# Panama, past and present/Chapter 16

CHAPTER XVI
WHAT THE FUTURE MAY BRING FORTH
JANUARY FIRST, 1915, is the date set for the official opening of the Panama Canal. Unlike de Lesseps, who first announced positively that the Canal would be opened in a very short time, and then began to discover difficulties and make postponements, our engineers carefully studied the task before them, figured out that they could finish it by the first of June, 1914, and then added six months' extra time, to make sure. On the first of June, 1912, the excavation was more than seven-eighths completed, and the locks and dams were not far behind.
When asked if the Canal would not be opened ahead of schedule time, Colonel Goethals replied, "Some time in September, 1913, I expect to go over to Colon, take the Panama Railroad steamer that happens to be at the dock there, and put her through the Canal. If we get all the way across to the Pacific, I’ll give it out to the newspapers, and if we don't, I’ll keep quiet about it."
It is interesting to note that this first voyage of a ship across the American continent may take place four hundred years to a month, and perhaps to a day, after Balboa's discovery of the Pacific. Though the Canal will then be informally opened, a great deal more work will have to be done on it before it will be completely finished. ​The operating force will have to learn how to work the huge gates and elaborate sluices, and pilots must know how to take ships through the new waterway. To give them practice, as well as to accommodate commerce, vessels will be allowed to pass through the Canal during this period, at their owners' risk. The final test will be at the official opening, when a great fleet of American and foreign warships, led by the President of the United States in the Mayflower, and followed by a long line of yachts, excursion steamers, and merchant craft, will all pass through the Canal in procession. May the spirits of Columbus and Balboa be there to see!
But when we are done with the saluting and champagne-drinking, and speechifying (orators almost invariably refer to the Panama Canal as "mingling the waters of the two oceans," in spite of its having a high-level, fresh-water lake in the middle), what good is the Canal going to do us? What return are we going to get on the three hundred and fifty million dollars it hast cost us?
It is much easier to prophesy than to make your prophecies come true, as was proved in the case of the Suez Canal. Most people declared that it would be an utter failure, and instead it has made its stockholders rich; others thought it would restore the old commercial supremacy of the Mediterranean, but the people who most benefited by it were the English, who had taken no part in building it and made fun of the French for doing so; and finally, there were many unexpected results of the opening of the Suez Canal, that no one had dreamed of. For instance, it brought the Philippines ​so much nearer Spain that many more Spaniards went out there to make their fortunes, and they robbed the natives so energetically that the latter started a series of insurrections that did not end until after the islands became American. No man can tell what the ultimate results may be of the opening of the Panama Canal. But the benefits which we expect to derive from it may be divided into two classes: military and commercial.
Even if it should prove an utter failure commercially, the Canal would still be worth all it has cost us, for military purposes alone. Without it, Uncle Sam is in the position of a householder who has to run around the block to chase a tramp out of the back yard. With it, we can keep our navy concentrated in one powerful fleet, and move it from the Caribbean to San Francisco, or back again, in a couple of weeks. More than two months was required for the battle-ship Oregon to steam at full speed round South America from San Francisco to Cuba, where she was sorely needed at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. Had the Panama Canal been in existence in 1898, she would have had to go only four thousand, six hundred miles, instead of thirteen thousand, four hundred, and she would have been ready to meet the enemy's fleet six weeks earlier—and a lot of things can happen in the first six weeks of a modern war.
