US Presidency
1906

From my own experience I am able to say that more care had been exercised in housing, feeding, and generally paying heed to the needs of the skilled mechanics and ordinary laborers in the work on this canal than is the case in the construction of new railroads or in any other similar private or public work in the United States proper; and it is the testimony of all people competent to speak that on no other similar work anywhere in the Tropics -indeed, as far as I know, anywhere else has there been such forethought and such success achieved in providing for the needs of the men who do the work. I have now dealt with the hygienic conditions which make it possible to employ a great force of laborers, and with the task of gathering, housing, and feeding these laborers. There remains to consider the actual work which has to be done; the work because of which these laborers are gathered together the work of constructing the canal.