US Presidency
1906

The writer in question usually confined himself to vague general mendacity; but in this case he specifically stated that there was no water in the vicinity fit for a reservoir ( I drank it, and it was excellent ), and that this particular reservoir would never hold water anyway. Accompanying this message, as I have said above, is a photograph of the reservoir as I myself saw it, and as it has been in existence ever since the article in question was published. With typical American humor, the engineering corps still at work at the reservoir have christened a large boat which is now used on the reservoir by the name of the individual who thus denied the possibility of the reservoir's existence. I rode through the streets of Colon, seeing them at the height of the rainy season, after two days of almost unexampled downpour, when they were at their very worst. Taken as a whole they were undoubtedly very bad; as bad as Pennsylvania avenue in Washington before Grant's Administration.