To prevent any foreign fleet from capturing the Isthmus, and using the Canal against us, heavy fortifications are being built at both the Atlantic and Pacific ends. This work is being done by Lieutenant George R. Goethals. the elder son of the builder of the Canal. ​More than twelve million dollars is to be spent in building great concrete forts and gun-pits on the islands and headlands, and arming them with batteries of twelve-inch mortars and fourteen-inch disappearing-guns. Most formidable of all will be the gigantic sixteen-inch gun, now at Sandy Hook, that can throw a shell, capable of sinking the stoutest dreadnaught, for more than twenty miles. Without these forts to keep them at a respectful distance, a few blockading vessels would have our fleet at their mercy as it came down the narrow channel in single column, or they might bombard the locks at Miraflores or Gatun. But modern battle-ships are too costly to be risked in a direct attack on coast-fortifications, which are usually captured by landing an army at some other point, and attacking the forts from the landward side, as at Port Arthur. For that reason, a permanent garrison is to be kept in the Canal Zone, of a brigade of infantry, a squadron of cavalry, and a battalion of field artillery, besides the gunners in the forts.
A PAIR OF GATES, GATUN LOCKS.
View taken in August, 1911, looking North toward the Atlantic entrance. This shows the construction of the upper
lock, with the east wall of the upper, middle, amd lower locks in the distance.
It is a strange and melancholy fact that we in the twentieth century should deliberately let our borders grow up into forests to keep our neighbors at a distance, even as our barbarous German ancestors did, two thousand years ago. Some day humanity may become sufficiently civilized to establish universal peace. But until then, we must not forget that Panama has always been seized and held by the strong hand. The Isthmus to-day is a thousand times richer and more tempting a prize than it was in the time of Drake or Morgan, and though piracy has gone out of fashion, war has not. When we can turn the regular army into a police force, sell the navy for old iron, and take the big guns from Sandy Hook and the Golden Gate, we can leave the Panama Canal to be protected by the Zone Police,—but not ​before then. So much for the military side; now for the commercial.
A model town of concrete houses is to be built at Balboa for the operating force. Here will be the offices of the permanent Canal headquarters, and barracks for a battalion of marines, who may be needed to keep drunken stevedores and sailors from breaking up the toy police force of Panama City. An anchorage basin is being dredged and lined with an elaborate system of concrete docks, and the hundreds of acres of new land that have been made by filling in tidal swamps with earth and rock from Gaillard Cut will some day be covered with warehouses, that should pay a very profitable rental to Uncle Sam. Electricity for lighting the streets, heating the electric stoves in the houses, and operating the cargo-cranes and other machinery, will be supplied by the spillway power-plant at Gatun (see page 174). Here at Balboa will be concentrated the present machine-shops, the commissary with its cold-storage plant and bakery, and the Government laundry, which now plans to take the soiled linen from a ship at one end of the Canal, and send it back clean, via the Panama Railroad, before the vessel reaches the other side of the Isthmus. What with these, and the handy tanks and pipe-line of the Union Oil Company of California, and his own dry-docks, coal-bunkers, and barges, Uncle Sam will be able to supply every ship going through the Canal with anything from a sea-biscuit to a new propeller-shaft. Not only will these superior accommodations attract commerce to Panama that would otherwise go to Suez, but some day this peaceful, profitable trade may be worth more to us than ​money can tell, when a fleet of transports comes hurrying through with empty bunkers, or a battered dreadnaught limps into Balboa shipyards, to be sent back to the fighting line. Professor Emory R. Johnson, Special Commissioner on Panama Canal Traffic and Tolls, says, in his report to the Secretary of War:
"The distance from New York to San Francisco, by way of the Straits of Magellan, is 13,135 nautical miles, by way of Panama, 5,262 miles, the Canal route being 7,873 miles shorter. The saving between New Orleans and San Francisco is greater—8,868 nautical miles—the Magellan route being longer and the Canal route shorter from New Orleans than from New York. The Canal will reduce the distance from New York to the Chilian nitrate port, Iquique, 5,139 nautical miles, to Valparaiso 3,747 miles, to Coronel 3,296, and Valdivia about 2,900 miles. For New Orleans and other Gulf ports, the reduction is greater." It is only 1,395 miles from New Orleans to Colon, while from New York to Colon it is 1,974 miles.
