would become careless, or inefficient, but it would not renounce the pretension. This has been proved in Cuba.

The sanitarians at Panama gave to the workers there a sense of security that contributed no little to the spirit of determination so universally remarked and commended by visitors to the Zone during the era of construction. While there was no immunity from sickness and death, yet there was no panic, no constant dread, such as destroyed the morale of the French force. The Isthmus of Panama still remained hot, its inhabitants still were forced to take the precautions that aliens must take in the Tropics; but they were inspired with a confidence that if these precautions were taken they would not be in any greater danger than if they had remained in their northern homes.

Pestilence, the scourge of the on-sweeping epidemic, the plague of swift death that is only a little worse than the panic of fear it inspires—this was the thing that was stamped out.

Not since the Science of Healing opened its doors to the Science of Prevention have physicians scored a greater victory in their fight against disease and death than on the Isthmus of Panama. Not only did they help to build the canal; they demonstrated that tropical diseases are capable of human control and thereby opened up a vista of hope undreamed of to all that sweltering and suffering mass of humanity that inhabits the Torrid Zone.

CHAPTER X

Soon after New Year's Day, 1907, the chief engineer of the canal, John F. Stevens, dissatisfied with the relations that existed between the Government and himself, came to the conclusion that he could not build the canal hampered as he was by red tape at Washington. It then became a question of whether or not the canal should be built by contract or by the Army. President Roosevelt asked for a preliminary report upon this proposition and the unheralded Army engineer who had visited the Canal Zone in 1905, made it. A few days later there was a conference between President Roosevelt, Gen. Alexander MacKenzie, Chief of Engineers of the United States Army, and the Secretary of War. After this conference Maj. George Washington Goethals was summoned to the White House and informed by the President that it had been determined to build the Panama Canal under the auspices of the Army, and that he was appointed chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission. He was requested to keep the fact of his appointment a secret and to prepare immediately to go to Panama. A ship sailed for the Isthmus three days thereafter, and he was ready to sail when the President advised him that he might wait over and arrange affairs in Washington, leaving in time to get to the Isthmus to take charge on the first of April.

When the announcement was made to the country that the work of building the canal was to be put in the hands of the Army, the whole country began to inquire: Who is Major Goethals? that inquiry revealed the fact that he was a man who had accomplished much in his 49 years. Born in 1858, of Dutch parents, whose ancestors had settled in New York when it was still New Amsterdam, he was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point where he was graduated in the class of 1880 with such honors that he was entitled to enter the Engineer Corps of the Regular Army.

In 1891 he rose to the rank of captain, and in 1898 became lieutenant colonel and chief engineer of the First Volunteer Army Corps in Cuba. On the last day of that year he was honorably discharged from the volunteer service, and, in 1900, became a major in the Engineer Corps of the Regular Army. For a number of years prior to 1898 he had been instructor in civil and military engineering at West Point. He had been in charge of the Mussel Shoals canal construction on the Tennessee River, a work which won praise from engineers both in civil and in military life. It was in a measure his record made on the Tennessee River work that led to his appointment as chairman and chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal.

When he took charge of the work at Panama he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Arriving there he immediately informed all hands that while the work of building the canal had been placed under Army engineers, no man who was then on the job and faithfully executing his work need fear anything from that administration. From that time down to the last stages of the work that statement held good. Trained at West Point, brought up in the atmosphere of the Army, a lover of its traditions and in full sympathy with its spirit, he laid aside everything that might handicap the success of the undertaking and sought at once to get the full benefit of all that was best in the Army and in civil life as well. He put his uniform in moth balls when he started to the Isthmus, and from that day to this no man has ever seen him on the Canal Zone wearing an Army uniform.

When he took charge of the big job, the foundations upon which he was to build the superstructure of his success had been laid by his predecessors, but there were many weak points in these foundations as well as many strong ones. With a spirit of utilizing to the fullest extent every advantage that the administrations of the former chief engineers had left on the Isthmus, he undertook to make only such changes as time demonstrated were necessary to the success of the project. At that time 6,000,000 cubic yards of material had been removed from the big waterway. Confronting him was the task of removing some 215,000,000 yards the while building a great dam containing 21,000,000 cubic yards, constructing a series of gigantic locks containing four and a half million cubic yards of concrete, and providing for the happiness and welfare of the sixty-odd thousand people who constituted the canal army and its camp followers.

In the years that followed his appointment he proved himself in every way worthy of his assignment as the managing director of the most stupendous piece of work ever undertaken by man. Furthermore, he established a claim to the title of the "Great Digger." No other man in the history of the world has ever superintended the excavation of an amount of earth half as great as that which has been taken out of the Panama Canal during his administration. Since he went to the canal to "make the dirt fly" the material excavated under his command, together with that placed in the locks and dams, equals the amount necessary to take out to cut a tunnel 13 feet square through the earth at the Equator.

