The Indianapolis journal., 1902-01-27
AS TO THE CANAL.
Its Cost I'm Life and Money-American
and French Methods

new 1OTk 1TeSS.
Whether it is to be the Panama or the
Nicaragua route, there are tens of millions
to be wasted on the isthmian canal. Pub
lie works always cost more than any other
kind. There will be contractors who will
make tens of millions and there will be con-
tractors who will lose. In the old Panama
days the only contractors who made money
were the American ones. The Frenchmen
all went into bankruptcy. The trouble with
them was that they did not take care of
thmselves and their men, who died like
flies. French contractors shipped their
workmen down there and knocked them out
with improper food and drink canal
section under a French contractor was a
slaughter house. Wages went on, but no
work was done. no money was collected on
completed contracts, and bankruptcy
cleaned out the Frenchmen.
American contractors, like the Slavin
brothers. who kept their men alive and in
good condition and so could get work out
of them, made money hand over fist. They
were able to finish up their sections while
the Frenchmen were dying in the swamps
and collected for their completed work
Why? Money the canal company had not
Before Henry b. Slavin took any contracts
down there he found out all about the sani-
tary conditions and what he would need to
do to keep his men on their feet. Slavin
began his work by establishing first of ALL
medical and sanitary departments, cooking
camps and regular sleeping and living quar-
ters military principles. He had hos
pitalS and hospital ships there as good as
ever the Red Cross Society provided. He
got the best cooks money could hire. and
bought the choicest provisions in the Amer
lean market and shipped them down there.
Lands were drained for the camps, and
sanitary police kept everything as clean and
neat a pin.
The Frenchmen thought Slavin was a
lunatic to spend all that money feeding and
taking care of his men, but he kept them
alive and well and coined money, while the
French workmen We're rotting in the
swamps and their employers were going
off like paper bags because they could get
no work done and no money on their con-
tracts. One of the contracting companies
behind the Slavin Brothers paid 40 per
cent. in dividends in fourteen months. Near
ly all the money that was spent by the
Panama Company got back to the United
States.
Eugene Kelly. and Bliss. of Norton Bliss
& Co, and j. ]. Phelan cleaned up a big
fortune out Of canal contracts as they
were hackers OF the Slavins. and every cent
of IL was due 10 the American policy of
feeding and nursing the men TO keep them
on their feet and working Swamp and
Chagres fever did not kill one Frenchman
for ten that We're improperly fed or that
died from trying 10 live the way they had
done in Paris There is nothing that a con-
tractor cannot do in these days. but the
first thing contractor must do in isthman
canal work Is TO get ready TO take care of
his men. The contractors who do that on
the new canal work can make fifty millions
as easily as they can five, or as easily as
they can lose everything they have if they
don't follow the policy OF Slavin-
Warner Miller went into the isthmian
canal business. and that was what ended
him. When he was in the Senate he got his
head full OF the Nicaragua canal project
and after that nothing else got in IL. Some
OF the American stockholders in dredging &
and contracting companies who had made
money out OF the Panama operations trans
ferred their interests in dredges. machinery
and the like into the worthless Nicaragua
project They dropped IL all and more. for
there was one assessment at least and not
a penny 10 show for the scheme.