The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-14

within the canal zone we shall acquire This cost will not, however, be as great as was the corresponding expense during the original work of canal construction There is a story which has gone round the world and become classic that every crosstie in the Panama Railroad repre- sents human life lost in the build ing. That is, of course, false. J. s. Higbid once ventilated 1t in proper style MT. Hlgbid is roadmaster of the Panama Railroad. and few months ago he cross- cd with party of missionaries, who re- lated the story to him and asked: Where are the graves of all those peo- pie who died?"
 Well. you see, 1t was like this," Hig- | bid answered. Everything buried in l this country petrified, so as each one | of those men died they buried him right under a tie. It is awful hard to get wood in the isthmus that will last in contact with the soil, and the idea was | that when the crosstie routed the body of the man buried under 1t would be pet rifed, so they could remove the tie, raise the petriified body and in that way have a stone roadbed all the way from Colon to Panama"
 Higbid's explanation was a fitting an- swer to the story, which. while prepos-
 
 that construction work in this country. wherever excavating is necessary. exacts terrible toll in human life. It will ex- act that toll from the deviation unless, in planning sanitary Improvements. the United States shall extend its scheme of sanitation, pure water supply, etc.. to include the proposed new route of the canal.
 Road is Ystbmian Benefactor. In its operation at the present time the railroad Is the great benefactor of the isthmus. no matter what 1t may once have done towards depopulating these parts of the earth. Without 1t the isth- mus would now be in the virgin state of undevelopment. for the road is the one support of all these people. In its exec utive offices. located at Colon. Americana | only are employed. Americans compose also of all of it's train crews. and trey are paid excellent wages, an engineer drawing s16o tgoldD month. or the equiv a1ent of about $i00 in the monkey money of this country. But for track and dock laborers, along the entire line and at either terminal: agents at the way sta- tions; crews of yard engines: brakemen on freight trains, and the unskilled la bor in the shops and about the yards native ,Panamaians or the more intelli- gent West. Indian negroes are employed For these the road maintains a silver payroll. It's disbursements amounting to | thousands of dollars monthly. From this source everybody on the isthmus (among the natives. except the few shopkeepers and professional men) who pretend to live according to civilized standards draw his means of d livelihood. The railroad pays them well in the money current here, and they are a happy and contented lot. With its white employes-experience railroad men from the States-the rail- road deals generously in matters other than salaries It provides them with liv- ing quarters for themselves and families, free of charge. It makes ice for them. selling it as cheaply as 1t is sold in the States. It has provided the hotel in Co., lon and leased 1t to a Frenchman, who Is under contract to board as many of the employees as desire board there and to charge no more than $-. (gold a month for each adult. One end of this hotel has been set apart as a club for the use of the American railroaders. and there the company maintains billiard and pool tables, other games, generous l ly stocked library, besides furnishing all l the leading newspapers. weeklies and magazines published in the States. Over in Panama equally generous treatment Is accosded these white employees, The residences of those permanently located at that end of the line are at La Boca Flo rthese trainmen who have to stay over night in Panama, but who reside 1 in Colon, the railroad has fitted the sec ond floor of it's station building with bed rooms, reading-rooms. bathrooms, etc These men are, in the main. old and trusted employees who have become thor oughly acclimated. and who are familiar with the company's requirements down to their smallest detail. That their lot is made easier by the fact that this Is a road on which no wheel turns at night is to their advantage.
 A Stickler for Monopoly.
 But if in the treatment of It's em- ployes the railroad is generous. it is ex- actly the opposite in enforcing compliance with all the terms of its concessions So rigidly does 1t maintain it's monopoly of transportation facilities that except by its trains there Is no way of con- veying produce or supplies to or from interior points except by pack-mules or by runners who carry enormous packs on their heads. This result of discour- aging development Is shown by those fruits of 1t which appear in the form of the small, two-wheeled donkey or pony carts that cart freight and luggage about Colon and Panama. These anticipated and diminutive devices serve all purposes. for by exercise of the railroads mon opoly there Is no place on the isthmus outside of these two cities where wheel ed appliance can make Its way.
 The same monopolistic tendency Is shown in the operation of the telephone and telegraph lines across this narrow strip, modern devices so thoroughly con- trolled that the railroad IS enabled to charge 10 cents gold for each word of a telegram, and to count for purposes Of charging the address and signatures The use of the telephone Is restricted to the railroads own business but after other experiences with the company's aptitude for exacting exorbitant tolls of It's pa irons, one dislikes to think about what A three-minute conversation between Co., lon and Panama would cost.
 These policies will, without doubt De changed in many of their details when the railroad becomes the property Of the United States. for 1t will be the policy of the government to encourage rather than retard the development of the isth- mus, and under such policy the isthmus Is sure to go ahead rapidly. for it's possi- bilities are as have stated them in pre- vious letters.