No man ever carried to a great position less fuss and feathers than Colonel Goethals took to his work as chairman and chief engineer of the Panama Canal. When, during the construction period, one visited his office at Culebra, on almost any afternoon, he would find there an unpretentious little room in the corner of the administration building, about 18 feet square, containing four windows, overlooking the cut from two sides, its painted walls hung with maps, its floors uncarpeted, and in the center a large double-sided, flat-top desk covered with papers. A swivel chair at the desk and two or three other chairs constituted the furnishings of this room. The visitor walked directly into the office of his private secretary and the chief clerk, and if he had anything worth while about which to see the chairman and chief engineer he was detained only long enough for the man ahead of him to get out. With "no time like the present" as his motto in handling the business of his office, he, the busiest man on the Isthmus, and one of the busiest in the world for that matter, always seemed to have more time than many men of lesser responsibilities and far fewer burdens. He once declared that he had a contempt for the man who always tried to make it appear that he was too busy to see his callers, because his callers were frequently as busy as he himself.

The fact is that he is a man with a very unusual gift in the dispatch of work. System has been the key-note of his success. With thousands of details every day to look after, he has always kept his work so well in hand that to the casual observer he seemed to be the most leisurely man on the Isthmus. He maintained a well-established routine all through his career on the canal. His mornings usually were spent going over the work. When the morning trains passed Culebra at 7 o'clock they found him up, breakfasted, and at the station.

Although these trains carried parlor cars, one would seldom see the chairman and chief engineer riding in them. Rather, he consistently chose to ride in the ordinary day coaches with his sub-engineers, with the steam-shovel men, and with the rank and file of the Americans who made possible the success of the work at Panama. There were few of these Americans whom he did not know by name, and with whom he did not pass a pleasant word whenever he chanced to meet them.

A morning trip over the work with this presiding genius of the big ditch reveals perhaps better than anything else the makeup of the man and the secret of his success.

"Meet me on the early train to-morrow morning at Miraflores," said he to one of his visitors in the early summer of 1913, "and we will go over the Pacific end of the work."

This meant that both the chief engineer and the visitor had to leave comfortable beds at 5 o'clock in the morning to keep the appointment. At 7 o'clock they met at Miraflores. "We will walk through the tunnel if you don't mind," said he, "as I don't want to hold up a dirt train if it can be avoided."

At the other end of the railroad tunnel, the only one on the Isthmus, a railway motor car stood on the siding ready to pick up the distinguished engineer and carry him to the Miraflores Locks. This motor car is something like a limousine on railroad trucks, and was affectionately known by the people on the Isthmus, as "the yellow peril" and "the brain wagon." The first stop was at the concrete work on the spillway dam at Miraflores.

"How soon do you expect to have this dam up to its full height?" he asked of the division engineer who joined him there. "Can't you find room to operate another temporary concrete mixer down there?" he queried further. "Is there anything else you need to keep the work moving forward so as to be certain to complete the dam by the time you promised?"

Going a little farther he came to a place where one division was doing some work for another division. "Don't you think it would be more satisfactory to keep both parts of that work under one division? Why don't you allow it all to be done by the other people?"

Walking across the locks on the temporary bridge the chief engineer and his assistant came to a point where the concrete lamp posts for lighting the locks were being set up. "Don't you think that it would better avoid any settling if you were to place beams of railroad iron across those spaces and rest the posts on them?" he queried.

A little farther on he met the engineer in charge of the work of the company erecting the gates. "When do you think you will have the gates in the west chambers completed so that we can put the dredge through?" he inquired of Mr. Wright.

"Well, sir," replied Mr. Wright, "if we have good luck I hope to have them done by the first of September; if we have fair luck we ought to have them completed by the middle of September; but at the lowest calculation I can promise them to you by the first of October."

"But have you taken into consideration all of the time you are likely to lose as the result of heavy rains?" queried the chief engineer.

"I have made full allowance therefor, I think," responded Mr. Wright.

Walking on, the watchful eye of the chief engineer fell upon a new baby railway track which was being laid through the eastern lock chambers. "What are you planning to do there?" he asked of the division engineer.

"We wanted to get some additional material through the locks and Mr. Wright informed us that if we would furnish the timbers, he would make it so that we could run these little engines through there," responded the engineer.

"But did you have a definite understanding with him that this should afford no excuse for any further delay in completing the gates?" queried Colonel Goethals.