The Pacific coast of the United States is the region that expects to be most immediately benefited, and for that reason the Panama Pacific Exposition is to be held in San Francisco in 1915. California oranges and lemons and Oregon apples can be shipped much more cheaply in refrigerator-ships than in refrigerator-cars, while the saving on wheat, coal, lumber, and other heavy freight is even greater.
Most of the passenger traffic will still go by rail, as ​an express train can go from New York to San Francisco in four days, while the fastest steamer would take two weeks. But many of the emigrants from Europe, that now crowd into the tenements of New York, will probably sail through the Canal directly to the Pacific coast, where there is only too much room for them.
On the Atlantic coast, New Orleans plans to combine the traffic through the Canal with a great revival of the Mississippi River trade, while every port from Boston to Galveston claims to be in the most direct path to Panama and to have the best railroad facilities behind it. Over a hundred million dollars is being spent on each coast in dredging channels, building docks, and otherwise getting ready for Panama. The effects should be felt, in lower freight rates and prices, in the farthest inland parts of the United States.
BUILDING PEDRO MIGUEL LOCKS
​an American schoolboy or office-boy, who is thinking of becoming a salesman, were to spend some of his time studying the Spanish language (or Portuguese, for Brazil), and learning something of the history, customs, etiquette (good manners sell more goods than "hustle," in the tropics) of the other republics in this hemisphere, he would be giving himself some of the training that the English and German salesmen are put through before they are sent to South or Central America, where they have built up an immensely profitable trade. A generation ago, Horace Greeley said, "Go West, young man, go West!" To-morrow the word may be, "Go South!"
Eventually, the Panama Canal may help restore the long-lost American merchant marine. At the outbreak of the War of 1812, more than ninety per cent, of American goods were carried in American ships; in 1912, we paid a freight bill of over two billion dollars to foreign shipowners. At the outbreak of the Civil War, we had the greatest merchant marine in the world; fifty years later, we had less than a dozen ships trading to foreign ports. This was due partly to the replacing of wooden sailing vessels with steel steamers, but more to our faulty navigation laws,—for steel can be made in Pittsburg more cheaply than anywhere else in the world. All the big European and Japanese liners are subsidized, or partly paid for, by the governments of their countries, who use them to carry the mails in time of peace, and for cruisers or troop-ships in time of war. If a great war should break out in Europe or Asia, many of these vessels would cease to come to our ports, and we should have a hard time doing business with the rest of the ​world. And if we went to war ourselves, our army and navy would be crippled for want of transports and colliers. When we sent our battle-ship fleet around the world in 1907, its coal and provisions had to be carried in foreign ships, that would not be permitted to serve it in time of war.
Yet to-day, when the Stars and Stripes are almost never seen on the high seas, except on a warship or a private yacht, we have more sailing vessels than any other country in the world. England, of course, has the greatest numbers of steamers, but who do you suppose has the second greatest? Neither Germany nor Japan, but the United States. That is because of the ships on the Great Lakes, and in the coastwise trade. Only American vessels are allowed to go from one American port to another. For that reason, American ships plying between our two coasts will pass through the Panama Canal without paying any tolls. The same will be true of all mail steamers, subsidized by the United States Government and liable for use in case of war.
Otherwise, the Canal is to be for the peaceful use of all nations, without favoritism. A uniform toll of a dollar and a quarter a ton is to be charged on all ships passing through, whatever flag they sail under. As most of the European governments have been in the habit of paying the tolls at Suez on liners belonging to their subjects, they will probably do the same at Panama. Without some such assistance, American shipowners will probably find it more profitable to stick to the trade ​between our two coasts—and those of Mexico and Central America on the way—without venturing to South America and the Far East, where a hundred years ago the sea was white with the tall sails of the Yankee clippers.
