The morning call., 1894-12-09
THs LATE NJ. DE LESSEPs.

The biography of De Lesseps pub
lished in yesterdays CALL suggests
interesting questions. Here was a man
highly gifted, intrepid, ingenious, clear
headed, far-rsaching in his calculations
his life, on the whole. had been success
full; he bad won more triumphs than he
had endured failures; he had been unself-
ish to the extent that he merely asked the
world for living in exchange for the
benefits he conferred; yet at the close of
his life, when driven to bay. he over
stepped the limi tatious of business pru-
dence and probity to carry out his pur-
poses. How shall that mans account be
reckoned up, and On which side will the
balance be found when it is struck?
By and by. when the evil odor of
Panama corruption has blown away, De
Lesseps may be chiefly remembered as
the man who shortened the European voy-
age to India by forty days. and that work
may perhaps suggest monument to his
memory; but, meanwhile, people cannot
help wondering whether he ought to be
classed with such daring speculators as
John Law, or such impractical schemers
as the Brunels, or such benefactors of
humanity as the inventors of the steam
engine and the telegraph. That his pur-
poses were high is admitted. but it is not
enough for men in his position to mean
we'll; he must do well. And when the i'm
partial historian comes to foot up and bal
ance De Lesseps' record it may be found
difficult to justify the pinnacle of glory on
which his admirers have placed him.
The project of the SueZ canal was no
=, H. II
had been cherished by the Ptolemies.
dreamed of by the modern conquerors of
Egypt, worked out on paper by Napoleon.
It's practicability had been demonstra ed.
The only obstacle in the way was to raise
the money for the enterprise Here was
where De Lesseps' ingenuity came in. At
the time when the canal was opened
many eyes were blinded by the blaze OF
glory such a splendid achievement kindled,
and afterward. when the great ditch put
an end forever to voyages round the
Cape, it seemed ungraciouS to speak of
the work except in panegyric. The world
was so largely the gamer by lis compile
ton that criticism of the methods by which
the work was accomplished was silenced
as cavil.
The Panama enterprise did not have the
argument of success to offset the character
of its methods. 1t was an undertaking
which was based on false engineering, and
promoted by businesslike methods. At
the Paris convention, which laid the
scheme before the eyes of the nations,
American officers explained that the plans
were fatally faulty. and hat nothing but
failure could result. Their reasoning.
which was based on cold mathematics,
was met by rhetorical bombast about mar
rving the two oceans, and by expeuding
100000 francs subsIdiZlng newspapers
and chamber orators, De lesseps and his
friends drew five times that sum from the
stockings of the saving, frugal, industri-
ous, rural population of France When
the inevitable end came, the sh ock nearly
overthrow republican government in
France. The administration consigned
some of the chief knaves to felon's cell,
one of them committed suicide, humane
tenderness for extreme old age saved
the chief promoter from the penalty of his
own rashness. AS history pulled Warren
Hastings from the pedestal to which his
admirers bad lifted him, so posterity will
not concede TO De Lesseps a place among
great Frenchmen. because he set at de-
fiance the business and moral laws On the
observance of which the existence of stable
socjetv restS