Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-04-16
History of the Efforts Which Were
Made to Connect the Two
Oceans.
Dream Of Far-Sighted Statesmen to
Cut Asunder the Two Great Ameri-
can Continents.
The Nicaragua Route was Considered
the Most Feasible for the
Proposed Canal.


the land narrows like the waist of i wasp
between the two oceans, and where their
mountain backbone dips to within a few
hundred feet Of the sea. As early as 1851,
Gomara, the historian, suggested the four
locations for a waterway that have since
been approved as the only possible ones
namely, at Darien, at Panama, at Tehuan
tepec, and at Nicaragua Under the lazy
rule of Spain no serious attempt was made
to realize this dream, but as soon as the
old kingdom of Guatemala revOlted and
formed the republic of Central America,
negotiations were begun with the Ameri-
can government, under the presidency of
Adams, in 1885, and after Nicaragua
separated and became an independent
state, on some ten or more occasions nego-
tiations for the building of an interoceanic
canal were proposed between Nicaragua
and the governments or individual citi-
zens of the United States, Of England, of
Holland, of Belgium, and of France. At
ter the Mexican war, when the United
States first gained foothold on the Pacific
a convention for canal was negotiated
by the American charge d'affaires to Cen
trail America, but the act was disavowed
by this government as without authority.
A still more favorable concession to Mr..
Cornelius Vanderbilt and others, who
formed the American Atlantic and Pacific
Ship Canal company, was secured by the
new charge d'affairs to Central America,
but the concession was connec ed with a
treaty of friendship and commerce with
the United States, and failed when the
latter was defeated in the senate on &C
count of the recent Clayton ulwer treaty
with Great Britain, that had been hastily
negotiated for that purpose.
The successful compaetion of the Suez Ca
nal revived the interest Of the civilized
world in an isthmian canal. At the in
stigation of its then famous promoter,
M de Lesseps, an international congress
was held at Paris, to which the govern
ment sent delegates, among them Mr..
Menocal. Their report and the fear of
foreign control of the canal turned the
attention of the government and of pri-
vate capitalists of the Nicaragua route.
A Provisional lnteroceanic canal society
was organized by Capt. Phelps, General
Grant, Admiral Ammen, the Hon. Levi P.
Morton, and others, and in 1880 the socie-
ty received a concession from Nicaragua,
which was forfeited in 1884 for future to
perform the conditions. Then President
Arthur negotiated a treaty for the building
operation with Nicaragua; but the treaty,
while still pending in the senate was
withdrawn by President Cleveland
Among the concessions of the Pro-
visional Interoceauic canal society, which
had become merged into the Nicaragua
Maritime canal company, was Mr.. A. G.
Menocal, mentioned above, a civil en-
gineer in the United States navy. The
failure of this company was due to a long
continued effort to procure aid for congress
an effort defeated by the influence of
M. de Less cps and Captain Eads-and the
attempt to finance the company without
government guarantee was made finally
impossible by the failure of the firm Of
Grant and Ward. So long as the work
on the Panama canal was Ia active pro-
gress. it was impossible to secure capital
for a rival, almost parallel, canal. Before
the close, however, of 1885 the failure of
the French undertaking was manifest to
close observers, for in that year the ex-
pense already incurred in the performance
of less than one-third of the work of exca-
walton amounted to double the sum
estimated by NJ. de Lesseps for the cost of
the whole. 1t was also beginning to be
suspected that canal could not be con-
structed at Panama without locks, and yet
the practicability Of a sea-level canal there
was the only scientific reason given at the
congress for prefering that location to
Nicaragua. Tehuantepec presented GER
tain advantages from theoretical point
of view, but it was impossible as site for
canal, and Captain Eads was unable to
persuade the hard-headed business men of
America that vessels could be economical
ly carried on wheels over mountains.
nf
to require some interoceanic canal, and
commercially it made little difference what
point on the isthmus should be selected for
that purpose so long as the canal could be
constructed with reasonable economy. At
tention then was naturally drawn to the
Nicaragua route, since the experimental
ton of half century has failed to find a
better one. As early as 1879 the American
geographical society, at the instance
mainly OF its president, the Hon. Charles
P. Day, discussed the question. In
1886, by invitation of Judge DAILY, Com
mander Taylor, who had already interested
many prominent men at Washington in
the enterprise, delivered a lecture before
the society IN favor of a canal at Nicara'
qua. The special advantages afforded by
the physical geography by this location
are unmistakabe. Though the distance
from ocean to ocean here is ITO miles, ny
using the San Juan river and Lake Nicara.
qua the length of the canal to be actually
excavated is only q niles-a work of nc
extraordinary magnitude in comparison
with the 46 miles at Panama and the 6:
miles at Suez. Here, too the depression
formed by the lake is only ITO feet above
the sea, the lowest depression IN the whole
range of the Cordileras. Here, from
the scientific point of view, was the mos
economical route. The canal. too, ough
to be in the control of Americans, and /
was therefore prudent to take up withou
delay the lines dropped by the Preach a
Panama. Science, patriotism, and oppor
tunlty agreed.
In this state of public opinion, Mr.
Menocal, who has continued his interes
in Nicaragua and his friendship with it
government, learned that the president O
Nicaragua would be willing to grant
new concession to responsible American
company. Accordingly in the spring o
1886, MIR. Menocal and Captain Taylo
submitted this possibility to Mr.. Horac
L. Hotchkiss, Chief Justice Charles P
Daily, President of the New York Geo
graphical Society. Rear Admiral ANIME n
sr. Francis A. Stout, and Mr.. Fredericl
York. In the following autumn, thes
gentlemen, together with Mr.. L. F
'Shaughnessy, Captain A. S. Crownin
shield, and Messrs. FREDERICK Billings, W
H. Webb and James M. Smith, met b
appointment in New York. and a com
mittee was appointed, with the result that
after further conference with MI
Menocai, the Nicaragua Canal association
was formed, with the unlimited liabilit