What effect will the opening of the Canal have on the Republic of Panama? The money spent there during the years when it was being built has brought great prosperity to the Isthmus, but that source of revenue will soon come to an end. It would not be surprising if a period of "hard times" were to follow, for that was what happened as soon as the Panama Railroad was finished in 1855, and travelers began to cross the Isthmus in a few hours instead of a week. Undoubtedly most of the traffic will pass through the Canal without breaking bulk, and the Panamanian merchants will have Uncle Sam to compete with in the sale of everything but picture postcards and souvenirs to tourists. But Panama has an excellent chance to become prosperous, by supplying the ships that pass through with fresh beef, fruit, and vegetables. On the broad, fertile prairies of the Province of Chiriqui (between the Canal Zone and Costa Rica), there is the best of grazing for cattle, while everything can be grown there, from bananas and oranges at the sea-level, to apples and other northern fruit in the hills. The United Fruit Company is doing a great trade at the Atlantic port of Bocas del Toro, and many Americans are beginning to settle near David, the capital of the province.
Though it has an area as big as the State of New York, with its twelve million inhabitants, the Republic ​of Panama has a population of only three hundred and fifty thousand. Most of these are negroes, with a slight admixture of Indian blood, being the descendants of the Spanish slaves or workmen on the railroad or the Canal. Nearly all the white blood, as well as most of the wealth and business of the country, is concentrated in a small aristocracy, sometimes called the "Ten Families." If Chiriqui should begin to fill up with American farmers and cattlemen, a situation would be created very much like that in Texas in the early part of the nineteenth century, requiring the greatest tact on the part of the United States Government.
A LIGHTHOUSE IN THE JUNGLE
​an Indian village some miles on his side of the Panama-Colombian border, and the Indians would not let him land even to protest to their chief about it. The San Blas have no use for white men: there is not a missionary, or a trader, or a half-breed in their country, and no white man has ever gone through it from Panama to South America. Miss Annie Coop, an American missionary, visited the San Blas country for a short time in 1909, and hopes to be permitted to return there soon and establish a school, for while the tribal law excludes white men, it says nothing about white women. But neither the strictest tribal law nor the bravest tribal warriors, have ever kept white men permanently out of a country where there was gold. Sooner or later, there will be another "gold-rush"; a stampede of white men across this last frontier, outrages, treachery, and massacres on both sides, which the feeble Republic of Panama will be powerless to prevent, and which may force the armed intervention of the United States. Let us hope this may never come to pass. But it is not easy to keep white men on one side of a border, when there is gold on the other. As they were before Columbus came, so the Darien Indians are to-day, within fifty miles of where we are living in electric-lighted houses, and building the Panama Canal.
Soon the work will be finished and the long task done. Then the great working force will be broken up and scattered to the four corners of the earth, and the jungle will creep back and swallow up their houses as it has those of the Spaniards and the Frenchmen before them. ​But every American who has worked more than two years on the Canal will carry away with him, besides imperishable memories of the biggest, cleanest job the world has ever seen, the medal you see reproduced on this page. It is made of bronze from one of the dredges abandoned by the de Lesseps Company, as the Victoria Cross is made of the bronze of captured cannon; and like it, it is given for brave and arduous service. The design, chosen by the canal-builders themselves, shows on one side the head of Theodore Roosevelt; on the other, a picture of the finished canal. Beneath is set the seal of the Canal Zone, a noble galleon, sailing full-fraught through the long-sought passage to the Indies; and above the motto from that seal, "The land divided—the world united."
THE PANAMA CANAL MEDAL.
GENERAL VIEW OF GATUN LOCKS.
Showing bulkhead to keep water of sea level canal out of the lock-chamber during erection of the gates.
COLLAPSIBLE STEEL FORM FOR CASTING CULVERT IN LOCK WALL.
* ↑ Written in 1912.
* ↑ A nautical mile is 6,080 feet long; a statute or land mile, 5,280 feet long.
* ↑ Written 1912. These exemptions were abolished by act of Congress June 15, 1914.
* ↑ See Appendix.
* ↑ See Appendix.