"We did, sir," responded the division engineer.

"All right then, go ahead."

At this point the party boarded the motor car again and was taken to the big dike which was to hold the Pacific Ocean from flooding the locks after a dike a mile farther down had been blown out. "How much water do you have in the stretch between the two dikes?" he asked of the division engineer. He next wanted to know how many million cubic feet they were able to pump and siphon in, and how much the Rio Grande was bringing in per day. Then he wanted to know if every possible precaution had been taken to insure the watertightness of the new dike; how many thousand pounds of dynamite had been placed under the one to be blown up; how many holes this dynamite was placed in; and a large number of other bits of information which would tell him whether every safeguard had been thrown around the plan to insure its success.

Going up on the other side of the canal the party came to the earth dam joining the west lock walls with the hills, so as to impound 58 feet of water in Miraflores Lake. "How soon do you expect to get that connection made between the lock walls and the dam proper?" he queried of the engineer in immediate charge.

"In four weeks, sir."

"All right," answered Colonel Goethals, "you can't get that done any too soon to suit me."

And so he went over the work around Miraflores from beginning to end, talking now with an Irishman in charge of dumping the material on the inside of the dam, now with a man in charge of some concrete work, and now with the division engineer himself. By 11 o'clock he had inspected every part of this division and was ready to take his car back to Culebra. In four hours he had seen every man responsible for any important work around Miraflores; had offered a suggestion there, a word of encouragement here, and had obtained a bit of information at another place.

Each day's morning program was like this one except as to the place he visited and the people with whom he talked. One morning he might be tramping over Cucaracha Slide, studying the prospects of its future. Another morning he might be down at Gatun watching an official test of an emergency dam. On these trips he usually wore either a most unmilitary-looking blue serge or gray cheviot, with a somewhat weather-beaten sailor straw hat, and carried a cheap dollar umbrella.

When Colonel Goethals went to the Isthmus he promised that every man with a grievance should have a hearing. Each Sunday morning he had at his office at Culebra what he termed his Sunday "at homes," the best attended functions on the Isthmus, where the blackest Jamaica negro on the job found as much of a welcome as the highest official. These functions were for the purpose of hearing the canal employees who had grievances. Once a visitor was congratulating him upon the smooth manner in which the canal-building machine seemed to be working. "You ought to attend one of my Sunday 'at homes,'" he replied. "You would think that there was no smoothness at all to its running."

Here is the wife of one of the engineers: She wants to find out why it is that she cannot get bread from the Ancon Hospital bakery. She informs Colonel Goethals that Joseph B. Bishop, secretary of the commission, gets bread from the hospital bakery and wants to know why she cannot. "I will look into the matter for you," says the chief engineer, and a note of this complaint is made. Later the telephone bell rings and Mr. Bishop is asked if he gets bread at the hospital bakery. He replies in the affirmative, explaining that about three years ago he had breakfasted with Colonel Gorgas who arranged for him to buy his bread there instead of at the commissary, this bread being more to his liking. "Can't any other employee of the Canal Commission get bread there under the same terms?" queries the chief engineer. "I will see, sir," responds the secretary of the commission. "If they can not," answers the chief engineer, "you must have your bread stopped at once." And it was stopped.

The next person received is the representative of the Kangaroos, a fraternal order. "The Spanish American War veterans get free transportation on a special train on Memorial Day," he is informed, "and the fraternal orders on the Zone are crowded out." "Let a committee of all the fraternal orders appear next Sunday and talk it over with me and we will see what we can do," responds the chief engineer.

Here comes a negro who says that his boss is a tyrant and abuses his men: "I will look into that," responds the presiding genius of the canal, and the Jamaican goes away with an expansive smile on his face.

And so it went. Small affairs, big affairs, and indifferent ones were brought to his attention. In perhaps 80 per cent of them he could not do what was requested, but when able he did it so promptly, and in such a positive, straightforward manner, that his "at homes" have been compared, by the French ambassador to the United States, to the court of justice held by Saint Louis beneath the oak at Vincennes.

A railroad engineer on one of the dirt trains got drunk and ran over a negro. He was sent to the penitentiary. The railroad men issued an ultimatum saying that if he were not released by a certain hour on a certain day, every dirt train on the canal would stop. A committee conveyed this ultimatum to Colonel Goethals and asked his decision. "You will get it at the penitentiary," he replied. "This man will remain in prison and every man who quits work on that account will be dropped from the rolls." There was no strike of engineers.

At another time the waiters at the Tivoli Hotel went on strike. The whole force was promptly discharged, and the official paper of the Canal Commission carried their names with the announcement that thereafter they would not be eligible to employment in any capacity on the Canal Zone.

