Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1905-09-08
THE PANAMA GRAVEYARD.
Death in Various Forms Awaits Labor
ers on the Isthmus.

Laborers are wanted on the big ditch
in Panama. No cravens or weaklings
need ap~ty-that is, no cravens who are
afraid 81 the fevers lurking in the yell
low misrs of the Chagres river, and no
Weaklings who cannot stand under a sky
that bends overhead like a molten bell
and labor in ditch 100 feet deep in mud
to the ankles, in humidity that drives
men mad and in n plague of flies and
mosquitoes and noXious insects.
Yet men will go to their deaths just
the same, for Uncle Sam holds forth Iur-
ing inducements and the ditch must be
built
1t is estimated that 49,, 900 laborers
are buried up on Monkey hill near Colon.
In the awful times of De Lesseps and
the French control they died like flies.
In 1888 $4,000 men were buried there,
and now the United States government 10
making experiments among various races
of men to see what nationality can best
bear the fearful hardships. Chinese
coolies, Jamaica negroes, Portuguese,
black men from Africa, Domnicans-all
have been tried, so far in vain, to stand
the siege of death.
So far the Chinese coolies have borne
the ~brunt better than other nationali-
ties. Death and dollar look alike to
them. They require but little to eat.
They pla.t their own gardens with yams
and bananas. They grow rice and man
age to support themselves and save near
ly all their salaries
AS conditions are at present in Pan
anna only a kind and merciful Providence
can prevent thousands of laborers from
dying there annually. OF course, the
United States authorities are trying to
alleviate existing conditions, but as
matter of fact the sun kills what the
fevers leave, and there is no preventive
of sunstroke where men work ten hours
in steaming mud in terrible sun glare.
Even under the improved conditions
since the United States assumed con-
troll Panama is still 1.-The garbage spot
of the earth" The streets are filthy and
odorous, snd even the strongest laborers
from the States find the climate eneryat-
ing and demoralizing and are unable to
withstand the awful heat after few
days work. The thermometer during the
day is almost always above 80 degrees.
The humidity is so great that there is
little evaporation and rust and mildew
form over everything not in constant use.
Hundreds of great black vultures hover
lazily over the town or sit on the apex
of the roofs in silent funereal rows. They
fatten on the offal or garbage heaps and
not infrequently upon men who wander
away in delirium and die in the jungle,
Dozens of laborers are confined in the
insane asylum, a quadrangle of noisome
and breathless cells around cement
covered court, so hot under foot that it
can scarcely be traversed. A laborer may
escape the yellow fever, but there are
other human ills which are almost inev-
liable. Acute malarial fever is one of
these, and once firmly planted in the sys-
tenn it means either a change of climate
or a slow, dragging death. Even now,
with the complement of laborers not
nearly filled, the ambulance is constant
ly on the go. When the French were
digging the canal there We're dozen
vehicles ON the go day and night con-
veying the sick to the hospitals and the
dead to the graveyard.