Evening star., 1906-03-23
IN PANAMA CANAL ZONE
Improvement in Conditions in a
Year.
THINGS Mr.. LINEHAN SAW
Great Energy Displayed by Admins
trative officials.
LACK OF EFFICIENT LABOR
Workmen Well Paid and Comfortably
Housed-Excellent Terminal
Facilities.
THINGS Mr.. LINEHAN SAW
LACK OF EFFICIENT LABOR

Bart E. Linehan of Dubuque, Iowa. who
has just returned from a SIX months visit
to the Panama canal zone. detailed his OBJ
servations at length to q Star reporter to-
day. 1t was not his first visit, and he had
chance to compare conditions with those
existing year before. Not all OF his con-
clusions complimentary, but he says
great deal of hard work has been done and
that much Of the criticism OF the canal and
the canal commission is unwarranted
'If some of the practical men In Con-
gress,' said Mr.. Linehan, were sent to
the isthmus with some men who are accus-
toned to railroad construction and see the
completeness of the work that has been
done UP to this time, they could easily see
where ten millions of dollars was spent out
of the sixteen million that was asked from
the House of Congress at the opening of
this session. There is no nation in the
world that could have sent men Of brains
and capacity. both in organizing and oper-
ating, as has been done UP to the pres
ent time, since our government bought this
property from the French company
My second trip across the isthmus, max
ing stops at various points, said Mr.. Line
han. gave me the opportunity to compare
conditions with those in March and April
1905. l stopped at a few places where i
believed ! could gather the most valuable
information. l spent part of a day ut
Empire and went over the great Culebra
cut with the division engineer, Mr.. w. f.
Dauchey. 1t fs astounding to see the work
that is being done in this cut since my last
visit with Mr.. Dauchey. He told me they
had forty miles of track, with many side
tracks. with fifty locomotives and using
over GOO steel dump cars. to get rid of the
material This cut is eight and one-half
miles long; large portion of 1t has to be
cut through solid rock. In this cut the
trench company went down 140 feet for
sca-level canal. If sea-level plan canal
Is adopted we will have to cut down 1GO
more feet, here 100000 cubic yards
OF stone and earth must beb ex-
cavated. They are now working in
Cuebra cut fifteen five-ton dpper steam
shovels getting out 6,G00 to 10000 cubic
yards of earth day "a day of eight hours
with approximately only 3,700 men working
at this work which is about the same num-
Der when 1 was there eleven months ago.
When accommodations are complete Mr..
Dauchey is prepared to put on 5000 more
men, more steam shovels and will show
much better results, with less cost in dig
ging.
Conditions at Colon.
Perhaps the most important OF all the
branches of the government connected with
the work of canal construction is the sani-
tary department, which comes under Col
Gorgas. The drainage canal that Is now
nearly complete on d street in Colon will
be six feet in depth. ten feet in width and
about one mile long. This is in the coolie
district. where this land was filed by the
French company. 1t is here that the col
ored men and their wives live, some of
them having as many six children and
living in a single room in rude hut.
entered one of those shanty huts, ten by
ten, and the man who occupied 1t told me
that the owner, who had fourteen more of
this class of huts in the neighborhood. was
exacting from them So week for rent.
This Is in the swamp part of Colon and
where most of the sickness in the city,
especially in the rainy season, originates
clam she'll dredge was piling mud up in
front of these huts about five feet high,
with very offensive smell, and although
working only eight hours they take out of
this ditch from 15O to 200 cubic yards of
earth day. The foreman of the dredge
told me he had killed three alligators the
day before and one of them showed fight
1T is this hydraulic dredge that Poulteney
Bigelow photographed and said ID was
sticking in the mud and turned the wrong
way. When the drainage canal is COM
pieted they expect TO drain this part of the
city by pumping the water into the sea.
found in one of the huts man who had
brought his wife and four children from
Fortune Island six weeks before. The old
est girl was eight years old and died not
long after arriving The man had been
working on the canal four months when
he was taken sick. The wife died next and
the priest who had attended her at her
death told me that if the doctors looking
after the sanitary department of this dis
trict had visited the family or taken care
of them, that not one of the family would
have died
This is the spot in Colon and on the 18TH
mus that needs the closest attention /
know that the sanitary department, as well
as the engineering department, realizes
that this entire swamp and the land under
the houses in the low lands should be filled.
Ihere are now six construction trains al
work filling in the low lands around Cr;s-
tobal. The drainage canal will be finished
probably, within year, and Division En-
gineer Holcomb Is now working out plans
for sanitary sewer in Colon. One of the
merchants in Colon told me that Mr. Poul-
teney Bigelow arrived in that city on
day, when all the works were
shut down, as most of the laborers and
employees go out of the city on holidays
as they do on Sunday. He of course could
find but few people to interview and was
in Colon short time for the writing of
such vcluminous article about mlsman-
agement.
About the Jamaica negroes, to whom he
gave so much attention to in his article
as our firm were unloading from three
steamships In Cristobal II 900 tons of paw
ing brick for Panama. it gave me plenty
of time to study the work of the Jamaica
negroes. l found them to be q very lazy
and indolent set who take every advantage
to Kill time wherever you place them
While the negroes were unloading these
vessels they had to be treated like chill
dren and told everything they had to do.
They are getting 75 cents a day In silver,
board and bedding, and have clean quar-
tiers, where they are looked closely after
by the sanitary department every day, and
in return for the money they are paid by
the contractors or government, they don't
return So 1-3 per cent in labor
Work Done in Six Weeks.
1T was astounding to me to see the
work that was done in six weeks-double
tracking the forty-eight miles of railroad,
constructing yard room to store 900 cars,
and building sixty new houses to take care
of the influx of the laborers that arrive
here daily. On February % 1,044 laborers
arrived In Colon and were Immediately put
on the cars. sent out to work on the DIFF
ferent points the canal, and housed in
comfortable quarters. Wonderful improve
ments have been made in the railroad ter