If the chairman and chief engineer of the canal is just and firm in his relations with his men, he is no less generous in giving credit where credit belongs. Upon one occasion he was talking about the success of the canal project with a friend, and declared that the world would never give to John F. Stevens the credit that was due him in the construction of the canal. "You know," said he, "the real problem of building this canal has been that of removing the spoil; that problem was preeminently the problem of a railroad man and to solve it demanded the services of one of the best men in the railroad business. We have extended the facilities laid out by Mr. Stevens, and have modified them as experience and conditions have demanded, but they have been operated from that day to this under the general plan of transportation laid out by Mr. Stevens. I do not think that any Army engineer in the United States could have laid out such excellent transportation facilities."

At another time, in discussing this same matter, he declared that it was his firm opinion that the canal could have been built by either of the former chief engineers, John F. Wallace or John F. Stevens, if they had been allowed a free hand. "You see," said he, "they were men who were accustomed to handling big construction jobs. They would outline their project and the cost of executing it to a board of directors who would pass upon it and then leave them absolutely unhampered in the matter of personnel and method, with results as the only criterion of their success. When they came to the Isthmus they found their hands tied by red tape. They had never dealt with a President, a Secretary of War, a Congress, and the public at large. Naturally, they grew restive under the conditions which confronted them and resigned.

"The whole difference is largely that of training. The Army officer knows from the time he leaves West Point that he has to work in harmony with his superiors, with the President, the Secretary of War, and Congress. That is why we have been able to stay where men from civil life have thrown up the job."

Another remarkable characteristic of the Great Digger is his desire to do his work economically as well as to do it promptly. When he went to the Isthmus there was an insistent demand that the dirt be made to fly. Along with the administration in Washington he realized that the only way to gain the faith and confidence of the people in the work, a faith and confidence essential to its full success, was to measure up to their desire that the dirt begin to fly. It was not a time to consider economies then. But, as soon as those demands had been met and the people had been shown that the Army could make good, a cost-keeping system was introduced. Men doing identical work were pitted against one another; Army engineers were placed in command of one task here and civilian engineers in command of another task there; and thus a healthy rivalry was established.

As Colonel Gaillard, member of the commission, and engineer of the Central Division, testified before a congressional committee, his early work in Culebra Cut was to get out as much dirt as possible, while his later work was given over largely to a study and comparison of cost sheets with a view to cutting down the expense of removing a yard of material, with the result that he was able to show a saving of $17,000,000 in a 9-mile section of the Panama Canal as compared with the estimates of 1908.

In other words, Colonel Goethals took that golden rule of all great soldiers, "get there first with the most men," and adapted it to read "dig the most dirt with the least money." He had ever in mind three things: Safe construction, rapid progress, and low costs. On these three foundation stones in his mind was reared the structure that stands as the highest example of engineering science, and as the proudest constructive accomplishment of the American Republic.

At the northern entrance to the Suez Canal stands a statue of de Lesseps, a beckoning hand inviting the shipping of the world to go through. Perhaps no such statue of Goethals ever will stand at Panama, but there is no need. The canal itself is his monument and its story will ever endure.

CHAPTER XI

The first ship to arrive at Panama carried Maj. Gen. George W. Davis, who was to govern the Canal Zone; Col. William C. Gorgas, who was to make it sanitary; and George R. Shanton, who was to drive out the criminal element. Governor Davis was a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission, Colonel Gorgas had proved his worth in the sanitation of Cuba, and Shanton had been a "rough rider" with Colonel Roosevelt in the Cuban campaign.

When Chief Engineer Wallace arrived on the scene he found there an all but abandoned project. There were hundreds of French houses, but nearly all of them were in the jungle and practically unfit for human habitation. He found millions of dollars' worth of French machinery, but almost none of it in condition to be put into service immediately. He knew in a general way the line of the canal, but surveys were lacking to determine its exact location at every point. With this situation in front of him, he found it necessary to concentrate his efforts upon the problem of getting ready for the work. While he was doing this the people at home began to demand that the dirt fly. Colonel Gorgas also found conditions which challenged his best efforts. Colon was a paradise of disease, Panama was no better. It was only by making both of these cities over again, from a sanitary standpoint, that any hope could be held out for reasonably healthy conditions.

During his stay on the Isthmus Mr. Wallace found himself handicapped at every turn by red tape, a new thing in his experience as a construction engineer. He could buy nothing without asking for bids; every idea he sought to put into execution had to be submitted to Washington, and he found himself so harassed and handicapped that he wanted a new plan of organization.

