Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-04-02
rhe Panama Canal "A Great Dis-
nater.


posterity in a malign association in
which those of George Law, Pereire and
Sir Morton Peto will figure as companion
pictures. When Monsieur de Lesseps
had finished his Isthmus OF Suez Canal
scheme no name in the annals of en-
eineering stood higher than his. When
the canal was opened Napoleon III. and
his wife Eugene we're at Port Said to
give its opening conventional eclat. Most
of the people distinguished in politics or
literature we're on hand to add to the
plaudits which greeted this illustrious
Frenchman on the climax Of his great
work, and no element was then needed
to make his glory even monumental.
It is sometimes good to leave well
enough alone, but Count Ferdinand de
Lesseps, unfortunately for himself and
for France, failed to realize this lesson OF
all ages. He started in as "a plunger."
He forgot that the Austerlitz of the first
Napoleon eliminated in Borodino, and
that the great success of Charles the
Twelfth wound up on the melancholy
and bleak approaches to Stralsund.
France has been specially unfortunate
in her later speculative craEes. She pre-
sented a miracle of solvency following
the disasters of the Franco Prussian war.
The payment, and the payment
at once, of FIVE thousand millions
of francs as an indemnity to Germany,
was the most remarkable thing ever
chronicled in the financial history of the
world. 1t was an instance of national vital
ity never Heretofore recorded.
On the wave of popular confidence be,
gotten of that unexampled incident Of
national solvency and self-reliance, de
Lesseps, then old, and probably infirm
of purpose and lacking his old sagacity,
launched the Panama Canal scheme.
He took desperate chances, because the
best engineers of the werld had ex-
pressed grave doubts, first, of its prac-
ticability, and, secondly, of its
soundness as business proposition. The
men who controlled de Lesseps used his
great name for all that it would carry.
The authority of the great engineer was
employed for everything that the most
unprincipled spectators could make Of
avail. No gambling scheme at Monte
Carlo or Monaco was ever more des-
perate.
As the wreck lies around Panama to-
day the evid ences of profigate expendi-
ture on an unheard-of scale, abound on
every hand. The principle of pushing
construction for the profits that might be
in it was rushed to a practically
unheard Of extent. Mere adventurers
rushed into the scheme, and made
untold millions. Amongst the fortunate
was a clever and energetic Canadian
named Slaven, who for years kept drug
store under the Baldwin Hotel, in San
Francisco. Slaven purchased dredger
patent, by the use of which he is said to
have made quite ten million dollars in
the narrow gap of land which separates
Panama from Colon, and that in half a
dozen years.
The illustrious name of Ferdinand
de Lesseps, was hundred times i'm
ported into the Panama Canal scheme to
save the project from extinction.
Repeated efforts were made to enlist
American capital in the scheme.
Amongst the rest was the retain
menr of Dick Thompson, Presi-
dent Hayes's Secretary of the Navy,
who was made the American counsel
and Director of the Panama Company.
To their credit be it said, the American
people, who have keen nose for busi-
ness propositions, never entered actively
or financially into the matter, while the
distinctively American Monroe doctrine
clung to it like a very shirt of Nessus.
To-day France is in a sort of catalepsy
arising from the miscarriage of the
Panama Canal, the great disaster of the
Societe des Metaux and the Compton
d'Escomptes. The vitality which that
country of unrivaled resources showed
after the Franco-Prussian war, and since,
is now being severely tested.
The honor OF Ferdinand de Lesseps is
protected by his age, but his son Charles
is the legitimate scapegoat. A nation
palpitating with rage and sense of dig
aster may fail to allow years and honors
their proper significance. The men
who are smarting under loss and
failure do not feel like making
distinctions, personal or metaphysi-
cal. And thus goes down a great
name, with the probability that De Les
sepS intentions were honest though his
provisions were inexact. The whole cir.
cumstaDce recalls the melancholy lines
of Johnson on the eclipse at Pultowa,
and shows that governments have little
to do with the ordinary vicissitudes Of
man,
i How few Of all the Ills that men endure,
| Or kings or laws can cause or cure.
G. II. HUPP, lawyer we'll known in
| fhio Gtofa apd Nauodo opd ubo at ono