Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-07-21

peryisOn or an engineer nave as me piece of track as you would want. They would do it instinctiveIy But this man, it was discovered, had at one time been employed in the auditing office of a railroad. That was all the railroad experience he had ever had, and he had been put in charge of a section gang because he had had natu- ral intelligence e-enough to pass the ex- animation required of section fore man.
 "Now the commission is seeking to guard against these things. It is going to try to send only men that are actu- ally needed and that will fit into the work. Much greater care will be ex- ercised here than before.
 Then we are going to make an im- provement at Colon. When steam ship arrives with our employees we will have persons meet them, look aft CT them. see that they are properly placed in boarding houses and assign ed to duty for which they are trained. If man happens to have sweetheart in Colon we will not send him on to Panama. If a man is a machinist we will not make boilermaker of him. Because a man is a good auditor will be no reason for putting him in charge of section gang. In other words our aim on the isthmus will be to have a clearing house for men as well as for material |;
 What is being done in the way of providing recreation for employees on the Panama canal?"
 We have appreciated the necessity of doing something along that line, and we are doing it at once. Ii is ab- soluteIy true that down there our young Americans have had no means of amusement We are going to pro vide tennis courts. There is no reason why we shouldn't have good baseball park down there.
 We are taking steps to provide bet ter houses and quarters for the men. Again. we are going to take steps to improve the food and see that if is provided at the lowest possible figure. When we have accomplished these
 things-and almost all of them are in the way of accomplishment-I believe the storm of complaints about the
 situation on the isthmus will have ceased, that everybody will be. con tented and that we will make great
 gain ill the end We may not dig as
 much dirt in the next few months as we otherwise might. but with health,
 ful underlying conditions we will ac,
 complish vastly more with less cost i and with less friction ] Do you find that generally the isth
 mus is healthfulT.
 | T do Only the other day young
 fellow was in here who had been in
 the engineering department. He had
 been on the isthmus eighteen months
 and had been home on a six weeks 1 leave looked him over. He was
 fine, healthy specimen, rugged and
 broad shouldered. It did me good tc
 look at him. I talked with this young | man about the situation. He said that ! 1t was only necessary for man tc ] know how to take care Of himself tt ] enjoy perfect health. He had not beer
 III q day. tssrir he. kad been over tue llns of the cariaf from one end to the other
 He liked the work. and he liked tho 1 life. and he said that there were hun dreds more like him and all his friends
 had enlisted on the work and intended
 10 see ii through We are trying tf
 get that sort of young man down there i in large numbers on every steamer i and we are succeeding well. believe
 the personnel sf our employees will
 steadily improve"
 Mir Shonts, what is your iBpres
 sion as 10 the time that will be re
 Q.ired 10 complete the canai?"
 Tn answering that question l should i like to speak from personal obserra
 ton. and 1 have not had the opportuni ! ty of personal observation on the 18th [ mus yet. have DO doubt that aftel
 the work gets fairly started dowI ] there-that is. after it gets under ful i beadway-we shali go ahead more rap i idly than any one is expecting. be ! lieve we will more than make up fol i lost time. but if is going 10 be a grea i job to organize because of its size. Mir Wallace estimated that VI i could work 1UU steam shovels at Cule I bra cuf. We have nine al work now ! By the time we get 100 at work il vii 1 run us into 1907. Ton see. you can't g ! into the market and buy a hundre,
 steam sh0vels just as you would bu! a hundred feet of hose Then for eyerl steam shovel three locomotives will b'
 required Thus. by the time We get th'
 hundred steam shOvels we will nee
 3Do locomotives just for that grea work at Cu.ebra. This will. l think { give yuu an fiea of the magnitude O
 the undertaking. Some men have esti
 mated that We could work continuous ! ly down there. but it must be cOnsid | cred that We have eight months c | rain. and there arc good many d.fi ! entities with work of that sort with s much heavy rain However. beliey that when sse do get thoroughly organ
 ized we will make q record that wi sstonish the world"
 What is being done in the way o making the isthmus heslthful am
 stamping out yellow feverY"
 That is under The control of Judg { MA-JOn. Water has already been in
 tr5dueed In the city of Panama iron .