US Presidency
1906

The difficulty of exercising a thorough supervision over the colored laborers is of course greater than is the case among the whites, and they are also less competent to take care of themselves, which accounts for the fact that their death rate is so much higher than that of the whites, in spite of the fact that they have been used to similar climatic conditions. Even among the colored employees it will be seen that the death rate is not high. In Panama and Colon the death rate has also been greatly reduced, this being directly due to the vigorous work of the special brigade of employees who have been inspecting houses where the stegomyia mosquito is to be found, and destroying its larvae and breeding places, and doing similar work in exterminating the malarial mosquitoes -in short, in performing all kinds of hygienic labor. A little over a year ago all kinds of mosquitoes, including the two fatal species, were numerous about the Culebra cut.