Acting in accordance with his recommendations, President Roosevelt decided to accept the resignation of the existing Canal Commission, and to appoint a new one, in which, instead of having independent departments, with the governor independent of the chief engineer, and the chief sanitary officer independent of both the governor and the chief engineer, there should be a more united relation, in which all questions were to be decided by the commission as a whole, the final authority being vested in an executive committee composed of the chairman, the governor of the Canal Zone, and the chief engineer.

Under this plan, the second Isthmian Canal Commission was organized. It consisted of Theodore P. Shonts, chairman; Charles E. Magoon, Governor of the Canal Zone; John F. Wallace, chief engineer; Mordecai T. Endicott; Peter C. Hains; Oswald H. Ernst; and Benjamin A. Harrod. Following the suggestion of Chief Engineer Wallace, the control of the Panama Railroad was also vested in the new commission.

While these changes were being made Chief Engineer Wallace was in Washington. There was dissatisfaction on the Isthmus with an accompanying spirit of unrest, and, to make matters worse, a yellow-fever epidemic broke out. Only a few days after Mr. Wallace reached the Isthmus, he cabled the Secretary of War that he wished to return to Washington, hinting that he might resign. Secretary Taft cabled to Governor Magoon for an opinion as to the motives which were behind this step on the part of Mr. Wallace, and was advised that it was brought about by the offer of a better salary and the fear of the yellow-fever epidemic. When Mr. Wallace reached New York he had a stormy interview with Secretary Taft, who roundly denounced him for quitting at such a critical time. Mr. Wallace declared his lack of confidence in the ability of Colonel Gorgas to control the yellow-fever epidemic, and asserted that the continual interference of red tape was so distracting to him as to make new employment attractive. President Roosevelt upheld his Secretary of War in his denunciation of Mr. Wallace, and promptly appointed John F. Stevens chief engineer at a salary of $30,000.

John F. Stevens arrived on the Isthmus on July 27, 1905. He found the Panama Railroad almost in a state of collapse. He declared that the only claim heard for it was that there had been no collisions for some time. "A collision has its good points as well as its bad ones," he observed, "for it indicates that there is something moving on the railroad."

Mr. Stevens immediately set to work to build up the road, and to provide the means for housing and feeding the canal army. But like his predecessor he found Government red tape hampering, and in his first annual report begged for "a thorough business administration unhampered by any tendency to technicalities, into which our public work sometimes drifts." He protested against civil-service requirements on the Isthmus, and against the eight-hour working day; and President Roosevelt met his protests by exempting all employees except clerks from the operations of civil-service rules, and by abrogating the eight-hour day.

It was under the régime of Mr. Stevens that the question arose as to whether the canal should be built as a sea-level channel through the Isthmus, or as a lock canal with the water in the middle section 85 feet above the level of the sea. President Roosevelt thereupon appointed a board of consulting engineers, made up of 14 members, to visit the Isthmus and determine what type of canal should be built. Five members of this board of consulting engineers were foreigners appointed by their respective Governments at the request of President Roosevelt. They included the inspector general of Public Works of France, the consulting engineer of the Suez Canal, the chief engineer of the Manchester Canal, the chief engineer of the Kiel Canal, and the chief engineer of the Dutch dike system. Three of the American engineers and all five of the foreign engineers voted in favor of a sea-level canal. Chief Engineer Stevens and all but one member of the Isthmian Canal Commission concurred in the vote of the minority, made up wholly of American engineers in favor of the lock canal. President Roosevelt sustained the minority report, and Congress sustained him in the law of June 29, 1906.

In the fall of 1906 Chairman Shonts came out in advocacy of a plan to build the canal by contract. Here arose a difference between Mr. Shonts and Mr. Stevens, and Chairman Shonts shortly thereafter resigned. A few months later Chief Engineer Stevens also resigned. It is said that his resignation was mainly due to his objection to the appointment of Army engineers as members of the Canal Commission, and to a letter he wrote the President in which he scored the limitations of red tape and Government methods generally. When Mr. Stevens quitted the Isthmus he left behind him the nucleus of the general organization for building of the canal. He saw housing conditions brought up to the required standard, established the necessary commissary where canal employees could supply their needs at reasonable prices, and aided Colonel Gorgas in his fight to make the Isthmus healthful.

At this juncture the organization destined to build the canal was put into effect, with Colonel George W. Goethals at its head. Colonel Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer, was the only important official of the old régime held over. The other members of the commission were Maj. D. D. Gaillard and Maj. William L. Sibert, of the United States Engineer Corps; Civil Engineer H. H. Rousseau, of the United States Navy; and Messrs. J. C. S. Blackburn and Jackson Smith.