The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-07-15
REPUBLIC OF PANAMA.
Past and Present of the Infant State
on the Isthmus.
IFrom Cor. offfhe Railway Age.

portation project. Yet the permanent
disbarment of Colombia from all Pan
amanian affairs is pregnant with sig
nificance and has eased a situation
which was intolerable; it has also
brought peace to a community from
which it was banished nearly four
centuries ago.
So long as Colombia had control of
the isthmus, it is evident in the light
of present knowledge that nothing
less than constant watchfulness and
anxiety would have been the portion
OF whatever outside nation might have
built the canal, and now by the simple
process of a community's insistence
upon its rights even the anomaly has
disappeared of a French company
protected in it's operations by the
United States government through a
treaty intended to secure the continu-
ance of Il railways traffic. But al
though the air is now cleared and the
way is opened for a peaceful and eco
nomical exploitation of the work, four
hundred years of a brutal and dis
honest scheme of government have
left scars and living sores which first
must be healed. Panama and Colon,
the two termini of the canal, as well
as of the railway, are destined to be-
come great centers of population, and
unless the fearful mortality which fol-
lowed the operations of the old
French company is to be repeated,
they must be provided with running
water, fit for drinking as well as
washing, and they must be both
drained by sewers and smoothly
paved. This is work which requires
long preliminary study of the actual
conditions, and the improvements
themselves are so great as to involve
some delay in beginning the precise
object of all the preparations. But it
is delay which will have as an ulti-
mate result a much earlier completion
OF the canal than any haphazard
method.
The long suspense which ensued upon
the practical abandonment of French eff
forts, has left some doubt in the native
mind as to whether there may not be
something spaSmodic in the present
movement also; a very rational fear in
a people SO bred to expect nothing per-
manent but disorder in government af-
1alrs, ana SO little acquainted with our
methods This feeling, however, is
gradually disappearing and must inevi-
tably give place to the confidence which
practical operations will bring. But, as
has been shown, practical operations
must await every necessary precaution
to guard against the dangers which
surround all tropical work, and the
time which must elapSe for the fulfill
much disappointment, not only in the
local mind, but in the United States, as
well, where many hopes are directed
toward this greatest of modern prof.
ects- There are, to be sure, great OPP
portunities for profit to contractors and
manufacturers, but let no one imagine
that they will come so soon as they are
expected or that to secure them will
require less effort than in the U. S.
In the latter regard, it should be I'M
derStood that much greater effort will
be needed than at home, and this in a
climate where 80 degrees Fahrenheit is
regarded as cool in a dark room dur
ing the cool season. With this also
must be taken the fact that no hostel
ry, at all possible to a North American,
exists between Panama and Colon
where, even in these comparatively large
places, but one really comfortable hotel
can be found and the others offer a
choice principally of evils. Here, by the
way, is an opportunity for some Yam
kee hotel man or men who will set
their faces sternly toward cleanliness,
moderate prices, liberal bathing facili-
ties and special emphasis on well
cooked native dishes (Which are suited
to the climate and the products of the
land) instead of the ill-conceived, dys-
pepsia- dealing messes, misnamed home
cooking" which usually follow the
North American inn keeper like a
plague.
It is not generally understood that the
original rights upon which this work rests
are vested in the Panama railroad; New
York state corporation, built in the later
Sos and extending enthusiastically from
Colon to the Caribbean (Atlantic) to Pan
certainly the shortest, as we'll as the most
important transcontinental railway in the
world. 1t will also be observed that in
order to travel westward, one must go
in a enthusiastically direction. The
Panama railroad owns the sole right to
build any form of communication in this
part of Central America, including high |
ways and telegraph lines, as well as rail
sary for the old Panama Canal company
to buy the railway before it could secure
a concession to build a canal across the |
and because of the purchase OF
the canal concession by the United States
Again owing to the comprehensiveness |
of the railway concession, there is no
highway on which any an form Oh ve9 HcIe
on, so the only means of communicat lon |
other than by train, is on pony back
through jungle, which is indescribably
matted to one who has not seen it. and
over trails which in steepness challenge
the agility of a goat. The ponies are |
diminIltive form of our western "cayuse" |
and seldom grow taller than ID hands, l. |
e.: 50 inches, nearly II inches shorter than |
a well sized American business horse To
reach any point not on the railway right |
of way means, therefore. a journey of the |
sIowest speed and the maximum of eff |
fort and discomfort Fortunately CO ex-
cept to mahogany cutters and banana ana
the bush since the almost undisccv-
cradle population are highly. content with
a loin cloth in the matter of clothing, at !
ter the age of about ten years (before
which, nothing) and the inner needs are
nothing to be sold, everything away from |
the narrow strip occupied by the Panama
railroad lacks interest to the business
we here reach one of the great ques- |
What is to be the permanent effect on |
the land and it's resources? In the past |
nothing could be done because no prop |
erty was safe in the throes of constant
activity, wherein both |
sides took when and how they pleased |
and could find. The land is fertile beyond /
known in our northern ATTITUDES, |
vet 1t is as bare of results nearly as the |
desert Cobb While construction proceeds |
On the canal there will be demand. but |
with this construction. demand will cease
unless other markets are developed in |!
he anfi foreign
both race and climate, is born to utilize /
them.
There is nothing to require much |
larger force to maintain the canal after |
its completion. than now exists for the
railway and the slight efforts projected |
toward the canal work proper So with
the present conditions of population re-